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A lot of people here complaining about overpriced, beautiful tools. You all seem to forget that you are Apple fans. Apple essentially being a producer of overpriced, beautiful tech. Yep, I ordered a brand new 16" M1 MBP, and with extras is AU$5k+. It's an overpriced, beautiful tool, but it is the best, and I will use it all day, every day, for years, for my work and my play.

I also have a shed full of tools I've accumulated over the years. Rarely anything as pricey or beautiful as Ive's collection, sad to say. I don't use them all day, every day, so can't justify those costs. But I did learn many years ago that cheap tools are things you have to pay for twice, once for the cheap version that soon breaks, and then a second time for the quality version that you should have bought in the first place. If I was an industrial designer, then I too would spend the money for some of the top shelf tools.
The difference here is, an $8 Stanley measuring tape wrapped in fancy-smanshy leather for $530 is not "the best", it's hilarious. But hey, knock yourself out, Jony!
 
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They're excellent tools and manufactured in the United Sates. Their torque wrenches come from the factory calibrated with a Certificate of Calibration over a range of torque settings. And they can be sent back to the factory for periodic recalibration.

Would you expect him to purchase and use an off-brand measurement tool with a piece of paper in the box that says : "Passed by Fred" ?
Excellent tool manufactured in the good ‘ol U.S of A used to design products manufactured by the billions not in the good ‘ol U.S of A… irony?
 
This guy clearly has expensive taste in just tools. probably other things too.

No wonder Macs are so Expensive.
yeah, profits up, just think of all the money he saved on parts, all the ones designed by his team when they were in their laptoparexia nervosa period were stupidly light, unfunctionally thin, had next to no ports (who needs ‘em?) and too cramped to fit an adequate exhaust for the stupendous amounts of heat they produced, (I have tinnitus which has onset due to the fans on my i9) terrible keyboards and a joke of a touchbarthingumywotsit…
 
A little ostentatious, aren't we? Does he wipe his backside with 24 Carat gold toilet paper? Oh wait... he probably has a bidet.

The tool that I'd very much enjoy (that actually looks like it is worth the price) is Shaper Tools Origin CNC machine.

My List of Awesome Tools :
  • Kynup Digital Caliper
  • Epson ET-2760 Printer w/ separate refillable CMYK - it definitely beats having to convert your Epson 1280 into a reservoir printing system.
  • Epson Perfection V750 Pro Scanner - nice scanner that's still going after many years. At least I don't have to use a scuzzy port anymore.
  • Creality Ender 3 Pro 3D Printer - for functional stuff.
  • Anycubic Photon M3 Resin 3D Printer - for artistic stuff.
  • Neatfi XL Bifocals 2,000 Lumens Super LED Magnifier Lamp with Clamp - great for people with failing eyesight.
  • Studiodesigns Avanta Metal and Glass Drafting Desk - it's almost too pretty to draw pictures on.
  • Primera LX610 Color Label Printer and Cutter - great starter label making machine. Pro tip : stay away from heavy use of black.
  • Silhouette Cameo 4 Vinyl cutting machine - this still doesn't compare to the Gerber Signmaker IV-B that I watched my parents using growing up but it makes a Cricut look like hot garbage.
  • Pantone Process Guide Coated - I've yet to replace my old CMYK guide but I'm cheap.
  • Graphic Artist Guild Handbook for Pricing and Ethical Guidelines - indispensable knowledge of many different design industries.
  • Canon EOS 250D - Great prosumer level SLR that gets the job done. iPhone 13 cameras yield better results with the right apps but still nothing is quite like having a dedicated camera.
That in combination with Blender, Sketch and the Adobe Creative Suite gets me pretty far. Jony Ive is so rich and famous, he could draw a doodle on a napkin and probably sell it for more money than I could make in a decade.
 
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WOW, Snap-On tools, Snap-On is usually a friend's home garage visit, inadvertently placed on the table for friends to see ah. You can expect to hear your friends say in an envious tone: Wow, you use Snap-On ah, at this time you can answer: this ah, oops not used for a long time ...
 
