
Apple's attention to detail - youngj
http://floodlite.tumblr.com/post/1011047822/apples-attention-to-detail  
======
jonhohle
> It’s interesting how a lot of companies try to copy Apple but never seem to
> get it right.

I think many companies see the features (windows flying around in Exposé,
brightly colored window management buttons, pulsing status light, etc.) but
don't understand that generally Apple doesn't just throw something in for
looks and has thoroughly researched and iterated internally on a particular
solution.

At the expense of sounding fanatic, generally an Apple feature looks the way
it does as a result of its function. (What is the problem: make window
management easy. how is that solved: make all open windows easy to see by
spreading them out). When other companies attempt to copy, they look at what
Apple's solution looks like, not realizing what it _does_. (e.g. Areo Flip 3D:
what should it look like: windows flying all over the place. what problem does
this solve: ???)

~~~
SandB0x
Canonical have really upped their game recently. These days a fresh Ubuntu
installation looks pretty slick, compared to a just few releases ago. Maybe
it's not quite up to OS X standards yet, but reading the design team and Mark
Shuttleworth's blogs it's clear they're thinking things through, and not just
throwing bling at the screen:

Ubuntu 8.04: <http://polishlinux.org/reviews/ubuntu-8-04/default.png>

Ubuntu 10.10 Preview: [http://design.canonical.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/08/ambia...](http://design.canonical.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/08/ambiance-maverick-preview_update.png)

~~~
jakevoytko
I've used Ubuntu for a few years now, and I adore Gnome's simplicity. For
someone who mostly lives in Emacs and Chrome, its a great Desktop: its simple,
it (mostly) works, and it stays out of the way! They must do some incredible
usability testing, since it usually doesn't frustrate me like Windows does. If
it didn't have such a single-minded fixation on warning you about Non-Free
Components (gasp!) it would be almost unbeatable.

~~~
jemfinch
Except you still have to manage your windows.

Since the whole point of a window manager is to manage my windows so I don't
have to, I use xmonad. If you want simplicity, give that a try :)

~~~
sjs
xmonad is great and I used to miss it on OS X, but I've grown to appreciate
SizeUp and Divvy for OS X. You get tiling functionality when you want it, and
only when you want it. It's slightly more involved than xmonad but only
slightly. And it's unobtrusive. They're certainly limited compared to xmonad
but they get the job done for me. I only have a couple of configurations I use
very often.

~~~
jemfinch
I looked into SizeUp, but it seemed to follow a different model than
xmonad/awesome: it _only_ tiled (and then, only in halves or quarters). What I
like about xmonad/awesome is that there's a master window and all other
windows are automatically managed for me on the other side of the screen; if I
want one of my windows bigger, I just rotate it into the master slot. I really
_don't_ have to manage my windows, which I love.

I haven't looked into Divvy, I'll take a look.

~~~
jfager
Another one to try is Optimal Layout. It gives you tiling, hotkeys for
resizing and moving windows, and a better Cmd-Tab (though you have to Alt-Tab
instead, unfortunately), and the latest release supports rotating. I love it.

------
dieterrams
The moment I realized the LED was mimicking breathing (I first experienced it
with a white iMac) was the moment I realized just how far Apple goes to make
computers for _humans_. Truly personal computers. This is the kind of stuff
that gets people lining up for new Apple products, not some silly brand
whoring or desire to be hip and fashionable.

Admittedly, they made the LED way too bright on the earlier MBPs, such that it
would distract you if you were trying to sleep in a dark room. The newer MBPs
have gotten the brightness just right, however.

Also, none of this ignores the fact that Apple routinely privileges
superficial aesthetics over ergonomics, utility, etc. (Magic Mouse, hard edges
on MBP, glossy displays), but that rarely stops the whole package from being
the best on the market.

~~~
danilocampos
Nothing pisses me off more than when people say "oh, that Apple, they're just
good at marketing."

The truth is that they're good at making great things that are genuinely fun
to use. That kind of stuff sells itself.

~~~
flomo
Back in the 1990s, Apple's products were junk, but the marketing was still
excellent.

