
Three Design Hacks from Apple - fogus
http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2011/1/14/three-design-hacks-from-apple.html
======
jvdh
That last part explains why customer experience in Europe sucks so utterly and
completely. Decisions at Apple seem to be made by these design teams, which
have no direct experience or feedback from Europe.

Examples:

\- There is a § key at the top-left of my MacBook Pro keyboard. It has been
there for years, in all the different models (Powerbook, iMac, etc.), and this
is the first time in over several months that I've actually touched that key.

\- Applecare in Europe is a joke. We pay the same premium price for a service
that is only a fraction of the kind of service you get in the US. In Europe
there are next to none official Apple Stores, which means a repair must always
be dealt with by the official repair center. This means that any repair to
your computer means you have to part with it for over two weeks.

While I completely support the idea of being your own customer, you have to
extend this globally if you are planning to expand your market globally.

~~~
Entlin
Here's a another point: People around the world wished for "Personal Hotspot"
(where your iPhone becomes a UMTS-Wifi router) for years. I talked to a high-
up guy at a big European provider about this wish - reply "Apple won't listen
to us". Many even jailbraked their Phone to add a software for $10.

Out comes the Verizon deal, and suddenly the feature is here, both for the
Verizon iPhone and the worldwide GSM one. Looks like Apple only ever talked to
AT&T and their customers, never to people outside the country.

Another one: the bandwidth-limitation of the YouTube app. Other providers
around the world would be happy to move more data, but AT&T says Njet, Apple
complies and denies more bandwidth to every iPhone user around the world.

~~~
roc
I disagree on the hotspot complaint. People in the US have been asking for
hotspot functionality and jailbreaking to get it for years, just like Europe.
Similarly with tethering before it showed up.

It's far more likely that the delay was just Apple doing its usual feature
triage and taking its time to get hotspot functionality up to their standards.

And with tethering in particular, it seems clear that if Apple only listened
to AT&T it wouldn't have even shown up as soon as it did. Or have you
forgotten the time-lag between announcement and international availability and
when AT&T finally decided to turn it on, even with a steep fee?

------
Stormbringer
_"We have also learned to be very critical of ourselves and learned to not be
afraid to say when a projects sucks"_

I think this is one of the key elements missing in other places. Look at
Microsoft's copy of the iPod (poo flavour Zune), or RIM's copy of the iPhone
(the atrocious Storm).

But here's the thing, what we never know is how many iterations went on at
Apple behind closed doors and over how many years.

Everybody else does their beta testing (alpha in some cases) in public, as
well as subsequent iterations. You don't see those failed products from Apple,
you don't see it till it has the rough corners knocked off.

On the other hand, just because it is highly polished doesn't mean it isn't a
turd. The Cube was a thing of enormous, tremendous beauty, but still a
colossal failure in the market-place. It's 'spiritual successor', the Mac mini
is uglier in every way (except total size perhaps), but was a much greater
commercial success.

Apple's willingness to throw out or challenge everything can be a weakness
too, on numerous occasions they've changed the UI of some software and made it
tangibly worse, made it harder to use. or just outright removed some useful
functionality.

~~~
dagw
The Cubes failure was almost entirely down to its price tag. Had it been
cheaper I have no doubt it would have been a massive success. I, and everybody
I know, really wanted one, but non of us could justify the massive price tag.
The mini on the other hand was launched both the cheapest mac you can buy and
not too unreasonably priced given it's spec.

It's hard to test price when all your testers get the hardware for free.

~~~
malvosenior
There were also manufacturing defects that caused "cracks" in most cubes.
Also, OS X was barely usable at the time. The platform was much more robust
when the Mini came out.

------
jskopek
This was the most interesting part of the article for me:

"However the thing that we pay very close attention to is user feedback after
a product is released. And not the day of, knee jerk reactions, but long term.
For example, I have personally gone over Applecare call data looking for
trends and patterns and reviewed warrantee return information. Even requested
certain units get debugged by my team so we can correctly find field issues
and put processes in place so we never see it again."

I once read that the MagSafe connector was designed because Apple noticed that
the number one cause of warranty returns was from laptops that had fallen
after the power cord was tripped. It's awesome to know that they do this
analytical design for everything. It also explains why there's something of a
'curse' to buying a first generation apple product - because they haven't been
able to do real world testing on it.