This is just a glorified advertisement… How much is he being sponsored for publishing this list?

Also, a leather measuring tape? That's completely unnecessary, and now we know where Jony Ive's morality compass sits when it comes to mass-manufacturing and animal cruelty. With his departure from Apple, I wonder if Apple will switch to synthetic leather (like what Tesla and Virgin use), or if they'll simply abandon leather altogether?
 
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If you are looking for an unnecessarily expensive pocket tape measure to impress your designer friends, the Lufkin Executive runs $20 and I can promise you will feel every bit as pretentious as Jony Ive when you take it out and wave it past their Stanley Fatmaxes and Komelon Selflocks. You will also feel $510 less moronic.
 
I can get all of that at Target for $50
Actually, no, you probably can’t get the weather station for just $50, and Target generally doesn’t sell fountain pens (and, if they do, it’s likely that $100 Cross gift set). And good luck buying a good record tonearm for less than $50 (actually, even the cheap Crosley turntables usually run at least $50 if not more). Or the micrometer for that matter, if Target even sells any, they’re probably very cheap and very imprecise. Or the loupe, which isn’t a thing Target would sell even a cheap version of. Some of these are goods you’d have to order even the cheap versions of online or through specialist retailers. The protractor (this ain’t your plastic grade school protractor) and micrometer are both precision grade tools and the cheap versions of them likely aren’t precise enough for the kinds of things Ive designs.
 
High-end turntables are often sold without tonearms, to give the customer the option of selecting the tonearm separately.
I wasn’t aware of that, but I guess that makes a lot of sense. It’s like digital audiophiles and their use of separate DACs or people who use high impedance headphones and headphone amps.
 
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Thank you for this. I was trying to understand what exactly that thing did.

For a brief moment, I had visions of the butler who irons and folds the morning news so it is perfectly creased for reading...

FWIW
DLM
I'm sure he has one of those, too.
 
The pretentiousness of purchasing a $530 tape measure and 100 pound eraser. That this is so far beyond the realm of most every sensible person explains so much. For YEARS, Macbook users screamed, give us a functional, repairable, and upgradeable laptops. Instead we got non-functioning butterfly keyboards, less USB ports, removal of SD card and HDMI, as well as glued in batteries, and non-upgradeable memory - all for the fetishism of ever thinner cases. It was time that Jony Ive moved on. Someone finally realized with Macbook M1 what users have been asking for. Functional, utilitarian, performance computing devices. This would never have happened if Ives was still at Apple.
 
These aren't so much his tools as a list of objects he finds particularly beautifully designed. E.g., he's not carrying around a Linn tonearm!

I don't begrudge him the prices—he's got big bucks, so he has the luxury of buying what he wants without regard for the cost. That $530 Hermes pocket measuring tape (https://www.hermes.com/us/en/product/in-the-pocket-measuring-tape-H074572CK7U/) is more elegant and portable than my $15 Stanley Leverlock. For most people, the difference in cost is ridiculous. But for him it's insignificant. So why not get the Hermes, if it pleases him?

It's no more unreasonable (or overpiced) than buying a supercar. Actually much less so. Yet the same people who claim he's pretentious for getting this stuff wouldn't bat an eye if told he owned, say, a $2.25M Ferrari Daytona SP3.
With your analogy, let me explain. The hermes is literally a leather upholstered Stanley tape measure. This is like justifying a McLaren supercar powered by an old 5 cylinder VW engine or a Toyota 22R, with an interior from a Ford Focus. Reliable and functional? Yes. Cost of admission, no on all counts.
 
Nice selection of tools. In general I love Wiha and Wera tools.

I would also add Starrett hook rules, 6", 12", and 24" lengths (or metric equivalents). I use those everyday for a variety of purposes. They are a joy to use.
Agreed on the Wera and Wiha tools. I have a set of Wera wrenches I almost never use but the fit an finish is far above anything I have ever seen.

That said a $500 tape measure for which the website doesn't even describe the length you can measure, is a little pretentious.
 
