- Apple is pushing the boundaries of minimalism with their industrial design (to absurd levels in cases like the control-free iPod Shuffle). This is not necessarily better design, but it is the currently fashionable design. I would argue that the single button interface on the iPhone/iPad is an example of moving too far towards minimalism (from a purely functional perspective). The same button now performs different functions depending on how many times you press it and where you are when you press it, yet there is plenty of room for a second button.
- In my opinion, Apple's software is a mixed bag. I love the user experience in iOS, and OSX is my favorite desktop operating system, but I think iTunes is among the worst commonly used desktop applications available.
- All of these devices will be judged on categories beyond hardware/software in the future. For example, I expect a phone's ability to connect with important services to become increasingly scrutinized. It seems like it will only be a matter of time before we're all using something like Google Voice to manage our phone numbers. A device's ability to interface with these types of critical services could very easily become the killer app.
- A small point, but I think the comparison between a MacBook Pro an a Lenovo is a bit odd. ThinkPads are not far off from Apple in terms of build quality and are certainly more durable.
- A small point, but I think the comparison between a MacBook Pro an a Lenovo is a bit odd. ThinkPads are not far off from Apple in terms of build quality and are certainly more durable.
You're going to have to justify that. A case made out of a solid piece of aluminum is about as durable as I can think of in consumer-level products. I beat the crap out of my MBP and it doesn't have so much as a scratch on it.
Yeah, but the Thinkpads are even stronger. You can dump a glass of water on the keyboard and it keeps working, because all the liquid is routed through special drainage holes. You can drive a car over the screen because they put reinforcements (magnesium, I believe) in just the right places. 100% Al is limiting -- you can't use a stronger-but-heavier material anywhere.
They're also hard to take apart. Changing a dead hard drive is a 1 minute operation with a Thinkpad. With a Macbook... well, you can't even change the battery anymore...
Which definitely qualifies as a PITA. Easy enough for me, though, as I've had far nastier, also from Apple (12" Powerbook): http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-A... (they don't have a HD guide, but that's all the screws). And all those screws are different sizes (or close enough).
The sony vaio z series also has a lot of things that i wish apple would imitate, like being the same weight as a macbook air (3 pounds), yet having better battery life a significantly better i7 processor, dual ssds, 1080p screen, 13" screen factor and still has a replaceable battery, very essential for travellers. If OSX was native on a vaio z, that would be my laptop of choice.
"One of our biggest insights [years ago] was that we didn't want to get into any business where we didn't own or control the primary technology because you'll get your head handed to you.
"We realized that almost all - maybe all - of future consumer electronics, the primary technology was going to be software. And we were pretty good at software. We could do the operating system software. We could write applications on the Mac or even PC, like iTunes. We could write the software in the device, like you might put in an iPod or an iPhone or something. And we could write the back-end software that runs on a cloud, like iTunes.
Everything is turning into a screen, from edge to edge. Once it’s all about glass, it’s all about software.
This is assuming that once it's all about glass there isn't anywhere to go. Apple has become a leader in UI design and glass happens to be the current popular choice for devices. 10 years before the iPhone few people would have predicted a phone with no buttons and a glass screen would become popular, and a few years after its release everyone in the industry is imitating...same goes for the iPod in relation to CD's or even cassette tapes. I would venture a guess that few people now know types of devices that will become commonplace in a few years.
As long as Apple is able to stay ahead of the curve and continue to stay a leader in making new things that people want to use I don't think will have a problem staying relevant. So to answer the question is that once it's all glass Apple will probably be on to new and better things.
I'm also skeptical that hardware is going to level off in this market. No matter how sharp the screens are, something that can fit in your pocket will always have too small of a screen. I imagine the next big jump will be some method (glasses, projection, whatever) which will enable apparent screen sizes larger the device. And I think Apple could again be a leader.
This is assuming that once it's all about glass there isn't anywhere to go...
Agreed. Apple has a patent on multi-touch in three dimensions already[1] so maybe the next i-device will move away from the screen and towards a more touchy-feely :-) approach.
