

The Thickness of Napkins - dshah
http://contrast.ie/blog/the-thickness-of-napkins/

======
ses
At the bottom of the article you show the bottom of a macbook against another
brand of laptop, presumably as a an example of Apple's excellent product
design.

However this is, I believe, possibly the worst example. The other laptop has
many clearly marked and separately detachable parts. It also has a note with
what I assume would be model and serial numbers, details about the hardware
etc. All of which are very useful pieces of information and features, to both
users and engineers. In contrast the bottom of the macbook is not at all
intuitive, and just about all it tells you with the embossed Apple logo is
that the product falls squarely into the Apple lock-in business model that all
their other products do.

I agree with the main theme of the article, but very much feel that things can
be 'over-designed' just as they can be 'over-engineered'. The former however
is the complete opposite where all features and functionality are abstracted
away.

~~~
dalke
How useful is that information to _users_, vs. engineers? If the Mac is
running then all that information - and more - is available via "About this
Mac." If it's broken, then anyone who is going to fix it can also pop open the
case and figure it out.

The lack of replaceable parts is perhaps lock-in, but the overhead for
supporting some functionality (replace the DVD drive with something else, or
battery with a fresh one) detracts from other functionality (lighter, thinner
laptop with longer battery life).

