Apple is all about making things simple - think of Steve's comments about the remote for the iMac G5.
When Woz was there, he used that same philosophy for Apple hardware. If you listen to his speeches on the web, he would talk about spending hours upon hours trying to eliminate one unncessary chip from the motherboard.
Ive is the same with the cases and physical makeup of products. He really keeps it to it's essence.
I fear in outsourcing their motherboard design, it will be built in a company that does not have that same philosophy. Which is too bad for humanity really. One more thing abandoned to the OCF (over-complicated folk).
[B]Please, don't assign a zero to good ergonomics and something a lot of people actually do use. People actually do use those ports when available because they are convenient, I think it's nonsense to have to buy a hub just to get a convenient port. A computer is supposed to be a functional device too. If you want an art piece, buy an art piece. Apple shouldn't be designing computers such that the convenience is deliberately crippled.
It doesn't work so well when there are a lot of cables back there, more than half of them don't have a positive retaining lock, so there's some risk of disconnecting them with each turn. It doesn't work so well with the mini either. I would be fine with a side port on the iMac, best of both worlds, IMO.
What I would like to see (or not ), is a connector block along the bottom rear of the unit that has the connectors pointing toward the rear, but is mounted on a downward swivel. When you (dis)connect something, you reach under, and pop the connector block from its de-dent. It then swivels down to show the connectors. (un)plug whatever you need, and then push the rear back up to its locking position.
This isn't so tough.
My Hp DLP set works differently. The front bottom is hinged. Open it, and all of the connectors are there facing you. The cables come from a slot in the rear, through the bottom, and plug in from the front. You then snap the cover closed, and no one will ever know.
If you just design for convenience though you'd end up with something particularly ugly.
Shoes with velcro
Stretch elastic pants
Homer Simpson's car of the future.
MacDonalds burgers
Almost any Windows laptop with card readers built in and more special function keys than are practical. eg. an Outlook Express key. FFS, Why?!??!
For the number of times I have to use the ports on the back of my iMac, their location is fine. I've one cable coming out and round the front to my camera which I leave plugged in and that's it. I must touch the ports in the back about once every 3 months. Hopefully with wifi becoming much more common on cameras now, even that is shortly to become a thing of the past.
iMacs ARE functional. That's not to say lazy ergonomics should be introduced at the expense of diluting Apple's strong industrial design. Lot's of people do actually buy Macs because they look fantastic. I can't imagine anyone NOT buying one just because it doesn't have a USB port on the front. There is a trade off and I think they get it about right most of the time.
Not all of this has to be ugly.
Form follows function is a well respected concept amongst design theorists.
The problem is whether it is carried out properly. Gateway had the worlds uglest flat screen computers a few years back. Form followed function there as well. But not VERY well.
So, if someone said that a flat screen computer was a terrible idea because of Gateway's design, and that it shouldn't ever be tried again, then the new iMacs wouldn't exist!
[B]'Artistic design' isn't a phrase I'd recognise. 'Product design' maybe which does include ergonomics and function as well as form.
'Industrial design' overlaps with 'Product design' but continues not just the form but also the technical merits and the processes used in manufacturing the product.
Apple's and in particular Jonathan Ive's designs have pushed not just product design forward but also industrial design through use of new materials and processes. I think you'd be doing Ive a great disservice if you described his work on purely aesthetic grounds.
I agree with that. Proper design contains all of the elements needed to make a quality product. What we see on the outside is only part of it.
Quote:
Anyway, getting back to the thread, Intel have no design skills, product, industrial or artistic. I wouldn't mind being the fly on the wall in the first meeting between Apple's design dept and Intel's engineers when they both clash with USB port placement and where to stick the Intel Inside sticker. ;-)
I don't think we can say that. Intel doesn't usually concern themselves with esthetics because it doesn't come within their design purview.