I think the "no porn" thing is mostly in the US. One of the more popular apps where I live is a list of 70 sex positions. I haven't bought it myself, so maybe it's all text or cartoons or something but that wouldn't explain why it's so popular.
Android is solid, WebOS is solid, and Blackberry’s new OS/UI looks great too. Nothing I’ve played with is better than Apple’s iOS, but a lot of the alternatives are approaching “plenty damn good” status.
That's Apple's edge. No one in their right mind can call the technology that RIM, Palm, or Google come out with as anything but outstanding...yet Apple still has that edge and their products are always "great" while the others will always be "plenty damn good".
Perhaps it's because they control all the process (sans manufacturing). Maybe it's a different philosophy. But it really seems that no one cares about every minute tiny detail like Apple does.
Apple has always cared about the small things. That's why I don't see their perceived reputation going anywhere. As long as they keep doing that, they'll still be different.
The beauty in Android is that it doesn't have to be the best ... it just has to be good enough + shipped on cheaper phones ... just like Windows did.
Also, I've got an iPhone 3GS, and I see lots of area for improvement ... the biggest annoyance for me being that all these apps I have (Facebook, Twitter, Skype, yahoo messenger) ... are not using the iPhone's contacts list for storing people profiles ... so even Apple screws things up in the details department.
> the biggest annoyance for me being that all these apps I have (Facebook, Twitter, Skype, yahoo messenger) ... are not using the iPhone's contacts list for storing people profiles ... so even Apple screws things up in the details department.
I'm not sure that's a screw-up so much as a philosophical view of the contact list as being for actual contacts and not random twitter user names with no associated addresses, phone-numbers, etc. I'd be pretty irritated if yahoo messenger were able to clutter up my contact list, personally.
On another note entirely, overuse...of ellipses...is a terrible...habit.
When it comes to Android you can choose to synchronize only those Twitter/Facebook profiles that have an existing address book entry. Thanks to that the list is not littered with useless contacts and you have all kinds of information, like the recent status update or profile photo, integrated under a single address book. Very handy.
It's almost off-topic by now, but I think Yahoo! Messenger (or any other app) would be plenty able to clutter up your contact list if it wanted to. As far as I know, the SDK allows read/write access to the Address Book, without user authorization even.
...which I've always found very surprising from a privacy standpoint. Apps need to ask access to your location but your full address book is fine? Odd.
This is up to the app, the app has complete read/write access to iPhone contacts. Nothing to do with Apple for that problem, although I am going to be pretty pissed if apps start doing this without asking.
"The beauty in Android is that it doesn't have to be the best ... it just has to be good enough + shipped on cheaper phones ... just like Windows did."
The "cheaper phones" bit has never been Android's advantage, though it always gets brought up as if Android is the poor man's iPhones.
It isn't.
The Droid isn't less expensive than the iPhone was. Neither was even the miserable G1. The Galaxy S isn't a cheap phone. The Evo 4G isn't a cheap phone.
My Nexus One cost me $550. How much did your iPhone cost you?
Kids with part-time McJobs have iPhones that they paid for with their own income.
Android's advantage is that there are a lot of vendors aligning and running in the same direction, and the innovation is reaching an extraordinary pace: Android has gone from a bit of a joke that some of us held onto purely for philosophical reasons a mere 12 months ago, to now undoubtedly being the #1 hardware platform, and is becoming a strong contender for the #1 software platform.
No, it really is. The improvements to the quality of software across the board is incredible.
Which, I suppose, is exactly how Windows succeeded: Microsoft set up a system where a lot of very capable, very energetic companies were motivated to help Microsoft succeed, and it worked dramatically, from storage system vendors to graphics card companies.
Compare that to Apple whose only real partners are media outlets who think it'll save old media (though that provides tremendous free advertising), along with lots of 1-man software shops who, at least for a time, were singing the Apple song on sites like HN.
Ignoring the laughable notion that $549 compared to $599 makes one "cheap" relative to the other, my delivery price of the Nexus One was greater than walking into the telco and buying an iPhone 3GS (the option at the time) for full retail.
