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I'm starting to really dislike Apple for a number of reasons, but I can't switch. No, not can't, but it would be tough. Why? Because nobody else cares about d

by api 15y ago

I'm starting to really dislike Apple for a number of reasons, but I can't switch. No, not can't, but it would be tough. Why? Because nobody else cares about design or user experience. Apple is the only company on Earth that can design a user interface, and their products are the only well designed (read: minimal... in industrial design, minimal is a synonym for good) products IMHO. Everything else is covered by marketing-idiot-driven pimples like the "ThinkVantage" button on ThinkPads, etc., and both Windows and Linux UIs are horrible. Edit: to clarify, what I'm really pointing out is that Apple has a near-monopoly, and like any near-monopoly they are starting to leverage it in disturbing ways. Their near-monopoly is on good industrial and UI design.

lukifer 15y ago
I've been an enthusiastic Apple user since around 1993, and I have tremendous respect for their engineering and design. But IMHO, they've long since passed the threshold for antitrust investigation. If I had my druthers, every device manufacturer (including game consoles) would be federally mandated to offer some way of sideloading software. Hell, at least let people run their own code on it without having to buy a developer certificate! As it stands, Apple has all the same incentives to behave badly as Microsoft did in the 90s, if not more so.
- jonhohle 15y ago
  But what do they have a monopoly on (isn't a monopoly required for antitrust investigations in the US)? Good taste? Surely that's free for anyone.
  - lukifer 15y ago
    My (admittedly poor) understanding of antitrust is that it's not illegal to have a monopoly, but rather it's illegal to abuse that monopoly position in anti-competitive ways. And aside from the consumer rights issues of walled gardens, there are serious conflicts of interest with Apple offering services such as iTunes and iBooks while also being the sole software vendor for competitors such as Netflix and Kindle.
  - halostatue 15y ago
    Monopolies aren't required for antitrust, but monopolies are watched more carefully for antitrust violations. Antitrust is more about anticompetitive behaviour than market monopolisation.
- api 15y ago
  I'm really worried about what happens when Jobs leaves or dies. My money is on one of: 1) Some MBA apparatchik takes over the company and does what all the Business 101 books say to do: puts marketing in charge of everything, including design. As a result, their industrial and UI design goes to complete crap. 2) Ditto the MBA apparatchik, but instead they decide to start "monetizing" Apple's leveraging opportunities in a "proactive" manner. As a result, the company becomes full-on evil and I have no choice but to dump them completely and go back to Linux on inferior-design hardware. Combinations of 1 and 2 are also possible.
  - halostatue 15y ago
    There's suggestions that neither (1) nor (2) will happen. Currently, Tim Cook is (generally) expected to be Jobs's successor, and he's unlikely to change things that work. But there's a recent article -- sorry, I don't remember the title or have a link to it -- which was talking about "Apple University", which is apparently an HR effort inside of Apple to figure out what it is that makes Apple, well, Apple and make it something teachable so that as new executives come on, they internalize that which makes Apple Apple.
    - pchristensen 15y ago
      http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/09/inside-apple/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/09/inside-apple/ To get the full article, you have to buy the Fortune ipad issue or buy it for a buck from Amazon. I thought it was worth the buck, FWIW.
cube13 15y ago
>Their near-monopoly is on good industrial and UI design. I'm not convinced that this is an absolute bad thing, because this isn't a problem with Apple. It's a problem with their competitors. Like you mentioned earlier in the post, Apple is pretty much the only smartphone and tablet manufacturer that considers UI and UX as the absolute most important part of the device. For the most part, there isn't that much of a learning curve for using their devices. They just work. Is this something that Google, MS, or any other competitor can do? Absolutely. MS made some pretty significant moves in that direction with Windows 7 Mobile. Google has added many features in Android that I would love to see in iOS. Google seems focused more in innovative features, which means that Android will probably always stay ahead of iOS in terms of OS features. Unfortunately, Google's drive to get it out first may hurt them in terms of UX, because Apple will take the core concept, refine the hell out of it, and then add it to iOS only when it is as polished as the rest of their features.
cageface 15y ago
I think that's overstating the case quite a bit. Apple's design prowess is formidable, but they're hardly the only company with those strengths. They basically had to copy Android's superior notification system for iOS 5, for instance. And with the new task switcher and widgets in Android 3.1 I think iOS's static grid of icons is starting to look conservative and stale. Sony and Samsung have come up with some nice hardware designs and Windows 7 is a reasonable competitor to OS X in my opinion. Apple has been held up as the paragon of industrial design for so long that we're too willing to accept whatever they do as the "right" thing. Frankly I'm a little tired of their vanilla aesthetic and things like the ridiculous Time Machine UI indicate to me that they've lost their way to some extent.

