"We wanted to get rid of anything other than what was absolutely essential, but you don't see that effort," he said. "We kept going back to the beginning again and again. Do we need that part? Can we get it to perform the function of the other four parts?
[...]
Likewise, the ribbon connectors await, neatly tucked away above and below the drive bays. Ive said they can be simply pulled out and plugged into the new drive. It's very neat, ordered and simple.
"It seems so simple to (add an extra drive) because we care a lot about making it easy to get to, and upgrade, and to do that in a good way," he said. "But none of that effort is apparent."
Ive moved on to the machine's complex cooling system. Nine computer-controlled fans cool the new machines.
The inside of the case is divided into four separate cooling compartments, and each of the machine's two chips is cooled independently.
Ive pulled out the twin fans for the chips, indicating the lack of a power cord. Because the fans have to be removed to insert more RAM into the motherboard -- an operation likely to be done only once or twice in the machine's lifetime -- they don't have a cord. Instead, they slide into a pair of power slots.
Ive picked up a clear plastic cover that sits inside the side door. It is oddly shaped to help air circulate inside the G5.
A purely functional component like this would have been paid little heed by the rest of the computer industry, Ive said. But it was made transparent so people could run their machines with the door off.