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Exactly, I've broken two of the cables so far and they are just bad. Period. Then, someone gave me a different, much more robust, cable, and I thought: "oh ok t

by zyb09 15y ago

Exactly, I've broken two of the cables so far and they are just bad. Period. Then, someone gave me a different, much more robust, cable, and I thought: "oh ok they realized their flaw, finally they improved their power coords". - Now I look at the image on the reddit post (http://i.imgur.com/yAywo.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yAywo.jpg) and realize the cables I've broke are the new ones, and the good robust ones are from 2007. Funny. Well Apple is usually top notch with these kind of things, and I don't believe the industrial design department didn't know about strain relief rings (that's their job FYI). So I'd go with the theory of planned obsolesce on these ones. Apple certainly is capable of pulling shit like this.

asadotzler 15y ago
It doesn't have to be "planned obsolescence" which suggests an intent to get users to buy replacements. It could be that the trade-off just came out that way. I mean, I don't think they designed failure into the component so much as they deemed a higher than you'd want failure rate OK given the user experience they were chasing.
- zyb09 15y ago
  You really think so? I mean these are cables, there's no secret how to make them and they've been making them for decades, so they'll probably know what they are doing. There's no user experience on cables. It doesn't seem so far fetched to me.
  - asadotzler 15y ago
    Your comment "There's no user experience on cables" makes it clear that you really don't understand Apple. Users experience the entirety of Apple products and there isn't a user-facing component that doesn't get serious design scrutiny. And yes, Apple probably know what they're doing. But they're not building failure into their cables, I can promise you that. They may be making a trade-off between the look and feel of the cable and its longevity, but that's very different from designing failure into the component.
    - city41 15y ago
      > Users experience the entirety of Apple products and there isn't a user-facing component that doesn't get serious design scrutiny. Even the mere act of removing an Apple product from its packaging when first bought -- something that only happens once -- is extremely well thought out.
  - codyrobbins 15y ago
    I think it’s completely wrong to say there’s no user experience on cables. What about the fact that my sofa has to be a full four inches away from the wall because of the strain relief on the cord of the lamp I need to plug in behind it? There is no reason the cord actually needs that four inches of horizontal space—it’s just poor, thoughtless design that results in a poor user experience. Whoever designed the lamp should have put as much thought into the cord as they did into the rest of it, but instead it’s just an afterthought. To my way of thinking at least Apple has the guts to experiment with a different approach and see what happens instead of just applying the same good-enough solution everyone else mindlessly does.

by zyb09 15y ago

asadotzler 15y ago

It doesn't have to be "planned obsolescence" which suggests an intent to get users to buy replacements. It could be that the trade-off just came out that way. I mean, I don't think they designed failure into the component so much as they deemed a higher than you'd want failure rate OK given the user experience they were chasing.

zyb09 15y ago
You really think so? I mean these are cables, there's no secret how to make them and they've been making them for decades, so they'll probably know what they are doing. There's no user experience on cables. It doesn't seem so far fetched to me.
- asadotzler 15y ago
  Your comment "There's no user experience on cables" makes it clear that you really don't understand Apple. Users experience the entirety of Apple products and there isn't a user-facing component that doesn't get serious design scrutiny. And yes, Apple probably know what they're doing. But they're not building failure into their cables, I can promise you that. They may be making a trade-off between the look and feel of the cable and its longevity, but that's very different from designing failure into the component.
  - city41 15y ago
    > Users experience the entirety of Apple products and there isn't a user-facing component that doesn't get serious design scrutiny. Even the mere act of removing an Apple product from its packaging when first bought -- something that only happens once -- is extremely well thought out.
- codyrobbins 15y ago
  I think it’s completely wrong to say there’s no user experience on cables. What about the fact that my sofa has to be a full four inches away from the wall because of the strain relief on the cord of the lamp I need to plug in behind it? There is no reason the cord actually needs that four inches of horizontal space—it’s just poor, thoughtless design that results in a poor user experience. Whoever designed the lamp should have put as much thought into the cord as they did into the rest of it, but instead it’s just an afterthought. To my way of thinking at least Apple has the guts to experiment with a different approach and see what happens instead of just applying the same good-enough solution everyone else mindlessly does.