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Is the title meant to be a joke? - Apple as a company does not have a single point of failure. - Arguably the iPhone could be called that; if they stopped sel

Is the title meant to be a joke? - Apple as a company does not have a single point of failure. - Arguably the iPhone could be called that; if they stopped selling MacBooks next year it still wouldn’t be their “downfall” (not that I like this state of affairs as I like MacBooks). I don’t really hate the butterfly keys either. I’ve been using it for over a year now on the pro, and I don’t know if it’s the second iteration, but it hasn’t failed me yet. I will agree that the first iteration was awful, my “new MacBook” keyboard broke because I made the mistake of taking it to the beach.

tptacek 8y ago
From what I can tell, the newer iteration of the keyboard fails just as often as the old one. My sample size isn't huge (mid-high single digits on both iterations), but the result is consistent.
gh02t 8y ago
The article mentions it at the end, by "downfall" they don't mean Apple is going to fold. They mean that Apple making such a difficult to repair laptop is now going to cost them a ton of money because the "keyboard" repair requires replacing the entire top half of the machine due to the design. The article argues that if the design had been easier to repair they would be able to do this otherwise minor repair much more cheaply. I think that's a fair claim, even if the title is a bit overblown. Apple is paying the price for what is probably too big of a compromise in the design of the laptops.
RobLach 8y ago
Apple losing the image of quality engineering will effect their entire product range, with consumers less willing to pay a premium and second guessing engineering achievements by keeping in mind side effects. If the next iPhone is 20 grams lighter but I can’t make phone calls after 6 months, will I buy one over a equally powered Android $300 less?
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  I think the story of Coach (now Tapestry, ticker TPR) should be the ghost story they tell at every Apple corporate retreat. What do they say, "years to build and seconds to destroy"?
  - janekm 8y ago
    What happened to Coach? I seem to have missed that news, and from what I saw in NYC they are currently moving into extremely expensive real estate so I thought they were doing rather well?
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      It's generally believed that they diluted their brand by overexpansion into outlet channels. From 2012-2015 their stock got cut by more than half ($80 down to $30) while the broader market was up ~25%. I would summarize what happened as they stopped being "cool". The (subjectively) not so attractive Coach bags covered with "C" branding were multiple hundreds of dollars and a luxury good. When everyone was wearing one and you could pick up a cheap last season one at the outlet mall, the cachet was gone. The value of the brand is when you can charge more for something of identical quality, or that people ask for your product by name. Apple's brand is (should be?) golden to them and they should treasure it. It's not based on cosmetics but quality, too. tl;dr - Coach is still around and recovering and making billions of dollars.
      - janekm 8y ago
        Thanks for the explanation, I think I had only come across the Coach brand after they expanded aggressively internationally which I presume came after the "cheapening" of the brand, which is no doubt a big part of their turn-around success.
bitpush 8y ago
Its great that the keyboard hasnt failed you, but you have to know there are other people with opposite experience. When a product fails in a systematic way, its upto the company to remedy it (Galaxy S?, Toyota, J&J ..) One could argue Apple could have done more here.
rak111esh 8y ago
The downfall seems to refer to downfall in iFixit Repair-ability score.
erhardm 8y ago
Actually, if Apple were to stop selling MacBooks next year it could be the downfall. How do you think that the iPhone & iPad ecosystem is sustained? Through developers (most of whom are) using MacBooks. They have to port XCode to Windows, which means they don't get to have the lock-in they have now. If there's any flop for the iPhone for 2-3 years, the cost to jump ship isn't that high anymore.

tptacek 8y ago

From what I can tell, the newer iteration of the keyboard fails just as often as the old one. My sample size isn't huge (mid-high single digits on both iterations), but the result is consistent.

gh02t 8y ago

The article mentions it at the end, by "downfall" they don't mean Apple is going to fold. They mean that Apple making such a difficult to repair laptop is now going to cost them a ton of money because the "keyboard" repair requires replacing the entire top half of the machine due to the design. The article argues that if the design had been easier to repair they would be able to do this otherwise minor repair much more cheaply. I think that's a fair claim, even if the title is a bit overblown. Apple is paying the price for what is probably too big of a compromise in the design of the laptops.

RobLach 8y ago

Apple losing the image of quality engineering will effect their entire product range, with consumers less willing to pay a premium and second guessing engineering achievements by keeping in mind side effects. If the next iPhone is 20 grams lighter but I can’t make phone calls after 6 months, will I buy one over a equally powered Android $300 less?

throwaway5752 8y ago
I think the story of Coach (now Tapestry, ticker TPR) should be the ghost story they tell at every Apple corporate retreat. What do they say, "years to build and seconds to destroy"?
- janekm 8y ago
  What happened to Coach? I seem to have missed that news, and from what I saw in NYC they are currently moving into extremely expensive real estate so I thought they were doing rather well?
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    It's generally believed that they diluted their brand by overexpansion into outlet channels. From 2012-2015 their stock got cut by more than half ($80 down to $30) while the broader market was up ~25%. I would summarize what happened as they stopped being "cool". The (subjectively) not so attractive Coach bags covered with "C" branding were multiple hundreds of dollars and a luxury good. When everyone was wearing one and you could pick up a cheap last season one at the outlet mall, the cachet was gone. The value of the brand is when you can charge more for something of identical quality, or that people ask for your product by name. Apple's brand is (should be?) golden to them and they should treasure it. It's not based on cosmetics but quality, too. tl;dr - Coach is still around and recovering and making billions of dollars.
    - janekm 8y ago
      Thanks for the explanation, I think I had only come across the Coach brand after they expanded aggressively internationally which I presume came after the "cheapening" of the brand, which is no doubt a big part of their turn-around success.

bitpush 8y ago

Its great that the keyboard hasnt failed you, but you have to know there are other people with opposite experience. When a product fails in a systematic way, its upto the company to remedy it (Galaxy S?, Toyota, J&J ..) One could argue Apple could have done more here.

rak111esh 8y ago

The downfall seems to refer to downfall in iFixit Repair-ability score.

erhardm 8y ago

Actually, if Apple were to stop selling MacBooks next year it could be the downfall. How do you think that the iPhone & iPad ecosystem is sustained? Through developers (most of whom are) using MacBooks. They have to port XCode to Windows, which means they don't get to have the lock-in they have now. If there's any flop for the iPhone for 2-3 years, the cost to jump ship isn't that high anymore.