HP Claims Innovation Over Apple With 'World's Thinnest Laptop'

[kdarling]

Considering Apple's iMac made USB go mainstream, back in the late 90s, I'd think he's more then acquainted with USB.

What made USB go mainstream was when Windows 98 finally gave full support, and USB 1.1 came out.

For a detailed retrospective, read this thread:

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2785/did-apple-jumpstart-the-usb-market

--

As for thin laptops, it's all relative. People forget that HP first came out with a "thin" notebook in 1998 that wowed everyone, the Sojourn Omnibook.

And then, of course, there was the Sony Vaio X505, which beat the thin MacBook by many years.

http://www.cnet.com/news/before-2010-macbook-air-there-was-2004-sony/

 

[chucker23n1]

Do you think Jony Ive knows what USB port is?

You seem to have a very distorted picture of what Jony Ive does. He most certainly knows what USB is.
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People forget that HP first came out with a "thin" notebook in 1998 that wowed everyone, the Sojourn Omnibook.

And then, of course, there was the Sony Vaio X505, which beat the thin MacBook by many years.

Gee, why do you suppose people do forget about some products, yet not others?

 

[lowkey]

^ no one could forget the "toilet seat" iBook...or was that a clam shell?
oh, the horror...

 

[kdarling]

Gee, why do you suppose people do forget about some products, yet not others?

Perhaps some people only pay attention to what one manufacturer does.

 

[uid15]

Perhaps some people only pay attention to what one manufacturer does.

Especially when they're the most innovative, relevant, respectful, intelligent company with the highest customer satisfaction ON EARTH? Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, that's why we pay attention to them over others. Not that they're the only ones we pay attention to, but for the most part, yes, because Apple almost ALWAYS deliver on promises, and when they don't, they fix it. It's because they don't treat their customers OR staff with contempt, either on a relationship OR design/interaction level, and these are a couple of MAMMOTH reasons why they're SO interesting and addictive to follow

Truth, like it or not.

 

[kdarling]

Especially when they're the most innovative, relevant, respectful, intelligent company with the highest customer satisfaction ON EARTH? Yeah, that's it.

Meaningless to anyone not paying attention.

I know a ton of PC users who don't have an inkling of what kind of laptops Apple sells. It's mostly Apple users and fans who do.

Likewise, a lot of Apple users have little clue about what goes on the PC / Android world.

 

[uid15]

Meaningless to anyone not paying attention.

I know a ton of PC users who don't have an inkling of what kind of laptops Apple sells. It's mostly Apple users and fans who do.

Likewise, a lot of Apple users have little clue about what goes on the PC / Android world.

So what?

People who care about one thing and not the others, care about that thing and not the others. Does a racehorse jockey need to be interested in sports cars? Does a photographer need to be interested in knitting? I am not sure it matters... whatsoever. If you're happy riding a bike in London, do you care what kind of noodles someone's eating in China, that moment?

If you find that example bizarre, it was meant to express irrelevance - who cares what "the others" are using, when you are using the best. Tunnel vision is a great thing - helps one to focus. What the rest of the world does? Meh, don't care.

 

[physicsprof]

(...) And having the ports on the back seems so 1990s-2000s... It'll be a tad awkward managing all the devices, adapters, whilst having to lean over the computer, rotate it, or shut the lid.

Call me an Apple manic, but I'd take the MacBook any day ( though I'll stay with my 9.7" iPad Pro )!

Hmm, if you take that MacBook then it's not "a tad awkward managing all the devices, adapters"? You mean because it's all nicely concentrated in one port?

 

[AppleScruff1]

So what?

People who care about one thing and not the others, care about that thing and not the others. Does a racehorse jockey need to be interested in sports cars? Does a photographer need to be interested in knitting? I am not sure it matters... whatsoever. If you're happy riding a bike in London, do you care what kind of noodles someone's eating in China, that moment?

If you find that example bizarre, it was meant to express irrelevance - who cares what "the others" are using, when you are using the best. Tunnel vision is a great thing - helps one to focus. What the rest of the world does? Meh, don't care.

I guess him giving informative, factual replies doesn't sit well with you?

 

[Blaze4G]

So what?

People who care about one thing and not the others, care about that thing and not the others. Does a racehorse jockey need to be interested in sports cars? Does a photographer need to be interested in knitting? I am not sure it matters... whatsoever. If you're happy riding a bike in London, do you care what kind of noodles someone's eating in China, that moment?

If you find that example bizarre, it was meant to express irrelevance - who cares what "the others" are using, when you are using the best. Tunnel vision is a great thing - helps one to focus. What the rest of the world does? Meh, don't care.

Your examples make no sense. What relation does a jockey has with sports cars? Or a photographer with knitting?

You know what relation Apple computers share with Windows computers? They are both computers. You caring about only one brand or product in an industry makes you a loyalist to that brand.

 

[vladi]

People need to chill. This is a beautifully designed laptop almost fragrance bottle like design. I hope fit and finish is not your usual HP crap stuff. You could see who they aimed at with the design. Apple design looks too clinical compared to this.

Also I love the fact they finally got to slap on that new logo they introduced over 5 years ago but never had balls to go through with it.

 

[Freeks]

Sell it then and put your money where your mouth is. You'll be back to Apple in no time.

I use my computers to create stuff. i don't spend time looking at it and i hate that i have to pay for fugly design.

That said, i'm actually very close on switching after 16 years of Mac's. And i'm not alone. Many other pro users are thinking the same.

 

[Abazigal]

So are you saying non pros don't use flash drives, have a smartphone to connect to laptop, don't use external mouses?

