As gorgeous as "Steve the perfectionist's final project" will be once finished, all these super-tight tolerances could become a nightmare with even the slightest amount of Tectonic activity.
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Apple's 'Fanatical' Attention to Detail Revealed in Apple Campus 2 Report
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There is the funny coincidence that the UK used the imperial system and that country is the one mostly associated with the modern capitalism.No relation just funny coincidence. Capitalists use standard system and only communists and socialists use metric.
As you may know the metric system started in France like so many great inventions including the croissant and Miss Liberty and that explains why It took sometime in English speaking countries.
Nowadays there is only one industrial country (which is easy to guess) that hasn't officially adopted the SI system (metric).
I suppose you consider Australia, Germany, Japan or Canada as non capitalist countries?
Even so
Approved by Henry Ford.
You can also call it a 302 because in fact it is 4951cc or 4,951 cdm or litres (a system based on decimals is very practical).
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What's so strange about doors without a threshold?
It's perfectly possible! If you found a construction team or engineer who says it's impossible, then you definitely contracted the wrong people...Same with the tolerances. It's hard to solve when using metals like steel and aluminium or regular wood, but tolerances are a lot less when using brick or concrete. It's even possible with wood. For example, we have been using wooden inside doors who sit entirely flush with the wall with less than two millimeters to spare (about 1/13 and less of an inch I assume). But the wood we use is a specially treated wood called 'Thermowood'. The wood is basically 'dead' because of the thermal treatment proces and practically has no expansion/contraction when the temperature fluctuates. It's all about combining the right materials.
I do credit them for the curved windows. Large sheets of curved glass are not easy to produce! And the price is massive!!
Actually, I agree with that - I'd say that 256GB SSD would be more sensible (except in the case of a laptop where there's something to be said for having everything in one box - travel around with a few video demos and you soon use up a smaller drive). OTOH, I think putting any sort of "spinning rust" in a (new) laptop or all-in-one means that you're holding it wrong.
However, the only BTO option on the Dell was 1TB SSD-only, which was the easiest to compare like-for-like with a BTO iMac. The default 2TB "hybrid" config is somewhat worse than the default 2TB fusion drive on the iMac.
The difference is that, with the Dell, the standard M.2 SSD blade and hard drive are user-upgradeable - so you could get the default and configure it to taste with standard components (for a lot less than you'd pay for BTO)... which is probably why they don't offer a laundry list of BTO options.
Apple offer a wider range of BTO SSD options, but they're all proprietary SSD blades sealed in with double-sided tape.
Frankly, though, if I was going PC I'd assemble my own mini tower with exactly what I wanted (an option Apple lacks) - however the Dell is a nice example of where Apple could have gone with the iMac. In reality, I wouldn't bet against the new iMac being 20% thinner, TB3 only and everything soldered in. In which case, I'm out, because in that case the Mac platform will rapidly lose power user/enthusiast/pro support.
Their software is far from perfect or even excellent these days. I could say the same about many usability issues. I would love them giving as much attention to those as they do in the building. They are aware of a million different issues in their software, yet they don't bother to fix them. The same issues plague OS X version after version, they have been reported on Apple forums thousands of times yet nothing happens. "It's good enough"? At the same time they come up with new ideas that make their devices harder to use rather than the other way around.
I loved what I saw while Jobs was still around. After that it seems they are just playing catch-up with the other makers and come up with useless gimmicks instead of stopping to think what would actually make our lives considerably better. And no, this is not Jobs-was-a-God-and-everyone-else-sucks post. I didn't have much respect for him while he was alive. Now it seems every month shows how much Apple lost when he died. Oh well. At least they make decent android phones now in case iPhone 8 is as big of a disappointment as the previous one. Or maybe I'm just the only one who wants a phone that's fun to use, has a display big enough to be usable and that has a battery that actually lasts even one day. Unlike iPhone 6+/6S+/7+. And preferably a real menu button instead of the gimmick they came up with that feels like pushing a vibrating brick wall.
Exactly. It sounds like the sort of self-serving nonsense purveyors of 'modern art' use to convince others (and themselves!) that the crap they peddle actually has some artistic and/or monetary value.
I bet you are right. The soldering in of the RAM is really annoying because that is so easy to upgrade. And as you know, increasing the RAM is a key part of getting longevity on a computer. I'm in the market for a new computer. I'm leaning toward a new iMac. And I will want it configured with 16 gb for the long haul. Hopefully I won't have to pay extra for an Apple priced RAM upgrade. But I fear I will.
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I suspect you are right. Telling construction guys who are building based in part on experiences gained by the industry over centuries seems like playing with fire. Maybe some stuff was done better than anyone has ever done it. But I bet there are going to be some "I told you so" moments.
The iPhone is their only product to see reliable updates. Even so, it's camera performance lags well behind similarly priced competitors.
Have fun deciding whether to buy a current iMac 27" (which at least has user-upgradeable RAM and, although the SSD is proprietary and you have to unglue the screen to get at them, at least have removable SSD/HDs) or wait for the new one...
Doesn't mean they couldn't have delivered a more elegant solution. Having me flip my mouse and watch it charge on my desk like that is absolutely bonkers, especially after you learn the fact how much they stress about the details with their building
If the doors were specified to be a certain size that took into account the gap needed to accommodate expansion and shrinkage, then the gap being too small would be a product of not making the doors to the specified tolerance.
