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So I guess bike-shedding has now become mainstream, seeing that the CEO of the second-largest company on the planet has mentioned the color of one of his compan

So I guess bike-shedding has now become mainstream, seeing that the CEO of the second-largest company on the planet has mentioned the color of one of his company's products as a thing to be amazed about.

hombre_fatal 7y ago
Well, if it really is that hard to produce a green ink that doesn't involve harsh materials, or if Apple is spending extra to use such an ink over the cheaper nastier inks, then it's notable and something worth bragging about and putting on the tin.
- ChikkaChiChi 7y ago
  Does this new color cost extra? Or are they subsidizing a higher cost across all sales?
  - paggle 7y ago
    No, they charge the same price for all colors. Frankly the only products I’ve seen with different prices for different colors is autos.
    - rimliu 7y ago
      There were also black MacBooks.
    - tinus_hn 7y ago
      In some years they do differentiate so some color is only available on the expensive models.
    - toyg 7y ago
      I think the RED editions were slightly more expensive, if i remember correctly.
Analemma_ 7y ago
One person's "bike-shedding" is another person's "actually giving a shit instead of participating in a lowest-possible-quality race-to-the-bottom".
CharlesW 7y ago
Tim simply tweeted about a relatively minor aspect of iPhone production, which isn't what "bike-shedding"[1] means. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
make3 7y ago
a company known for making billions out of the stylishness of their products, it's bikeshedding, really are you sure?
paggle 7y ago
Bike-shedding is effort wasted on things that are irrelevant, like if an electronics startup paid this much attention to color. In Apple’s position as a fashion company as much as a tech company, and at Apple’s scale, they can and do invest hundreds of people’s time in making sure that the paint jobs are as good as they can get them.
- paganel 7y ago
  I was still looking at Apple as mainly a tech company, the “style” thing I reguarded as a distraction. We’ll see if they’re be able to keep their current valuation by ignoring their tech roots. And yes, I am bitter because just the other day an iPhone of our family experienced the infamous “white screen of death” for not having sufficient storage space left (it happened on a restart), the phone is one-year old. I hadn’t seen such low quality in a mass-produced OS since the days of Windows Me and Windows 2000.
  - DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
    > Windows 2000 I urge you to reconsider.
    - paganel 7y ago
      That was the last OS I used for which the acceptable troubleshooting solution was to “format the disk”. 20 years later and I came to the same point with this iPhone 7, thought that we had left that behind us. And I can’t even do it myself, I have to wait for the local Apple service store to open, which it won’t until January 6th (the phone broke down on December 27th). But hurray! for the new color, I guess.
- Terretta 7y ago
  The original bike shed was at the gate of a nuclear power plant. In the anecdote, the “board” spent its time debating what color to paint it because that was something they understood, as opposed to safety coolant system engineering, for instance. Given the original anecdote, perhaps it’s less that the thing is not relevant, more that (a) it’s not the critical thing to worry about, and (b) it’s getting discussed because that’s all the decision makers are familiar enough with to debate.

hombre_fatal 7y ago

Well, if it really is that hard to produce a green ink that doesn't involve harsh materials, or if Apple is spending extra to use such an ink over the cheaper nastier inks, then it's notable and something worth bragging about and putting on the tin.

ChikkaChiChi 7y ago
Does this new color cost extra? Or are they subsidizing a higher cost across all sales?
- paggle 7y ago
  No, they charge the same price for all colors. Frankly the only products I’ve seen with different prices for different colors is autos.
  - rimliu 7y ago
    There were also black MacBooks.
  - tinus_hn 7y ago
    In some years they do differentiate so some color is only available on the expensive models.
  - toyg 7y ago
    I think the RED editions were slightly more expensive, if i remember correctly.

Analemma_ 7y ago

One person's "bike-shedding" is another person's "actually giving a shit instead of participating in a lowest-possible-quality race-to-the-bottom".

CharlesW 7y ago

Tim simply tweeted about a relatively minor aspect of iPhone production, which isn't what "bike-shedding"[1] means. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

make3 7y ago

a company known for making billions out of the stylishness of their products, it's bikeshedding, really are you sure?

paggle 7y ago

Bike-shedding is effort wasted on things that are irrelevant, like if an electronics startup paid this much attention to color. In Apple’s position as a fashion company as much as a tech company, and at Apple’s scale, they can and do invest hundreds of people’s time in making sure that the paint jobs are as good as they can get them.

paganel 7y ago
I was still looking at Apple as mainly a tech company, the “style” thing I reguarded as a distraction. We’ll see if they’re be able to keep their current valuation by ignoring their tech roots. And yes, I am bitter because just the other day an iPhone of our family experienced the infamous “white screen of death” for not having sufficient storage space left (it happened on a restart), the phone is one-year old. I hadn’t seen such low quality in a mass-produced OS since the days of Windows Me and Windows 2000.
- DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
  > Windows 2000 I urge you to reconsider.
  - paganel 7y ago
    That was the last OS I used for which the acceptable troubleshooting solution was to “format the disk”. 20 years later and I came to the same point with this iPhone 7, thought that we had left that behind us. And I can’t even do it myself, I have to wait for the local Apple service store to open, which it won’t until January 6th (the phone broke down on December 27th). But hurray! for the new color, I guess.
Terretta 7y ago
The original bike shed was at the gate of a nuclear power plant. In the anecdote, the “board” spent its time debating what color to paint it because that was something they understood, as opposed to safety coolant system engineering, for instance. Given the original anecdote, perhaps it’s less that the thing is not relevant, more that (a) it’s not the critical thing to worry about, and (b) it’s getting discussed because that’s all the decision makers are familiar enough with to debate.