Apple says Chicago store's snow problems are result of software issue

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 48
    mavemufcmavemufc Posts: 326member
    Um...when has the iPhone ever been hard to hold? If you mean easy to drop, then put a case on it.
  • Reply 22 of 48
    dewme said:
    I'm a bit disappointed that they would design a building that doesn't accommodate and coexist in its environment in a more natural and passive way. An active roof warming system in a cold and snowy climate must be quite expensive to power and could potentially fail during a prolonged power outage, like an outage caused by excessive snowfall. I hope they at least use waste heat or an environmentally friendly energy source to power the roof heaters. It's not as bad as building an igloo store in the Arizona desert, but they could have been much more environmentally considerate like they've been with their spaceship campus. 
    Yes, ….as in the current "environment" that is a city full of skyscrapers, cars, electricity, overcrowding, and on and on, that is the City Of Chicago. …..in this environment you speak of, this Apple edifice is way ahead by their current standards, and at minimum, a model for all future construction in the City of Chicago.
    patchythepirateStrangeDays
  • Reply 23 of 48
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    I figured there was more to the story than what was being written.  This is the modern way of how so-called "journalists" report.  Create a click-bait headline for sensationalism, then quietly report the real reason days (if not weeks) later in a subdued way so as to not attract attention and get called-out of sloppiness.

    While people were doing their typical iHating scripts, I recalled mentioning that if anyone is responsible, it would be the architect/designer would be at fault since Apple just signs-off the design aspect and would not deal with the details.  I found it really hard to believe that any designer tasked with such a project would fail on such a basic problem in snow-heavy Chicago.  

    So now this makes sense, and all the players that pounced on Apple are nowhere to be found.  Just a quiet field of crickets.  

    This kind of sloppy reporting is typical now.  You don't see sites like AI coming back saying "Yeah, we should have at least checked our facts first".  No... the media will just report "the facts that we knew of the time" nonsense.

    So is the laws of click-quotas.
    philboogiepatchythepirateStrangeDaysLukeCageSpamSandwichpscooter63
  • Reply 24 of 48
    AI_liasAI_lias Posts: 434member
    sdw2001 said:
    "For years, for instance, the company made the thinness of iPhones a key selling point, even as some people complained they were becoming hard to hold and that they would rather have more battery life."


    What?  
    I'll translate it for you: iPhone 6-7 were slippery as heck and too thin, rounded edges combined with aluminum=slippery. Also, battery was too small, and people were afraid it would cause unexpected shutdowns down the road if CPU demands spiked and battery had less capacity due to natural degrading of lithium batteries over time. When users were asked they overwhelmingly asked for longer battery life, which Apple pretty much ignored.
  • Reply 25 of 48
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Very appreciative of Apples advances in architectural implementation. Very smart way to eliminate snow and ice build up. And to route the melted liquid INTERNALLY... Perfect! Just because the weather is harsh doesn't mean you have to see "gutters" and water running all over the place. Apple advancing the neatness of things once again. It's these kinds of bold moves that see others following their lead and making the world a better place a little at a time. Sure nothing's perfect. That's why there is plan B. But they're gunning for it. As we all should. 
    Before you give Apple too much credit. Chicago building code requires large buildings to drain roofs internally. This wasn't some brilliant new design scheme Apple came up with. It's to prevent massive amounts of water from flooding the streets and sidewalks if all the roofs had external drains. Roof water has to be routed to the sewer, not the street (or sidewalks).

    As for the efficiency of heating the roof. People are assuming they are only heating the edges. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is heating the entire roof to maintain their design aesthetic. Anyone with an aerial view who can verify the next time it snows?
  • Reply 26 of 48
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    dewme said:
    I'm a bit disappointed that they would design a building that doesn't accommodate and coexist in its environment in a more natural and passive way. An active roof warming system in a cold and snowy climate must be quite expensive to power and could potentially fail during a prolonged power outage, like an outage caused by excessive snowfall. I hope they at least use waste heat or an environmentally friendly energy source to power the roof heaters. It's not as bad as building an igloo store in the Arizona desert, but they could have been much more environmentally considerate like they've been with their spaceship campus. 
    Yes, ….as in the current "environment" that is a city full of skyscrapers, cars, electricity, overcrowding, and on and on, that is the City Of Chicago. …..in this environment you speak of, this Apple edifice is way ahead by their current standards, and at minimum, a model for all future construction in the City of Chicago.
    Environment as in cold weather and heavy snow load.

