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I'm always a bit irritated when editors still use inch measurements exclusively, when it's only used in 3 countries officially still. Not talking about screen

by lavela 3y ago

I'm always a bit irritated when editors still use inch measurements exclusively, when it's only used in 3 countries officially still. Not talking about screen sizes obviously, but I really don't have an intuition for what 'less than half an inch' thickness is and I'm sure there are a _lot_ of people who use English as their interface language outside of the US.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
It's the US Apple website, what do you expect? Of course the measurements will be in football fields and eagles/freedom units. Go to other local websites and the specs will be in the local units (most likely metric), but even in Europe, display sizes or car wheels are almost always denominated in inches.
- lavela 3y ago
  If it is the US website I'm just asking where the international english website is I guess. Choosing UK or South Africa doesn't make the inch go away. This is totally fine for companies targeting US domestic markets I guess but I suspect Apple sees itself as an international company and they should have the budget for proper internationalization. Maybe they just don't care for people to know how thin the Air is, but the number of search results for 'thin' on the page let's me think otherwise.
karaterobot 3y ago
To be fair to the editors, the inch measurement is just coming from Apple, that's how they refer to it. If the editors converted the model name into centimeters they'd be using a different name than Apple, and probably losing some search traffic as well. But I feel your pain: it's not even a great description, because the screen isn't 13 inches, it's 13.6 or something like that.
- lavela 3y ago
  I can deal with the screen sizes, as they are used everywhere ( it's similar to e.g. 3.5mm jack I guess) and you know what's meant by that, but stating the thickness in inches got me.
coolliquidcode 3y ago
I get it. It'd be nice if all these major companies used both in and cm. Americans have to go back and forth with metric a lot and it would be useful to think of every day items in terms of both inches and cm.
- linehedonist 3y ago
  Americans really do not have to go back and forth with metric a lot. Life in the glorious USA is lived unapologetically in imperial units.
wyre 3y ago
You didn’t ask, but ‘less than half an inch’ is around a centimeter. 1 inch = 2.56 cm; .5 inch = 1.28 cm
FredPret 3y ago
Why is # of countries or # of people important? It's the total spending dollars that's important. By using US customary units, you get 25% of the world GDP in one easy-to-do-business-with entity.
- lavela 3y ago
  Funny how you say total spending and then argue with a percentage but aside from that do you really want to argue that Apple doesn't care about the total spending of, say, India just because they make up a smaller percentage of the world's GDP?
  - FredPret 3y ago
    > Funny how you say total spending and then argue with a percentage ... so? Total spending is the key factor; Apple gets exposure to 25% of the total human economy by catering to one polity which is also the easiest one to do business in. That's a no-brainer if I've ever heard one. By contrast, India's economy is only 3% of the world total. [0] It's interesting to note that this understates US dominance in luxury products - due to being rich-person-friendly, they actually have far more than 25% of the world's rich people - 38% according to page 28 of [1] Which market would you rather target? [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?most_rec... [1] https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/global-wealth-report-2023.html https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/glo...
    - lavela 3y ago
      How is this an either-or situation if you could just provide an additional internationalization for 'preferred language english' + 'IP outside of US'? 'less than an inch (11.5mm)' would still be a better specification if you want to have a version where you rather err towards US customers. I'm not offended by seeing inches, just irritated that you wouldn't cater to the rest of the world.
      - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
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by lavela 3y ago

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

It's the US Apple website, what do you expect? Of course the measurements will be in football fields and eagles/freedom units. Go to other local websites and the specs will be in the local units (most likely metric), but even in Europe, display sizes or car wheels are almost always denominated in inches.

lavela 3y ago
If it is the US website I'm just asking where the international english website is I guess. Choosing UK or South Africa doesn't make the inch go away. This is totally fine for companies targeting US domestic markets I guess but I suspect Apple sees itself as an international company and they should have the budget for proper internationalization. Maybe they just don't care for people to know how thin the Air is, but the number of search results for 'thin' on the page let's me think otherwise.

karaterobot 3y ago

To be fair to the editors, the inch measurement is just coming from Apple, that's how they refer to it. If the editors converted the model name into centimeters they'd be using a different name than Apple, and probably losing some search traffic as well. But I feel your pain: it's not even a great description, because the screen isn't 13 inches, it's 13.6 or something like that.

lavela 3y ago
I can deal with the screen sizes, as they are used everywhere ( it's similar to e.g. 3.5mm jack I guess) and you know what's meant by that, but stating the thickness in inches got me.

coolliquidcode 3y ago

I get it. It'd be nice if all these major companies used both in and cm. Americans have to go back and forth with metric a lot and it would be useful to think of every day items in terms of both inches and cm.

linehedonist 3y ago
Americans really do not have to go back and forth with metric a lot. Life in the glorious USA is lived unapologetically in imperial units.

wyre 3y ago

You didn’t ask, but ‘less than half an inch’ is around a centimeter. 1 inch = 2.56 cm; .5 inch = 1.28 cm

FredPret 3y ago

Why is # of countries or # of people important? It's the total spending dollars that's important. By using US customary units, you get 25% of the world GDP in one easy-to-do-business-with entity.

lavela 3y ago
Funny how you say total spending and then argue with a percentage but aside from that do you really want to argue that Apple doesn't care about the total spending of, say, India just because they make up a smaller percentage of the world's GDP?
- FredPret 3y ago
  > Funny how you say total spending and then argue with a percentage ... so? Total spending is the key factor; Apple gets exposure to 25% of the total human economy by catering to one polity which is also the easiest one to do business in. That's a no-brainer if I've ever heard one. By contrast, India's economy is only 3% of the world total. [0] It's interesting to note that this understates US dominance in luxury products - due to being rich-person-friendly, they actually have far more than 25% of the world's rich people - 38% according to page 28 of [1] Which market would you rather target? [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?most_rec... [1] https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/global-wealth-report-2023.html https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/glo...
  - lavela 3y ago
    How is this an either-or situation if you could just provide an additional internationalization for 'preferred language english' + 'IP outside of US'? 'less than an inch (11.5mm)' would still be a better specification if you want to have a version where you rather err towards US customers. I'm not offended by seeing inches, just irritated that you wouldn't cater to the rest of the world.
    - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

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