Jeff is correct about board design. The imperative here is effectiveness. "pretty" take a back seat. Mobo manufacturers use different colors for their boards to distinguish one series from another, and to present a unified look to the purchaser, who is buying these boards for build-it-yourself systems. They also use different color connectors, and jacks, to make it easier to tell one thing from the other.
But other than these PC gamers, who buy garish lighting for their memory sticks, do we need a mobo designed for looks?
Intel obviously isn't going to design a PM. The headline here is just plain silly, and we all know it.
Apple is all about making things simple - think of Steve's comments about the remote for the iMac G5.
When Woz was there, he used that same philosophy for Apple hardware. If you listen to his speeches on the web, he would talk about spending hours upon hours trying to eliminate one unncessary chip from the motherboard.
Ive is the same with the cases and physical makeup of products. He really keeps it to it's essence.
I fear in outsourcing their motherboard design, it will be built in a company that does not have that same philosophy. Which is too bad for humanity really. One more thing abandoned to the OCF (over-complicated folk).
They all do this. No company is going to use more than is necessary for their design.
You have to remember that when Apple was formed, there were few chips designed to do what Apple needed. It was a nascent industry. Personal computers didn't sell in large numbers. A company coming up with a specialized chip was rare. Woz had to use what he could find in the catalogs. As we all know, that situation has changed. They put as much as possible onto one chip as they can in every generation. Modern (oh, how that word describes soon-to-be-obsolete machines) computers wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Intel is certainly no different. In fact they are the epitome of the multi-function chip manufacturer. No one does it better than them (except for the on-die mem controller from AMD-but that's another argument).
They all do this. No company is going to use more than is necessary for their design.
I think you're assuming a kind of omniscience there that just doesn't exist. They will use what they figure is the minimum, and maybe a different company (e.g. Apple) will figure differently.
Quote:
Intel is certainly no different. In fact they are the epitome of the multi-function chip manufacturer.
That's not really the same. Cramming everything on to one chip is not an example of finding the simple, essence of something (ala Apple), it's just miniaturization.
I think you're assuming a kind of omniscience there that just doesn't exist. They will use what they figure is the minimum, and maybe a different company (e.g. Apple) will figure differently.
That's not really the same. Cramming everything on to one chip is not an example of finding the simple, essence of something (ala Apple), it's just miniaturization.
And just what makes you think Apple is doing the best here?
With their well known problems from their own designed memory controller chips to poorly laid out boards, they are hardly the ones to look to.
With their well known problems from their own designed memory controller chips to poorly laid out boards, they are hardly the ones to look to.
I think the solution to these problems is not to switch to Intel, but rather to more consistently apply the "Apple principles" in the motherboard division. To the extent they do that, they will be successful.
I think the solution to these problems is not to switch to Intel, but rather to more consistently apply the "Apple principles" in the motherboard division. To the extent they do that, they will be successful.
The solution is to be more Apple, not less!
I think/hope that intels involvement in board design stems out of the short time span that is available, and the lack of experience that apple engineers have with intel hardware.
I can only imagine how hard it was to design something like the g4 imac board, trying to do that across two companies sounds difficult to say the least.
It wouldnt surprise me if Apple are focused on the hard designs, laptops. While they let intel work on the powermac, and the mini.
No company can get everything right all the time, and any complex system will have bugs. But Apple are one of the few companies that are driven by industrial design, rather than features. I really appreciate that. I love using my macs, and dread using my pcs.
I think/hope that intels involvement in board design stems out of the short time span that is available, and the lack of experience that apple engineers have with intel hardware.
I can only imagine how hard it was to design something like the g4 imac board, trying to do that across two companies sounds difficult to say the least.
It wouldnt surprise me if Apple are focused on the hard designs, laptops. While they let intel work on the powermac, and the mini.
No company can get everything right all the time, and any complex system will have bugs. But Apple are one of the few companies that are driven by industrial design, rather than features. I really appreciate that. I love using my macs, and dread using my pcs.
But, look at how Apple works.