Oh, I missed my window on the current ones. I probably should have bought them last year. They are too old now for me to pay full price. Maybe I would buy them refurbished and price reduced after the next generation comes out. But likely I will just bite the bullet. The higher level 27-inch version I would buy might come with 16gb standard anyway. Kind of like how the 15-inch MacBook Pro comes with 16gb as the only configuration.
Seriously. Do you and everyone else who posted a similar comment really think that these people are unaware of the geology under the building?
This article would suggest they have indeed thought of that issue, and that the building will be the largest base-isolated building in the world, such that that the ground around the building could move up to 4.5 feet in any direction with only minor damage inside.
Also, for that matter, their use of "super-tight tolerances" doesn't mean they're calling for no space between a door and its frame, it means that they're calling for very little deviation from whatever the specification is for the space between a door and its frame.
What does all that mean? It means that if this building has doors that stick after an earthquake, that's not going to be something anyone cares about at that point.
Actually no, it does not mean that, which reading the article reveals.
And yes, people will care very much if the doors stick after an earthquake.
It seems like that is indeed what is meant as the article mentions the following in the opening of the first included quote: "Tolerances, the distance materials may deviate from desired measurements, were a particular focus."
And yet the quote I mentioned is part of that same quote that is in the article, specifically explaining what is meant by tolerance.
Seems like both aspects of tolerance are being referenced in the article. You are implying that one is the right applicable one while the other isn't, yet it doesn't appear that there's anything to necessarily make it so.
There is the funny coincidence that the UK used the imperial system and that country is the one mostly associated with the modern capitalism.
As you may know the metric system started in France like so many great inventions including the croissant and Miss Liberty and that explains why It took sometime in English speaking countries.
Nowadays there is only one industrial country (which is easy to guess) that hasn't officially adopted the SI system (metric).
I suppose you consider Australia, Germany, Japan or Canada as non capitalist countries?
Even so
Approved by Henry Ford.
You can also call it a 302 because in fact it is 4951cc or 4,951 cdm or litres (a system based on decimals is very practical).
It must really bug you if you wrote that thorough of a post! I will show you the same courtesy! My initial post was a (half) joke. Hence the
.If you haven't figured it out by now, America does what it wants. Of course we use the metric system on occasion. Of course it is used in scientific fields. Of course it is taught in American schools. But we still use standard. We are American. (And I still also ride a 600 cc motorcycle - or should I say 36.6142 cubic inches?
)By the way, did Henry Ford approve that engine from the grave? Even the first 5.0 liter was released 44 YEARS after his death.
PS, I could make a case that the countries you list are not capitalist, but that is for a different thread (politics).
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Probably for two reasons:
1. They are built to spec in China.
2. As noted in above post, certain industries certainly use metric.
Americans know this, and Americans know metric (we just prefer to use Standard). For instance, I have sets of both Metric and Standard tools in my toolboxes. Probably similar to you preferring to speak whatever your native language is.
MR article quote: "Tolerances, the distance materials may deviate from desired measurements, were a particular focus. On many projects, the standard is 1/8 of an inch at best; Apple often demanded far less, even for hidden surfaces."
On a building of this magnitude and expense, sited literally on a hotbed of seismic activity, it was no more than prudent to employ the latest science in minimizing earthquake damage, and I'm not for a moment suggesting Apple's planners and engineers overlooked such a crucial part of the overall design.
But according to the article, Apple insisted on lowered tolerances, in some cases even far less than ⅛ of an inch, and that could become problematic even on regular, stable soil due to normal 'after-built' settling and shrinkage.
There is a good reason for those industry-wide accepted tolerances, other than saving money obviously. They can also prevent a lot of problems later on. If Apple wants to defy those standards for an unprecedented and exquisite initial fit and finish, they will most likely be paying later. Not that that would be a problem of course.
The architect they interviewed knew what he was saying. The person who wrote the article didn't get it.
With tolerances being the "distance materials may deviate from desired measurement", as the article mentions, why is it an issue to be more exact? If a desired measurement is what's actually desired then coming as close as possible to it would be desirable, right?MR article quote: "Tolerances, the distance materials may deviate from desired measurements, were a particular focus. On many projects, the standard is 1/8 of an inch at best; Apple often demanded far less, even for hidden surfaces."
On a building of this magnitude and expense, sited literally on a hotbed of seismic activity, it was no more than prudent to employ the latest science in minimizing earthquake damage, and I'm not for a moment suggesting Apple's planners and engineers overlooked such a crucial part of the overall design.
But according to the article, Apple insisted on lowered tolerances, in some cases even far less than ⅛ of an inch, and that could become problematic even on regular, stable soil due to normal 'after-built' settling and shrinkage.
There is a good reason for those industry-wide accepted tolerances, other than saving money obviously. They can also prevent a lot of problems later on. If Apple wants to defy those standards for an unprecedented and exquisite initial fit and finish, they will most likely be paying later. Not that that would be a problem of course.
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And that is based on what exactly? Why might it not be the other way around or, for example, that the architect was discussing another aspect/meaning of tolerance that wasn't the one that was in question?