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It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. It also brings out profound conclusions and vision. When

It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. It also brings out profound conclusions and vision. When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it. If Samsung says it, maybe a year later they will turn around and bring out an eight-core phone that you can play a game on for forty-five minutes before having to plug it in again. Apple isn't just opinionated: it's opinionated on hugely difficult technical issues that don't even exist in the wild yet. (As when they release a new category.) You only get that through violent discourse with egos on the line. edit: a similar thing happens at Google, but not when it comes to ergonomics or user interfaces and usability with the same hardware devices Apple makes, but instead when it comes to solving certain problems on a massive scale. The result is that Google can't really release a laptop that's as usable as a Macbook in the same domain, and for everyone, and Apple can't really solve the ops issues that it would take to bring out a Google Search competitor. There is huge amount of discourse (of a radically different nature) at both companies.

fpgeek 14y ago
> When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it No, they don't. They mean battery life is important in mobile devices as long as it doesn't get in the way of making them thin (among other things). After all, the modern smartphone with the best battery life is the Droid RAZR MAXX (soon to be dethroned by its international sibling the Motorola RAZR MAXX, which doesn't have the battery-life handicap of an LTE radio).
- its_so_on 14y ago
  Apple would never release a laptop with a 1.5 hour battery (wifi web browsing). an unimaginable number of such laptops are brought out by every major brand other than Apple. (likewise apple has its standards in a phone, which is not the standard you cite, but not 45 minutes either.). Apple is opinionated on every part of the user interface and design, on usability and ease-of-use. They then go on to put their money where their mouth is, and practice what they preach. (For the most part.) It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them. This is the norm at other companies.
  - redthrowaway 14y ago
    >It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them. That doesn't mean the result of said thought was good, however: http://i.minus.com/dQhzPuq2CZUc/264182-apple-mac-os-x-lion-10-7-calendar-daily.jpg http://i.minus.com/dQhzPuq2CZUc/264182-apple-mac-os-x-lion-1...
    - cryptoz 14y ago
      Windows XP didn't ship with a user-level calendar. If Apple had a calendar before 2006, they'd be winning the calendar design front without much effort.
      - Spooky23 14y ago
        iCal shipped in 2002. They made it ugly in 2011.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 14y ago
      There will always be miss-steps. But I don't think you ever achieve great design without being very opinionated. I feel that it helps to edit yourself. I really hate all these fake textures they are going though.
  - steverb 14y ago
    The 1.5 hour battery laptop serves (for me) an important niche. You see, I don't actually need a laptop. I need a portable desktop with built in battery backup, which is what the 1.5 hour battery laptop is. Of course, it's entirely within Apple's prerogative to ignore that very niche market (I would if I were them) and it seems to be working well for them, but every odd ball computer configuration you see was created to meet the needs of at least one market. You are not the target market for the desktop replacement laptop. I am.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      In college I loved my desktop replacement. This was before wifi was campus-wide, so bringing my laptop to class didn't give me much more benefit than bringing a pad of paper, so the laptop stayed firmly put on my desk all semester. What was really important to me was being able to haul my computer out of the dorm in one trip. A desktop would require multiple trips and would need to be shut down to move (the laptop lasted and hour on battery and 5 hours in sleep mode). A desktop replacement offers almost all the benefits of a desktop, but with a built-in UPS and a one-piece form factor.
xtractinator 14y ago
I'd really like to understand what hugely difficult technical issues you're talking about. Funding the development of a new higher DPI display?
- mturmon 14y ago
  Reliable trackpads, multitouch, battery life, pushing SSDs, unibody enclosures, magsafe, reliable wake-from-sleep, keyboard illumination. And I hope you don't regard the display as a minor accomplishment.
gwern 14y ago
> It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. In the books I've read on the topic like _The Nine_, it's sounds like a terrific environment. You are incredibly respected by everyone you meet, you have a light workload which is self-chosen and also extremely important and you can see the consequences of your work without doubt, you work with other highly competent people, you can indulge in things like teaching your pet subject in your offtime and be paid very well for it, you get to select the most talented young lawyers as your staffers, and so on and so forth.
- _delirium 14y ago
  In addition, it appears that in general it's not personal. For example, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who often strongly dissent from each others' opinions in court, are personal friends outside of court.

fpgeek 14y ago

> When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it No, they don't. They mean battery life is important in mobile devices as long as it doesn't get in the way of making them thin (among other things). After all, the modern smartphone with the best battery life is the Droid RAZR MAXX (soon to be dethroned by its international sibling the Motorola RAZR MAXX, which doesn't have the battery-life handicap of an LTE radio).

its_so_on 14y ago
Apple would never release a laptop with a 1.5 hour battery (wifi web browsing). an unimaginable number of such laptops are brought out by every major brand other than Apple. (likewise apple has its standards in a phone, which is not the standard you cite, but not 45 minutes either.). Apple is opinionated on every part of the user interface and design, on usability and ease-of-use. They then go on to put their money where their mouth is, and practice what they preach. (For the most part.) It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them. This is the norm at other companies.
- redthrowaway 14y ago
  >It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them. That doesn't mean the result of said thought was good, however: http://i.minus.com/dQhzPuq2CZUc/264182-apple-mac-os-x-lion-10-7-calendar-daily.jpg http://i.minus.com/dQhzPuq2CZUc/264182-apple-mac-os-x-lion-1...
  - cryptoz 14y ago
    Windows XP didn't ship with a user-level calendar. If Apple had a calendar before 2006, they'd be winning the calendar design front without much effort.
    - Spooky23 14y ago
      iCal shipped in 2002. They made it ugly in 2011.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 14y ago
    There will always be miss-steps. But I don't think you ever achieve great design without being very opinionated. I feel that it helps to edit yourself. I really hate all these fake textures they are going though.
- steverb 14y ago
  The 1.5 hour battery laptop serves (for me) an important niche. You see, I don't actually need a laptop. I need a portable desktop with built in battery backup, which is what the 1.5 hour battery laptop is. Of course, it's entirely within Apple's prerogative to ignore that very niche market (I would if I were them) and it seems to be working well for them, but every odd ball computer configuration you see was created to meet the needs of at least one market. You are not the target market for the desktop replacement laptop. I am.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    In college I loved my desktop replacement. This was before wifi was campus-wide, so bringing my laptop to class didn't give me much more benefit than bringing a pad of paper, so the laptop stayed firmly put on my desk all semester. What was really important to me was being able to haul my computer out of the dorm in one trip. A desktop would require multiple trips and would need to be shut down to move (the laptop lasted and hour on battery and 5 hours in sleep mode). A desktop replacement offers almost all the benefits of a desktop, but with a built-in UPS and a one-piece form factor.

xtractinator 14y ago

I'd really like to understand what hugely difficult technical issues you're talking about. Funding the development of a new higher DPI display?

mturmon 14y ago
Reliable trackpads, multitouch, battery life, pushing SSDs, unibody enclosures, magsafe, reliable wake-from-sleep, keyboard illumination. And I hope you don't regard the display as a minor accomplishment.

gwern 14y ago

> It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. In the books I've read on the topic like _The Nine_, it's sounds like a terrific environment. You are incredibly respected by everyone you meet, you have a light workload which is self-chosen and also extremely important and you can see the consequences of your work without doubt, you work with other highly competent people, you can indulge in things like teaching your pet subject in your offtime and be paid very well for it, you get to select the most talented young lawyers as your staffers, and so on and so forth.

_delirium 14y ago
In addition, it appears that in general it's not personal. For example, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who often strongly dissent from each others' opinions in court, are personal friends outside of court.