The first iMac G5 was a marvel of design. Jobs made the point of how we could replace parts ourselves. This was a BIG DEAL. One of the biggest complaints of the iMac's is that there are "no user servicable parts inside". We could also replace the mount with an easy to get VESA mount.
So, again, this was a good thing, and a big deal.
So, what happens now.
In order to make the iMac APPEAR as though it was slimmer, Apple went and threw out all of the interior design that made the the earlier models great, other than the form itself.
No more user replaceable parts. No more easy VESA mount. No more two memory slots.
This is Apple design. Great huh?
To go further back. With all of the complaints about not having two externally accesable 5 1/4 bays, Jobs proudly announces that the G4 PM's will now have two external bays. Why? Because most everyone WANTED one.
So far, so good.
Come the PM G5.
Where is the second external bay? Gone. Why? Don't we want one any more?
There is room above the DVD for one, why isn't one there?
My old G5's had room for three official HD's, though you could easily add a forth. Why did they design a huge 40 lb tower with only two HD slots? It boggles the mind. They gave us back one slot in the older G4's for a total of dour. Where is it now?
And you're right about the features. There are hardly any.
Apple design again.
Please don't talk about the "Apple Way". I still remember my 9500!
The only thing I have to take issue with your position Melgross. There is a difference between opinion and fact.
Apple's choices of design are actively made. If something is included or excluded is and active choice its not like these are oversights or mistakes.
First there needs to be an understanding of why they made the choice. Of course Apple doesn't talk about these things so whatever reasons we can come up with are mostly conjecture.
Taking into account particular design choices one doesn't like. To discuss whether particular features are necessary or not is mostly opinion.
Ultimately what it would come down to is sales. If the market demanded more hard drive bays and Apple offered only one drive bay sales of the PM would plummet. If sales of the PM are stable or even increase, then that reflects for Apple how much demand there is for such bays.
I can see the mass majority of people responding better to a thinner looking iMac than one with easy to change parts. The vast majority of people will not dig into the guts of their computer to change its parts.
As well as a small minority of people who would like to have easy access to an iMac's parts.
Does that make the iMac a bad design because some people want it one way while a lot of people won't care?
It seems as though too many are going to Wikipedea and reading the INCOMPLETE definition.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Go back to my earlier post on this.
No I didn't and No I'm not.
I'm remembering it from when Dave Haynie explained it to me during the PIOS days on the TeamONE mailing list. If it's changed since 1996 then perhaps I'm wrong but back then OpenFirmware used Forth and was platform independent.
The only thing I have to take issue with your position Melgross. There is a difference between opinion and fact.
Apple's choices of design are actively made. If something is included or excluded is and active choice its not like these are oversights or mistakes.
First there needs to be an understanding of why they made the choice. Of course Apple doesn't talk about these things so whatever reasons we can come up with are mostly conjecture.
Taking into account particular design choices one doesn't like. To discuss whether particular features are necessary or not is mostly opinion.
Ultimately what it would come down to is sales. If the market demanded more hard drive bays and Apple offered only one drive bay sales of the PM would plummet. If sales of the PM are stable or even increase, then that reflects for Apple how much demand there is for such bays.
I can see the mass majority of people responding better to a thinner looking iMac than one with easy to change parts. The vast majority of people will not dig into the guts of their computer to change its parts.
As well as a small minority of people who would like to have easy access to an iMac's parts.
Does that make the iMac a bad design because some people want it one way while a lot of people won't care?
Ok, fair enough.
What I stated were facts. That's apparent. All of it happened.
The "fact" that it happened should tell you something.
It's like removing the "start" button from the keyboard. I don't know of anyone who preferred NOT having that button. So, why then did they remove it? An older keyboard with it still can use it on a new machine. So nothing was changed that necessitated its removal. The quarter or so that Apple saved couldn't be that significant.
