macplusplus

“As the PC business grew into an increasingly valuable segment, IBM attempted to develop its own, more sophisticated OS and hardware platforms with PS/2 OS/2. It continued work with Microsoft to do this, but as soon as Microsoft felt it could do better on its own, Gates' Microsoft dumped IBM and launched its own plans for Windows.”

StrangeDays said:

wozwoz said:

macplusplus said:

iPhone 5s/SE.

Well said  -  and vastly better cleaner design than the generic and bland iPhone X

Define “cleaner” please. As the devices approach all-screen they become slabs of glass, so I’m curious what you mean. 

I care to stay away from re-initiating an old discussion but sometimes you cannot release the best design for several reasons: market pressure, investors’ stance, partners’ inabilities... Given the camera protrusion, plastic bands, some notch, the 5s/SE stands like a carefully cut piece of gemstone compared to those slabs of glass. Anyway, this is just a subjective feeling, people write to this thread the items they liked much...

iPhone 5s/SE.

GeorgeBMac said:

This might, hopefully, enable Apple to escape from the minimalist prison it locked itself into over the past decade or so expand out include more functional considerations.

Minimalist = functional.

You discard all the decoration and you expose pure functions. So what is “function” and what is not can be easily discerned.

henrybay said:

This is an insightful editorial. Thank you. Jony Ive is obviously a great designer who had made an immeasurable contribution to Apple’s success. However, I do think he got stuck in a rigid neural loop in recent years, which caused him to become obsessed with a singular design concept. This concept is ‘thinness at all costs’. 

This obsession has undermined a number of key Apple products, such as the MacBook which suffers from an ultra shallow keyboard with no travel, a lack of ports and the mystifying removal of MagSafe. It is also very difficult to comprehend how Apple can charge $1,000 for a computer stand.

Whoever steps into Ive’s shoes needs to strike a better balance between design purity and functionality. 

This is simply not true. Neither Apple Watch nor Apple Pencil are thin, both are Ive's creations. Don't we need the Watch or the Pencil to be a couple of mm thinner? Of course we do. But there is a limit of tweaking aesthetics, this is the point where you begin to compromise functionality. The thinness of Macbooks are due to functional reasons just like the choice of aluminium: dissipation of heat. Give the laptop more volume it will retain more heat, which will require a bigger fan, which in turn will require a bigger power supply and bigger battery... you enter into vicious circle. The Macbooks have reached their optimal designs. If that doesn't suit your needs then your expectations are less than optimal, you may need a desktop Mac or a disposable PC laptop.