I think when engineering types hear the word "marketing", they immediately
take it as dismissive. But Apple is an example of a company who owes their
skin to phenomenal marketing over the long term.

~~~
philwelch
That's not how I remember it at all.

Apple's marketing in the mid-to-late 90's was poor to nonexistent, frankly,
while on a technical level Macs weren't any worse than PC's (both crashed a
lot and came with fairly comparable hardware, but the Mac OS 7/8/9 UI was very
arguably better than the Windows 95/98 UI). Apple's _user loyalty_ was
fantastic (and fanatic) in the mid-to-late 90's, but the company itself didn't
do anywhere near the kind of promotion they did once Jobs returned.

Yes, Mac OS 9 had technical disadvantages compared to Windows NT and Windows
2000, and Apple had a second-system effect of legendary proportions with
Copland. 90's Apple wasn't that great at technology. But they were abysmal at
marketing, while Microsoft were _fantastic_ at it.

~~~
danilocampos
Yeah, Apple's 90's marketing was ass. But I loved every last Mac I owned
during that decade.

Apple had overall high product quality but their focus was lacking and they
weren't terribly ballsy. They had a distinct feeling of running on the fumes
of the Mac's initial success. But it was (and is) a sufficiently great product
that those fumes informed an OS that, from a user perspective, remained the
best. Mac OS got long in the tooth, but I'd still take it over Win95/98/NT any
day.

~~~
vetinari
I don't know about you, but the things I do not miss are putting spaces in
extension names to reorder them (at boot time, they were loaded alphabetically
and there were often conflicts, if the order was "incorrect"), manually
setting up, how much RAM can a specific app use, or rebooting with virtual
memory on/off, depending on which app I wanted to run. I still remember, that
reading websites with table-layouts on the only somewhat standards-compliant
browser (IE for Mac) was exercise in frustration.

Both windows (95/98) and macs had their share of shortcomings, you just had to
pick, which set you can tolerate.

~~~
philwelch
Windows had the same problem, except instead of having conflicts between
extensions (which everyone understood were extensions to the operating
system), installing _applications_ could cause conflicts. Personally, I never
reordered extension names to avoid conflicts.

------
magicseth
My wife can't stand having little LEDs on all over the place. We've hidden our
wireless router, our battery charger and everything. One night my laptop was
on the floor as we were going to sleep, and I said, "Oh! Let me put away my
MacBook," and she said, "Don't worry about it, I find it soothing."

This is definitely a detail that is appreciated.

~~~
Mongoose
Totally agree with your wife, for the most part. I always cover the exposed
LEDs on my various devices before going to bed. However when I'm not trying to
sleep, my MBP's pulsing light is mesmerizing.

~~~
Groxx
My tower has a blue power-LED. To cover it up, I stuck a dark post-it over it.
Still too bright.

5 layers later, and it was about 1/2 the brightness of my MBP's snoozer. About
right for a dark room. A couple months later, when I packed my tower up for
xmas vacation... the post-its were _bleached white_ , all the way through, in
front of the LED. _Way_ too much power.

My MBP? Still too bright for the night, IMO, but I tend to like dark. It's at
least not annoying, like damn-near _every_ other light-emissive device in my
house at night.

~~~
smokinn
My router and desktop are both black with blue leds.

Best solution? Electrical tape. You can't even see it unless you look close
and I really couldn't care less about the led. If the router isn't working
I'll know.

------
jrockway
I'm surprised that not everyone notices that. The first time I saw a Mac in
sleep mode I immediately realized that it was breathing in a relaxed manner.
(It seemed so obvious I never even mentioned it to anyone, so I don't know if
anyone else noticed.)

 _The other day, I noticed that my friend’s Dell laptop had a similar feature
but with a shorter fade-in-fade-out period. Its rate was around 40 blinks per
second, or the average respiratory rate for adults during strenuous
exercise—not very indicative of something in sleep-mode._

As to why Dell didn't copy it exactly... perhaps they reviewed the patent and
decided they would get in trouble?

Personally, I think we should not personify our computing hardware. It's a
tool, not your friend. When my machine goes to sleep, its lights turn off. If
I want to wake it from sleep, I press the power button. If it was off instead
of asleep, I would press the same power button. No need for an LED to tell me
what's going on.

~~~
jonhohle
But why did try to copy it at all? Why not go in another direction completely?

~~~
ars
Just how many different ways can you make a light blink?

~~~
bouncingsoul
See, you're already limiting yourself. The object isn't to indicate sleep with
a blinking light, it's to indicate sleep.

A sleeping computer could softly snore. Or the logo text on the lid could blur
like tired vision. Neither of those is a blinking light.

~~~
wtallis
It's not hard to imagine a PC laptop manufacturer designing a light that moves
side to side like a Cylon. In fact, this might even be a good fit for an
Alienware laptop.

