Forehead-slapping design goofs

[mischief]

I thought I'd lighten things up with a few goofy Apple design side effects. I'd like this to be a catalogue of anecdotes NOT I repeat NOT an oppertunity to slam Apple. Every company has it's design glitches and Apple is no exception. Apple's design issues mostly fall into the Emilio/Sculley's eras so that line will get pretty torn up. I don't want to see total design whining about whole products, just oddities that happened by accident or lack of foresight. Think Humor people.

1. The hockeypuck mouse.

2.The "compressed" Keyboard with 1/3 of the keys absent and many at half size.

3. The Cube's touch-sensitive switch being on top where you touch it most.

4. The Cube's top-heavy chassis. "Lemme just show you the bottom.....whoops..*BANG*...Ooh I hope the drive wasn't spinning."

5. Powerbook rear hatches.

6. Pippin

[amichalo]

I love my Ti PowerBook, but what I love least is when I sit it down on my desk and reach around to plug in my USB mouse. Because the USB connector will fit in the Ethernet port (right beside it), I can't really plug it in by feel (unless I am feeling lucky).

A better design would be to move the firewire port inbetween the second USB port and the Ethernet port. This would provide a tactile way of knowing I am pluggin into a USB port, without having to lean over and look.

[eyelikeart]

I hated that damned thing when we got them while I was in school!!

My TiBook isn't a big concern....I am used to looking over it to see where I'm plugging a device in....

[Durandal7]

The Apple Ergonomic Keyboard:
The space bar was 3x normal size, the things would break every 6 months and you had to have a bulky seperate keypad.

[Kid Red]

2.The "compressed" Keyboard with 1/3 of the keys absent and many at half size.

Hey!! Leave my keyboard alone!!

[shergar]

on the lid of my G3 powerbook, the Apple logo is the correct way up for the half second it takes me to open the thing. And then, to anyone around me, appears upside down for the entire time I'm using the powerbook. A stupid small mistake, but one which took Apple until the introduction of the TiBook to correct.

Also: the lack of a power on button on the Pro Keyboard. Where did that go? It seems that whatever improvements Apple makes they seem duty bound to add some flaw.

I wonder if there's some department at Apple HQ which purposefully adds these glitches?

[AmbitiousLemon]

ports on the back of the powerbook, powermac, and imac (new one too).

i know we have to hide them to make it look pretty but damn it annoying reaching around your computer all the time.

o. and speakers in the Ti. nuf said.

[spikey]

I still use the hockey puck mouse. yeah it sucks.

But i blew the keyboard by putting too strong a current through it, lol, i was tinkering with it. So i use some **** third party thing.

Personally i hate the reset button on the rev.a imac. And also the infra red on the Rev.a imac. And also the CD tray on the Rev.a imac. And the speakers on rev.a imac.

[rekras]

cant really think of any flaws on my PBG3 "bronzey" only complaint is i cant get the dust out of the corners of the trackpad

[spikey]

lol, shergar, why the name?

[IndyGopher]

The cube never really bothered me.. but then I didn't keep mine very long. When I read your comment about it being top-heavy, I did recall that I tipped it over a time or two. I always just chalked it up to my own clumsiness, but I think you are right.

The puck-shaped mouse was just silly. I still don't know what the goal was with that. I had thought it was to suit smaller hands, but I have been assured by several parents and teachers that it doesn't suit children, either. Oh well. They certainly acquitted themselves nicely with the Pro mouse. (now, where's my second button?)

The tiny keyboards were another design I just assumed I didn't "get"... The keyboard I use if given the choice is an original IBM AT keyboard. Big, heavy, clicky, Selectric-style. If someone would make one of those for the Mac, I would buy half a dozen of them. I tried to use one of those PS/2 to USB adapters with one, and never got it to work... oh well.

I never noticed a problem with plugging anything into my TiBook either. I think it would be a shame to move the ports on them, though, so I hope this isn't a common complaint. I can't stand where they put the ports on the iBook, so I hope that isn't an indication of what lies ahead.

One that no one has mentioned yet, as a bonehead design, was the 6100. The CD that didn't clear the keyboard. That one I fought with more than the rest of my complaints combined.

However, I think we, as Mac users, are lucky to have to find small complaints like these, instead of the myriad nightmares of a wintel user. Go Apple!

[mischief]

Best guess with the Hockeypuck (after interviewing several Apple employees) was that SJ liked the symmetry and, because he sits on his desk more than his chair, it's ergonomics are less suicidal using it next to your bum on the tabletop. I've discovered that if you take the colour swatches off it's easier to find the front.

I have 2 machines on which I'm still stuck with the compressed keyboard BTW so don't assume I've never used it.I just can't afford the Adesso Keyboard I actually want.

[AmbitiousLemon]

Originally posted by rekras
cant really think of any flaws on my PBG3 "bronzey" only complaint is i cant get the dust out of the corners of the trackpad

the lcd cleaners solutions work wonders on the trackpad as well (just dont drown it).

[davidc2182]

WTF i mean honestly i'm reading the story about the imac designer about how they took their time to perfect the design, yeah mister designer explain to me why in the blue hell you put the power button on the back of the new imac???? the back who wants to stretch out their arms to get to the back of the computer! they couldnt have made the chrome apple logo a power button, or put it underneath the logo, or even slap it on the keyboard since they redid that in white anyway or maybe put it on the lcd like the lcd display line, no lets put it on the back i was going to get it, now i'm waiting for the g5, power button on the back of the machine, whoever heard of such lunacy

[arn]

Originally posted by davidc2182
WTF i mean honestly i'm reading the story about the imac designer about how they took their time to perfect the design, yeah mister designer explain to me why in the blue hell you put the power button on the back of the new imac???? the back who wants to stretch out their arms to get to the back of the computer!

I think i've turned my Dual 800 off twice since I bought it... to install ram and a hard drive (internal). I feel the off switch is of minimal concern for most people at this point.

Now, reset button, or ports in the front - that may have been more useful. but again, not make-or-break significance.

arn

[davidc2182]

true not make or break but it makes it more difficult to use and the wires will look messy and i guess i'm so distrught about it cuz i have an ibook which i hate, by the way anyone wanna buy it? the only reason i hate the ibook is cuz its a laptop, i figured out i can stand them, and thank goodness i didnt splurge on the tibook i wanted that would have been heck as well. i kinda like the chime it makes when it starts up so i might just use a program to extract the chime sound from the rom or just find it online somewhere and use it as my return from sleep sound. And one more thing off topic, i wish they would add into x.2 the scheduler to automatically startup and shutdown