4 ms·

Speculation on why Jony Ive pursued "thinness above everything": - for the first x years of apple, everything was legitimately thick - so each generation Ive

Speculation on why Jony Ive pursued "thinness above everything": - for the first x years of apple, everything was legitimately thick - so each generation Ive wanted to make things thinner - it entered the culture (of the design division perhaps) that you had to make each generation thinner than the last to please Ive - Then when things got to a comfortable thickness for users, people kept making each generation thinner to please Ive - Ive never told them to stop making things thinner so they didn't stop. - snowball effect and we got those horrible products - he had to leave to stop the cycle

cbhl 5y ago
Lighter and thinner products also increase total addressable market by allowing products to be sold to parents and their kids. See Apple Watch Family Setup; iPad Mini, the various iPods...
- arcticbull 5y ago
  They're also better for the environment: less materials to assemble, less packaging, less fuel to ship, less waste. At Apple's scale, that really adds up.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    Of course there's tradeoffs here if it requires custom external hardware (dongle proliferation etc.) In general I think this is less of an issue today, since usb-C is both generally great and very small, so you can just use it. But, if thinness came at the sacrifice of common connectors like USB-A (or like HDMI), the opportunity cost of standard connectors might be lost. I'm ignoring that like many of apple's ports are just better than USB-A to focus only on the waste argument here though.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    Non user upgradable products aren't better for the environment though.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      I think that's a fair assessment in general. As an open question I wonder how much your average customer would take advantage of a reparability option if available, and if the additional material required to make it reparable wouldn't offset the gains? I'm just thinking out loud.
      - paulryanrogers 5y ago
        As someone who helped repair and re-home old computers you might be surprised. Normies may rarely upgrade or repair themselves, but IME they do get help doing so in many cases.
      - protomyth 5y ago
        Schools and businesses cycling their computers often handed them off. We used to replace the internal drive and send them to people in the community that could still get some use out of them. Apple products are no longer a machine that lives long enough to pass off.
    - samatman 5y ago
      As I never tire of pointing out, as an empirical matter, this is wrong when you apply it to Apple specifically. Apple's software support for all their devices lasts much longer than the competition, and their hardware tends to last many years out of warranty. Not always of course, but this is a numbers game, and there is a robust secondary market in everything Apple makes. Objectively, a laptop, phone, or tablet, will have a longer service life if manufactured by Apple, than anyone else, with the possible exception of ThinkPads. Sure, if you want more RAM or what have you, you have to buy a new computer and sell the old one. That's expensive, but all that matters with respect to the environment is total service life of a given machine, and again, as an objective matter, Apple is peerless there. It's tempting to compare this record against imaginary competition which doesn't exist, but I don't see the point.
      - LegitShady 5y ago
        >Apple's software support for all their devices lasts much longer than the competition, and their hardware tends to last many years out of warranty. Not always of course, but this is a numbers game, and there is a robust secondary market in everything Apple makes. An apple device with upgradeable parts would be even better for the environment. Apple's software support has no effect on the environmental impact of non upgradeable computers compared to upgradeable computers.
kbenson 5y ago
> - Ive never told them to stop making things thinner so they didn't stop. > - he had to leave to stop the cycle Or, you know, correct people on their misinterpretation of his desires, if indeed there was any. I'm trying real hard to not see this comment as some sort of Apple logic distortion field showing itself in an overt manner, but not having much luck.

cbhl 5y ago

Lighter and thinner products also increase total addressable market by allowing products to be sold to parents and their kids. See Apple Watch Family Setup; iPad Mini, the various iPods...

arcticbull 5y ago
They're also better for the environment: less materials to assemble, less packaging, less fuel to ship, less waste. At Apple's scale, that really adds up.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  Of course there's tradeoffs here if it requires custom external hardware (dongle proliferation etc.) In general I think this is less of an issue today, since usb-C is both generally great and very small, so you can just use it. But, if thinness came at the sacrifice of common connectors like USB-A (or like HDMI), the opportunity cost of standard connectors might be lost. I'm ignoring that like many of apple's ports are just better than USB-A to focus only on the waste argument here though.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  Non user upgradable products aren't better for the environment though.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    I think that's a fair assessment in general. As an open question I wonder how much your average customer would take advantage of a reparability option if available, and if the additional material required to make it reparable wouldn't offset the gains? I'm just thinking out loud.
    - paulryanrogers 5y ago
      As someone who helped repair and re-home old computers you might be surprised. Normies may rarely upgrade or repair themselves, but IME they do get help doing so in many cases.
    - protomyth 5y ago
      Schools and businesses cycling their computers often handed them off. We used to replace the internal drive and send them to people in the community that could still get some use out of them. Apple products are no longer a machine that lives long enough to pass off.
  - samatman 5y ago
    As I never tire of pointing out, as an empirical matter, this is wrong when you apply it to Apple specifically. Apple's software support for all their devices lasts much longer than the competition, and their hardware tends to last many years out of warranty. Not always of course, but this is a numbers game, and there is a robust secondary market in everything Apple makes. Objectively, a laptop, phone, or tablet, will have a longer service life if manufactured by Apple, than anyone else, with the possible exception of ThinkPads. Sure, if you want more RAM or what have you, you have to buy a new computer and sell the old one. That's expensive, but all that matters with respect to the environment is total service life of a given machine, and again, as an objective matter, Apple is peerless there. It's tempting to compare this record against imaginary competition which doesn't exist, but I don't see the point.
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      >Apple's software support for all their devices lasts much longer than the competition, and their hardware tends to last many years out of warranty. Not always of course, but this is a numbers game, and there is a robust secondary market in everything Apple makes. An apple device with upgradeable parts would be even better for the environment. Apple's software support has no effect on the environmental impact of non upgradeable computers compared to upgradeable computers.

kbenson 5y ago

> - Ive never told them to stop making things thinner so they didn't stop. > - he had to leave to stop the cycle Or, you know, correct people on their misinterpretation of his desires, if indeed there was any. I'm trying real hard to not see this comment as some sort of Apple logic distortion field showing itself in an overt manner, but not having much luck.