------
michael_h
Weirdest part of the whole article: there are 'music haters' at apple. Who
hates music?

~~~
Stormbringer
_"Who hates music?"_

The iTunes team.

------
blinkingled
I wonder if no one at Apple tests MacBooks with 2 USB devices plugged in at a
time, one of which happens to be a fairly common USB Thumb drive.

This especially sucks when the 15" and below have only 2 USB ports on one
side, right next to each other.

------
avk
"Every week, the teams have two meetings. One in which to brainstorm, to
forget about constraints and think freely....to "go crazy". Then they also
hold a production meeting, an entirely separate but equally regular meeting
which is the other's antithesis. Here, the designers and engineers are
required to nail everything down, to work out how this crazy idea might
actually work."

It seems like a great idea to separate brainstorming and refining into two
meetings. From my experience, doing them in the same meeting is hard. You
don't know when to cross over from free thinking to critical thinking. Tension
arises when some folks end up drilling down into one idea while others are
still brainstorming new ones at a very high level.

------
sequence7
A little anecdote on being an Apple consumer but first some caveats:

1) I own a lot of Apple kit and I love my iMac so don't take this as some
weird fanboy thing

2) I hate Apple mice and I hate the Apple store, my story may explain why

My story

The introduction:

So I've bought an iMac it's awesome and I love it but I have a MightyMouse
which although it sounds great is fundamentally flawed. The flaw is quite
simple, if you use it then it will no longer work. What, I hear you say, that
doesn't sound very Apple after all their products are both beautiful and
functional. I know I'm honestly as shocked as you are, I only buy Apple
computers and to be honest if someone asks me what kind of computer they
should buy the answer is simple, an Apple. So anyway here I am with an Apple
MightyMouse, it looks beautiful and it works for a while but then all of a
sudden the scrolly ball thing doesn't scroll in the right direction. I can
scroll up, yay, but down, boo, that's not allowed and I am disappointed that
my beautiful iMac is now a bit shit.

Oh dear something's not working, at least I have Apple's legendary customer
service to fall back on (yay - possibly):

So I do what any sensible geek does (did I mention I'm a geek, in case you're
curious I am), check the apple site and the internet in general to see what
might be wrong. Yay once again it turns out this is a common problem with
people who don't work in a clean room environment. Apparently if the
MightyMouse is exposed to any kind of dirt/skin/life then after a while its
sensitive little scrolly ball stops working. This sounds bad but it's OK you
just have to turn the MightyMouse upside down and rub it forcefully against a
piece of clean paper until it starts working again (I believe this is called
cleaning in human circles but I imagine in the world of Apple it's called,
removing the reality from perfection). My MightyMouse works again for a while
...

A temporary solution turns out to not be permanent:

Oh dear, I've used the turn upside down and rub against a clean piece of paper
technique once too much. No matter how many times I try I can only scroll in
one direction. Never mind I think I'll pop down to my local Apple store and
they'll help (oh how I love that legendary Apple service).

And so off to the Apple store I go:

Fortunately I live in a large UK conurbation, this means my Apple store is
only a few miles away. On arrival I'm greeted by a security guard, then some
guy in a blue shirt appears and tries to sell me an iPhone. 'Hello there I say
I've got a bit of a problem in that my mouse doesn't work' (offering the
MightyMouse to him), this turns out to be an error blue shirts cannot do
anything but sell oops. He backs away in fear and tells me that I must go
upstairs to talk to the tech people ... It's ok I'm used to dealing with sales
people so I smile and amble upstairs to shat seems to be some kind of
indoctrination centre flanked by desks called 'Genius bars', seriously who the
hell calls tech support geniuses, but hey if it makes them happy ...

I try and get someone to fix my mouse:

So I amble up to the nearest official looking person and explain the issue to
the (mouse doesn't work seems simple to me) and they helpfully inform me that
I need to talk to a genius. I'm not convinced a genius is required, after all
a broken mouse is simply fixed by replacing it, but this guy seems convinced
and he says that I need a pre-booked slot to talk to one of these geniuses so
I ask if he could maybe fit me in, what with my problem being only a broken
mouse surely it's simple replace mouse make customer happy. He is so helpful
he offers to allow me onto a special genius bar waiver. I just have to wait
about a half hour to talk to one.

I get to talk to a genius:

