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The moment I realized the LED was mimicking breathing (I first experienced it with a white iMac) was the moment I realized just how far Apple goes to make compu

The moment I realized the LED was mimicking breathing (I first experienced it with a white iMac) was the moment I realized just how far Apple goes to make computers for humans. Truly personal computers. This is the kind of stuff that gets people lining up for new Apple products, not some silly brand whoring or desire to be hip and fashionable. Admittedly, they made the LED way too bright on the earlier MBPs, such that it would distract you if you were trying to sleep in a dark room. The newer MBPs have gotten the brightness just right, however. Also, none of this ignores the fact that Apple routinely privileges superficial aesthetics over ergonomics, utility, etc. (Magic Mouse, hard edges on MBP, glossy displays), but that rarely stops the whole package from being the best on the market.

verisimilitude 16y ago
"The newer MBPs have gotten the brightness just right, however." That's because the sleep LED adjusts to the ambient brightness. Try this: watch that LED in a dark room, then turn on the lights, keeping your eye on it. You'll notice it gets quite a bit brighter in reaction to the light.
danilocampos 16y ago
Nothing pisses me off more than when people say "oh, that Apple, they're just good at marketing." The truth is that they're good at making great things that are genuinely fun to use. That kind of stuff sells itself.
- megablast 16y ago
  When somebody says that, they are either a Microsoft/Google fanboy trying to rile you up, or they just don't understand what makes something great.
- philwelch 16y ago
  To be fair, on top of that, they're also really good at marketing. But their marketing is only effective because it has a sincerity--they're genuinely proud of the products they make. I bet you can tell when someone is trying to fake that.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    Yeah, this definitely is an important component of their success. The authenticity of their marketing message, thanks to that pride, resonates with people who are being fed bullshit everywhere else. Regardless of how you feel about him, it's impossible not to be at least a little captivated by a Steve Jobs keynote. The joy of watching someone stand up and just be proud of how honestly hard his company works – it's refreshing.
- eitally 16y ago
  The problem isn't necessarily that other companies can't make great things. Many of them just don't think it would be as profitable.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    Making great things can be very risky. Most companies are setup to avoid risky behavior at all costs because exposing yourself to risk can be very destructive. The few truly great things squeeze out of a typical company are all because of accident more than by design. Apple has managed to figure out how to be risky in their behavior without being destructive. They've learned that you can actually jump out of plane if you have a parachute.
- flomo 16y ago
  Back in the 1990s, Apple's products were junk, but the marketing was still excellent. I think when engineering types hear the word "marketing", they immediately take it as dismissive. But Apple is an example of a company who owes their skin to phenomenal marketing over the long term.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    That's not how I remember it at all. Apple's marketing in the mid-to-late 90's was poor to nonexistent, frankly, while on a technical level Macs weren't any worse than PC's (both crashed a lot and came with fairly comparable hardware, but the Mac OS 7/8/9 UI was very arguably better than the Windows 95/98 UI). Apple's user loyalty was fantastic (and fanatic) in the mid-to-late 90's, but the company itself didn't do anywhere near the kind of promotion they did once Jobs returned. Yes, Mac OS 9 had technical disadvantages compared to Windows NT and Windows 2000, and Apple had a second-system effect of legendary proportions with Copland. 90's Apple wasn't that great at technology. But they were abysmal at marketing, while Microsoft were fantastic at it.
    - danilocampos 16y ago
      Yeah, Apple's 90's marketing was ass. But I loved every last Mac I owned during that decade. Apple had overall high product quality but their focus was lacking and they weren't terribly ballsy. They had a distinct feeling of running on the fumes of the Mac's initial success. But it was (and is) a sufficiently great product that those fumes informed an OS that, from a user perspective, remained the best. Mac OS got long in the tooth, but I'd still take it over Win95/98/NT any day.
      - vetinari 16y ago