Regardless, the number of iPhone owners who paid full retail approaches zero. It wasn't even possible until very recently, and is under very little demand. Instead most consumers can only stomach the illusion of spending $49 to $199 on a phone, even the faux-rich iPhone illuminati.
Which is a price point that is shared by virtually all smartphones.
Add in that with any smartphone you're looking at a comparable monthly servicing fee.
> The difference in build quality, materials, and tolerances between a MacBook Pro and a Lenovo are still obvious
Yes, ThinkPads are still some of the most sturdy laptops around while MacBooks tend to need more support/repairs. Of course Apple's (repair) service is very good, and MacBooks do look nice(r), but "build quality" means something else to me.
I agree with you, having had my share of back-and-forth with Apple Care.
But I think there's the build quality vs. the durability of the products. For me, Apple products win in build quality in the sense that the pieces are cleanly fabricated, properly aligned, don't wiggle, shake or bend, etc. I've had a ThinkPad and was disappointed from that point of view. Certainly better than many other brands (Dell, Toshiba), but still a bit under Apple.
But as I said, Apple does have some issues of durability. (e.g. MacBook's plastic cases, iPod/iPhone earbuds...)
Every Lenovo I have used at work in the past 2 years has put out this super high pitched sound. Like the sound you could hear from an old tv. It drives me absolutely out of my mind to the point where I have to wear headphones when using one.
MacBooks are really, really nice to look at and Lenovos computers aren't as good as IBMs used to be, but I have to agree with you - thinkpads are still the best computers out there if you want solid hardware that is designed to be _used_ not admired.
Once it’s all about glass, it’s all about software.
This is a good thing!
This can dramatically lower the barriers to entry for great interface design by exposing more of the end user experience to programmers. Just like the move from desktop to browser, the cream will rise even faster. What a great time to be a software hacker!
There's nothing new here. The truth of the matter is that the UI experience for computers is largely defined by what happens on the screen - be it laptop, iPad or iPhone. There's this cool scene in Gary Hustwit's Objectified where Bill Moggridge talks about designing one of the very first laptops, and the conclusion he comes to is that it didn't matter how usable or how good his physical design was, in the end the user's experience of the laptop came largely from within the screen.
That surprised him, and got him thinking about what we now know as 'interaction design'. (Incidentally, Moggridge coined the term shortly after his experience with the laptop).
He describes his experience as: 'being sucked into the screen.' Which is true, if you pause to think about it: the design of the laptop only matters when you're carrying it around with you - when you're working on it the screen overrides almost everything else.
I think this post vastly underestimates the difficulty of rolling innovative hardware into production.
Glass is not the end of history. Apple could include thermosensors, audiosensors, or miniature holographic projectors. It could go towards flexible screens or wearable computing.
But new hardware is buggy before it's commoditized. The reason Apple's touch sensitivity is so good is in part because they control both the hardware and software layers. Any kind of temporal or spatial variation in touch detection at the hardware layer due to manufacturing issues can be corrected at the software layer.
It's that vertical systems integration which lets them push the envelope on technology. Others can easily copy, but they will only be followers unless they play to their strengths (e.g. Android with search).
They are hitting everything on all cylinders – industrial design, mechanical engineering, material selection and finish, manufacturing, supply chain, hardware, customer service, marketing, advertising, retail stores, their website, company structure and internal product development processes. And the software they make is deep and wide – OSX , iOS, respective dev platforms, all the productivity utilities they make, iTunes (owning the music industry), whatever cloud apps they are working on now…
All are benchmarks of the industry.
I'm not a blind fanboy, just impressed and happy to witness a company constantly iterating and making themselves better.
It's interesting insight, but look at it like this...
Apple's dominance isn't from hardware alone. But they are exceptionally talented at it. It isn't in software alone, but again, they know what they're doing. They've got a lot of mature, battle tested code and an outstanding developer community who knows how to wield it. It's not in digital distribution alone, but yet again, they got there very early, have a lot of practice and many deep relationships with the rogue states (thanks, PG) who bully would-be media companies.
