Apple's 'Fanatical' Attention to Detail Revealed in Apple Campus 2 Report

[triton100]

So just because you haven't encountered a problem that means it doesn't exist?

Apple, like every other company out there, makes mistakes with their products sometimes whether it be a software issue or a design fault.

For example there are people who encountered battery issues on their iPhone 6s. Apple did a recall for these and admitted there was a problem with their product. That's one of many examples of problems people have had recently.

That's not to say that Apple are rubbish. Quite the opposite actually but to imply there are no issues with any Apple products is just ridiculous.

Hi hoyboy

I agree it would be ridiculous to suggest such a thing. Which is why I didn't.

I said I had not come across any of the bugs mentioned previously, coming from someone who uses apple soft and hardware in a large spectrum of setups.

When bugs being mentioned here are things like an airport icon disappearing upon connection to an Apple TV or whatever it was, I really don't believe that warrants degrading an entire company's design ethos. Battery issues are a different matter but that was not mentioned.

Design faults as you put it, are a matter of personal opinion. What one person thinks is a design fault another may think is intelligent design.
[doublepost=1486475304][/doublepost]

What a pity that same attention to detail missed the 2016 15" Macbook redesign . . . to say nothing of the Mac Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac. Apparently Apple has forgotten it makes them.

The MacBook touchbar 2016 is an exquisite piece of engineering. It's a beast of technological expertise.

 

[BvizioN]

"issues that do not effect me that much." They don't affect you, but they clearly effect many of others who complain.

Well, nothing would make some people happy. Absolutely nothing. So there you have it.

 

[peter2]

So this is what the 100k+ employees are doing!

 

[skippermonkey]

Turn your friggin' attention-to-detail on a new Mac Pro, you rich douchebags.

 

[Naimfan]

The MacBook touchbar 2016 is an exquisite piece of engineering. It's a beast of technological expertise.

Uh, no. Thin for the sake of it is not "exquisite." It's form over function.

 

[freediverx]

If you have to walk differently to enter a doorway with a non-flat perimeter, you're doing something wrong.

View attachment 687366

I think you're confusing "threshold" for "door frame".

 

[ChrisCW11]

If Apple only put this kind of attention towards their product R&D. But then hey it is obvious Apple consumers don't want innovation, just duplication, so I guess why bother wasting money on product R&D and just put it into building a palace.

 

[freediverx]

I don't think Samsung will rip-off a building...

WatchFromAfar: "I don't think Samsung will rip-off a building"

Samsung: "Hold my beer"

 

[WatchFromAfar]

The MacBook touchbar 2016 is an exquisite piece of engineering. It's a beast of technological expertise.

Fine piece of engineering and technological expertise but a gimmick non-the-less. To quote William Morris “Nothing useless can be truly beautiful.”

 

[theluggage]

Both products take from 20 seconds to 1 minute to charge a full days worth.

- I sit down to get some work done with my Magic Mouse. Aw, snap - the battery is flat. I plug it in and get up and find another minute's displacement activity. Then I can sit down and get to work... except, it has only had a few minute's charge so the same thing happens tomorrow, or the day after.

- I sit down to get some work done with my Logitech MX Master. Aw, snap - the battery is flat. I grab the lead, plug it into the USB port and, because Logitech put some attention to detail into where the cable plugs in, get right on with work. After the minor inconvenience of working with, effectively, a wired mouse for an hour or so, the batteries are brim full, I can unplug and forget about charging and wires for a couple of weeks.

- I get organised, and when I've finished using my iPad and Pencil for the day decide to put them both on charge while I sleep. I get my iPad charger, plug it in, take my Pencil and, uh, oh, hold on.. fish out another Lightning power supply and find the fiddly little gender changer so I can plug it into the cable (why wasn't that built into the cap?) If only the iPad Pro had some sort of magnetic charge connector, so you could charge a keyboard or stylus at the same time... what? it does? but the Pencil doesn't use it? Even though the pencil and the Smart Connector were launched at the same time? So, surely, the Smart Keyboard comes with some sort of holder that charges the Pencil... no? Magical!