~~~
philwelch
That's not an indicator that your computer is sleeping. That's an indicator
that your computer is going to try and annihilate the human race.

(I think Mozilla has an oscillating status bar they use, which is called a
"Cylon".)

------
endlessvoid94
I remember realizing that nothing on the iPhone ever, ever blinks into or out
of existence. EVERYTHING transitions.

When you turn the orientation in the camera app, the little flash button and
flip-camera buttons don't simple become horizontal...they fall down gently.

The damn thing never blinks.

~~~
xutopia
You just reminded me of those folding cellphones that were popular when
cellphones first became really popular. They had this useless blinking led
that just bugged the hell out of me!

~~~
treblig
You just perfectly described a 2010 Blackberry.

~~~
masklinn
Though on BBs, the blinking is a feature: it's your blackberry craving for
your attention, like a cat pawing into your sides or your dealer calling your
phone.

I hear most BB users like it a lot.

~~~
leftnode
We do, and like most things on Blackberry's, it can be turned off.

------
kenjackson
In looking at my ThinkPad it got me thinking as to why IBM didn't blink at
all. And I'm not sure, but I have a theory. I have other devices that blink to
indicate that something is happening to them, and I always seem to catch them
at the state when they're not illuminated. And, while this state only lasts
for a second or less, I often get brief anxiety that something isn't charging
or whatever.

IBM went with the constantly illuminated moon. I've never laid down to sleep
to it, but its worked as a great, at a glance, indicator that the computer is
sleeping, and not off or on.

~~~
MaysonL
The thing is: the sleep indicator doesn't go _all the way off_ when pulsing.
It goes to very low, and back up, but never _off_ until you wake the machine.

~~~
rimantas
Also if machine is on, but display is off, it just glows constantly to let you
know it's awake :)

------
Timothee
Another nice thing about that LED is that it's white (as opposed to bright
green in a lot of laptops) and it's softened (meaning that you can't really
point out the exact point where the LED is hiding, making the whole shape
homogeneous).

------
famousactress
The fact that they _patented_ light-pretends-to-breathe annoys me to the point
of not really being able to bask in the genius of the idea.

~~~
smiler
Probably more out of defense than attack

~~~
bodski
Umm defensive, just like these ones?

[http://i.engadget.com/2010/03/02/apple-vs-htc-a-patent-
break...](http://i.engadget.com/2010/03/02/apple-vs-htc-a-patent-breakdown/)

Unless you meant out of defence of the right to make more profit, in which
case yes I totally agree, completely defensive.

------
fara
It's a great idea, but no one else can use it. I don't like the fact of
patenting even the frequency of a blinking led. It keeps adding constraints
for competition, which is nice for Apple but I wouldn't celebrate it.

------
Locke1689
Well now I know why I spent a half hour just staring at that stupid light when
I got my new MBP. There was something about the radiance pattern -- now I
know.

Seriously though, that's a brilliant feature. Most companies wouldn't give the
time or money for developers to come up with that.

------
zmmmmm
The big place where I notice this is in the "flick" scrolling on Android vs
iPhone. Android just has this very tiny jerkiness, a just slightly less
natural motion. I can't even define what it is about the motion, I just know
it is perfect on the iPhone and almost but not quite on Android.

(And for the record, I love Android and would gladly cast every iDevice I own
into a fire if I didn't need them for work).

~~~
frickingphil
Somewhat related, Android does not bounce back at the end of lists. The list
simply stops scrolling...which is rather ambiguous considering if the phone
lags, it looks like you're at the end of the list...and then suddenly it
starts scrolling again

------
jakewalker
There's a great scene in Objectified about the indicator light on a MBP (or,
in that case, perhaps an Air) and how it appears and disappears when needed.
Viz.:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU#t=04m40s>

~~~
moondowner
+1, Didn't knew about this documentary, definitely going to order it.

~~~
jakewalker
The guy who made it, Gary Hustwit, also made one called Helvetica, which is
very very good, and is making a third (and final in the "series") called
Urbanized, about urban design:

<http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/blog/the-next-film-urbanized/>

Also, Objectified is on Netflix streaming now, I believe.

~~~
steveklabnik
As is Helvetica.

