[its_so_on]

It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. It also brings out profound conclusions and vision.

When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it. If Samsung says it, maybe a year later they will turn around and bring out an eight-core phone that you can play a game on for forty-five minutes before having to plug it in again.

Apple isn't just opinionated: it's opinionated on hugely difficult technical issues that don't even exist in the wild yet. (As when they release a new category.) You only get that through violent discourse with egos on the line.

edit: a similar thing happens at Google, but not when it comes to ergonomics or user interfaces and usability with the same hardware devices Apple makes, but instead when it comes to solving certain problems on a massive scale. The result is that Google can't really release a laptop that's as usable as a Macbook in the same domain, and for everyone, and Apple can't really solve the ops issues that it would take to bring out a Google Search competitor. There is huge amount of discourse (of a radically different nature) at both companies.

[fpgeek]

> When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it

No, they don't. They mean battery life is important in mobile devices as long as it doesn't get in the way of making them thin (among other things). After all, the modern smartphone with the best battery life is the Droid RAZR MAXX (soon to be dethroned by its international sibling the Motorola RAZR MAXX, which doesn't have the battery-life handicap of an LTE radio).

[its_so_on]

Apple would never release a laptop with a 1.5 hour battery (wifi web browsing). an unimaginable number of such laptops are brought out by every major brand other than Apple.

(likewise apple has its standards in a phone, which is not the standard you cite, but not 45 minutes either.).

Apple is opinionated on every part of the user interface and design, on usability and ease-of-use. They then go on to put their money where their mouth is, and practice what they preach. (For the most part.)

It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them. This is the norm at other companies.

[steverb]

The 1.5 hour battery laptop serves (for me) an important niche. You see, I don't actually need a laptop. I need a portable desktop with built in battery backup, which is what the 1.5 hour battery laptop is.

Of course, it's entirely within Apple's prerogative to ignore that very niche market (I would if I were them) and it seems to be working well for them, but every odd ball computer configuration you see was created to meet the needs of at least one market. You are not the target market for the desktop replacement laptop. I am.

[freehunter]

In college I loved my desktop replacement. This was before wifi was campus-wide, so bringing my laptop to class didn't give me much more benefit than bringing a pad of paper, so the laptop stayed firmly put on my desk all semester. What was really important to me was being able to haul my computer out of the dorm in one trip. A desktop would require multiple trips and would need to be shut down to move (the laptop lasted and hour on battery and 5 hours in sleep mode). A desktop replacement offers almost all the benefits of a desktop, but with a built-in UPS and a one-piece form factor.

[gms]

Said market needs may exist, but addressing them is not guaranteed to be profitable.

[redthrowaway]

>It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them.

That doesn't mean the result of said thought was good, however:

http://i.minus.com/dQhzPuq2CZUc/264182-apple-mac-os-x-lion-1...

[2muchcoffeeman]

There will always be miss-steps. But I don't think you ever achieve great design without being very opinionated. I feel that it helps to edit yourself.

I really hate all these fake textures they are going though.

[cryptoz]

Windows XP didn't ship with a user-level calendar. If Apple had a calendar before 2006, they'd be winning the calendar design front without much effort.

[Spooky23]

iCal shipped in 2002. They made it ugly in 2011.

[huggyface]

Apple would never release a laptop with a 1.5 hour battery (wifi web browsing)

That's too bad. I use my laptops as portable desktops, seldom away from a plug. So I have to heft around a giant battery because Apple decides that only one usage model is right?

RIM devices have, generally, dramatically more endurance than Apple mobile devices. Apple seriously compromised battery life on the burgeoning smartphone market because they prioritized other things like a nice interface and a bigger screen. They weren't the leaders in battery life, and it's weird that you compare them particularly to Samsung when most Samsung devices have comparable or battery performance.

[eropple]

> That's too bad. I use my laptops as portable desktops, seldom away from a plug. So I have to heft around a giant battery because Apple decides that only one usage model is right?

False assertion. With a Macbook Pro, you get one of the lightest laptops of its size, plus very competitive specs in pretty much all areas. (This goes for the new Retina one as well as the standard one.)

[huggyface]

With a Macbook Pro, you get one of the lightest laptops of its size

Samsung series 9 notebook - 2.8lbs.

Macbook Pro - 4.4 - 5.6lbs.

Apple is a remarkable organization, but they are still using the same Intel processors and chipsets, SSDs and wifi chips as everyone else. Where they have a longer battery life it usually is because they filled every crevice with battery, as with the new Retina Macbook Pro. It could have been much lighter if they didn't so intently focus on a 7 hour battery life.

[eropple]

You're comparing a 15.4" mobile workstation with a 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz Ivy Bridge Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and a GT650...to a 13.3" notebook with an Intel IGP, a ULV Core i5, and a max of 8GB of RAM. They don't even come close to filling the same role. If you want to compare the MBP 15" to the Series 9 15", you're looking at a ULV Core i5 at 1.7GHz in the Series 9, still a maximum of 8GB of RAM, still a crappy Intel IGP, and it's less than a pound lighter (3.63 lb).

If you want to compare apples to apples, the 13" Air is a much more appropriate comparison to the original machine you were referring to. The Air has a faster processor (and an option to upgrade to an i7) and weighs almost exactly the same (2.96 pounds to 2.9--not 2.8 as you said).

So...you were saying?

[throwaway1979]

Wouldn't the correct device to compare be the Macbook Air?

[gwern]

> It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment.

In the books I've read on the topic like _The Nine_, it's sounds like a terrific environment. You are incredibly respected by everyone you meet, you have a light workload which is self-chosen and also extremely important and you can see the consequences of your work without doubt, you work with other highly competent people, you can indulge in things like teaching your pet subject in your offtime and be paid very well for it, you get to select the most talented young lawyers as your staffers, and so on and so forth.

[_delirium]

In addition, it appears that in general it's not personal. For example, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who often strongly dissent from each others' opinions in court, are personal friends outside of court.

[xtractinator]

I'd really like to understand what hugely difficult technical issues you're talking about. Funding the development of a new higher DPI display?

[mturmon]

Reliable trackpads, multitouch, battery life, pushing SSDs, unibody enclosures, magsafe, reliable wake-from-sleep, keyboard illumination. And I hope you don't regard the display as a minor accomplishment.