Marketing isn't their top achievement, but they love the things they make and the authenticity of their marketing works very well for them.
I could go on and on, but you probably get my point.
Apple's core strength isn't any one thing first, then something else second. Their strength is their ability to see the whole board and make every single thing they do complement everything else in a very meaningful, very equal way. It's an absurd game they play, a combo of three dimensional chess and hacky sack, but their focus makes it work.
No one can compete with Apple by trying to crib any one of their strengths. To be successful, you need to be able to attack several of them at once, and that's very challenging.
They've created an absurdly defensible position. The vision needed to get there makes my brain hurt. No matter how you feel about Apple, you can't argue that their organizational synergy is an incredible force.
What you're describing here is the notion of activity systems! Michael Porter describes the concept in detail in the article "What is Strategy," Harvard Business Review. The crux of the idea is that the strategic position of a product hinges on a system of activities across a range of areas, from marketing, to product development, to distribution. Activity systems are a source of sustainable competitive advantage because a competitor can imitate one or two activities, but often not the entire system. In other words, a competitor (e.g., RIM) can imitate Apple's hardware or its software, but this is not sufficient. To really compete with Apple, a competitor would need to imitate (and supersede) Apple on a number of fronts: hardware, software, marketing/branding, distribution, logistics, etc. Needless to say, this is quite a challenge!
One of the most stark examples is Southwest Airlines. Scheduled passenger air transportation is a highly transparent industry due to the heavy regulation by the U.S. DOT and the FAA. Despite the fact that competitors know the precise activities that Southwest Airline's performs, they have been generally unable to imitate and compete. And there have been a number of attempts by both legacy and start-up carriers.
Kind of the inverse of the how a disaster happens: A bunch of failsafes cascading into a disaster. 5 things have to go wrong at once in order for something to go really bad.
I'm excited about the number of upvotes for this post about "activity systems." There are a number of excellent concepts/tools in strategy that could help founders assess and develop their start-ups. Anyone have any thoughts on how to best convey these concepts/tools to generate interest and understanding (e.g., book, blog, app, etc.)?
Outstanding. I'm fascinated by this and off to Google away. Are there any other specific resources or articles you can link to that you think are an especially good discussion of activity systems?
Meanwhile, for others, here's a PDF of the document in question:
In addition to the "What is Strategy" article, there are several related (academic) journal articles. These articles are quite dense, but interesting nevertheless:
I think their extreme attention to detail and strong control over every aspect of their product will allow them to remain successful especially within a certain niche. Competition from more free/open alternatives will likely prevent apple from getting to or retaining the number one spot for any length of time though. Apple does things a very specific way and they're damn good at the way they do them.
I think this post makes some very bold assumptions.
It assumes that there is no place for innovation in industrial design with glass. Apple's dominance in industrial design has given them the advantage to set the standards for industrial design.
Additionally, I think Jason assumes that industrial design and software design are mutually exclusive. He ignores that part of the beauty of Apple's products is the interaction and combination of software AND hardware and the quality of interaction between them.
"Additionally, I think Jason assumes that industrial design and software design are mutually exclusive. He ignores that part of the beauty of Apple's products is the interaction and combination of software AND hardware and the quality of interaction between them."
I'm not ignoring any of these things. I'm simply suggesting that one of Apple's key first impression advantages - their unique hardware design - is a bit less powerful as all the hardware designs in the industry trend towards a slab of glass.
Understood; however, I would argue that consumers (ignoring early adopters) don't look at the parts individually.
"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
IMO Apple won't cease to be the leader in hardware design. Even as things trend toward being all glass, they will still find innovative ways to create beautiful products that bring together all of their competitive advantages. Example: iPhone 4
I think Jason is wrong about industrial design being the singular primary differentiator for Apple devices.
Sure, Lenovos look like shit next to a MacBook, but people buy Lenovos for entirely different reasons and the rugged design plays in their favor.
Other competitors offer laptops with near Apple levels of hardware design — certainly near enough to meet Jason's criteria of "immediately obvious".
