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You're underestimating Apple's meticulous planning, which has only become more intense in the Cook era. Bad feature/UX or not, each one of those decisions was c

You're underestimating Apple's meticulous planning, which has only become more intense in the Cook era. Bad feature/UX or not, each one of those decisions was calculated. Read this ars quote from 2010 [0]: >Apple used the small part—one that is not integral to the device’s functionality—to see if the company was capable or producing a custom design to Apple’s specifications. Typically, manufacturers prefer to have at least two sources for parts, so that a supply problem from one supplier won’t halt manufacturing. Since Liquidmetal is only available from one source, Apple needed to make sure the company could deliver. For Apple Silicon, there was no way they'd make the switch in one go, so they had to figure out a way to hedge that bet. That's what the TouchBar really was, with all its warts and solutions for problems nobody had. And as someone else in this thread pointed out, the first custom cellular chip wasn't released with a flagship model - they exclusively paired it with the budget iPhone 16e. Apple is always calculating and hedging. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/08/apple-tested-liquidmetal-alloy-for-iphone-3g-sim-pin/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/08/apple-tested-liquidm...

wetpaws 4mo ago
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troupo 4mo ago
> You're underestimating Apple's meticulous planning, which has only become more intense in the Cook era "Meticulous planning" and then: butterfly keyboard, wireless charging, Mac Pro, Liquid Glass. And those are just off the top of my head.
- gsquaredxc 4mo ago
  I think you confuse long-term planning with long-term success. Just because something is meticulously planned doesn’t guarantee the plan wasn’t flawed fundamentally. Additionally, wireless charging is viewed as a flop? MagSafe (wireless) is a really strong product option. Lightning vs USB-C doesn’t matter, no need to fiddle with anything in the dark, etc. MagSafe for mounting in a car is also a strong offering. Most Android phones use Qi as well.
  - troupo 4mo ago
    > I think you confuse long-term planning with long-term success. No. Long-term planning presupposes actual planning and execution, including failure modes, usage patterns etc. There's markedly less and less of that under Cook's leadership. Oh, by the way. You can't really have long-term meticulous planning when everything is on an artificially enforced yearly cycle. The hardware division has mostly emerged unscathed, but that's a miracle in Cook's Apple. > wireless charging is viewed as a flop? I was referring to AirPower. Announced, never shipped. I should've looked up the name for it. Otherwise yes, wireless charging has been used everywhere, and Apple was just one of very last holdouts to implement it.
    - moralestapia 4mo ago
      4 trillion dollars disagree, though.
      - troupo 4mo ago
        That's such a non-argument that I struggle to even comment on it. By this measure Microsoft is the most meticulously planned company in history with a spotless track of achievements.
      - righthand 4mo ago
        Non-Apple Derangement Syndrome is strong with the brand.
  - apparent 4mo ago
    I think the reference to wireless charging was to their rumored-but-never-released product that was going to allow charging at a distance, not mere magsafe charging.
- tskj 4mo ago
  What are you on about, wireless charging is great, and using the magnet to hang my phone is also great. If that goes away I might have to consider switching phones!
- virgil_disgr4ce 4mo ago
  I'm gonna echo the sibling comment here because you're conflating different things. The point is that all of these seemingly weird things that were sometimes failures were part of more or less elaborate plans, and most importantly, that *commercial success for any given feature was not necessarily the purpose of the plan.*
  - troupo 4mo ago
    You're conflating what I wrote with "you're talking about commercial success". Broken keyboards shipped for years, "we didn't think about thermal throttling", "we have no working replacement for a widely used professional machine", and "hey, here's this half-assed redesign that we still can't properly fix after release" have nothing to do with either commercial success or meticulous planning.
    - dylan604 4mo ago
      The keyboard issue was prolonged only by the nature of Apple's hardware release cycle. When the keyboard was released to the public, the next gen hardware was already way into the design/build cycle that it could not just be replaced. The fact they even had time to put the condoms under each key for the next year's model was surprising to me. They wanked the plug on the keyboard faster than I've seen them yank any hardware design.
      - troupo 4mo ago
        > The keyboard issue was prolonged only by the nature of Apple's hardware release cycle. You know that "meticulous planning" is supposed to include mechanical tests, catching edge cases etc. right? Instead, it persisted for 5 years with minor acknowledgements and minor changes. It took them 3 years to put the "condoms" on, 4 years to add additional caps. 3 years after release Apple started offering free keyboard repairs to all users with a butterfly keyboard. All that for a "meticulously planned" keyboard whose issues were immediately apparent within weeks of release.

