The pleasure of unboxing an 8-core Mac Pro

It's not just that we were unboxing a top-of-the-line Mac. It's that we were experiencing the unboxing of an Apple product.

The box itself was a little battered. Opening the box entailed cutting the shipping tape along the top opening. In fact, that's as hard as the unboxing got. No more tape to cut or structured plastic to try to rip open. One seal. That's it. (Compare that with opening your typical DVD.)

[Note: Please pardon the darkness of the shots. I blame a dark room and a built-in flash.]

It's been apparent for a while that Apple knows what it's doing in terms of presentation and customer experience when it comes to the big moment when you open the package for the first time. The Mac Pro is no exception. Feast your eyes on keyboard and a black box with simple writing. No inserts. No "STOP! READ THIS BEFORE OPENING!" No 3-foot-wide fold-out idiot's guide to connecting a computer.

The stuff is neatly packaged and easy to manage. No unnecessary shrink wrap. The wrapper on the keyboard comes off very easily -- it's just there to keep dust and Styrofoam crumbs out of the keys.

The black box itself is an elegant slide box. Again, no tape, no shrink wrap.

Slide the box open and you see the mouse (again in a simple, easy-to-open wrap) and the manual banded with a simple, easy-to-remove plastic strap.

Behind the manual are the OSX discs in open, clear plastic. Note that batteries are included.

The tower is nestled snugly in the Styrofoam, wrapped in the same kind of simple static-free bag, sealed only with a sticker, that you see with every Mac you purchase.

And then there's the tower -- an elegant metal box.

Of course, the real fun starts when you turn it on. But that's for another blog post....