In the wake of the recent Mac Pro news, I know a lot of people want Apple to “just ship a tower,” but it seems that at least some point, Apple didn’t like that word:
Before January of 1999, there were three Power Macintosh G3 form factors useful for visual identification; Desktop, Minitower, and All-in-one. At the MacWorld Exposition in January, 1999, Apple introduced a Power Macintosh G3 model which does not fit into any of the previous categories.
While it is a tower design, Apple has elected not to refer to it as such. For the purpose of identification, Knowledge Base articles will refer to this design by its colors (blue and white) rather than form factor.
“Apple has elected not to refer to it as such” is the most amazing phrase in the kbase, period.