I think software is the primary differentiator between iPhone and some of the better looking Android devices, between MacBook and some of the better looking PC laptops. Software, and some of the, by Jason's definition, "less obvious" hardware attributes, like screen quality, UI responsiveness, precision, etc.
The simpler the hardware gets, the more important and immediate these attributes become. This only plays in Apple's favor, and is in my opinion what has already been so hard for Nokia to deal with; they're a hardware company with poor software chops. Superficial industrial design is easy to emulate or fake, to a certain point. After that, it becomes hard, and not many companies other than Apple have the skills or the patience for it. Look at the tragic excuse for a Windows tablet HP is releasing for another example.
Compare the ratio of Mac Books to Thinkpads in a marketing class with the same ratio in a sociology class.
(Note: I deliberately didn't choose, say, an Art class vs. an Engineering class, because what I'm getting at is the conspicuous consumption angle, not the ease of use/technical ability angle).
Also, it's not just about the technology. Apple has created a very desirable brand that people want. A lot of Apple's gadgets have become status symbols.
I recently purchased my first Mac in 15 years of programming. While browsing around the reseller I was struck by just how sexy everything looked. I always try to hide PC's under desks in my home, I'm happy to have the Mac on display.
My ex-girlfriend bought an iMac and proudly displayed it to her friends. She showed them travel pictures, watched movies, etc. The computer had, for her, transitioned from a computer to an attractive designer object that provided utility. It didn't really feel like a computer so much as just a part of the environment of our apartment.
That always struck me as Apple's greatest success. There are way fewer hackers and hardware connoisseurs than there are normal people in the world. Apple has been able to appeal to people who used to merely tolerate technology.
Got an iMac (first Apple product ever, for us) for my wife back in early 2006, and that's the thing that stood out to me the most. Compared to my pc at the time, and every other one I'd ever owned, the iMac was as good as dead silent. You never really appreciate silent computing until you have one (a quiet computer, that is, not necessarily a Mac)
I guess this is why I like competition, because apparently I and the rest of the world differ when it comes to concepts of looks in electronics. By my view, the ThinkPad T410 I just bought looks very beautiful. Straight lines, matte finish, right angles; all of these are very pretty to me. By comparison, the glossy sheen and curves of most Apple products look like a child's toys.
Frankly, I think Apple started their brand by being unique and out of the ordinary ("novel"), have improved it a bit with usability, but what happens if or when the sheen starts to wear?
The iPad can play HD video for an estimated 10 hours. That has nothing to do with the glassy interface, but I would still call it great hardware design.
Absolutely. I don't think many people appreciate just how dedicated Apple is to excellent power management. The iPad is a dramatic example, but Apple has excellent power management across its product lines. Macs have had near-perfect power management for years, whereas PCs still struggle to get it right. This is one area where controlling software and hardware is a huge win.
Wow. What a great post of nothing but idle speculation. Everything is going 'all glass' until it goes the other direction, and whatever that direction is I'm sure Apple will be leading it.
I worry more about shaking-to-undo on my iPad and faux leather buttons in my Calendar app than about other companies figuring out there is more than plastic to build with.
If this article is any indication, Apple needs to seriously needs to improve it's software. I love my Mac, I love the environment, but there are so many lost and forgotten pieces to their software that it's highly frustrating.
Take iChat, for example. So limited, even the supposed features it has do not work (Bonjour for iChat fails to work to let me and my wife chat via her MBP and my iMac). Indeed, the entire Bonjour system and file sharing is so annoying and cumbersome. Finder can see the other computer, but it can't actually go there, even when they are sitting next to each other.
Then you have iTunes. iTunes loves to create duplicate music files. The best part is, when I tell iTunes "Yes, control the management of my music" I suddenly end up with three copies of every song. Then there is the disappearing devices. Why, my iPhone/iPad/AppleTV where there a minute ago. My iPad/iPhone are still plugged in. Why can't I access them anymore?
Then their is iPhoto. Which controls movies. And photos. Sort of. Movies!? In iPhoto? iMovie uses iPhoto to import movies? And then outputting movies is so confusing. So many different options, and then you can't just have iTunes pick it up, you have to load up iTunes, tell it to import the movie, and going through numerous other steps to get it onto your Apple TV.