------
kenjackson
This is interesting, but I hardly think it is unique. I would expect Microsoft
to have done lots of work with their mice and keyboards. I expect IBM likely
did simliar work when coming up with the ThinkPad (a 15 year old form-factor,
which is still the best laptop form factor money can buy). Even car
manufacturers have very similar types of research.

It's cool to see the patent, but from what I know of various people who work
in usability, this sort of thing is not at all unusual.

~~~
there
lenovo has a site where (mostly) david hill posts about the design of their
products, including the thinkpad. hill worked on the thinkpad while at ibm and
continues to at lenovo.

<http://lenovoblogs.com/designmatters/>

------
techiferous
Speaking of attention to detail...

"12-20 breathes per minute" should be "12-20 breaths per minute"

"40 blinks per second" should be "40 blinks per minute"

------
dnewcome
Lenovo went to a lot of effort on the battery/charging indicator, but they
just managed to make it as complicated as possible.
<http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=79>

~~~
andreyf
<looks over at MBP charge indicator>

Well, it's plugged in... I can tell because I see the plug in the computer.
And it's charged because the light is green. Blinking light? Seriously?

------
psnj
Funny, that pulsing light drives me nuts. If I'm in a darkened room with my
MBP, I have to cover it or turn it to face the other way.

~~~
silversmith
What model (silver or black screen frame/keys)? I have older one (silver), and
the thing is like a lighthouse in a dark bedroom. However, they supposedly
fixed it in the newer models.

~~~
bombs
They did. It's visible, but toned down just enough that I can fall asleep
without having to cover it.

~~~
hexley
Yeah, now it uses the ambient light sensor.

~~~
bombs
I dont think so. The ambient light sensor is next to the iSight camera. I'd
wager the indicator light is most oft on when the lid is closed and the sensor
unexposed to ambient light. It's just dimmer.

------
moondowner
I smell a bit of fanboyism in the article.

Yes, Apple have an eye on detail (but they aren't the only one on the earth,
for sure), yes, they patent they findings so they can be the only kids on the
block with that particular cool look.

------
baddox
The Dell blinks faster not because Dell doesn't pay attention to detail, but
because they don't want to deal with patent nonsense.

~~~
edwincheese
Why didn't they think of other way to represent a sleeping state but
resembling Apple's blinking light?

------
JJMalina
My MBP is asleep whenever I am, and the light is actually kind of soothing
right before dozing off.

~~~
dkasper
Was going to say the same thing!

------
jemfinch
Of course Dell's blinking light timing was different. They didn't want to
violate Apple's patent.

------
jbronn
iTunes needs some of this attention

------
jsvaughan
my g5 imac won't go to sleep because the capacitors in it have leaked,
periodically in its life cds have been trapped in it which wouldn't eject from
the command line, i've had two old style keyboards that have broken completely
because of small spillages on them, the mouse that came with the g5 was a
worse at detecting movement than an older ms mouse.. i could go on. I bought
it expecting engineering attention to detail, what i got was cosmetic
attention to detail.

------
photon_off
I've always been curious: does anyone else dart their eyes back and forth to
determine if a light is blinking or not?I feel like it might be my superpower.
I can spot 60hz no problem.

When I first saw the MacBook indicator, it was a lot of fun to finally see my
talent put to use in an additional dimension. I remember seeing the modulation
and thinking: oh cool, the entire duty cycle remains constant as they increase
the on while decreasing the off.

~~~
aikinai
I wouldn't really call it a superpower, I have it too and it's more of a
curse.

Also, the worst are cheap projectors that seem to alternate between red,
green, and blue, so you see a rainbow every time you move your eyes between
the projector image or your own notes.

It's so frustrating to me, but no one ever believed me about it, so I guess
not everyone has this curse.

~~~
sapphirecat
> cheap projectors that seem to alternate between red, green, and blue

If you were curious, those would be single-chip DLP projectors:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Light_Processing>

------
eps
Perhaps this exact patent of Apple is the reason why Dells are blinking
faster. And not because they failed to copy Apple properly as the blogpost
implies.

~~~
prewett
It probably is why, and it indicates that they failed to copy Apple properly:
Apple chose the rate to correspond to a restful breathing rate. As I can
attest from a quick test, 40/min is more like someone exercising, hardly a
soothing assurance that the Dell is happily sleeping. Furthermore, blinking is
not very smooth, either. Dell apparently saw the idea "visually indicate sleep
mode". So what Dell has is a blinking indicator light that happen to mean "in
sleep mode". What Apple has is a light that intuitively means "I'm happily
resting and saving power. When you want me again, open me up and I'll be right
where you left me." The first time I saw Apple's light, I immediately knew
what the computer was doing. If I saw a Dell blinking a lot, I would have no
idea if it meant "sleep mode", "charging", "charging in sleep mode". The blink
rate might even be how quickly it's charging or how much it needs to be
charged. So yes, Dell did a bad copy.

