Which is why I keep getting used 17" MBPs and running OS 10.6.8 (the best OS X).
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Thatâs not an ad hominem. Iâm simply drawing attention to what youâve saidâthat âplebesâ donât understand design, people (other than you, presumably) are unable to predict failure and are overly optimistic, etcâand attacking it with sarcasm.
Hereâs me trying: people are not stupid fools with too much money living in La-La land. They buy Apple products because they represent value to them. The huge profitability of Apple and the inability of competitors to replicate their success shows they are doing something right. Whether its right for you and whether you like it is irrelevant.
Thereâs no doubt that cognitive biases exist. Their very existence isnât proof that all behaviour you disagree with is the result of the biases. Itâs conceivable that people are being hugely irrational in continually buying computers without Ethernet cables, and that a dispassionate analysis of the costs and benefits of these ports suggests they should be added, but Iâve seen nothing to suggest that this is true.
I have no idea how 3mm magically disappears, or how you maintain symmetry without adding a similar amount of space to the other side.
And why are you talking about USB-C? I thought you wanted traditional USB-A added?
Anyway, the 11" Macbook Air is pushing the limits of how small the keyboard bezel can be when youâre using USB-A ports. It looks to be more than 5mm on each side, and definitely more than 5mm in total. Itâs also the kind of wasted space they were looking to eliminate.
You mean the area thatâs way too thin to fit a USB-A port?
I bet all sorts of laptop manufacturers are going to copy the new Macbook. You should submit your superior mockups to one, and make out like gangbusters.
So is my USB Ethernet port. But wait, I thought we werenât allowed to count these kinds of USB adapters for reasons. Why donât those reasons apply to your DVD drive?
Iâm showing that the goalposts are only moved in on Apple products. If weâre really talking about cognitive biases and irrational consumers, weâre going to get into problems all over the place. But we donât. We seem to get into them when talking about Apple, where we have to talk about irrational consumers in order to explain their market success, as though those cognitive biases disappear when buying a Thinkpad or preparing for non-Apple-computing emergencies.
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Oh, advertising. The audiovisual form of industrial toxic waste. Where are the times when an ad was primarily supposed to be informative, instead of being an useless emotions-jerker (sorry, âlinking positively perceived stimuli with an object and/or brandâ), totally devoid of anything useful it could actually say in the alotted seconds. And donât let me start on the misuse of sci/tech terminology and outright deceptions.
Apple says âthe computer is not the tool, I am the toolâ. Or at least strongly hints it.
On the contrary, the exposed hinge says âI am sturdier and I am not afraid to show itâ. I would have to consult the service manuals and compare the drawings and actual servicing accessibility to know more. Bonus points for using of brazing-friendly materials; these parts break often, and a little silver braze does wonders for almost no cost in the amount needed. The long vertical parts of Thinkpad R60/R61 screen hinges are prone to breaking at the points of stress concentration after merely a few years in service (predictable bad design) but can be repaired easily.
http://shaddack.twibright.com/projects/repair_ThinkpadR60/
The bottom parts, on the contrary, are galvanized zinc. You can imagine my disappointment when the one that broke on me at a different occasion reacted to a torch by melting inside the nickel-or-whatever skin and deforming the part. Oops. Soft-solder those, I tell you. Again, the failure started in a sharp inner edge; another predictable issue. (I had to admit defeat and use a spare part from another machine. When you have the time at the moment, try to repair the actual part if it is possible; it is a good training for cases when a new or new-old part wonât be available at all, or the shipping time or cost would be prohibitive.)
(You may ask, why repair when we have the brand services - but the hinges in my example earlier were removed, brazed, and mounted back in less time than itâd take to get to the store, single way. Not counting going back, not counting going there and back again to pick it up, no time without the machine.)
And getting in the way when something goes wrong, and I guarantee it will because materials have limited service life - especially when the pursue of thickness and weight leads to shaving the milligrams even from where they are actually needed. Then, day by day, a fatigue crack grows as you open and close the thing. Then it reaches a critical length and then pop, your screen hangs on one side and its cable. And the crack will start in a corner of the part and will show those little half-moon marks from that spot, continuing into dull gray area where the weakened material suddenly failed. But that wonât tell you much.
