OctoMonkey

dewme said:

I haven’t picked up a CD, DVD, or Blue Ray disc in 5-6 years. Like others have said the SuperDrive doesn’t play well with non-Apple devices. I still have a Samsung alternative that seems to work okay with other platforms. It’s sitting in a drawer, snuggled right up next to my SuperDrive. Tech ballast. 

dewme said:

OctoMonkey said:

dewme said:

Yet again a clever proof of concept. He’s basically created a “magic shoe” for the Magic Mouse that allows the mouse to be used while charging. It works. But it’s pretty obvious from the implementation why Apple never chose to go down this path. It’s design and aesthetics are okay from a mouse-in-a-shoe perspective, but Apple (at least with Jony Ive at the helm of the design team) would never have allowed this to be labeled as an Apple product. It’s too large, bulky, and reminiscent of mouse designs you can get from many other vendors for $29.99.

Whether you liked Jony’s approach or not, he always stuck to his guns and saw that his vision for a product met his design and aesthetic goals. Anything that deviated too far from what he envisioned was seen as a failure. One can argue that what comes across as a single-minded and arguably narrow focus on the primary functionality, like using the device and how it feels in the hand, led to functional compromises when it came to ancillary functionality, like charging the device. The Magic Mouse is imo pleasant and efficient to use, but yeah, there is no getting over the clunky recharging scenario. The rationale must have been something like “you obviously only recharge the device while you’re not using it.” This makes perfect sense only until it doesn’t.

Not a mouse in a shoe.  Rather than being inserted into something (like a foot into a shoe), the mouse is pretty clearly separated in half with a center section added, which also encompasses the lower half.

His design philosophy of form over function is the reason I don't care for his designs in general.  He was a good (not great) product designer when kept reined in, but a disaster when let loose.

One thing I still wonder about is why more wireless mouse and trackball designers have not gone after using an inductive charging mechanism. Perhaps it has something to do with the need to periodically park the mouse exactly on top of a charging coil built into the desk, desk pad, or a mouse pad. Perhaps as far-field wireless power transfer technology becomes more mature and widely available it can be used in conjunction with precision UWB localization to allow all of the wireless devices sitting on your desk, or even all wirelessly charged devices in a room, to be charged simply because they are within line-of-sight proximity to the charging station or broadcast beacon. Seems doable in the not too distant future.

Wesley Hilliard said:

bigcountry said:

So... what good does this do when most iPhone owners have their phone in a case that has very poor thermal conductivity?

Getting the heat off of the battery and the processor is the first priority. After that, it's not that big an issue. The graphene heat sink is more important for getting heat away from critical components, which will be more efficient than what's there now.

iqatedo said:

OctoMonkey said:

brianjo said:

Since they are committed to the stupid power brick, it would have made sense to add a couple USB or thunderbolt ports there as well, tidying up the desk workspace.

Hell, even better would be to move all of the brains into the brick and calling it a Mac Mini, thus making the display just a display, allowing you to upgrade the machine by replacing the brick instead of the whole machine...

The requirement of the power brick is another outstanding example of Apple's insistence on form over function...  and should have definitely been on the list of "Cons".  There is no justifiable excuse for the power brick and, for me, would reduce this from a 4/5 to a 3/5.

Love the external power brick. The iMac is better off without a mains socket.