wetpaws 4mo ago

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troupo 4mo ago

> You're underestimating Apple's meticulous planning, which has only become more intense in the Cook era "Meticulous planning" and then: butterfly keyboard, wireless charging, Mac Pro, Liquid Glass. And those are just off the top of my head.

gsquaredxc 4mo ago
I think you confuse long-term planning with long-term success. Just because something is meticulously planned doesn’t guarantee the plan wasn’t flawed fundamentally. Additionally, wireless charging is viewed as a flop? MagSafe (wireless) is a really strong product option. Lightning vs USB-C doesn’t matter, no need to fiddle with anything in the dark, etc. MagSafe for mounting in a car is also a strong offering. Most Android phones use Qi as well.
- troupo 4mo ago
  > I think you confuse long-term planning with long-term success. No. Long-term planning presupposes actual planning and execution, including failure modes, usage patterns etc. There's markedly less and less of that under Cook's leadership. Oh, by the way. You can't really have long-term meticulous planning when everything is on an artificially enforced yearly cycle. The hardware division has mostly emerged unscathed, but that's a miracle in Cook's Apple. > wireless charging is viewed as a flop? I was referring to AirPower. Announced, never shipped. I should've looked up the name for it. Otherwise yes, wireless charging has been used everywhere, and Apple was just one of very last holdouts to implement it.
  - moralestapia 4mo ago
    4 trillion dollars disagree, though.
    - troupo 4mo ago
      That's such a non-argument that I struggle to even comment on it. By this measure Microsoft is the most meticulously planned company in history with a spotless track of achievements.
    - righthand 4mo ago
      Non-Apple Derangement Syndrome is strong with the brand.
- apparent 4mo ago
  I think the reference to wireless charging was to their rumored-but-never-released product that was going to allow charging at a distance, not mere magsafe charging.
tskj 4mo ago
What are you on about, wireless charging is great, and using the magnet to hang my phone is also great. If that goes away I might have to consider switching phones!
virgil_disgr4ce 4mo ago
I'm gonna echo the sibling comment here because you're conflating different things. The point is that all of these seemingly weird things that were sometimes failures were part of more or less elaborate plans, and most importantly, that *commercial success for any given feature was not necessarily the purpose of the plan.*
- troupo 4mo ago
  You're conflating what I wrote with "you're talking about commercial success". Broken keyboards shipped for years, "we didn't think about thermal throttling", "we have no working replacement for a widely used professional machine", and "hey, here's this half-assed redesign that we still can't properly fix after release" have nothing to do with either commercial success or meticulous planning.
  - dylan604 4mo ago
    The keyboard issue was prolonged only by the nature of Apple's hardware release cycle. When the keyboard was released to the public, the next gen hardware was already way into the design/build cycle that it could not just be replaced. The fact they even had time to put the condoms under each key for the next year's model was surprising to me. They wanked the plug on the keyboard faster than I've seen them yank any hardware design.
    - troupo 4mo ago
      > The keyboard issue was prolonged only by the nature of Apple's hardware release cycle. You know that "meticulous planning" is supposed to include mechanical tests, catching edge cases etc. right? Instead, it persisted for 5 years with minor acknowledgements and minor changes. It took them 3 years to put the "condoms" on, 4 years to add additional caps. 3 years after release Apple started offering free keyboard repairs to all users with a butterfly keyboard. All that for a "meticulously planned" keyboard whose issues were immediately apparent within weeks of release.