Apple is not immune to these issues, as your praise of its designers may suggest. An example from the times bygone (no time to look for anything more complex than âapple failed screen hingesâ) shows this.
http://www.linkedresources.com/teach/powerbook/hinge.shtml
And a newer example with Macbook Air. Notice how flimsy the stopper pins are.
That one is dated too, but I bet that there will be more such photos with the newer machines too.
Sure, it is pretty to have thin chassis and sleek smooth lines - but then you look closer and see the missing ports and the materials pushed to breaking point and the stress concentration areas that sing âhere there be troubleâ with the background chorus of ka-chings from overpriced service shops.
And that machine would be running for fifteenth or more year without a breakdown. And running as fast as in the beginning (because of lower overhead on various unnecessary user-interface sugary niceties that add nothing to the function but animations and burnt CPU cycles and adding up wasted milliamp-seconds). And not falling apart because of proper materials and proper designs used.
And no, you donât need that much of additional material; sometimes all you need is to round the corners to spread the stress around. But that may require the engineers to take precedence over the designers, and the designers seem to hate that. A vendor that puts design and appearance above solidly engineered substance is a bad vendor, fruity logo or not.
I admit I harbor a rather deep dislike to this kind of snobbery. To a significant degree because it is on me and my brothers-in-engineering to clean up its collateral damage.
If only there was some lethal disease selective to those style-over-substance people⌠The survivors would have a good chance to build a better world. If there is some significant-enough genetic correlation, and such behavior is not merely a result of faulty environmental conditioning, a sufficiently selective bioweapon could be possibly engineeredâŚ
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Wow, a circa-2000 Powerbook with hinge problems. And the short-lived 2008-2009 Macbook Air (which did have faulty hinges and was the subject of a recall) had hinge problems, which guarantees problems with a design used successfully since 2008 in Macbook unibodies.
I often regret not being able to use my 15-year old G3 Powerbook, with a 400MHz CPU, 128 MB of RAM, 18 GB hard drive, and 1024x768 TN display, at a svelte 6 pounds.
[quote=âshaddack, post:126, topic:54066â]
I admit I harbor a rather deep dislike to this kind of snobbery. To a significant degree because it is on me and my brothers-in-engineering to clean up its collateral damage.
[/quote]I suppose that hatred of snobbery explains why you call consumers peons, and wish for them to be affected by lethal diseases.
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Which kind of missed the mark because no amount of sarcasm can validate the crappy state of the world. The attack failed.
Snobbery is not any sort of even remotely admirable value. Flashy displays of wealth arenât something that would impress me. And if it impresses so many people, then thereâs something wrong with the society itself.
Which gets rather frustrating as it normalizes counterproductive behavior.
I saw enough cases to the contrary. Granted, I may have a biased sample because if you are in trouble who you gonna callâŚ
The thickness of the side of the plastic. There may even be that space in the existing bezel, if itâd be worth the effort Iâd look at the pictures and try to estimate.
And unless weâre in the aerospace field or need to fit an existing compartment somewhere, three millimeters are about as inconsequential as they can be.
To appease you. I of course prefer the old USB-A, at least until the C gets 95 or more percents of the installed base of computers and peripherals, but I can compromise here to a degree for now.
If the space is there for the connectors, it is not wasted space. You can make the edge keys a little narrower, nothing will be hurt that way as they arenât so much used.
And⌠where you will connect it?
âŚbesides, the size and weight of the separate USB-Ethernet device is way higher than of a built-in one, and we donât even start addressing the factor of the separate devices being prone to getting lost, forgotten, or not owned.
The goalposts stay. The Fruit is moving and its fanboys are cheering and I canât see why.
My Thinkpad has no issues with missing ethernet port, nor (usually) with insufficient number of USB ports. (Iâd quite like to see some USB ports on the top of the lid, so the thumbdrives stick up and not to the sides where they interfere with things, but thatâs about it. Todo: strip down a USB hub, attach it to the lines to the lid camera.)