But back to iPhoto. You ever create a slide show with iPhoto? I did. iPhoto is the only application I know that showed me a preview of the movie it was going to create, and then the output changed the complete order of the pictures. How does this happen?
Let's not forget the harassment iPhoto inflicts on users by default whenever you plug anything in. It snatches focus away, loads up, just to import. Oh, sure, you can set your iPhone to import quietly, but even having done it, I forget where the setting is buried.
And then there is the default way you install software. Now, I know, it's simple enough, right? No, it's annoying. I have to drag an icon into a folder? And then I have to dig through that folder and find a generic icon just to find the application, and then launch it. Why not just let me click a button to install, and then be like "Hey, you just installed this app, which means, you probably want to run it, well, do you?"
And that's just the beginning. Let's not forget Time Machine randomly barfing because your Time Machine drive suddenly lost power, or not importing pictures as events by default properly, or just countless other problems.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a Mac user. My house hold is filled with Apple products (1 iMac, 1MBP, original AppleTV, iPhones, iPods, iPad). But if Apple wants to compete on the software end, they need to up their game and really focus on finishing their half-complete products.
Edit: To be fair, I think Apple can do it. They don't have to do everything, but what they do, they have to do well. And that means not abandoning projects simply because they lose interest.
And then I have to dig through that folder and find a generic icon just to find the application, and then launch it
Spotlight is your friend. Cmd+Space, first few letters of the app name (first is usually sufficient for new apps) then hit enter. Indexing in OSX is as good as instant, and new apps seem to show up at the top of the results.
Agreed, auto launching with a confirmation dialog would be better, but I find using spotlight preferable to digging about in Applications
I agree. Spotlight is sweet. The problem is, to install the app, I have to use the mouse. Then, I have to come back over and use the keyboard to open up spotlight to load the app I just installed. I mean, it just seems like an absurd number of steps to get to the most likely scenario.
Though, I find that often. I love creating a movie in iMovie for iTunes, and then having to tell iTunes about it. You can't just save the media into the appropriate folder and have iTunes pick it up. At least, it's never worked that way for me.
Good points on most things but I disagree about app installs. I like how it is because I usually don't choose the folder it offers me anyway. I also instinctively shy away from the kind of installers you describe because it brings back memories of windows installers where I have to wonder what's actually happening (though I know the mac installer does more than just copy the files too).
That's a fair point. I'm mostly concerned with the actual drag and drop method anyways. It's cumbersome, and fairly difficult. Each installer has their own special graphical representation, and it's not always clear. Then you get the applications that have multiple files, and I'm sitting here wondering which one I'm supposed to install.
And while you do have a point, I think it could be solved through some other method.
Agreed, it could probably be solved some better way. I can see the reasoning behind doing it this way though. Drag and drop is something the user is presumably already doing, so installing a new program is associated with just copying a file into a folder. My favorite apps on windows were my favorites long before I ever touched a Mac system because they behaved this way (e.g. PuTTY).
I found apps like Putty annoying. I'd have to go put it into Program Files myself, setup the links, just to keep everything organized. If I didn't, I'd forget where I put putty. In truth, Linux is years ahead in the package management area then either Windows or OSX. Look at Ubuntu's new Software Centre. Apple did this with the App store, and the released documents concerning Windows 8 suggest Microsoft will be pushing for something similar.
This isn't to say you are wrong, just idle conversation. =) At the end of the day, I'd prefer the system handle things by default so I don't have to worry about it.
Fair enough. Sounds like we have very different usage patterns. But I absolutely agree about Linux. I've always thought it had the worst desktop of the "big 3" but I love how one manages packages on e.g. Debian or Ubuntu. I agree that it's way on in front on that.
The comparison of the App store and Linux package management (for most distros anyway) is very interesting. Online people groan endlessly about the App store and its "draconian control" but the main fundamental difference I see between it and e.g. debian's package management is that volunteers manage the repo on debian.
