31–40 of 124 posts
I was one of those owners (the hard drive had already failed). Last straw for me. GrrrApple.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple may choose form over function, but the power adaptors are a good example of how they still spent more time thinking of function than any competitor. For the typical "elongated black box" notebook charger, a cumulative sum of exactly zero effort was spent on improving it in either form or function. Meanwhile, Apple had MagSafe (which is nothing but function), the extendable prongs to wrap the cable, or the littl…
The first generations of magsafe adapters did not have stress relief at all, because form over function was still in full swing. Every charger had the cable completely break apart at the connection to the brick, because stress relief ruined the pretty minimalist design. To say it's nothing but function means denying the evidence.
Every charger had the cable completely break apart at
the connection to the brick, because stress relief ruined
the pretty minimalist design.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the lightning to 3.5mm adaptor. Just look at it.
I wouldn't say that it's designed to fail - but it's clearly not designed to last. It does seem like, with Ive's departure, that Apple may start to make their accessories (and cables, hopefully) as long-lasting as their products.
I'm not surprised. Most of them were just bitching about Apple, and not reviewing the product. Most of the reviews of the USB-C dongles were just complaining about USB-C, for example. Useless.
If I'm about to drop $3-6k on a laptop, I want to know beforehand that it's going to be a PITA connecting things to it.
The fact that lots of people think it's difficult, and that Apple responded to their problems, is also useful to see.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first generations of magsafe adapters did not have stress relief at all, because form over function was still in full swing. Every charger had the cable completely break apart at the connection to the brick, because stress relief ruined the pretty minimalist design. To say it's nothing but function means denying the evidence.
Every charger had the cable completely break apart at the connection to the brick, because stress relief ruined the pretty minimalist design. I had one of these. Mine didn't break. A lot of them broke, to be sure - but that's because the users don't understand that a multiwire cable isn't a shoelace and shouldn't have knots and zero-radius bends inflicted on it.
These things were spec'd to go on table tops and then never move. It's a crying shame because otherwise magsafe was a really elegant design.
Unsurprising, given the (now very old) issue of selection/hidden-information bias in voluntary reviews. The people that are happy with the product are exponentially less likely to leave a "review" than the people that are unhappy, including outright trolls. The whole vibe that creates is not very "Apple". In fact I'm not sure the problem has ever been "solved" - raw sample size of reviews is helpful, but nowhere near…
One example is the classic dark (or at least grey) pattern many mobile app use: Showing a popup with a question whether you enjoy the app or not. If you don't then you are asked to send private "feedback" by email. If you do then you are encouraged to leave a public (likely positive) review and redirected straight to the app store.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many ‘accessory’ products had overwhelmingly negative reviews, because Apple's form-over-function philosophy means that they're genuinely hot garbage. … so they fixed the glitch. ¹ e.g. one I'm familiar with http://web.archive.org/web/20191113224149/https://www.apple....
Apple may choose form over function, but the power adaptors are a good example of how they still spent more time thinking of function than any competitor. For the typical "elongated black box" notebook charger, a cumulative sum of exactly zero effort was spent on improving it in either form or function. Meanwhile, Apple had MagSafe (which is nothing but function), the extendable prongs to wrap the cable, or the littl…
I have never experienced anything like this with other brands nor with no-name brick chargers. Even Chinese knock-off replacement cables for Magsafe chargers didn't fail like that.