And so you don't think that Apple ever overlooks something? Or that it never makes mistakes? Every manufacturer overlooks things. And they make mistakes as well. If that were not so, then why are so many saying that we should wait until the second generation of the new hardware gets released? Because Apple never overlooks anything, and never makes mistakes?
Even though the problems I mentioned were not something that was overlooked, or a mistake, they were, and are, poor choices.
How do you know that only a small minority of people want to get into their iMac? How do you know that they couldn't have designed it another way that was better, but chose not to, for some other reason that WE wouldn't agree with?
What about the memory slot? That has been recieved badly. 512MB on the mobo. If you want to go to 2.5GB, you need to by one expensive 2GB stick.
Insofar as opinion goes, you just have to read about the net to see that the items I mentioned were considered to be bad choices by a rather large number of people. These discussions have been here as well. Just go back and read some of them.
The first iMac G5 was a marvel of design. Jobs made the point of how we could replace parts ourselves. This was a BIG DEAL. One of the biggest complaints of the iMac's is that there are "no user servicable parts inside". We could also replace the mount with an easy to get VESA mount.
So, again, this was a good thing, and a big deal.
So, what happens now.
In order to make the iMac APPEAR as though it was slimmer, Apple went and threw out all of the interior design that made the the earlier models great, other than the form itself.
No more user replaceable parts. No more easy VESA mount. No more two memory slots.
This is Apple design. Great huh?
You are far too sure that the new design, in which user accessibility goes bye-bye, is the result of an effort to make an even slimmer iMac. My take is different. The slimmer form factor is possible thanks to the new logic board arrangement and since Apple did not like to repair under warranty things broken accidentally by users opening the back of their iMac, it terminated user accessibility in the new iMac.
I have a Bluetooth keyboard and a bluetooth mouse, but I've been gradually going back to cabled keyboards and mice as the bluetooth ones are unresponsive and require batteries. I can type quicker than the keyboard sometimes and characters arrive on screen jumbled. The Apple bluetooth mouse requires an annoying nudge for it to wake and contact the computer before it responds which makes small work onscreen problematic. Plus the mouse is just too heavy. The keyboard also takes an age to pair with the Mac before you can log in and is useless if you ever need to start up your Mac in target disk mode as the keyboard doesn't pair then.
From a function point of view, cables are better. My next Macs will all be cable based, not bluetooth, which I think was a mistake on my part to buy. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
USB 1.1 on a keyboard is fine for most flash drives I've used which seem to be pretty slow anyway. Maybe not for iPods and such though I guess if I used one a lot I'd have a dock.
You are far too sure that the new design, in which user accessibility goes bye-bye, is the result of an effort to make an even slimmer iMac. My take is different. The slimmer form factor is possible thanks to the new logic board arrangement and since Apple did not like to repair things broken accidentally by users opening the back of their iMac, it terminated user accessibility in the new iMac.
It's all part of the same thing. No doubt the word from Jobs was to make it thinner. Two or more design goals can be met at once. The board redesign did two things. One was to lower the part count, and make it run somewhat cooler. Two was to enable them to make the edges thinner for appearance.
I have nothing against that. But to remove the other features which held Apple in good stead through two revisions, was likely unnecessary. I know what it means to design something out while keeping other things in.
For most of the time Apple has been in existence, their computers let people remove and replace most parts. This was never a problem before, why should it be now?
If that were the case, then Apple would have known the areas of contention, and could have redesigned them. There were 200 million computers sold around the world this year. The vast majority are built so that the consumer can get inside. If the consumer was causing all of that trouble, most of those machines wouldn't let them in.
Or are you saying that what PC people say is true, that Mac people are too ignorant of their machines and so shouldn't be allowed to open them?
Comments
When Woz was there, he used that same philosophy for Apple hardware. If you listen to his speeches on the web, he would talk about spending hours upon hours trying to eliminate one unncessary chip from the motherboard.
Ive is the same with the cases and physical makeup of products. He really keeps it to it's essence.