    Look, I get it that Apple was going for something reminiscent of the Frank Lloyd Wright midwest school of design. It's an incredibly beautiful structure and a showplace. Like many Frank Lloyd Wright designs it also requires some accommodation to deal with its physical compromises. In this case a software controlled active heating system for the roof. No big deal really, I'm interested to hear how Apple has incorporated some of its "obsession for things unseen" design imperatives into this elegant building design sitting in a very cold and snowy environment. On a scale of 1-10 my "disappointment" of not knowing what they've done shouldn't even move the needle past 0.5. Perhaps I should have said curiosity instead of disappointment?
  • Reply 27 of 48
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    I initially knocked Apple for this which was dumb. The idea that Apple or Fosters & Partners didn’t design for snow in Chicago is ridiculous.
    edited January 2018 sennen
  • Reply 28 of 48
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    mavemufc said:
    Um...when has the iPhone ever been hard to hold? If you mean easy to drop, then put a case on it.
    iPhone 6 was slippery as hell without a case.
    tallest skil
  • Reply 29 of 48
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    LukeCage said:
    macxpress said:
    So Apple and the architects they hire aren't as dumb as people thought...

    I know right it's like people were jumping to conclusion with out having the whole story.

    Its what some do best...jump at every possibly opportunity to take a negative Apple story and run with it. I'm surprised people weren't calling for Tim to be fired over this one. 
    StrangeDays
  • Reply 30 of 48
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    dewme said:
    I'm a bit disappointed that they would design a building that doesn't accommodate and coexist in its environment in a more natural and passive way. An active roof warming system in a cold and snowy climate must be quite expensive to power and could potentially fail during a prolonged power outage, like an outage caused by excessive snowfall. I hope they at least use waste heat or an environmentally friendly energy source to power the roof heaters. It's not as bad as building an igloo store in the Arizona desert, but they could have been much more environmentally considerate like they've been with their spaceship campus. 
    Siri, divert all available power to the roof hearing system.

    Star Trek made power allocation so easy. 
  • Reply 31 of 48
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    mavemufc said:
    Um...when has the iPhone ever been hard to hold? If you mean easy to drop, then put a case on it.
    iPhone 6 was slippery as hell without a case.
    iPhone 6s was also slippery as hell. This is why I don't like anything Apple makes out most aluminum that you have to hold in your hand, such as iPhone 6/6S, and the current Apple TV remote. Maybe they look nice, but unless you have some sort of case on them simply for the grip, its very unusable IMO. 
  • Reply 32 of 48
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    It must be the terrorists attacking our critical infrastructure by way of the Intel chip vulnerability!
  • Reply 33 of 48
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,844member
    avon b7 said:
    sdw2001 said:
    "For years, for instance, the company made the thinness of iPhones a key selling point, even as some people complained they were becoming hard to hold and that they would rather have more battery life."


    What?  
    Yeah that was an odd non-sequitur. Making technology thinner and smaller isn't aesthetics, it's in fact practical. Smaller, lighter...this is how we advance the state of the art and get our tech into new form factors with new solutions and innovations. There would be no Watch without what was learned in miniaturizing the phone and tablet. Making them weigh less is a plus. 

