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Apple inverted the previous Christmas-like feeling of "we have something new for each of you" to a "we've removed something you personally liked" that seems to
by dolguldur 10y ago
Apple inverted the previous Christmas-like feeling of "we have something new for each of you" to a "we've removed something you personally liked" that seems to cover many of us.
I haven't commented yet at all since I think several issues aren't actually as big as people are concerned about them, but overall, I'm frustrated with the situation for computing.
I don't know how Apple works internally, but for me the problem is clearly not Tim Cook, but rather Jony Ive. He seems to be obsessed with some sort of purity that I appreciate in design. However form vs. function is too much of a tension to be bearable within one person. I think Apple lacks folks who weigh in on the functionality side of things. Why? Becasue Ive is magically associated with Jobs, Ive is almost like some medium to get to Jobs, or at least that's how I think some folks perceive him.
In reality Ive seems to be the person who'd rather have a nice TouchBar that spans the whole width of the keyboard instead of keeping just the escape key, which is obviously used much more than the other function keys.
I thought about this a lot and by now I know I'll definitely be okay with it, especially since there's no other non-tactile key near it (meaning my body will know I've hit escape once it touches the flatness that doesn't give in).
Another personal thing for me is the Magsafe. I really liked it not just as a trip-proof charging solution, but also for the way you connect it. It's so effortless, it's fun again and again. It's one of these micro-reinforcements that makes us love products.
And again I can see the conflict. The new beauty is that you can dock so many devices and charging with just one single cable. I think that's a pretty great feature.
If there was more functionally thinking folks with power at Apple, they'd probably suggested to keep a Magsafe and allow the MBP to be charged by either that or over the USB-C. But you see how "ugly" even this though is, right?! It's a compromise and so in the end I think the current MacBook Pro is the result of not making any compromise in any of these decisions and that yields the product they showed us.
So part of me hates this chasing of pureness since I see it almost as some neurotic obsession about the visual aesthetics. I guess it would take a lot of self-confidence for a company like Apple to be okay with things that could be easily portrayed as compromises by the press. On the other hand I realize I'm pathetic and I'm not really working on improving any of this, so I thank Apple for pissing us off because it's somehow stimulating as well. (Even if it's just stimulating as in "work harder", so I can buy one of these without thinking too much about it).
- stephendedalus 10y agoI think you're right. If they would have kept MagSafe they could have kept the HDMI port on the other side. But then the MBP wouldn't have been symmetrical. That seems to be the current obsession with Ive. The iPhone 7 is symmetrical as well, even if the new speaker is fake.