I fear in outsourcing their motherboard design, it will be built in a company that does not have that same philosophy. Which is too bad for humanity really. One more thing abandoned to the OCF (over-complicated folk).
Originally posted by JeffDM
[B]Please, don't assign a zero to good ergonomics and something a lot of people actually do use. People actually do use those ports when available because they are convenient, I think it's nonsense to have to buy a hub just to get a convenient port. A computer is supposed to be a functional device too. If you want an art piece, buy an art piece. Apple shouldn't be designing computers such that the convenience is deliberately crippled.
It doesn't work so well when there are a lot of cables back there, more than half of them don't have a positive retaining lock, so there's some risk of disconnecting them with each turn. It doesn't work so well with the mini either. I would be fine with a side port on the iMac, best of both worlds, IMO.
What I would like to see (or not
This isn't so tough.
My Hp DLP set works differently. The front bottom is hinged. Open it, and all of the connectors are there facing you. The cables come from a slot in the rear, through the bottom, and plug in from the front. You then snap the cover closed, and no one will ever know.
There are ways to do this.
Originally posted by aegisdesign
If you just design for convenience though you'd end up with something particularly ugly.
Shoes with velcro
Stretch elastic pants
Homer Simpson's car of the future.
MacDonalds burgers
Almost any Windows laptop with card readers built in and more special function keys than are practical. eg. an Outlook Express key. FFS, Why?!??!
For the number of times I have to use the ports on the back of my iMac, their location is fine. I've one cable coming out and round the front to my camera which I leave plugged in and that's it. I must touch the ports in the back about once every 3 months. Hopefully with wifi becoming much more common on cameras now, even that is shortly to become a thing of the past.
iMacs ARE functional. That's not to say lazy ergonomics should be introduced at the expense of diluting Apple's strong industrial design. Lot's of people do actually buy Macs because they look fantastic. I can't imagine anyone NOT buying one just because it doesn't have a USB port on the front. There is a trade off and I think they get it about right most of the time.
Not all of this has to be ugly.
Form follows function is a well respected concept amongst design theorists.
The problem is whether it is carried out properly. Gateway had the worlds uglest flat screen computers a few years back. Form followed function there as well. But not VERY well.
http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2010p062id104321.htm
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardw...eviews/5677/1/
So, if someone said that a flat screen computer was a terrible idea because of Gateway's design, and that it shouldn't ever be tried again, then the new iMacs wouldn't exist!
Originally posted by aegisdesign
[B]'Artistic design' isn't a phrase I'd recognise. 'Product design' maybe which does include ergonomics and function as well as form.
'Industrial design' overlaps with 'Product design' but continues not just the form but also the technical merits and the processes used in manufacturing the product.
Apple's and in particular Jonathan Ive's designs have pushed not just product design forward but also industrial design through use of new materials and processes. I think you'd be doing Ive a great disservice if you described his work on purely aesthetic grounds.
I agree with that. Proper design contains all of the elements needed to make a quality product. What we see on the outside is only part of it.
Anyway, getting back to the thread, Intel have no design skills, product, industrial or artistic. I wouldn't mind being the fly on the wall in the first meeting between Apple's design dept and Intel's engineers when they both clash with USB port placement and where to stick the Intel Inside sticker. ;-)
I don't think we can say that. Intel doesn't usually concern themselves with esthetics because it doesn't come within their design purview.
Jeff is correct about board design. The imperative here is effectiveness. "pretty" take a back seat. Mobo manufacturers use different colors for their boards to distinguish one series from another, and to present a unified look to the purchaser, who is buying these boards for build-it-yourself systems. They also use different color connectors, and jacks, to make it easier to tell one thing from the other.
But other than these PC gamers, who buy garish lighting for their memory sticks, do we need a mobo designed for looks?
Intel obviously isn't going to design a PM. The headline here is just plain silly, and we all know it.
Originally posted by ascii
Apple is all about making things simple - think of Steve's comments about the remote for the iMac G5.
