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You're tattooing it wrong. But seriously, how could Apple not test this?
by huhhhh 11y ago
You're tattooing it wrong.
But seriously, how could Apple not test this?
- drzaiusapelord 11y agoI have a feeling that the Apple of old would have caught this instantly, when it was largely the boutique brand for creatives. Today's Apple? Not surprising at all.
- freehunter 11y agoI'm not sure that's the case. This feature (which is entirely optional and can be disabled) is looking for skin. Metallic ink tattoos don't look like skin, and only a small percentage of people have such tattoos on their wrist. However, a massive percentage of people have hands that are shaped like hands, and yet the Apple of old made a mouse that doesn't seem to be designed for anything even remotely resembling a human hand. They've literally always been form-over-function. They may have caught this issue and said "those people can disable this completely optional feature".
- jacobolus 11y agoTheir “puck” mouse design was intended to ameliorate RSI by encouraging a grip with only the fingertips. Unfortunately, nobody got the memo about the “proper” way to hold the mouse, and tried to grip the mouse the same way they were used to... which of course sucked. (And it was also difficult to guess the orientation of a round object.) It’s definitely a bad design especially given the context of existing mice, and a case of poor communication, or insufficient user testing, or even hubris maybe. Your dismissive summary of their intentions is not at all fair, however.
- freehunter 11y agoI make no judgment of their intentions. Merely stating that even back in the day, Apple was known for making some questionable design decisions. Good intentions or bad intentions, it was not a highly functional mouse.
- phs2501 11y agoI do grip mice "properly" with just my fingertips, and the puck mouse still felt incredibly horrible.
- zerohm 11y agoI like the way you found a new way to say "this never would have happened under Steve Jobs!" Nice work.
- edgyswingset 11y agoThe Apple of old (and by that I mean Steve Jobs) decided to tell people they were holding their phones wrong rather than launch a device which worked no matter how you held it.
- drzaiusapelord 11y agoNo I mean a 80s and 90s hacker culture where weirdos were valued and guys with tats would be testing things. Apple today just seems way too button down, for good or bad.
- greglindahl 11y agoNot only do you need a tat, but you need a tat covering the skin under the watch that's done with metallic ink. What fraction of people with tats have such a tattoo? I have a lot of friends with tats, but none that meet those criteria.
- snowwrestler 11y agoThe iPhone 4 did work no matter how you held it, as evidenced by its long tenure (sold for 4+ years), and high sales and customer satisfaction ratings. If you carefully held it in a very particular way, you could make it lose a couple bars. Jobs said: there's no reception problem, just don't hold it that way. It turned out he was right.
- elorant 11y agoThe Apple of old almost went bankrupt.
- pmelendez 11y agoDepends how old you want to go. For me is Woz's AppleII kind of Apple which was exceptionally quality driven and economically was a great success.
- drzaiusapelord 11y agoFor a long time they were incredibly successful while Woz and Jobs were active.
- istvan__ 11y agoOh boy, in a world that is focused on productivity (aka deliver asap something even if it is partially broken) and not too much of quality, this can happen very easily.
- jonknee 11y agoASAP? The watch had been in progress for many years and was even announced and demonstrated publicly 7 months before it started to ship. It was definitely not rushed out the door.
- istvan__ 11y agoSorry I was focused more on the making process than the actual product. This happens with software more often than with hardware. I started to work as a hardware test engineer back in the day, and I know how hard is to deliver something without problems like this.
- DannoHung 11y agoSeems like they tested every other factor though: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204666 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204666 They do explicitly note that you may need an external heart rate sensor band in some conditions if the pulse oximeter isn't working for some reason.
- josefresco 11y agoThe proclivity of hipster-douches with full sleeve tattoos in tech makes this even more shocking. All jokes aside (I can live with the downvotes), I could see this easily falling through the cracks for a company new to wearables. What about hairy arms? What about skinny arms?