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This seems like little more than an Apple puff piece. > Apple has recently developed a standard British power plug whose prongs fold elegantly back flush into
by morbius 11y ago
This seems like little more than an Apple puff piece.
> Apple has recently developed a standard British power plug whose prongs fold elegantly back flush into their body. Easily stowed, no agony if accidentally trod on. A separate and wholly different solution to that offered by the Mu Plug which solves the problem in another way.
> “It took ages to solve,” Ive says wistfully.
And that is the point. No one else cares as much. Of course it took ages, because anything worth doing does. People who take pains to the extent he and his team do are very very rare.
This sort of design has been present in countless cheap, $3 international power adapters. Ive's ego and insistence on exalting his own genius at the expense of others' is maddening, and to call something so simple an "innovation" illustrates how little is necessary for something to be deemed a work of ingenuity.
Like Marc Newson, much of his work is design for the sake of design, with little regard for functional implications. To have a company's philosophy be singularly focussed on aesthetics and minimalism alone is not a bad thing. But as Larry Wall prophetically said several years ago, "Apple is the arbiter of good taste. But when good taste becomes mandatory, it's no longer good taste, just manners."
I feel similarly about Apple's design philosophy. Their level of influence doesn't inspire opposing philosophies from their competitors, it inspires imitation-- since imitation is a basic, natural, fundamental reaction to something successful. The problem is that it alienates those who have other requirements that differ vastly from those of Apple's, and who would be better served with a little less aesthetic sense, and more functionality or durability at the expense of (largely arbitrary) things such as thickness, gloss, polish, and shine.
There is a reason you only see ThinkPads on ISS rather than MacBooks. Similar design goals -- minimalism, starkness, and abstraction -- but with vastly different approaches.
- coldtea 11y ago>This sort of design has been present in countless cheap, $3 international power adapters. "This sort" is not "the same". And that's for the design part -- we haven't even discussed implementation at all.
- dreamfactory2 11y ago> design for the sake of design, with little regard for functional implications This is a fundamental misunderstanding. The minimalist aesthetic is underpinned by the principle that form follows function, and is absolutely opposed to ornament or visual additions. Aesthetic === functional in this worldview; it's not a separate thing which gets added in. (This is precisely why Ives and others eschewed skeumorphism.)
- morbius 11y agoRight-- but Ive also seeks to reduce form so much to the point where it begins to impede upon functionality. Take the thickness of the iPhone 6, for instance. The drive to reduce the noticeability of the hardware is at the direct expense of battery life and camera quality; I'd certainly consider this a failing of his design philosophy.
- j2bax 11y agoBut yet its one of the best phone cameras available today. It pains me to see the horrible pictures many of my Android friends post to Facebook. And after the iPhone 5 battery the 6+ battery is serving me more than well. I can go a day and a half without a charge. Would a thicker version that could go a week serve customers better? I don't think so, I rather like its slenderness.
- vacri 11y agoAnother example is the philosophy of trying to jam all possible functionality into one [phone|mouse] button.
- Pamar 11y agoRegarding the non-replaceable battery, while I am sure that they had some profit-motivated reasons to go that way, you also have to take in account that high-density batteries are a bit dangerous to handle, so replaceable batteries need a protective shell (adding to their volume). In other words a non-replaceable battery can provide a bit more power for the same volume. So even if the primary motivation might have been aesthetics (no need for large openings in the body) I am sure that it wasn't the only reason for that decision.
- morbius 11y agoOf course, I've no reason to doubt that. Apple's design philosophy is great for many people, but the trend of its design becoming the only design for interfaces (see also: Galaxy S6) is disappointing. It homogenises the market and ultimately makes it less interesting.
- kaolinite 11y ago> This sort of design has been present in countless cheap, $3 international power adapters. Ive's ego and insistence on exalting his own genius at the expense of others' is maddening, and to call something so simple an "innovation" illustrates how little is necessary for something to be deemed a work of ingenuity. Except the only quote we have from Ive was "It took ages to solve". He didn't talk about his genius, about how it was an innovation. It's all just a mix of what the reporter said and your personal biases. I also don't think that ThinkPads on the ISS is a particularly good indicator of anything, besides perhaps the difference in the vendor's willingness to work with third parties on radiation hardening?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pilsetnieks 11y agoThe Thinkpads on the ISS isn't really a criteria to measure innovation or design. Those T60s are there because that's a standardized piece of equipment with a proven process for radiation hardening and for installing active cooling on them (traditional cooling doesn't work because it relies on convection which doesn't work in microgravity.) However, the people on the ISS are free to use personal devices (phones, tablets, etc.) and guess which are the most popular?