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Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

theguardian.com

101–110 of 112 posts

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#101
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple wants to prevent users from leaving the mouse connected with a USB cable all the time. Why should that be a problem?

Because that will wreck the battery capacity. Li-Ion batteries aren’t designed for that use-case. Also the Magic Mouse has fast charging. You’ll get a full day of battery in 2min. With a full charge, you’ll get 2+ months of usage. Do the math. You’ll most likely charge this thing less than 20 times in it’s entire life. That’s why the battery port design is both really smart and elegant. Unfortunately people don’t tak…

So my understanding is that all Li-Ion batteries come with circuitry that explicitly keeps track of the battery condition and minimizes charging when unnecessary, even if it's plugged in. I don't think it's just "juice goes in until it's full"

Can anyone more knowledgeable confirm?

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#102
post #7

Can't really agree with the Magic Mouse 2 being a "miss". I understand the controversy with the charging port being under the mouse, but it's done on purpose: Apple wants to prevent users from leaving the mouse connected with a USB cable all the time. Maybe there was a better solution to this issue, but the truth is that it's not actually an issue and not a blunder either. I've had this mouse for years and simply rec…

> I understand the controversy with the charging port being under the mouse, but it's done on purpose: Apple wants to prevent users from leaving the mouse connected with a USB cable all the time. Here's a better solution: good old rechargeable AA batteries. Keep a spare set sitting in a charger, and you'll never need to wait for your device to recharge. If you're concerned about users falling back on disposables, bun…

What's the point of AA and AAA when lipo already has months of battery life, better weight and weight distribution and don't have to deal with finding/charging batteries, battery recycling all the time, gunk from unequal cell discharge etc. It's so much easier to just plug on a USB cable for all of 2 minutes.

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that will wreck the battery capacity. Li-Ion batteries aren’t designed for that use-case. Also the Magic Mouse has fast charging. You’ll get a full day of battery in 2min. With a full charge, you’ll get 2+ months of usage. Do the math. You’ll most likely charge this thing less than 20 times in it’s entire life. That’s why the battery port design is both really smart and elegant. Unfortunately people don’t tak…

So my understanding is that all Li-Ion batteries come with circuitry that explicitly keeps track of the battery condition and minimizes charging when unnecessary, even if it's plugged in. I don't think it's just "juice goes in until it's full" Can anyone more knowledgeable confirm?

Usually that just means it lets the charge level drop to ~98% or something before topping it off again which I'm sure they do but having doing anything with a lipo slowly kills it to some degree including simply being near high and low states of charge so it's no silver bullet.

What they would need to do is detect when the port has been has been connected regularly for days and let the charge level drop to some announcement proportionate to the frequency and duration.

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#104
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I still don't have a good solution to horizontal scrolling (shift doesn't work in Excel).

The Macbook trackpad has by far the best horizontal scrolling of any pointing device. I could not live without it. (If anyone knows a better solution please tell me. I'm always looking for new options.) It's great for spreadsheets. I even use the Macbook trackpad for 3D CAD. I used to use a spaceball and mouse, but the trackpad plus modifier keys is more convenient because it keeps the hands to the keyboard.

In the event that you'd prefer a mouse for standard pointing, I do think the Magic Mouse is equally good at horizontal scrolling. One could quibble that the Magic Mouse offers less room on the surface for horizontal movement, but in practice I don't think this makes much difference.

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#106
post #44

The one thing I noticed missing that should have been included was the unibody MacBook design. That was a huge innovation that led to massive improvements in build quality industry-wide. If I recall correctly, he played a much larger role in that design than the iPod, which is largely credited to Tony Fadell (although Ive definitely had a large influence on later iterations).

Agreed. The Titanium G4 to the Unibody pretty much laid the foundation of what the next 20 years of good laptops would be.

Initially I would agree, and then it was all about thinnest, un-repairable, soldered laptops.

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#107
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Macbook trackpad has by far the best horizontal scrolling of any pointing device. I could not live without it. (If anyone knows a better solution please tell me. I'm always looking for new options.) It's great for spreadsheets. I even use the Macbook trackpad for 3D CAD. I used to use a spaceball and mouse, but the trackpad plus modifier keys is more convenient because it keeps the hands to the keyboard.

In the event that you'd prefer a mouse for standard pointing, I do think the Magic Mouse is equally good at horizontal scrolling. One could quibble that the Magic Mouse offers less room on the surface for horizontal movement, but in practice I don't think this makes much difference.

Best of both worlds—

I know many people that use a mouse and Magic Trackpad and fluidly switch between them depending on the task. I did exactly that for about a year—before eventually ditching the mouse altogether.

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#108
post #7

Can't really agree with the Magic Mouse 2 being a "miss". I understand the controversy with the charging port being under the mouse, but it's done on purpose: Apple wants to prevent users from leaving the mouse connected with a USB cable all the time. Maybe there was a better solution to this issue, but the truth is that it's not actually an issue and not a blunder either. I've had this mouse for years and simply rec…

Apple demonstrated that this was an incomplete design effort by releasing the rechargable track pad that can be left plugged in.

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand the controversy with the charging port being under the mouse, but it's done on purpose: Apple wants to prevent users from leaving the mouse connected with a USB cable all the time. Here's a better solution: good old rechargeable AA batteries. Keep a spare set sitting in a charger, and you'll never need to wait for your device to recharge. If you're concerned about users falling back on disposables, bun…

What's the point of AA and AAA when lipo already has months of battery life, better weight and weight distribution and don't have to deal with finding/charging batteries, battery recycling all the time, gunk from unequal cell discharge etc. It's so much easier to just plug on a USB cable for all of 2 minutes.

2-3 years later when your proprietary LiPo dies, you'll pat your younger self on the back for choosing a standardised battery. You will repeat this over and over again for every time you choose a standardised power source over a proprietary one.

Re: Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple

#110
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple wants to prevent users from leaving the mouse connected with a USB cable all the time. Why should that be a problem?

Because that will wreck the battery capacity. Li-Ion batteries aren’t designed for that use-case. Also the Magic Mouse has fast charging. You’ll get a full day of battery in 2min. With a full charge, you’ll get 2+ months of usage. Do the math. You’ll most likely charge this thing less than 20 times in it’s entire life. That’s why the battery port design is both really smart and elegant. Unfortunately people don’t tak…

Ignorant comment. Very easy to design a) a dual power circuit and b) charging hysteresis to not mame the battery.

There simply is no good reason for the port placement.

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