Core77
In 1997 Sony designed a very strange Walkman model, the YP-ES22, made from injection-molded translucent ABS.
Image: Museum of Design in Plastic
Instead of having a hinged cassette door, as every model did, instead the YP-ES22 was made in two pieces:
Image: Museum of Design in Plastic
To release the two, you squeezed the molded-in clips on the side, freeing them from their registration points so you could separate the units.
Image: Museum of Design in Plastic
Image: Museum of Design in Plastic
Image: Museum of Design in Plastic
As for why it's designed this way, the only reason I can think of is they must have saved something in the BOM. But the UX had to be terrible!
I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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Sony's Strange Design for a Two-Piece Walkman, Circa 1997
Obviously they are copying the iMac color scheme!
It's so obvious that Steve Jobs was copying Sony all along music was his main thing! Everything from delivering the first Apple II directly into the hands of John Lennon and York City to starting a project at Apple to replace the Sony Walkman! Even the Apple unboxing experience tries to exceed that of SONY!
I can think of several more reasons: hinged doors have an annoying habit of breaking off, latches break so the door won't stay closed, doesn't seal against dust, dirt, pocket lint. I think this design is a solid attempt to address such problems. Why do you believe the UX would have been terrible?
The look and colors coincides with the look of the iMacs, although the iMacs came out a couple years laters... Hmmmmm.