        I don't know about you, but the things I do not miss are putting spaces in extension names to reorder them (at boot time, they were loaded alphabetically and there were often conflicts, if the order was "incorrect"), manually setting up, how much RAM can a specific app use, or rebooting with virtual memory on/off, depending on which app I wanted to run. I still remember, that reading websites with table-layouts on the only somewhat standards-compliant browser (IE for Mac) was exercise in frustration. Both windows (95/98) and macs had their share of shortcomings, you just had to pick, which set you can tolerate.
- MartinCron 16y ago
  Making great things is marketing. The first (and perhaps most important) part of marketing is understanding the, you know, market, and what products would be appropriate for it. The pervasive Marketing==Advertising mindset is a little short-sighted.
  - jacobolus 16y ago
    That’s silly. If anything that implies “understanding of the market” is “marketing” then “marketing” has become an all-purpose synonym for “running a business”. At that point, it has no reason to exist as a separate word. I contend that “marketing” does not in popular practice have such a broad definition.
    - MartinCron 16y ago
      Yes, absolutely. Marketing is part of everything. It's not a separate department or effort, it's a facet of every effort of a company. It's something that everyone, from product design to development should keep in mind. I'm just running with the definition given to me by my marketing professor at my university's business school :) Look at 37Signals. I contend that everything they do is marketing, even if it's not writing commercials or buying ads.
cubicle67 16y ago
There's more evidence of their attention to detail if you look closely. Most companies, if needing an indicator light, would simply drill a hole in the case where the light is to go. Now have a look at the MB sleep light. It shines through a few rows of ultra small laser made holes, meaning when the light is off, the surface of the case is almost completely unbroken
- andreyf 16y ago
  Ive talks about this. The point is that an indicator should be invisible when there isn't anything to indicate. Otherwise, it's just another tiny distraction.
  - mgunes 16y ago
    > Ive talks about this. ..in Gary Hustwit's documentary "Objectified", for those interested in exposure to more sweet, reality-distorting Ive radiation. Recommended viewing.
    - dirtyaura 16y ago
      And a direct link to the part of Objectified where Ive is talking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU That interview for sure shows passion and obsession for details. It gives an impression that Ive is one of the greatest industrial designers of our time partly because his obsession and understanding of manufacturing processes. He knows the limitations and possibilities of his tools.
    - sneeu 16y ago
      Ive also talks about the aluminium being cut from the iMac surround is used to make two keyboards. Absolutely genius.
  - _dan 16y ago
    He's right, and it's a cool feature. But the fact that it's sitting right next to the useless (from a user's point of view) black blob of the IR sensor kinda spoils the effect.
andreyf 16y ago
[...] the moment I realized just how far Apple goes to make computers for humans. Truly personal computers. Jobs has been talking about anthropomorphic technology for quite a bit [1]. I've always liked to imagine Jobs had some influence on WALL-E's EVE. It was a Pixar movie, after all... 1. Longer than this, but it's the only reference I could find: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html
- slashclee 16y ago
  You've got the right idea but the wrong influence. Jobs doesn't do the actual industrial design - he knows what he likes, and he has a great eye for it (or so I hear) but the man behind Apple's design aesthetic is Jonathan Ive. And he did design Eve. http://gizmodo.com/389772/wall+e-movie-is-jonathan-ives-latest-design-job http://gizmodo.com/389772/wall+e-movie-is-jonathan-ives-late...
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    The rumor is that Jonathan Ive is being groomed to take over AAPL when Jobs leaves.
    - danilocampos 16y ago
      I can't think of a more worthy successor. Brilliant, if true. The power multiplier that Jobs brings to the company comes from two things: his uncompromising sense of good taste and his idealism for the role of technology in our lives. The things that Jonathan Ive builds are reflections of his own deep commitment to those values. He gets it.
    - phjohnst 16y ago
      Interesting, I had definitely not heard that. The name that I thought was passed around regularly was Tim Cook. I'd have to think that letting the design guy worry about design would probably be the better route, rather than clouding with all of the other business decisions and realities in a major way
bitwize 16y ago
The first time I saw that LED I thought of an SF story I read where an intelligent computer had a "smile light". I was like "Cool, it's like the computer is snoring."