When Woz was there, he used that same philosophy for Apple hardware. If you listen to his speeches on the web, he would talk about spending hours upon hours trying to eliminate one unncessary chip from the motherboard.
Ive is the same with the cases and physical makeup of products. He really keeps it to it's essence.
I fear in outsourcing their motherboard design, it will be built in a company that does not have that same philosophy. Which is too bad for humanity really. One more thing abandoned to the OCF (over-complicated folk).
They all do this. No company is going to use more than is necessary for their design.
You have to remember that when Apple was formed, there were few chips designed to do what Apple needed. It was a nascent industry. Personal computers didn't sell in large numbers. A company coming up with a specialized chip was rare. Woz had to use what he could find in the catalogs. As we all know, that situation has changed. They put as much as possible onto one chip as they can in every generation. Modern (oh, how that word describes soon-to-be-obsolete machines) computers wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Intel is certainly no different. In fact they are the epitome of the multi-function chip manufacturer. No one does it better than them (except for the on-die mem controller from AMD-but that's another argument).
Originally posted by aegisdesign
Why not plug them in to your keyboard in front of you?
One word BLUETOOTH.
Originally posted by onlooker
*waits for melgross to quote himself.
And you're "Desperately Seeking Jeff".
Originally posted by melgross
They all do this. No company is going to use more than is necessary for their design.
I think you're assuming a kind of omniscience there that just doesn't exist. They will use what they figure is the minimum, and maybe a different company (e.g. Apple) will figure differently.
Intel is certainly no different. In fact they are the epitome of the multi-function chip manufacturer.
That's not really the same. Cramming everything on to one chip is not an example of finding the simple, essence of something (ala Apple), it's just miniaturization.
Originally posted by ascii
I think you're assuming a kind of omniscience there that just doesn't exist. They will use what they figure is the minimum, and maybe a different company (e.g. Apple) will figure differently.
That's not really the same. Cramming everything on to one chip is not an example of finding the simple, essence of something (ala Apple), it's just miniaturization.
And just what makes you think Apple is doing the best here?
With their well known problems from their own designed memory controller chips to poorly laid out boards, they are hardly the ones to look to.
Originally posted by melgross
With their well known problems from their own designed memory controller chips to poorly laid out boards, they are hardly the ones to look to.
I think the solution to these problems is not to switch to Intel, but rather to more consistently apply the "Apple principles" in the motherboard division. To the extent they do that, they will be successful.
The solution is to be more Apple, not less!
Originally posted by ascii
I think the solution to these problems is not to switch to Intel, but rather to more consistently apply the "Apple principles" in the motherboard division. To the extent they do that, they will be successful.
The solution is to be more Apple, not less!
I think/hope that intels involvement in board design stems out of the short time span that is available, and the lack of experience that apple engineers have with intel hardware.
I can only imagine how hard it was to design something like the g4 imac board, trying to do that across two companies sounds difficult to say the least.
It wouldnt surprise me if Apple are focused on the hard designs, laptops. While they let intel work on the powermac, and the mini.
No company can get everything right all the time, and any complex system will have bugs. But Apple are one of the few companies that are driven by industrial design, rather than features. I really appreciate that. I love using my macs, and dread using my pcs.
Originally posted by mmmpie
I think/hope that intels involvement in board design stems out of the short time span that is available, and the lack of experience that apple engineers have with intel hardware.
I can only imagine how hard it was to design something like the g4 imac board, trying to do that across two companies sounds difficult to say the least.
It wouldnt surprise me if Apple are focused on the hard designs, laptops. While they let intel work on the powermac, and the mini.
No company can get everything right all the time, and any complex system will have bugs. But Apple are one of the few companies that are driven by industrial design, rather than features. I really appreciate that. I love using my macs, and dread using my pcs.
But, look at how Apple works.