by api 15y ago

lukifer 15y ago

I've been an enthusiastic Apple user since around 1993, and I have tremendous respect for their engineering and design. But IMHO, they've long since passed the threshold for antitrust investigation. If I had my druthers, every device manufacturer (including game consoles) would be federally mandated to offer some way of sideloading software. Hell, at least let people run their own code on it without having to buy a developer certificate! As it stands, Apple has all the same incentives to behave badly as Microsoft did in the 90s, if not more so.

jonhohle 15y ago
But what do they have a monopoly on (isn't a monopoly required for antitrust investigations in the US)? Good taste? Surely that's free for anyone.
- lukifer 15y ago
  My (admittedly poor) understanding of antitrust is that it's not illegal to have a monopoly, but rather it's illegal to abuse that monopoly position in anti-competitive ways. And aside from the consumer rights issues of walled gardens, there are serious conflicts of interest with Apple offering services such as iTunes and iBooks while also being the sole software vendor for competitors such as Netflix and Kindle.
- halostatue 15y ago
  Monopolies aren't required for antitrust, but monopolies are watched more carefully for antitrust violations. Antitrust is more about anticompetitive behaviour than market monopolisation.
api 15y ago
I'm really worried about what happens when Jobs leaves or dies. My money is on one of: 1) Some MBA apparatchik takes over the company and does what all the Business 101 books say to do: puts marketing in charge of everything, including design. As a result, their industrial and UI design goes to complete crap. 2) Ditto the MBA apparatchik, but instead they decide to start "monetizing" Apple's leveraging opportunities in a "proactive" manner. As a result, the company becomes full-on evil and I have no choice but to dump them completely and go back to Linux on inferior-design hardware. Combinations of 1 and 2 are also possible.
- halostatue 15y ago
  There's suggestions that neither (1) nor (2) will happen. Currently, Tim Cook is (generally) expected to be Jobs's successor, and he's unlikely to change things that work. But there's a recent article -- sorry, I don't remember the title or have a link to it -- which was talking about "Apple University", which is apparently an HR effort inside of Apple to figure out what it is that makes Apple, well, Apple and make it something teachable so that as new executives come on, they internalize that which makes Apple Apple.
  - pchristensen 15y ago
    http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/09/inside-apple/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/09/inside-apple/ To get the full article, you have to buy the Fortune ipad issue or buy it for a buck from Amazon. I thought it was worth the buck, FWIW.

cube13 15y ago

>Their near-monopoly is on good industrial and UI design. I'm not convinced that this is an absolute bad thing, because this isn't a problem with Apple. It's a problem with their competitors. Like you mentioned earlier in the post, Apple is pretty much the only smartphone and tablet manufacturer that considers UI and UX as the absolute most important part of the device. For the most part, there isn't that much of a learning curve for using their devices. They just work. Is this something that Google, MS, or any other competitor can do? Absolutely. MS made some pretty significant moves in that direction with Windows 7 Mobile. Google has added many features in Android that I would love to see in iOS. Google seems focused more in innovative features, which means that Android will probably always stay ahead of iOS in terms of OS features. Unfortunately, Google's drive to get it out first may hurt them in terms of UX, because Apple will take the core concept, refine the hell out of it, and then add it to iOS only when it is as polished as the rest of their features.

cageface 15y ago

I think that's overstating the case quite a bit. Apple's design prowess is formidable, but they're hardly the only company with those strengths. They basically had to copy Android's superior notification system for iOS 5, for instance. And with the new task switcher and widgets in Android 3.1 I think iOS's static grid of icons is starting to look conservative and stale. Sony and Samsung have come up with some nice hardware designs and Windows 7 is a reasonable competitor to OS X in my opinion. Apple has been held up as the paragon of industrial design for so long that we're too willing to accept whatever they do as the "right" thing. Frankly I'm a little tired of their vanilla aesthetic and things like the ridiculous Time Machine UI indicate to me that they've lost their way to some extent.