    It's funny, people love their sci-fi devices of impossibly-thin (and clear!) tech in the future, but meanwhile in the present the whiners say "Stop making improvements!" and suggest all technology be frozen with today's norms and comfort levels. Odd.
    Smaller and lighter runs both ways. There are pros and contras. It isn't such a clear cut thing. That's precisely one reason why the Plus phones exist. 
    The Plus exists because according to Ive, they were able to get the body thin enough to not make it honking huge and unwieldy. 
  • Reply 34 of 48
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,844member
    AI_lias said:
    sdw2001 said:
    "For years, for instance, the company made the thinness of iPhones a key selling point, even as some people complained they were becoming hard to hold and that they would rather have more battery life."


    What?  
    I'll translate it for you: iPhone 6-7 were slippery as heck and too thin, rounded edges combined with aluminum=slippery. Also, battery was too small, and people were afraid it would cause unexpected shutdowns down the road if CPU demands spiked and battery had less capacity due to natural degrading of lithium batteries over time. When users were asked they overwhelmingly asked for longer battery life, which Apple pretty much ignored.
    Cite your source that the overwhelming majority of Apple customers want what you want? Their spending patterns say otherwise. 

    Also, the thickness and battery capacities of the 6 and 7 went up, not down. Compare the 6 to the 5, I’ll wait. So your claim that battery failure would never happen with a pre-6 sized device are ignorant bullshit. No matter what the size is, if the chemical impedance fails the thing is done. See car batteries — much, much bigger, but still fail after 2-3 years in cold or heat. Oops. 

    Got anymore pet theories?
  • Reply 35 of 48
    sflocal said:
    I figured there was more to the story than what was being written.  This is the modern way of how so-called "journalists" report.  Create a click-bait headline for sensationalism, then quietly report the real reason days (if not weeks) later in a subdued way so as to not attract attention and get called-out of sloppiness.

    While people were doing their typical iHating scripts, I recalled mentioning that if anyone is responsible, it would be the architect/designer would be at fault since Apple just signs-off the design aspect and would not deal with the details.  I found it really hard to believe that any designer tasked with such a project would fail on such a basic problem in snow-heavy Chicago.  

    So now this makes sense, and all the players that pounced on Apple are nowhere to be found.  Just a quiet field of crickets.  

    This kind of sloppy reporting is typical now.  You don't see sites like AI coming back saying "Yeah, we should have at least checked our facts first".  No... the media will just report "the facts that we knew of the time" nonsense.

    So is the laws of click-quotas.
    Sloppy reporting has been around since the dawn of reporting.

    Remember the old saying "If it bleeds, it leads"?
  • Reply 36 of 48
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    sflocal said:
    I figured there was more to the story than what was being written.  This is the modern way of how so-called "journalists" report.  Create a click-bait headline for sensationalism, then quietly report the real reason days (if not weeks) later in a subdued way so as to not attract attention and get called-out of sloppiness.

    While people were doing their typical iHating scripts, I recalled mentioning that if anyone is responsible, it would be the architect/designer would be at fault since Apple just signs-off the design aspect and would not deal with the details.  I found it really hard to believe that any designer tasked with such a project would fail on such a basic problem in snow-heavy Chicago.  

    So now this makes sense, and all the players that pounced on Apple are nowhere to be found.  Just a quiet field of crickets.  

    This kind of sloppy reporting is typical now.  You don't see sites like AI coming back saying "Yeah, we should have at least checked our facts first".  No... the media will just report "the facts that we knew of the time" nonsense.

    So is the laws of click-quotas.
    Did anyone seriously believe that architects don’t study the environment where they’re about to drop a building. 

    Yes, apparently some people actually thought that. 

    Hilarious. 
    edited January 2018 StrangeDayspscooter63
  • Reply 37 of 48
    AI_liasAI_lias Posts: 434member
    AI_lias said:
    sdw2001 said:
    "For years, for instance, the company made the thinness of iPhones a key selling point, even as some people complained they were becoming hard to hold and that they would rather have more battery life."


    What?  
    I'll translate it for you: iPhone 6-7 were slippery as heck and too thin, rounded edges combined with aluminum=slippery. Also, battery was too small, and people were afraid it would cause unexpected shutdowns down the road if CPU demands spiked and battery had less capacity due to natural degrading of lithium batteries over time. When users were asked they overwhelmingly asked for longer battery life, which Apple pretty much ignored.
    Cite your source that the overwhelming majority of Apple customers want what you want? Their spending patterns say otherwise. 