The first iMac G5 was a marvel of design. Jobs made the point of how we could replace parts ourselves. This was a BIG DEAL. One of the biggest complaints of the iMac's is that there are "no user servicable parts inside". We could also replace the mount with an easy to get VESA mount.
So, again, this was a good thing, and a big deal.
So, what happens now.
In order to make the iMac APPEAR as though it was slimmer, Apple went and threw out all of the interior design that made the the earlier models great, other than the form itself.
No more user replaceable parts. No more easy VESA mount. No more two memory slots.
This is Apple design. Great huh?
To go further back. With all of the complaints about not having two externally accesable 5 1/4 bays, Jobs proudly announces that the G4 PM's will now have two external bays. Why? Because most everyone WANTED one.
So far, so good.
Come the PM G5.
Where is the second external bay? Gone. Why? Don't we want one any more?
There is room above the DVD for one, why isn't one there?
My old G5's had room for three official HD's, though you could easily add a forth. Why did they design a huge 40 lb tower with only two HD slots? It boggles the mind. They gave us back one slot in the older G4's for a total of dour. Where is it now?
And you're right about the features. There are hardly any.
Apple design again.
Please don't talk about the "Apple Way". I still remember my 9500!
Apple's choices of design are actively made. If something is included or excluded is and active choice its not like these are oversights or mistakes.
First there needs to be an understanding of why they made the choice. Of course Apple doesn't talk about these things so whatever reasons we can come up with are mostly conjecture.
Taking into account particular design choices one doesn't like. To discuss whether particular features are necessary or not is mostly opinion.
Ultimately what it would come down to is sales. If the market demanded more hard drive bays and Apple offered only one drive bay sales of the PM would plummet. If sales of the PM are stable or even increase, then that reflects for Apple how much demand there is for such bays.
I can see the mass majority of people responding better to a thinner looking iMac than one with easy to change parts. The vast majority of people will not dig into the guts of their computer to change its parts.
As well as a small minority of people who would like to have easy access to an iMac's parts.
Does that make the iMac a bad design because some people want it one way while a lot of people won't care?
Originally posted by melgross
You're not reading the posts.
It seems as though too many are going to Wikipedea and reading the INCOMPLETE definition.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Go back to my earlier post on this.
No I didn't and No I'm not.
I'm remembering it from when Dave Haynie explained it to me during the PIOS days on the TeamONE mailing list. If it's changed since 1996 then perhaps I'm wrong but back then OpenFirmware used Forth and was platform independent.
Originally posted by TenoBell
The only thing I have to take issue with your position Melgross. There is a difference between opinion and fact.
Apple's choices of design are actively made. If something is included or excluded is and active choice its not like these are oversights or mistakes.
First there needs to be an understanding of why they made the choice. Of course Apple doesn't talk about these things so whatever reasons we can come up with are mostly conjecture.
Taking into account particular design choices one doesn't like. To discuss whether particular features are necessary or not is mostly opinion.
Ultimately what it would come down to is sales. If the market demanded more hard drive bays and Apple offered only one drive bay sales of the PM would plummet. If sales of the PM are stable or even increase, then that reflects for Apple how much demand there is for such bays.
I can see the mass majority of people responding better to a thinner looking iMac than one with easy to change parts. The vast majority of people will not dig into the guts of their computer to change its parts.
As well as a small minority of people who would like to have easy access to an iMac's parts.
Does that make the iMac a bad design because some people want it one way while a lot of people won't care?
Ok, fair enough.
What I stated were facts. That's apparent. All of it happened.
The "fact" that it happened should tell you something.
It's like removing the "start" button from the keyboard. I don't know of anyone who preferred NOT having that button. So, why then did they remove it? An older keyboard with it still can use it on a new machine. So nothing was changed that necessitated its removal. The quarter or so that Apple saved couldn't be that significant.
And so you don't think that Apple ever overlooks something? Or that it never makes mistakes? Every manufacturer overlooks things. And they make mistakes as well. If that were not so, then why are so many saying that we should wait until the second generation of the new hardware gets released? Because Apple never overlooks anything, and never makes mistakes?