verisimilitude 16y ago

"The newer MBPs have gotten the brightness just right, however." That's because the sleep LED adjusts to the ambient brightness. Try this: watch that LED in a dark room, then turn on the lights, keeping your eye on it. You'll notice it gets quite a bit brighter in reaction to the light.

danilocampos 16y ago

Nothing pisses me off more than when people say "oh, that Apple, they're just good at marketing." The truth is that they're good at making great things that are genuinely fun to use. That kind of stuff sells itself.

megablast 16y ago
When somebody says that, they are either a Microsoft/Google fanboy trying to rile you up, or they just don't understand what makes something great.
philwelch 16y ago
To be fair, on top of that, they're also really good at marketing. But their marketing is only effective because it has a sincerity--they're genuinely proud of the products they make. I bet you can tell when someone is trying to fake that.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  Yeah, this definitely is an important component of their success. The authenticity of their marketing message, thanks to that pride, resonates with people who are being fed bullshit everywhere else. Regardless of how you feel about him, it's impossible not to be at least a little captivated by a Steve Jobs keynote. The joy of watching someone stand up and just be proud of how honestly hard his company works – it's refreshing.
eitally 16y ago
The problem isn't necessarily that other companies can't make great things. Many of them just don't think it would be as profitable.
- elblanco 16y ago
  Making great things can be very risky. Most companies are setup to avoid risky behavior at all costs because exposing yourself to risk can be very destructive. The few truly great things squeeze out of a typical company are all because of accident more than by design. Apple has managed to figure out how to be risky in their behavior without being destructive. They've learned that you can actually jump out of plane if you have a parachute.
flomo 16y ago
Back in the 1990s, Apple's products were junk, but the marketing was still excellent. I think when engineering types hear the word "marketing", they immediately take it as dismissive. But Apple is an example of a company who owes their skin to phenomenal marketing over the long term.
- philwelch 16y ago
  That's not how I remember it at all. Apple's marketing in the mid-to-late 90's was poor to nonexistent, frankly, while on a technical level Macs weren't any worse than PC's (both crashed a lot and came with fairly comparable hardware, but the Mac OS 7/8/9 UI was very arguably better than the Windows 95/98 UI). Apple's user loyalty was fantastic (and fanatic) in the mid-to-late 90's, but the company itself didn't do anywhere near the kind of promotion they did once Jobs returned. Yes, Mac OS 9 had technical disadvantages compared to Windows NT and Windows 2000, and Apple had a second-system effect of legendary proportions with Copland. 90's Apple wasn't that great at technology. But they were abysmal at marketing, while Microsoft were fantastic at it.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    Yeah, Apple's 90's marketing was ass. But I loved every last Mac I owned during that decade. Apple had overall high product quality but their focus was lacking and they weren't terribly ballsy. They had a distinct feeling of running on the fumes of the Mac's initial success. But it was (and is) a sufficiently great product that those fumes informed an OS that, from a user perspective, remained the best. Mac OS got long in the tooth, but I'd still take it over Win95/98/NT any day.
    - vetinari 16y ago
      I don't know about you, but the things I do not miss are putting spaces in extension names to reorder them (at boot time, they were loaded alphabetically and there were often conflicts, if the order was "incorrect"), manually setting up, how much RAM can a specific app use, or rebooting with virtual memory on/off, depending on which app I wanted to run. I still remember, that reading websites with table-layouts on the only somewhat standards-compliant browser (IE for Mac) was exercise in frustration. Both windows (95/98) and macs had their share of shortcomings, you just had to pick, which set you can tolerate.
MartinCron 16y ago
Making great things is marketing. The first (and perhaps most important) part of marketing is understanding the, you know, market, and what products would be appropriate for it. The pervasive Marketing==Advertising mindset is a little short-sighted.
- jacobolus 16y ago
  That’s silly. If anything that implies “understanding of the market” is “marketing” then “marketing” has become an all-purpose synonym for “running a business”. At that point, it has no reason to exist as a separate word. I contend that “marketing” does not in popular practice have such a broad definition.
  - MartinCron 16y ago
    Yes, absolutely. Marketing is part of everything. It's not a separate department or effort, it's a facet of every effort of a company. It's something that everyone, from product design to development should keep in mind. I'm just running with the definition given to me by my marketing professor at my university's business school :) Look at 37Signals. I contend that everything they do is marketing, even if it's not writing commercials or buying ads.

cubicle67 16y ago

There's more evidence of their attention to detail if you look closely. Most companies, if needing an indicator light, would simply drill a hole in the case where the light is to go. Now have a look at the MB sleep light. It shines through a few rows of ultra small laser made holes, meaning when the light is off, the surface of the case is almost completely unbroken

andreyf 16y ago
Ive talks about this. The point is that an indicator should be invisible when there isn't anything to indicate. Otherwise, it's just another tiny distraction.
- mgunes 16y ago
  > Ive talks about this. ..in Gary Hustwit's documentary "Objectified", for those interested in exposure to more sweet, reality-distorting Ive radiation. Recommended viewing.
  - dirtyaura 16y ago
    And a direct link to the part of Objectified where Ive is talking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU That interview for sure shows passion and obsession for details. It gives an impression that Ive is one of the greatest industrial designers of our time partly because his obsession and understanding of manufacturing processes. He knows the limitations and possibilities of his tools.
  - sneeu 16y ago
    Ive also talks about the aluminium being cut from the iMac surround is used to make two keyboards. Absolutely genius.
- _dan 16y ago
  He's right, and it's a cool feature. But the fact that it's sitting right next to the useless (from a user's point of view) black blob of the IR sensor kinda spoils the effect.

andreyf 16y ago

[...] the moment I realized just how far Apple goes to make computers for humans. Truly personal computers. Jobs has been talking about anthropomorphic technology for quite a bit [1]. I've always liked to imagine Jobs had some influence on WALL-E's EVE. It was a Pixar movie, after all... 1. Longer than this, but it's the only reference I could find: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html

slashclee 16y ago
You've got the right idea but the wrong influence. Jobs doesn't do the actual industrial design - he knows what he likes, and he has a great eye for it (or so I hear) but the man behind Apple's design aesthetic is Jonathan Ive. And he did design Eve. http://gizmodo.com/389772/wall+e-movie-is-jonathan-ives-latest-design-job http://gizmodo.com/389772/wall+e-movie-is-jonathan-ives-late...
- Locke1689 16y ago
  The rumor is that Jonathan Ive is being groomed to take over AAPL when Jobs leaves.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    I can't think of a more worthy successor. Brilliant, if true. The power multiplier that Jobs brings to the company comes from two things: his uncompromising sense of good taste and his idealism for the role of technology in our lives. The things that Jonathan Ive builds are reflections of his own deep commitment to those values. He gets it.
  - phjohnst 16y ago
    Interesting, I had definitely not heard that. The name that I thought was passed around regularly was Tim Cook. I'd have to think that letting the design guy worry about design would probably be the better route, rather than clouding with all of the other business decisions and realities in a major way

bitwize 16y ago

The first time I saw that LED I thought of an SF story I read where an intelligent computer had a "smile light". I was like "Cool, it's like the computer is snoring."