Quick search is quick. I may or may not do more in-depth one tomorrow.
Even such machine can still do a lot of good service in the hands of somebody less wealthy.
Or as a host for a specific application. There are even PC-XT machines out there, running control software for one-of-a-kind devices.
Upgrade should be a choice, not a forced event.
I merely dislike the snobbery. Itâs the outcomes I hate. The all too predictable outcomesâŚ
Snobbery isnât admirable, but superiority is?
And I didnât say anything about flashy displays of wealth. In my opinion, Macs represent good value. They are pleasurable to work on, do everything I need them to, have high resale value, and have convenient service depots.
You donât get to decide what is counterproductive. And if counterproductive behaviour is normalized, thatâs a pretty god sign it isnât actually counterproductive.
Those 3mm (of aluminum, not plastic) were there without the port, too, so I donât see how adding a port magically means you no longer need this space.
Itâs wasted space given the desire for an edge-to-edge keyboard with no wasted space. I mean, you keep redefining the design spec and saying that thatâs proof thereâs a problem with the design.
And nobody has ever complained about cramped or undersized keys on a netbook or anything.
[quote=âshaddack, post:128, topic:54066â]
To appease you. I of course prefer the old USB-A, at least until the C gets 95 or more percents of the installed base of computers and peripherals, but I can compromise here to a degree for now.
[/quote]We already know the design can accommodate a USB-C port: it has one.
Uhhh⌠the USB port?
And this logic doesnât apply to USB DVD drives?
Great! You have hardware that works for you. It would be stupid for me to say no one needs that many USB ports, or that your charger port is stupid and inefficient, or that a business machine like the Thinkpad shouldnât have a webcam, or that including an ethernet port is inefficient and unnecessary, or that Thinkpads are horribly overpriced given their specs, or that the trackpoint is dumb. My personal opinions and needs do not fit everyone, and I donât claim they should.
For most people, the forced event would be if they were forced to use 15-year-old hardware.
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Iâve never had any physical problems with a mac until what? one of your old style usb ports fails or the hard drive wears out. I am not the mechanic you are. My macs last longer than my friends Dells and HPs or what have you and usually itâs that a new machine is going to save me time because it will do what I need to do faster or bigger or both. As it is I use the low end macs because I am a cheap bastard.
You latched right onto the mention of advertising and ignored the more various mentions of fine art and industrial design. This is funny because I chose it because I thought it was a practical example. Alas communicating is difficult.
I have only heard these horror stories of Macs falling apart on the internet. Less than anecdotal since I donât get to query for details. What I have noticed, though, is that IT people hate them beyond reason. In my time owning Macs I have never had to call on an expert to help me. Not once. I am definitely not an expert, but I have written scripts in Ruby to run Sketchup (for example). Not at a pro level thing by any means, but I got done what I needed to get done. I just sit down and figure it out. Itâs all there when I need it. i wonder if the tech community needs to look in the mirror and read the definition of confirmation bias out loud. I have never been able to get a linux machine to work for me. I have tried a few times. Windows? sure, but ick.
As for the snobbery. I hate it too, but someone makes a Mercedes Benz for a reason. I thank Apple that at least they continue to push technology forward with the outrageous profits made from that crowd.
I feel you are overlooking Apples contribution to Industrial Design. You canât seriously believe their product is shabbily built. I think you are just trolling me on that one. Each generation is more sturdy, not less, and more environmentally conscious. The notebook/laptop body has been milled from a single block of metal for a long time in Mac. Now the phone and iPad are too. Isnât everyone else still using big slabs of PVC over a thin galvanized metal chassis like a desk radio from the 70s? (I am just playing here, but this is what a lot of your criticism sounds like to me. Not serious.)
I do think the thinness factor has become silly, but slim and tall is a hall mark of elegant design in every field. It is like the physical manifestation of a pin stripe suit. If its good enough for the guy running Goldman Sachs it must be good enough for me? (Believe me when I say that is not my voice, but the target marketâs.)(And do you think that guy is worried about breaking his phone when he sits on it?)
