I just updated my internet setup and replaced my graphite-colored Apple Base Station, vintage 1999, with a faster, smaller wireless router.  But I like my old device too much to get rid of it.  Unlike my new router, which disappears into the sea of cords and plugs around it, the Base Station looks like an instrument that does something important.  And it doesn’t have the hyper-modern gloss that so many Apple products have.  Its shape evokes simultaneously mountain, UFO and silicone breast implant.

The Base Station’s design feels naive in relation to the next generation of Mac routers, which were designed to look like plastic dinner plates, and the current routers, which are designed to look like phone rechargers.  My Base Station has a coat of glitter beneath its cool acrylic surface.  And when it’s plugged in, and its three green lights are blinking at staggered frequencies, you can sense information streaming back and forth in the air.  Perhaps it’s such an appealing object because it tries to illustrate exactly what it does.