~~~
lazugod
His point was that the patent, rather than some incompetence on Dell's part,
may be what is preventing them from using a slower blink rate.

------
loewenskind
The first time I really noticed that Apple just has a different level of
attention to detail than I, an electronics customer, am used to seeing was
with my iPad.

I listen to foreign language lessons on part of my commute and have for
several years. After I got my iPad I transferred everything there and started
listening as normal. For some reason (don't remember why) I needed to stop
listening. So I pulled the headphones out, dig the iPad out of my bag to pause
the player since I don't want to miss anything. As I take the iPad out I'm
expecting to hear someone speaking but they're not. I pause for a second but
nothing. I open the case to make sure I didn't accidentally pause it somehow
and check the volume. Volume is fine and some other app was in the foreground.
I switch to the Ipod app and sure enough, it was paused. Seems so obvious but
no other device I've owned did this (I've never owned an iPod or iPhone).

~~~
nooneelse
Tons of media players pause when you pull out the headphones. I think some
portable cd player I had in the late 90's did that.

------
jerf
Another error I've seen: I had a Dell that had a pulsing indicator, and it had
an acceptable frequency, but the LED behind it only had 8 levels, linearly
powered. You could very clearly see the transition from levels 0-1, 1-2, and
2-3, after which (due to the linear driving) the transitions became very
unclear, simultaneously making the transition annoyingly sharp and "pulling
back the curtain" and letting you too-easily see the implementation details.
Apple (and my current Sony VAIO) gets this right; I can't perceive the
transition points between levels, and somebody properly accounted for the way
we see brightness nonlinearly.

~~~
andreyf
I'd imagine Apple's uses a capacitor, so the intensity of the light is indeed
continuous.

~~~
mturmon
Doubtful, look at the profile in the patent. They need to hit a tightly
specified current vs time profile. And a cap would be a separate component,
and they are failure prone.

------
eps
Perhaps this exact patent of Apple is _the_ reason why Dells are blinking
faster.

------
jodrellblank
I plugged my iPhone headphones into my MBP. The volume control works. The
play/pause button loads, plays and pauses iTunes music.

The Apple Bluetooth keyboard has an option in OS X to show the battery life.
It does not when connected to Vista.

------
novon
Apple is the best exmaple of a company that is lead by design. Their products
aren't a confusing maze of options and complexity where anything goes, but
instead holistic human-friendly devices that are a perfect balance between
form and function. Not everyone will be happy with the compromise of
"configurability" in favor of "usability" - but the incredible success of
Apple products can not be argued with, society at large agrees with simple
humanized technology, and will increasingly demand products and services that
display good design traits.

------
elblanco
At risk of getting massively downvoted (since almost everybody else in this
thread who refuses to participate in the Apple lovefest is down -4 right
now)...

I really dislike this community conflation of attention to aesthetic detail
with "detail". Apple does fantastic work on aesthetics. Wonderful little
details like the pulsing sleep led. Their hardware is generally pleasant to
look at, their OS...though starting to show its 9 year old age still holds its
own.

While important, and often imitated, aesthetic detail is a superficial kind of
detail. And it's not wholesale "attention to detail" not matter how many
breathless fan posts in blogs on threads there are. Apple products in general
have a great many areas where they have piss poor attention to actual detail,
and let it slide for years without attention and instead build a marketing
campaign around the font they use on their keyboards.

They substitute shiny too often for substance and the vast majority of Apple
fans fall for it, "ooh shiny!". There isn't even a single post here in this
thread (and there are 171 right now) that says something to effect of "This
LED thing is cool, but Apple drops the ball on <insert xyz widely known
problem>". And that list of problems is long and ranges in everything from
technical issues to hardware reliability to usability problems to
yes...aesthetics. Instead we get north of 170 posts, all breathlessly agreeing
that they wish Apple could have their child.

Aesthetic detail is "nice to have" but not a "must have". Detail in other
areas are probably more important. And sadly, Apple often falls down in those
areas. It doesn't really matter if my MBP is cut from a single piece of
aluminum and the leds pulse at some certain rhythm when its asleep. It's far
more impressive to me that when I open it up, it resumes in under 10 seconds
(which BTW is thankfully one of those areas that Apple _did_ turn the
attention to detail gun on, Macs sleep and resume fantastically better than
any Windows machine I've ever used). But it also matters to me if I have to
send it back for repair due to manufacturing defect more often than my dell --
particularly if I've paid a huge price premium to have a pulsing sleep led,
the damn thing better be more reliable than a $12 toaster...and sadly it
isn't.

I'm certainly not claiming the opposite, that other vendors and software
makers are _better_ than Apple in the detail department. Just that Apple has
many failures as well, but the community of Apple users religiously ignores
those little problems without a peep -- a massive display of this phenomenon
is on display here. They stop recognizing that their stuff is just stuff, and
Apple makes stuff that's pretty nice to use, but in the end it's just stuff
and it's full of flaws.

 _just trying to provide the voice of reason here_