If someone is going to earn those dollars I would rather it be Apple than, oh, Michael Dell?
Do you really believe the world would be better off without designers and others who worry about what you call âstyle?â What Apple show over and over is that style and substance are the same thing. That Lenovo hinge isnât terrible, but it is the industrial design equivalent of a short sleeve button down shirt. Comfy!
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Well, I believe in the Yoga it has to allow the display to fold over through 360° so it can convert into a tablet.
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Quite the opposite, there need to be more designers. This way design decisions have better chances of addressing the needs - functional and aesthetic - of people who actually know about computers, rather than those of bullshit artists who want to use them to further primitive social games.
You canât suck the cool off a great designer and pretend that it represents you. Maybe some people think âanother consumer who couldnât be bothered to design their own laptopâŚâ
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QFT.
And I am a techie who happily lives in the plug-ugly CLI (or occasionally unrealistically flamboyant) world of Linux.
But best tool for the job - when the job is communicating the idea.
If the job is not communicating the idea (ie security, compatability, efficiency, adapdability ⌠) I will use a different tool to illustrate.
But if I want to illustrate without drawing attention to a clunky presentation then OSX etc hits a home run.
removed
What are you going to do when there are no more security updates (or is that now?) and there are 0 days on the net that can own your machine that you canât stop?
People that purposefully keep their software in some insecure and unpatched state are the Typhoid Maryâs of the Internet. I see this all the time with browsers. âOh, I liked that version 1 1/2 years ago so I donât run any of the updates (which include security fixes). Iâm fine.â
Yeah but that isnât a goal for most of us.
My work gives me a new laptop every two years to be up to date. I take advantage of that. I donât want to use the eight pound laptop that I was issued 15 years ago at Microsoft.
We can thank Apple for that clusterfrack - until their switch to intel announcement they used to make all of their kernel and BSD sources available with an open source license. Until some version of 10.4 you could re-compile the kernel if you needed to. Which leads to the problem of there being no documentation for how the OS actually works⌠So how an Apple user decides to secure their system, basically becomes how Apple wants to secure their system. Hardening it has always been a PITA. Security through obscurity has made more problems for me than anything else.
Otherwise, with older systems, one might be able to work around their vulnerabilities using a stateful firewall which is tuned for more modern problems.
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But when the newer versions break apps that you need and/or accessibility fixes that you need, what other options do you have?
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Wait, you donât have disadvantaged friends who could inherit your machines after you choose to upgrade (instead of being forced to by a preventable failure that occurs at the worst moment)?
I have a similar laptop, a bit newer, with dead battery and beated look. I got it for free. It controls my laser, and will control the CNC machine too.
You donât have to be locked into an old machine. But upgrading the hardware should be a choice.
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Hey, if you want to join a botnet, be my guest. Me? I keep my computer up to date with security fixes.
I guess if you never connect your computer to a network, youâd be largely safe.
You have a choice. Not everybody has. If you were dependent on some accessibility feature, that is not in the new version, you would speak different.
And that can be a wider problematics than just accessibility. Support for certain mission-specific hardware is one possibility. Not having the resources to buy a new machine on a whim can be another. And there are more, way more.
In case of the problems that are outside of those usersâ ability/means to solve, your approach may be bordering with victim blaming.
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Iâm not blaming anyone. This is cut and dry. IF you are on the Internet AND you donât keep your machine current with security fixes OR run a system/software with known, public zero day security holes, you WILL get owned. It is that simple. It is just a matter of time.
What you or anyone else does with this knowledge, is up to them. As a Firefox security guy, I know users who donât like our newer UI so they run year plus old versions of Firefox. I point out that we fix and disclosure critical security issues on a regular basis and their software doesnât have those fixes. If they still want to use their insecure software on the net, thatâs their choice as long as they were warned and know whatâs up.
P.S. You can just pretend that theyâre running Apple hardware and OS X and then you wonât have to care, Shaddack.
(Same goes for software with unknown zero-day security holes. The probability is just quite lower.)
Which, when they donât have the choice to upgrade, nor the choice to go without, is rather determining their remaining option.
Whether they run the fruit or not.