I wander around the Apple store, make some phone calls, consider buying some
stuff then think better of it. After killing plenty of time my name appears on
the pretty screens and some 'genius' accepts my communication. 'So what seems
to be the problem', this is not what I expected from a genius but hey, I
explain that my mouse doesn't work (I should point out that I've already
explained this to every Apple employee I've experienced so far, as well as
showing them the mouse and telling them exactly what I'd done to try and fix
the problem). I explain the problem again ... he takes my MightyMouse picks up
a clean piece of paper and rubs the mouse against the paper. I am shocked to
observe that this doesn't fix the problem, more worryingly so is he ...

I try and get a replacement mouse (you know like you would with any company if
the thing they'd sold you didn't work):

My personal genius is shocked, apparently the mouse doesn't work. I am not so
shocked and ask if he can replace it, what with us being in an Apple store
full of Apple goodness. Oh no says my personal genius, this is an OEM mouse,
comes with the iMac you bought and we don't have any of them. hmmmmm How about
the Apple MightyMouse I can see in a box just over there that you'll happily
sell me? Oh no we can't possibly give you that it's not the right product says
he ... I am I admit at this point a little disillusioned. I turned up with a
broken mouse and thought I could just replace it, turns out that's not the
Apple way.

I'm palmed off with the offer of an replacement:

So the genius can't replace my mouse, he needs to put in a special order. But
I don't need to worry because their next delivery is imminent and he'll have a
new mouse ready for me in a few days. I thought I just needed a new mouse,
turns out I need a very specific new mouse but that's ok I'm a patient man.
Apparently someone will contact me the moment my new mouse is available, then
I can enjoy the Apple experience once more by returning to the shop and
picking it up.

I wait:

No one calls

I wait some more:

No one calls (seriously this is two weeks after I was told I'd have the mouse
in a few days)

I lose patience:

So I march to the Apple store, someone tries to sell me an iPhone and I ignore
them. I find someone in an orange shirt (these seem to be the be the power
brokers in Apple stores) and explain my situation (I am very annoyed).
Fortunately because of Apple's legendary support I am fast tracked to a genius
bar appointment. I repeat my experience in a surprisingly light hearted manner
(see above) and offer the offending mouse to him. I am not joking when I say
that his reaction was to take a piece of clean paper and rub the ball thing
against the clean paper for fully thirty seconds before uttering the immortal
words 'Seems like it's broken'. I didn't kill him or anyone in the near
vicinity, he did however explain that they had no OEM parts available to
replace my mouse. I explained my story so far and he, I imagine breaking
company policy, gave me a new mouse. I wasn't happy but at least I had a mouse
that worked.

I get annoying phonecalls:

So I have a mouse that works (for now, god knows what I'm going to do when
this one fails due to the fact I don't live in a reality free zone) and all of
sudden I start getting messages from my local Apple store. 'Hi mister blah
we've just got your apple mouse in stock we'd love it if you could make an
appointment to come and pick it up' Argh, I have my mouse. It was a nightmare
getting it and you don't even know that I've got it ...

I hate apple:

I used to love apple. Seriously I still love the hardware but the customer
service sucks. I remember when apple would collect and return your laptops,
now you're lucky if they spit in your face and tell you their mice are shit.

Seriously do I seem bitter:

I know it's only a mouse but for the love of god why not just replace it ....

~~~
pak
Just as a counterpoint, here's my anecdote. I'm no Apple fanboy, but I like
their hardware enough to buy it for work-related purposes. My trackpad for a
recent MBP had lost its "click", obviously this is a rather disturbing thing
on a trackpad that is 100% button. It was a few days out from warranty end. I
took it to a local store (US), a black shirt takes my name and says it'll be
about 15 minutes. My name goes up on the board, I replicate it for the Genius,
and he is satisfied with it being a hardware failure. At this point I mentally
prepare myself to lose my computer for at least a week, but no! He says not
only do they have the replacement part in-store, but they also have a tech
certified to do the replacement. Apparently it will take an hour.

I go out into the mall to kill an hour, eat some lunch, and come back. Just
like he said, it is all set. I walk out the door with a brand-new feeling MBP
--after they service it, they polish it down with some kind of cleaner that
leaves everything shiny again. A nice, and appreciated, small touch. I was
impressed.

