THE IPHONE’s unmistakable packaging has subtle characteristics designed to entice and excite the user into probing the box and its contents.
Apple’s packaging always conveys the company’s simple yet modern themes.
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“Steve Jobs knew the importance of the unboxing experience,” TikToker Jackson Kessler said in a video for his page Our Future Bites.
Indeed, Jobs was keyed in on the presentation of the iPhone from assembly to the customer’s first glimpse of their new product.
“When you open the box of an iPhone or iPad, we want that tactile experience to set the tone for how you perceive the product,” Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson before his death in 2011.
Kessler explained to his audience of nearly 200,000 TikTok followers the packaging has attractive nuances that often go unnoticed.
Separating the top box from hits lower half forces a breeze of air over the device that Kessler says “adds to the theater of the unboxing experience.”
The exciting whoosh is no accident – air pockets were deliberately added to the box’s design to maximize the presentation.
Apple insider Trung Phan assessed the slow release of the top section taps squarely into the “psychological need to close the information deficit between what we know and what we want to know.”
Reporting from 2009 says Jobs and 16 others were listed as the owners of the original patent for the iPhone’s iconic packaging.
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The “overengineered” boxes compel the owner to think the product within is extremely high quality, according to Kessler’s video.
This plays to the final tenet of the Apple Philosophy of Marketing, which Jobs dictated to Isaacson.
Jobs explained that all Apple products, including the packaging, should impute on the viewer – meaning users should instantly form an opinion about Apple and its products at first glance.
Kessler’s video concludes that because of the material and manufacturing, iPhone owners are compelled to keep their iPhone box even if they have no uses for it.
A poll hosted by 9to5Mac found that more than 87% of respondents keep their iPhone boxes after opening.
While Apple does use extremely high grade materials to build their packages, YouTuber and packaging expert Paul Heslop estimated that the iPhone box cost only $1.27 to manufacture.
Apple has sold more than two billion neatly packaged iPhones since its launch in 2007.
Jobs’ ideas altered the computing, communicating, and retail industries but the late Apple founder also transfixed users’ attention on first impressions.
His influence is lasting, as showcased by the popularity of unboxing videos on YouTube.
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