Doesn't stop people from groaning about Debian's package management. =)
I've always said I know the Linux, Windows, and OSX well enough to hate them all for specific reasons. =) And, I know I'm fairly picky, probably too much. But I'm only that way because I care enough.
I agree that Apple's attention to the iLife suite isn't on par at all with with the work they do on hardware and the OS. I've had some truly awful experiences with iMovie where you wonder how the thing even shipped. (Activities like changing clip boundaries causes the thumbnails to all disappear, requiring a resize scrub to make them appear again which of course causes you to lose your place in what you were doing, and yes, this is a commonly reported bug. And why won't it export large files!?!?)
I find picasa significantly faster and easier to go through huge swaths of photographs than iPhoto, and it uses a simple directory method of organization, so it's easy to move around and send pictures to others.
The way you organize photos in iPhoto is the best thing about it. Why would the creators of gmail (i.e. they understand the power of tagging) go with a "simple directory method of organization"?
It's not stuck in some opaque iphoto library directory blob, and is significantly more portable (like the plain text of photography). Tagging and all the can be done with a separate library information file, and to be honest, I only organize by import events separated by dates. I don't do much else.
I don't know, what DOES happen when it's all glass? Is part metal, part glass supposed to be particularly difficult relative to that? And who says hardware is ever going to be 'all glass'? I don't understand.
My suggestion is that probably at that point, Apple will continue to have sleek, advanced products that dominate the high end of the market.
I just saw a Microsoft recruiting video last night that perfectly illustrated this point. (In true MSFT fashion, it's not available online.) It was pretty awesome - splitting apart a "phone" into two panes to do a video call with one screen in front of you, and one up to the ear to better hear/speak; moving a document from a wall to a table to a phone; etc. etc.
I've had a dream that someday the White Sox would build a stadium where Meigs Field once stood with the wall behind the bleachers being entirely made of transparent glass. You could have a view of the most beautiful skyline in the world during action, but it'd turn into the most amazing widescreen scoreboard/video screen for replays and stats during breaks in the action.
- Use the golden ratio whenever possible/practical.
- Be careful with the rounding of the edges. (Sharp corners aren't good, but rounded with unused potential screen real estate and subsequent violation of golden ratio is bad too.)
- Don't skimp on thickness. At least as thick as a Kindle 3.
- Like the author said, the software UI and UE should be tailored to the screen width and input method.
Yeah, where are the stickers that advertise the processor? Or an AT&T logo you can't remove. By god, Apple is at a disadvantage aren't they? Do 37signals really think people can't tell Apple products are good when they're made of glass and aluminum? Apple products just feel more solid and reliable because of those things.
But maybe people prefer the silver paint rubbing off under their palms because their laptop is really made of cheap black plastic.
Except my real metal MBP had a bend (I have no clue how it happened) over my Ethernet jack the week I bough it. Everything has faults. There is equal built quality competitors to every Apple products.
My HTC magic has been dropped about 50 times. I have yet to see a crack anywhere. Same generation iPhone had a massive screen problem.
I like my MBP but it's not for the hardware or built quality that I bought it.
- Apple is pushing the boundaries of minimalism with their industrial design (to absurd levels in cases like the control-free iPod Shuffle). This is not necessarily better design, but it is the currently fashionable design. I would argue that the single button interface on the iPhone/iPad is an example of moving too far towards minimalism (from a purely functional perspective). The same button now performs different functions depending on how many times you press it and where you are when you press it, yet there is plenty of room for a second button.
- In my opinion, Apple's software is a mixed bag. I love the user experience in iOS, and OSX is my favorite desktop operating system, but I think iTunes is among the worst commonly used desktop applications available.
- All of these devices will be judged on categories beyond hardware/software in the future. For example, I expect a phone's ability to connect with important services to become increasingly scrutinized. It seems like it will only be a matter of time before we're all using something like Google Voice to manage our phone numbers. A device's ability to interface with these types of critical services could very easily become the killer app.
- A small point, but I think the comparison between a MacBook Pro an a Lenovo is a bit odd. ThinkPads are not far off from Apple in terms of build quality and are certainly more durable.