~~~
powrtoch
I welcome your position, but could your provide examples where Apple has
failed in the "attention to detail" department?

~~~
nkurz
I'm primarily a Linux user, and (perhaps) thus not too concerned with
appearance. But I'm very concerned with functionality, and I think Apple
consistently fails to apply obvious little touches. I use my girlfriend's Mac
quite often, and almost always leave angry at the interface.

Here's two:

Why does Cmd-W close some dialog windows but not others? I frequently hit
Cmd-O, realize I'm in the wrong application, then hit Cmd-W to make it go
away. Occasionally this works.
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1052118/how-to-make-a-
key...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1052118/how-to-make-a-keyboard-
shortcut-to-close-dialog-with-xcode-interface-builder)

Why do some clicks on background windows cause actions, and others are
ignored? I don't want autoraise, I just want explicit clicks, say, on links or
buttons in web pages, to be obeyed. [http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-f...](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-follows-mouse-debate.html)

Some of my hating goes towards applications (why does Acrobat insist on
popping up windows off the screen? why does printing work from Preview but not
from Illustrator?) but a lot of it goes toward the basic interface. In my
opinion, it's very well polished, but not very consistent or well designed.

~~~
hexley
Press escape to close dialogs, and command-click to activate background UI
elements without bringing the window to the foreground.

~~~
nkurz
I appreciate the response. Yes, I tend to press "Cmd-W" about three times
before I realize that I'm dealing with a dialog and not a window. Then I'll
either reach for the mouse or press Escape.

Similarly, if I know that a window is in the background, I might manage to
remember to Command-click (only needed on the links, not the icons in the
title bar?). Occasionally when the stars align I can even copy text from a
window without bringing it (and all other windows belonging to that
application?) forward.

But my real question is why I should have to distinguish a small 'window' from
a large 'dialog'? Shouldn't Cmd-W work in both?

And why should I have to distinguish between a foreground and a background
app? Especially in the multi-monitor situation she has set up, it seems like
it would be more 'polished' to have all the apps act the same.

This is ignoring the non-standard applications, and the absurdity that
clicking on one window often brings many of them to the foreground. My point
is not that there aren't workarounds that one can warp one's behaviour to, but
that I don't think the mental model itself is that coherent.

------
thought_alarm
Ah, yes. The anthropomorphic elements of Apple's HCI design.

I think this is just Apple applying those same software HCI principles to
their hardware design. It's merely one more tool in Apple's arsenal that their
hardware competitors lack.

------
voxcogitatio
It's amusing watching the author use purple prose over a single blinking LED.
I bet if Steve Jobs gave him a turd he would describe it as "that which makes
the flowers grow, with a heady aroma".

------
Marticus
I prefer David Thorne's take on the Macbook Pro.

------
sumeeta
The author misspelled MacBook :(

------
CamperBob
<Cool story, bro>

A few years ago, a friend got one of the first of the x86 iMacs with
integrated displays. Initially I thought it was a neat design but still didn't
"get" what the big deal was about them and Apple's design ethos in general.

I picked up the small handheld remote that came with it, and frowned. "Hmm,
OK, it comes with a remote media control. That's neat, but it's just one more
rarely-used gadget that's going to get lost in the clutter on peoples' desks.
What they should have done was, oh, I dunno, put a magnet in the side of the
monitor frame to keep the remote out of the way when it's not needed, you
know, like this..."

 _snap_

"Oh."

I bought 100 shares of AAPL that night.

</Cool story, bro>

~~~
levesque
Was the cool story bro really necessary? This isn't 4chan...

~~~
CamperBob
It's a self-deprecating device, used to indicate that the post was intended
purely as a topical anecdote which should be taken or left at face value, and
not as a general recommendation to buy stock based on individual product
features. :-P

~~~
thewiglaf
Surely you understand the backlash from using internet memes at HN where they
are not necessary?

~~~
DougBTX
Apparently he does.