Note that we're talking about attention to detail here - not just does it work? If I buy a cheap'n'cheerful PC/Android/whatever device I expect it to work and be usable. If I buy a premium-priced Apple product (Apple who like to make $300 coffee-table books bragging about their design genius) I expect it to show attention to detail.

USB C is a great port. If you buy a MacBook Pro you will be happy in a few years that it has all USB C ports because everything that "Pros" use will go in that direction eventually.

If I buy a MacBook Pro with soldered-in RAM, soldered-in SSD then, in "a few years" it'll be landfill because new machines will be out with more RAM, cheap 2TB SSDs or super-fast Optane (or NotInventedYet) storage, Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort 1.4 (no more kludgey virtual-MST for 5k displays), USB4.0 etc.

Until then, I've got a shedload of investment in old-fangled peripherals which I don't/can't replace right now - including a perfectly good Apple LED Cinema Display at work (not mine) with no currently available USB-C to MiniDisplayPort adapter* (let alone MagSafe to USB-C so I can use it to charge).

(* No, the no-name one from various suppliers on Amazon has numerous reviews saying it doesn't work. Apple's TB3-TB2 adapter doesn't support DisplayPort. The Hyper one is "not currently available" nor is the $280 OWC thunderbolt dock. Only solution seems to be a double-dongle - USB-C to DisplayPort to MiniDisplayPort - assuming that works. Yessir, that's attention to detail).

 

[freediverx]

There will be the exclusive, prime time 60-Minutes episode, a large portion of a keynote (if not it's own keynote) devoted to the campus, a self-produced documentary... Apple will be talking about this. A lot. As they should.

Can't wait for the accompanying $300 book.

 

[69Mustang]

Hi, wasn't sure what you meant by your glass houses comment but re the charging critique, my point is it's only a 20 or so seconds charge with the pencil so I don't see the issue. If you had to leave it there for half an hour I would think it was an issue. What other options would there be? A tethered cable? More or less elegant? Wireless? More costly? Bigger pencil to compensate for this?

The glass house comment was about your "Gotta love intelligent debate" comment when you include an erudite gem like this in your other quote: "... said wannabes soon follow suit with their copycat, I mean 'ideas' inspired by Apple."

The stylus and the mouse: The time to charge is immaterial to the topic of attention to detail. Both charging ports are inelegant and contrary to Apple's typical design aesthetic. Alternative solutions? Wireless charging similar to the Apple Watch and a port where the mouse's "tail" would be.

 

[Hoyboy]

Hi hoyboy

I agree it would be ridiculous to suggest such a thing. Which is why I didn't.

I said I had not come across any of the bugs mentioned previously, coming from someone who uses apple soft and hardware in a large spectrum of setups.

When bugs being mentioned here are things like an airport icon disappearing upon connection to an Apple TV or whatever it was, I really don't believe that warrants degrading an entire company's design ethos. Battery issues are a different matter but that was not mentioned.

Design faults as you put it, are a matter of personal opinion. What one person thinks is a design fault another may think is intelligent design.
[doublepost=1486475304][/doublepost]
The MacBook touchbar 2016 is an exquisite piece of engineering. It's a beast of technological expertise.

Ok so at least you can see why people react the way they do when they read statements about taking 1.5 years to decide on a door handle but release products that have issues (e.g. Battery problems)

Based on your comments to other forum members people would be forgiven for thinking you blindly support Apple and they can do no wrong.

Good to know you think otherwise

 

[iReality85]

This obsession with minute features is said to have set back other parts of the project. For example, Apple wanted all the building's signage to reflect a sleek minimal aesthetic, but the emergency services had to ensure the property could be easily navigated if they were called to an incident. Discussions on the topic are said to have extended to 15 meetings with fire department representatives.

Standards.

What are they and how do they work?

 

[swingerofbirch]

Of course the same person responsible for fixing bugs in iOS is also in charge of supervising construction of the new campus.