To quote Fawlty Towers: "Pretentious? Moi?"

True, but back when I made a living with hand tools, you didn't buy crap tools. I had a cheap socket set, and in the middle of torquing down a head, the socket split. (Lifetime warranty) so I went to get it replaced (jic) and bought a set of good sockets (TRW Powerforged) and never had one split ever again. That set is over 40 years old, and TRW sold their tool division to a Chinese company and the quality immediately plummeted (but of course).

Mitutoyo, Starrett, (pre-Home Despot) Rigid, Channel Lock, Crescent, Proto, etc. I have tools from my great grandfather that are STILL solid and cherish them. Now tools are 'profit centers', and they make them to a 'price point', and they are crap. I bent a Craftsman breaker bar once, and have had several socket handles just flat out fail. I hate the cheap crap that people are supposed to be grateful to have nowadays. Even my father's Craftsman set from the 70's is head and shoulders above the crap from the big box stores.

I've got a good selection of old Starrett measuring tools with patent dates stamped or etched on them. They are from well before I was born. Back when someone didn't have to say 'Quality is job one'. You just expected quality, because 'Made In America' actually meant something. (Yeah, grumpy day:D:cool:)

I never judge someones tools. Well, only if they are cheap?
 
With your analogy, let me explain. The hermes is literally a leather upholstered Stanley tape measure. This is like justifying a McLaren supercar powered by an old 5 cylinder VW engine or a Toyota 22R, with an interior from a Ford Focus. Reliable and functional? Yes. Cost of admission, no on all counts.

But in your example, all it has to do is *look* fast, apparently...
 
I never judge someones tools. Well, only if they are cheap?
Yes, but Ive's "expensive" Hermès tape measure is a $10 Stanley tape in a $550 leather housing. That is the antithesis of what you're talking about.

Would I buy a Snap-On torque wrench? If my job depended on being able to accurately and reliably torque bolts all day long? Absolutely. That is a tool that would pay for itself.

But a leather case doesn't make that Stanley tape measure any better, and platinum plating doesn't make that eraser do its job any better.
 
Yes, but Ive's "expensive" Hermès tape measure is a $10 Stanley tape in a $550 leather housing. That is the antithesis of what you're talking about.

Would I buy a Snap-On torque wrench? If my job depended on being able to accurately and reliably torque bolts all day long? Absolutely. That is a tool that would pay for itself.

But a leather case doesn't make that Stanley tape measure any better, and platinum plating doesn't make that eraser do its job any better.

True. I missed that. Yeah, that is obnoxious. Like the Hermes Airtag holders. YIKES!!!

I remember shopping decades ago with the wife in Harrods. They had men's 100% silk underwear. She teased about buying a pair for me. (Cost like hundreds of dollars) If I put my butt in those, I wouldn't be fit to wipe it anymore! Good grief... :oops::D:D:D:cool:
 
Mitutoyo, Starrett, (pre-Home Despot) Rigid, Channel Lock, Crescent, Proto, etc. I have tools from my great grandfather that are STILL solid and cherish them. Now tools are 'profit centers', and they make them to a 'price point', and they are crap. I bent a Craftsman breaker bar once, and have had several socket handles just flat out fail. I hate the cheap crap that people are supposed to be grateful to have nowadays. Even my father's Craftsman set from the 70's is head and shoulders above the crap from the big box stores.
I've got several Bridge City marking/measuring tools, Lee-Neilsen wood planes, and Japanese saws; you can get good tools but they won't be mass-produced, nor cheap.

toolchest..jpg


(yeah, I'm a pretentious prat, but I do USE them!)
And just last week I found, and ordered, a calibrated wrench to torque to "finger-tight"; woot!

FingertightWrench.jpg


:p
 
The difference here is, an $8 Stanley measuring tape wrapped in fancy-smanshy leather for $530 is not "the best", it's hilarious. But hey, knock yourself out, Jony!
Well sure, I agree for the tape measure, and a few of the other products on his list, but many of those tools are actually super high quality, and it's that quality you're paying for.
 
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