Geez, from these responses you'd think Jony Ive nearly killed Apple or something. There's a lot of inevitable criticism about Apple, whether it's Macbook Pro an

Geez, from these responses you'd think Jony Ive nearly killed Apple or something. There's a lot of inevitable criticism about Apple, whether it's Macbook Pro and its lack of ports or the iPhone and it's lack of headphone jack. One aspect that I've noticed about this criticism is that it always presumes to be absolutely, undoubtedly correct. That there can't and isn't another perspective. Apple sucks. Clearly. Obviously. For instance, take the Macbook Pro. There's two ways of viewing it. The first view is that it sucks. There's no USB A ports to plug in flash drives. There's no SD card reader. The lack of function keys is inexcusable, terrible, whatever. The second view is that it's incredible. The laptop is thin and absolutely beautiful. You can palm it in one hand with ease. When you hold it, you feel its lightness and lithe. The main difference between these points of view is that the first perspective has prerequisites. The people who hold this view are those who use flash drives, or those who need SD card readers, or those who use function keys. Take note, this is far from the general population. I know I don't need a lot of these features on a daily basis and I'm not unusual. On the other hand, the second point of view is one of aesthetics. And as much as some may claim the contrary, we all value aesthetics to a degree. Even if some may vocalize to the contrary, deep down everybody likes pretty, shiny stuff. And man, Apple (and therefore Ive) makes pretty, shiny stuff like no other. What I respect about Ive is just how relentless he is in his pursuit of beauty. Beauty in aesthetics, but also beauty in sensation. What stuns me is how no other computer company has figured this out. I have a ThinkPad on my desktop and it's just so goddamn ugly. It's made of this cheap plastic that feels light, yet the laptop is heavier than my Macbook Pro. The lid is too heavy, so you have to hold the bottom portion down to open the laptop. There are two unnecessary logos that are too small to be easily read from afar and too ugly to be worthwhile. The laptop just feels bad. Granted, a ThinkPad is a bit of a strawman. Microsoft's own products are probably a better comparison. To an extent, they're quite nice, pretty beautiful even. Yet they still don't have this relentlessness towards beauty that Apple has. Their products still feel like compromises. And in compromising the products have become more attractive to group A or population B. But they have lost their raw magnetism, the beauty that attracts all. Whether or not this alienation of the small groups is worth the attraction of the larger population is a separate debate, but I respect Apple and Ive's decision to stay on one side. Speaking of, it's rather fascinating seeing how Apple can make a product feel "new" for so many different iterations. I've thought that a particular iteration was the pinnacle of this product, that nothing else would look cooler or newer or more...well futuristic. Only to be totally proven wrong by the next iteration.