4 ms·

> The reason is that the majority of people want sleek, thin That's what they are told and that's what they are sold. You can't compete with a billion dollar

by chx 3y ago

> The reason is that the majority of people want sleek, thin That's what they are told and that's what they are sold. You can't compete with a billion dollar marketing machinery by saying "hey my machine is not 9mm but 25mm but in turn it runs cooler and doesn't require dongles".

acdha 3y ago
This is only correct if all of the companies making thicker laptops had no marketing budgets. They did, of course, so clearly the reason consumers overwhelmingly picked thinner devices is unlikely to be as simple as “they were brainwashed walking by an Apple Store”.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Apple themselves is selling thicker laptops than they did 5 years ago. Demand hasn't really faltered because of it, and some people are even complimenting it for being less hot and having a better keyboard. Despite weight and thinness being the center of Macboook marketing a mere few years ago, now consumers have rationalized a new preference. The value of a thin laptop honestly depends on what you sacrifice to get to that point. Jony Ive's entire career should stand testament to the fact that people honestly don't care after a certain point.
  - hollerith 3y ago
    Once upon a time, I switched from commuting with a Macbook Air to commuting with a Mac mini (obviously I always had access to electricity at both ends of the commute) that weighs about the same, and the sudden quintupling of the thickness of the device I was transporting (on the bus and sometimes on foot) never bothered me.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    > and some people are even complimenting it for being less hot You do know that's because they moved away from Intel to their own M CPUs. It has nothing to do with the case.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      Moving to newer CPUs doesn't fix thermal limitations on old models. There are still entire generations of Apple laptops with chassis that were poorly matched to their CPU. Plus... Intel chips are wattage-configurable. If Apple chose to run their CPUs at a TDP beyond what the Macbook could dissipate, isn't that a software issue? There are a lot of ultrabook CPUs that have ACPI tables tuned to lower temperatures, even the insufferable 14nm Intel ones.
  - acdha 3y ago
    A 15” MacBook Pro was 0.61” in 2019, the same as the 14” is now. The 16” model is 0.05” thicker. I am skeptical that any noticeable group of users finds that significant, or that it has any measurable impact on thermal characteristics. This is also missing the larger point: Apple does not run the PC industry. They’re popular but if they were pushing something unpopular, one of their competitors would have seen better sales for thicker models. Since even the gamers aren’t willing to buy larger laptops, I think they’re pretty clued in for what the buying public values.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      > if they were pushing something unpopular, one of their competitors would have seen better sales That's a bit like saying if Airpods were objectively bad, then people would buy other headphones. You're right; but there are ulterior considerations that people make when they buy these products. When Macbooks were at their worst, the waste-of-money i9 aluminum pancake ovens, most Apple users probably were not considering alternative manufacturers. They want Apple's experience, and will suffer through the 12" Macbook or the 16" monster machine to get it. Same as the first-generation Airpods that were measurably worse than the 7x cheaper Earpods. My point is that Apple can make objectively bad decisions (eg. butterfly keyboard, inadequate thermal solutions) and their customers will still buy their products. The same is not really true for most other laptop OEMs since they're functionally interchangeable if you're a Windows user.
      - acdha 3y ago
        It’s a bit different: Apple users might accept the trade offs for whatever design decision Apple makes, but that wouldn’t explain why the rest of the industry followed them. The fact that they did suggests this is less a universal truth than a personal preference which is not broadly shared.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        By and large, the rest of the industry doesn't follow Apple. They copy specific features or hardware cues, but Apple doesn't leave anything for third-party OEMs to use in the first place. You can't integrate with iMessage, you can't implement AirDrop, and Quick Pairing/Find My is off-limits until you pay licensing fees. Lightning replaces USB with a licensed alternative, and third-parties have to apply for MFi, neither of which is commonplace in the greater smartphone market. The fact that laptops got thinner over time is not evidence that the industry deliberately follows Apple. It's evidence that technology gets smaller, a fundamental observation made 10 years before Apple Inc. was incorporated.

by chx 3y ago

acdha 3y ago

This is only correct if all of the companies making thicker laptops had no marketing budgets. They did, of course, so clearly the reason consumers overwhelmingly picked thinner devices is unlikely to be as simple as “they were brainwashed walking by an Apple Store”.

smoldesu 3y ago
Apple themselves is selling thicker laptops than they did 5 years ago. Demand hasn't really faltered because of it, and some people are even complimenting it for being less hot and having a better keyboard. Despite weight and thinness being the center of Macboook marketing a mere few years ago, now consumers have rationalized a new preference. The value of a thin laptop honestly depends on what you sacrifice to get to that point. Jony Ive's entire career should stand testament to the fact that people honestly don't care after a certain point.
- hollerith 3y ago
  Once upon a time, I switched from commuting with a Macbook Air to commuting with a Mac mini (obviously I always had access to electricity at both ends of the commute) that weighs about the same, and the sudden quintupling of the thickness of the device I was transporting (on the bus and sometimes on foot) never bothered me.
- threeseed 3y ago
  > and some people are even complimenting it for being less hot You do know that's because they moved away from Intel to their own M CPUs. It has nothing to do with the case.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    Moving to newer CPUs doesn't fix thermal limitations on old models. There are still entire generations of Apple laptops with chassis that were poorly matched to their CPU. Plus... Intel chips are wattage-configurable. If Apple chose to run their CPUs at a TDP beyond what the Macbook could dissipate, isn't that a software issue? There are a lot of ultrabook CPUs that have ACPI tables tuned to lower temperatures, even the insufferable 14nm Intel ones.
- acdha 3y ago
  A 15” MacBook Pro was 0.61” in 2019, the same as the 14” is now. The 16” model is 0.05” thicker. I am skeptical that any noticeable group of users finds that significant, or that it has any measurable impact on thermal characteristics. This is also missing the larger point: Apple does not run the PC industry. They’re popular but if they were pushing something unpopular, one of their competitors would have seen better sales for thicker models. Since even the gamers aren’t willing to buy larger laptops, I think they’re pretty clued in for what the buying public values.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > if they were pushing something unpopular, one of their competitors would have seen better sales That's a bit like saying if Airpods were objectively bad, then people would buy other headphones. You're right; but there are ulterior considerations that people make when they buy these products. When Macbooks were at their worst, the waste-of-money i9 aluminum pancake ovens, most Apple users probably were not considering alternative manufacturers. They want Apple's experience, and will suffer through the 12" Macbook or the 16" monster machine to get it. Same as the first-generation Airpods that were measurably worse than the 7x cheaper Earpods. My point is that Apple can make objectively bad decisions (eg. butterfly keyboard, inadequate thermal solutions) and their customers will still buy their products. The same is not really true for most other laptop OEMs since they're functionally interchangeable if you're a Windows user.
    - acdha 3y ago
      It’s a bit different: Apple users might accept the trade offs for whatever design decision Apple makes, but that wouldn’t explain why the rest of the industry followed them. The fact that they did suggests this is less a universal truth than a personal preference which is not broadly shared.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        By and large, the rest of the industry doesn't follow Apple. They copy specific features or hardware cues, but Apple doesn't leave anything for third-party OEMs to use in the first place. You can't integrate with iMessage, you can't implement AirDrop, and Quick Pairing/Find My is off-limits until you pay licensing fees. Lightning replaces USB with a licensed alternative, and third-parties have to apply for MFi, neither of which is commonplace in the greater smartphone market. The fact that laptops got thinner over time is not evidence that the industry deliberately follows Apple. It's evidence that technology gets smaller, a fundamental observation made 10 years before Apple Inc. was incorporated.