Gallery: Paint Jobs: The Triumphs and Tragedies of Colorful Gadgets
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If Internet chatter is to be believed, Apple is about to drop a rainbow-infused group of iPhone 5Cs on all of us. While the iPod line has been a colorful experience for a few years now, the iPhone has only been available in black and white. But that's about to change, it seems. Apple's going all second-generation iMac on us with the new iPhone 5C. ("C" probably stands for Color. We'll find out Tuesday.) Depending on the company's choices, this could be a spectacular way to expand and individualize the iPhone line or a colossal spinning color wheel of disaster. Apple, of course, is far from the only company trying to inject some color into the often monochromatic world of gadgets. And the results aren't always pretty. Here are some hits and misses in the realm of color and form. Red Jambox ---------- The Jambox is a great little speaker that connects to your Bluetooth devices. Jawbone created and still owns the Bluetooth speaker market, and a large part of that has to do with [the design of these portable speakers](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/design/2013/09/mini-jambox/). It's been copied by competitors since day one. That the speakers come in an array of attractive colors probably doesn't hurt either. The blue speaker is nice, but it's the red version that really pops and reminds you not to leave it behind after a BBQ or day at the beach. *Image: Jon Snyder/WIRED*
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Brown Zune ---------- In 2006 the iPod was the most popular portable music player in the world and Microsoft wanted to get in on some of that MP3 action. Its Zune player arrived wrapped in an unfortunate shade of brown and the world reacted with a collective yawn. It never caught on. While Apple's dominance in the market was probably the main reason, the fact that it resembled the color of poo definitely didn't help sales. *Image: Gene Lee*
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Flower Power iMac ----------------- Apple was still riding high on the success of the Bondi Blue and subsequent multi-color strategy of the original iMac. Then it got a little ahead of itself and introduced the double-whammy Dalmatian and Flower Power iMacs. The Dalmatian case was pretty bad, but the Flower Power iMacs looked like someone vomited the contents of a Skittles packet onto your computer. *Image: Apple*
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Pentax LX Special GOLD Edition ------------------------------ What is going on here? A subtle light yellow may have been forgivable. But this is full-on Fort Knox shiny bright-yellow gold. Let's forget for a moment that this camera is going to throw off all kinds of reflections that will blind your photography subject. The gold and brown leather is also hideous. Worse, someone probably bought this. We bet this person still has a velvet painting of a jaguar standing next to a woman with a flaming sword hanging up in their living room. *Image: Pentax*
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Sinclair ZX Spectrum -------------------- Sometimes all you need is a little splash of color to stand out. And that's exactly what the Sinclair ZX Spectrum had. A tiny rainbow accents the bottom right-hand side of the keyboard and complimentary red and green function-key labels sit above and below the keys. The tiny computer kickstarted the British home computing scene and reminded everyone that computers didn't have to look like light-brown boxes of sad. *Image: [Bill Bertram](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ZXSpectrum48k.jpg)/Wikipedia*
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Compucolor 8001 --------------- So close. This is a case of picking the wrong shade. A color-display computer that's wrapped in color is a good idea. Red and blue are safe choices. But the shades are just slightly off here. Instead of giving off a Superman feel, the computer looks like it belongs in a boring office under fluorescent lights near the water cooler. Which is probably where most of these computers spent their last days.
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Bondi Blue iMac --------------- The original iMac brought us the color Bondi Blue. Apple was in trouble and needed a hit. And this colorful little computer helped keep it afloat. The company touted how it was breaking away from the beige boxes of the computer industry. Never mind that beige was a color Apple helped popularize with the Apple II. Still, the whimsical Bondi Blue iMac stole our hearts and put a dent in our savings accounts. *Image: Apple*
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Atari 400 --------- Someone at Atari looked at your parent's 1970s-styled brown and orange family room and decided, "Yeah, that's what the computer should look like." The Atari 400 is an autumn without those horrid red tones distracting you from the oranges and browns that belong on the keyboard of your youth. All it's really missing is some of that wood veneer trim some of the 2600s would have a few years later. *Image: [Evan-Amos](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atari-400-Comp.jpg)/Wikipedia*
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Orange second-gen iPod shuffle ------------------------------ The display-less iPod Shuffle is the music player you wear. It makes sense that it should look good. The silver iPod Shuffle was pretty drab, but the orange iPod Shuffle was right on target. A splash of color on your hoodie or peeking out of your pockets reminds the world that you're still a little bit rock and roll. *Image: Apple*
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Blue Nokia Lumia 900 -------------------- The Nokia Lumia line probably marked the beginning Microsoft's [current acquisition of Nokia's mobile handset division](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/09/microsofts-hardware-division/). But before Redmond announced its intentions to devour the Finnish company, it was happy to have a hardware partner to help spread its Windows Phone operating system. The Lumia 900 might not have the sales numbers of an iPhone or Galaxy phone, but what it lacked in raw sales numbers, it made up with in stylish blue glee. It's even conceivable that the phone helped pressure companies like Motorola and Apple into bringing color back to the mobile world. *Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED*
