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My guess is that Apple bet on something that did not materialise, it wasn't about Jony Ive not caring about user feedback. What was the bet you say? I think th
by mrtksn 5y ago
My guess is that Apple bet on something that did not materialise, it wasn't about Jony Ive not caring about user feedback.
What was the bet you say? I think they bet that the shift to USB-C/Thunderbolt/Wireless will happen quickly and they can help with the push and increase their margins.
IMHO It wasn't a design decision but a business one and I think the removal of mag-safe is a giveaway. Every little thing that they add makes the thing more complicated to manufacture, thus more expensive.
Every non-off-the-shelf piece puts multiple teams in to work on multiple continents and this costs money. I think they aimed for the simplicity at management level and not at design level. They did some calculation based on how well people are locked in and how many will buy a new mac and went with the most profitable option up until the time for the great transition comes. Until very recently the PC industry was racing to the bottom and Apple did not have a reason to compete on features. Nice Windows laptops are a very new phenomenon, up until very recently the best trackpad on a PC laptop wasn't even on the same league with Apple's.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- piva00 5y ago> IMHO It wasn't a design decision but a business one and I think the removal of mag-safe is a giveaway. Every little thing that they add makes the thing more complicated to manufacture, thus more expensive. Every non-off-the-shelf piece puts multiple teams in to work in multiple continents and this costs money. I think they aimed for the simplicity at management level and not at design level. They did some calculation based on how well people are locked in and how many will buy a new mac and went with the most profitable option up until the time for the great transition comes. The touch bar invalidates a lot of these assumptions. My personal opinion is that Ive's vision for Apple's design future was of ever slimmer and slicker pieces of hardware, USB-C helped a lot this vision to simplify design lines, streamline the ports layout and so on. The simplicity take goes away when you consider that supporting 4 USB-C ports that behave differently due to limitations on power envelope and Thunderbolt chipset doesn't really simplify the design for cost-cutting.
- Eric_WVGG 5y agoUSB-C adoption mostly went fine, though. Or as fine as could be expected. I think the past five years can be more easily explained with — ironically — a Steve Jobs quote: > When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that's what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular … PCs are going to be like trucks. They're still going to be around, they're still going to have a lot of value, but they're going to be used by one out of X people. And that's what the Mac team lost sight of; they tried to make Pro Macs that were sports cars. Maybe the Macbook Air is an affordable sports car of sorts (do they still make Mazda Miatas?), but the Macbook Pro is and should be a truck.
- more_corn 5y agoReally? USB-C adoption went fine? I have never seen a usb thing that I found superior to what it replaced. I see a lot of dongles though.
- Eric_WVGG 5y agoI don't get the dongle people. You can just buy USB-C to USB-B cords. They cost about the same as dongles. I replaced the cords on all my devices years ago and never looked back. https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Micro-Braided-Jacket/dp/B00UUBRX0Y https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Micro-Braided-Jacket/dp... https://www.amazon.com/JSAUX-Charger-Braided-Compatible-External/dp/B07CVCKHHR https://www.amazon.com/JSAUX-Charger-Braided-Compatible-Exte... https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Printer-USB-C-Black/dp/B00VKSF39O https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Printer-USB-C-Black/dp/...