~~~
alexyim
I like that on HN, people use memes intelligently.

------
mkramlich
Apple's UX quality and attention to detail definitely helped make me a
convert. Or a re-convert: I started with Apple II+, then got into
IBM/Microsoft PC's, then came back to Apple a few years ago.

This is why I'm frustrated by the UX of iOS 4.0 running on my iPhone 3G. It is
plagued with these unpredictable freezes, especially in Safari, which makes it
unusable sometimes. We're talking total UI non-responsiveness for anywhere
from 15-120 seconds, right smack in the middle of you're doing something. Very
let down by them in this area. I've already learned of an unofficial way to
downgrade back to 3.x, however, I've been reluctant to do it because I have
some legacy contract projects who want me to support 4.0, so I need to keep
something running it.

Other than this issue, though, Apple provides an awesome UX and has been a no-
brainer choice over Microsoft -- a company I had also noticed many times in
the past was copying the surface aspect of what a competitor did, often Apple,
but not getting the fundamentals right, and making themselves look like
idiots.

~~~
danudey
Off-topic, but have you tried the 'disable everything you don't search for in
spotlight' workaround? I've heard it works wonders, and the more you can
disable the better. Not entirely sure why. You can google for the details (if
there are any more than what I've listed already).

~~~
mkramlich
yes i did that. and have restarted and restored a few times. i still get the
mysterious temporary freezes. i've read the Apple forums discussions, my
impression is that all of the "fixes" reported by endusers (except rolling
back to 3.3) are just lucky happenstance and/or the person in question didn't
test it long enough afterward so was still in honeymoon period. thanks for
suggestion though! (we should def not continue this thread since off-topic)

------
webginja
if their attention to detail is so good, then why are the edges of their
laptops sharp as hell?

#fail

~~~
webginja
Maybe they could mimick the sharp edges on my wrists with some sort of
blinking device.

------
akshayubhat
is breathing light really a requirement? I would prefer faster and cheaper
computers. IMHO I find Apple computers to be equivalent of SUV's. You can get
a descent laptop at nearly 20-30% cheaper from Dell/HP/ASUS.

Maybe only Americans can afford such frivolity. The difference in price
between a good Dell laptop and Apple one is same as wage for 1-2 months for a
middle class person in most parts of the worlds.

~~~
cubicle67
I own a MacBook. I'm an a limited budget, and yet I paid more for it than I
could have for similar spec non Apple hardware. You know why? Because I like
it.

My life is full of crappy cheap gadgets and things. Nearly everything I deal
with on a day to day basis has been designed to be manufactured as cheaply and
as quickly as possible, and it's evident. I _like_ using my little MacBook;
it's slim, it's light, it's beautifully built, it's aesthetically pleasing, it
has a great keyboard, there's nothing else out there that comes close to the
trackpad, it's full of nice touches and it feels like someone has put a lot of
thought into it's design.

About the same time, my sister bought herself a Toshiba laptop that, on paper,
was equivalent to my macbook, but it cost her about 25% less. The toshiba is
almost twice as fat, has a horrid keyboard, an even worse touch pad, a battery
life of about two hours and flexes like you wouldn't believe.

I guess it's similar to buying expensive clothes or paying more for a nice car
(I have neither)

~~~
elai
After a few years, my macbook has basically fallen apart, gotten stains that
wont come out from book covers, the top case still cracking even after
replacing it several times over. The build quality is pretty irritating. My
girlfriends netbook of 2 years although works just fine and is of identical
thickness. I would like a sony vaio Z series with it's 13" 1080p screen, dual
SSDs and 3 pounds of weight vs. a macbook, but have to use it because of
iPhone development.

~~~
cubicle67
Mine's one of the early unibody Al ones, back before everything except the
white ones were badged 'Pro'.