    Also, the thickness and battery capacities of the 6 and 7 went up, not down. Compare the 6 to the 5, I’ll wait. So your claim that battery failure would never happen with a pre-6 sized device are ignorant bullshit. No matter what the size is, if the chemical impedance fails the thing is done. See car batteries — much, much bigger, but still fail after 2-3 years in cold or heat. Oops. 

    Got anymore pet theories?
    I'll let the author of this article cite sources and such. Was just clarifying what was written.
  • Reply 38 of 48
    avon b7 said:
    sdw2001 said:
    "For years, for instance, the company made the thinness of iPhones a key selling point, even as some people complained they were becoming hard to hold and that they would rather have more battery life."


    What?  
    Yeah that was an odd non-sequitur. Making technology thinner and smaller isn't aesthetics, it's in fact practical. Smaller, lighter...this is how we advance the state of the art and get our tech into new form factors with new solutions and innovations. There would be no Watch without what was learned in miniaturizing the phone and tablet. Making them weigh less is a plus. 

    It's funny, people love their sci-fi devices of impossibly-thin (and clear!) tech in the future, but meanwhile in the present the whiners say "Stop making improvements!" and suggest all technology be frozen with today's norms and comfort levels. Odd.
    Smaller and lighter runs both ways. There are pros and contras. It isn't such a clear cut thing. That's precisely one reason why the Plus phones exist. There was demand for bigger phones. The same applies for weight. No one would want an ultra light phone that could be moved by wind. There's also a pyschological angle. People like phones to feel solid and comfortable in the hand. And of course, battery size can only be reduced to a point, after which, things become inconvenient for the user.

    It's not about stopping making improvements. A bigger battery could be an improvement. The key is to not go too far in the other direction.
    It *isn't* a clear cut thing, so I won't look for an answer to the question: at what point does battery size become inconvenient to the user? It's too squishy to quantify well enough to cite a metric. I can say through 30 years of using wired/wireless headsets for various home and business desk phones, the Jabra BT unit I use now is so light and thin I can't tell where the battery is. I do like that it lasts all day before needing to be returned to the cradle, and doesn't leave me with an ache from resting on my ear.
  • Reply 39 of 48
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    dewme said:
    I'm a bit disappointed that they would design a building that doesn't accommodate and coexist in its environment in a more natural and passive way. An active roof warming system in a cold and snowy climate must be quite expensive to power and could potentially fail during a prolonged power outage, like an outage caused by excessive snowfall. I hope they at least use waste heat or an environmentally friendly energy source to power the roof heaters. It's not as bad as building an igloo store in the Arizona desert, but they could have been much more environmentally considerate like they've been with their spaceship campus. 
    One small point: you don’t actually know what is causing the problem with the heating system. As I said when this nonsense first came up, it’s entirely possible that the roof is too warm, and that they need to turn  the heating down to stop the icicles forming. 
  • Reply 40 of 48
    Sloppy reporting has been around since the dawn of reporting.

    Remember the old saying "If it bleeds, it leads"?
    - Can’t argue against your first point, although I haven’t read sloppy reporting on this particular story.
    However over the course of the stories on the Apple Chicago roof, many commenters have again taken liberty to wildly theorize with incomplete knowledge that Apple had blown it once more. So sometimes sloppy commenting on solid reporting of the available incomplete facts.

    - Remember the old saying "If it bleeds, it leads"?
    in my estimation, this old saw speaks clearly to the fact that it is the preference of the reader/consumer for such news that drives the selection. Sensational, tawdry, sexual, bloody, violent drive interest and attention. Again, a symptom of the devolution of the individual and society that many would prefer this sort of journalism, but it is journalism none the less. Also an apparent window into our political sophistication.  Of course a story on a sensational topic can be written either as a fact based account or in a loose, subjective or sloppy manner.

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