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I love Apple's design. It's absolutely beautiful. But when I look back, their designs tend to age with the same quality that you mentioned. I take a look at the Colourful iMacs, PowerBooks and iPods of the past and now they all have the same "dated" quality to them. I suppose it's like looking at the Jetsons or other future-predictions from the past, but this "phenomena" is very interesting

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There's definitely something psychological about design that I don't understand. Cars are another example - new cars today somehow look new, and putting them beside an older model makes the older model look old as well.

I wonder if it's because we're exposed to these designs, and that's why they look old? (We're familiar with them, we know they're old, therefore they feel old). It'd be interesting to see two models of something that you're not very familiar with, and see if the same phenomenon occurs.

I think the computers at least appear dated now as they set trends of the time. The iMac in particular has seen PC clone manufacturers pumping out superficially similar designs with each revamp.

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