Apple has a history of not being able to talk and chew gum at the same time. It might not be the exact person, but I would assume some software resources have gone into building management software for the new building (automation, security, presentation displays, etc.). Jony Ive has a reduced product role design in part to work on the stores' design and the new campus. Most large corporations would have clear separations between different parts of the business. Apple doesn't. When the iPhone came out, they even announced that the iPhone was the reason OS X Leopard was delayed. Since then they have grown disproportionately large in revenue/profit compared to the number of employees. And even among the employees they have, they are not cordoned off to a certain business line. They have not operated as if each business line has a set number same allocations. iPhone obviously has the most. The Mac doesn't have enough to do basic things like yearly refreshes with the 5% faster Intel chip, which makes me think there are people who would work on the Mac if not for the iPhone. And it's probably minute, but I would guess there are a few people who would otherwise be working on the iPhone were it not for the new campus.

 

[1050792]

WatchFromAfar: "I don't think Samsung will rip-off a building"

Samsung: "Hold my beer"

They would probably build it better like they do on their "copied" products from Apple.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The locks all need adapters, available in the Office Supply Dept for $49.95.

or $209.95 with HomeKit.

 

[AngerDanger]

I think you're confusing "threshold" for "door frame".

I… think you're right.

 

[CygnusTC]

All this attention to detail yet even TODAY after all these years I still can't get all my artwork to stay in all my iTunes files let alone transfer over to my iPhone! Funny how it always works perfectly if I bought from iTunes but God forbid I rip my own cd (which are obscure and do not exist on iTunes) and assign artwork to it that it could actually remember it! Maybe these "hardware" engineers could be loaned out to the "software" engineers of iTunes!

 

[1050792]

All this attention to detail yet even TODAY after all these years I still can't get all my artwork to stay in all my iTunes files let alone transfer over to my iPhone! Funny how it always works perfectly if I bought from iTunes but God forbid I rip my own cd (which are obscure and do not exist on iTunes) and assign artwork to it that it could actually remember it!

Not to mention about the massive Itunes UI lag that exists. "Attention to detail".

 

[macguru212]

and therefore new Mac Pros for everyone!

 

[cocky jeremy]

"1/8 of an inch" - JUST SWITCH TO THE METRIC SYSTEM ALREADY!!

No thanks.

 

[theluggage]

Guess how much cables and dongles do I have? 1.

Its nice that it works for you.
Know how many cables and dongles I'd need? About $300 worth.
I've counted.
Carefully.
Done the research.
Or, I could settle for an "upgrade" that is less convenient than what I already have.

The Magic Mouse can go for weeks or months without recharging,

Yes, the Magic Mouse can go for weeks without recharging. Or, if it runs down while you're busy you can give it a day's charge in about a minute & then get on with work. Pick one.

Mice from other manufacturers can be used while they're on charge, so you can get on with your work and give them a full charge that will then keep them wire-free for weeks.

Does this make the Magic Mouse unusable? No. Does it show attention to detail? No - it shows that Apple put the minimum effort into adapting the old AA-cell-powered design into a rechargeable.

 

[nt5672]

Of course the same person responsible for fixing bugs in iOS is also in charge of supervising construction of the new campus.

Of course not, but management focuses on what they understand. The fact that they can get a campus with the finest details correct, but don't (or won't) understand how to get their products finest details correct, just goes to management competency.

 

[freediverx]

Its nice that it works for you.
Know how many cables and dongles I'd need? About $300 worth.
I've counted.
Carefully.
Done the research.
Or, I could settle for an "upgrade" that is less convenient than what I already have.



Yes, the Magic Mouse can go for weeks without recharging. Or, if it runs down while you're busy you can give it a day's charge in about a minute & then get on with work. Pick one.

Mice from other manufacturers can be used while they're on charge, so you can get on with your work and give them a full charge that will then keep them wire-free for weeks.

Does this make the Magic Mouse unusable? No. Does it show attention to detail? No - it shows that Apple put the minimum effort into adapting the old AA-cell-powered design into a rechargeable.

macOS warns you in advance when your keyboard, mouse, or trackpad are running low on battery power. Typically far enough in advance for you to recharge the device while you take a bathroom break or when you finish working on your computer.