Even though the problems I mentioned were not something that was overlooked, or a mistake, they were, and are, poor choices.
How do you know that only a small minority of people want to get into their iMac? How do you know that they couldn't have designed it another way that was better, but chose not to, for some other reason that WE wouldn't agree with?
What about the memory slot? That has been recieved badly. 512MB on the mobo. If you want to go to 2.5GB, you need to by one expensive 2GB stick.
Insofar as opinion goes, you just have to read about the net to see that the items I mentioned were considered to be bad choices by a rather large number of people. These discussions have been here as well. Just go back and read some of them.
Originally posted by melgross
But, look at how Apple works.
The first iMac G5 was a marvel of design. Jobs made the point of how we could replace parts ourselves. This was a BIG DEAL. One of the biggest complaints of the iMac's is that there are "no user servicable parts inside". We could also replace the mount with an easy to get VESA mount.
So, again, this was a good thing, and a big deal.
So, what happens now.
In order to make the iMac APPEAR as though it was slimmer, Apple went and threw out all of the interior design that made the the earlier models great, other than the form itself.
No more user replaceable parts. No more easy VESA mount. No more two memory slots.
This is Apple design. Great huh?
You are far too sure that the new design, in which user accessibility goes bye-bye, is the result of an effort to make an even slimmer iMac. My take is different. The slimmer form factor is possible thanks to the new logic board arrangement and since Apple did not like to repair under warranty things broken accidentally by users opening the back of their iMac, it terminated user accessibility in the new iMac.
Originally posted by AquaMac
One word BLUETOOTH.
I have a Bluetooth keyboard and a bluetooth mouse, but I've been gradually going back to cabled keyboards and mice as the bluetooth ones are unresponsive and require batteries. I can type quicker than the keyboard sometimes and characters arrive on screen jumbled. The Apple bluetooth mouse requires an annoying nudge for it to wake and contact the computer before it responds which makes small work onscreen problematic. Plus the mouse is just too heavy. The keyboard also takes an age to pair with the Mac before you can log in and is useless if you ever need to start up your Mac in target disk mode as the keyboard doesn't pair then.
From a function point of view, cables are better. My next Macs will all be cable based, not bluetooth, which I think was a mistake on my part to buy. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
USB 1.1 on a keyboard is fine for most flash drives I've used which seem to be pretty slow anyway. Maybe not for iPods and such though I guess if I used one a lot I'd have a dock.
Originally posted by PB
You are far too sure that the new design, in which user accessibility goes bye-bye, is the result of an effort to make an even slimmer iMac. My take is different. The slimmer form factor is possible thanks to the new logic board arrangement and since Apple did not like to repair things broken accidentally by users opening the back of their iMac, it terminated user accessibility in the new iMac.
It's all part of the same thing. No doubt the word from Jobs was to make it thinner. Two or more design goals can be met at once. The board redesign did two things. One was to lower the part count, and make it run somewhat cooler. Two was to enable them to make the edges thinner for appearance.
I have nothing against that. But to remove the other features which held Apple in good stead through two revisions, was likely unnecessary. I know what it means to design something out while keeping other things in.
For most of the time Apple has been in existence, their computers let people remove and replace most parts. This was never a problem before, why should it be now?
If that were the case, then Apple would have known the areas of contention, and could have redesigned them. There were 200 million computers sold around the world this year. The vast majority are built so that the consumer can get inside. If the consumer was causing all of that trouble, most of those machines wouldn't let them in.
Or are you saying that what PC people say is true, that Mac people are too ignorant of their machines and so shouldn't be allowed to open them?
I don't agree with that.
Originally posted by melgross
Or are you saying that what PC people say is true, that Mac people are too ignorant of their machines and so shouldn't be allowed to open them?
I don't agree with that.
Perhaps Apple agrees.