The technique Apple would use to build the iMac enclosure dates back to a shortage of billiard balls in the late nineteenth century. The balls were typically made of ivory sourced from tusks, but the game’s popularity was growing faster than hunters could kill elephants. When a billiard equipment maker offered a $10,000 prize—more than $3 million today—for someone to come up with an alternative, an American inventor took up the challenge. He melted plastic, then injected it into a casing—a metal mold in the shape of a small sphere—and let it cool. Once the plastic solidified, he removed the casing and out popped a billiard ball. A patent for plastic injection molding was granted in 1872, and over the next 125 years the process became more intricate, automated, and repeatable. There was nothing unique about plastic injection molding the case of a computer, but Apple’s Industrial Design studio was intent on pushing the boundaries of what was possible.
Novak liked a challenge, but as he squinted at the horizontal lines on the front cover that wrapped around the display, he concluded the design just wasn’t possible. When molding plastic, the steel moves in one direction, but the horizontal texture lines ID had drawn up ran in perpendicular fashion. Technically you could mold one—but just one, because it was never going to come out of the mold. Novak experimented. Failed. Then experimented again.
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