Oh by the way, I think the Macbook looks better to me than the Spectre. Never been a fan of shiny metal on electronics. Nor am I a fan of copper / bronze color.

No, he is simply saying that the MacBook is for people who want a thin and light laptop and don't mind making some sacrifices for it. They are prepared to use Bluetooth keyboards and mice that connect directly to the laptop without the need for USB dongles, adapters for hooking up USB peripherals and cloud services for file storage in place of external storage.

Or perhaps their use case is such that all these drawbacks you mentioned are simply non-issues for them. I personally would be one such person. Most of my stuff would be stored on Dropbox. I would use that USB-C to HDMI adaptor to connect the MacBook to my external monitor and hook up a powered USB hub for the rest. I have an Apple TV in my classroom that I can mirror to.

Were I in the market for a new laptop, I see myself picking up a MacBook over a MacBook Air. I gain a thinner, lighter laptop with a better display, and as I just mentioned, the drawbacks simply don't affect me.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I'm always rather incredulous when people call Apple's engineers "inept". You've got to just laugh from your belly at such nonsense.

I think you vastly overrate Apple Engineering. When I see what the PowerMacs used to be like in the eartly-to-mid 2000s (the sheer simplicity of everything and how easy it was to open, upgrade, etc. and now how everything they do is to purposely keep you from even replacing a simple battery or fan yourself while the Apple stores have "geniuses" that can't even change that battery for you (they just mail it into Apple and give you a used replacement IF they have one in stock; otherwise, too bad) and I have to laugh at people's postings that THINK Apple really is run by "geniuses". The genius was Steve Jobs. Everyone else seems to not have a clue what to do since he died.

iOS updates have been buggy as hell. OS X has been all "let's convert to Jony's 'flat' vision" rather than actual solid improvements and they have had huge bugs as well considering there's been very little change under the surface. Metal was supposed to be huge, but all it did was bring the GUI speed back to where Yosemite made it slower than molasses (assuming you have a GPU that supports it). I see massive BLOAT in the operating systems, bugs galore and yet the iPad "Pro" for all its pretense is little more than an updated iPad V1.0 with a stylus added (something Steve HATED). So that's innovation?

They're as "inept" as Mondrian was with painting intersecting lines in cleverly calculated spacings and filling the intersections with bold colours to appeal to the senses, as "inept" as Tchaikovsky was at composing music, or as "inept" as Dieter Rams is at designing record players.

Comparing Apple since Mr. Jobs died with Tchaikovsky is a bit like saying Coors Light is the best tasting beer ever made. Only a mass market consumer that's never tasted anything better (or doesn't like the taste of actual beer) would even DARE to suggest such a thing and yet I've seen such suggestions on places like ratebeer.com (despite the irrefutable fact Coors has almost no flavor what-so-ever compared to any non-macro beer). But given Tim Cook has made investors more money (issuing dividends for the first time; something Steve also was against) so I can see how one might compare Apple to Coors Light in terms of profitability, but TASTE? Come on. Apple has been copying its own past hardware designs for some time now and the Apple Watch isn't exactly a must have product.

Oh yeah, there was that "trash can" Mac Pro design a couple of years ago. It removed 100% of the internal upgradability that professionals wanted (and thus many hated it and said so LOUDLY), removed any chance of consumer GPU upgrades by using a custom connector and hasn't been updated since it was introduced. GREAT STUFF APPLE!

The old Mac Pro may have looked like a cheese grater (the PowerMac-era Macs were beautiful by comparison), but at least the INSIDE was first rate, easy to open and upgrade and extremely functional and versatile. The new Mac Pro screams "I have to be different" while offering nothing except to a limited crowd of video editors (while Final Cut Pro X killed most of the actual professional video editing market for Macs by replacing a fully functional program with a veritable new POLISHED TURD).

Jony Ive is well known as being of the thinking that design should be "inevitable" and get out of the way, not stand up and shout "LOOK AT ME! LOOK - LOOK HOW CLEVER THIS DESIGN ELEMENT IS, AND HOW ELEGANT AND SMART IT IS THAT THIS GOLD HINGE ARCS OUTWARD, AND THEN GLIDES BACK INTO THE BODY WHEN THE LID'S BEING CLOSED.... LOOK!!!! LOOK HOW CLEVER WE WERE TO DESIGN SOMETHING SO OBVIOUS, BUT LOOK!!!!!!!"

Jony Ive was a good hardware designer when reigned in by management, but OS X "Yosemite" proved how utterly generic and blind the man is when it comes to software GUIs. Yosemite was a train wreck (and not just the GUI but how bloated and slow it was) and I given the polls on this site, I KNOW I'm not alone in that assessment.

But what you call that quoted wall of text above is what the rest of us call GENERIC (i.e. the flat 2D ugly interface introduced in Yosemite). OS X used to be a thing of beauty. Replacing the Aqua "jeweled" stop-light window buttons that have been there since the first consumer release of OS X with FLAT fills (that even a 5-year old could manage with zero issues in Photoshop) doesn't exactly thrill me and many others let alone motivate us to compare Jony Ive with Tchaikovsky....

The design language of this laptop is shouting "I'm insecure" to those who can read design language properly. Go and watch "Objectified" movie - a very good place to begin.

These people must have no sense for good design, or, in some cases, just not much sense at ALL.

One who can read design language properly? Those people must have ... just not much sense at all? Excuse me a moment, I suddenly feel nausea coming on....

 

[LCPepper]

Hmm, if you take that MacBook then it's not "a tad awkward managing all the devices, adapters"? You mean because it's all nicely concentrated in one port?

Yes! Exactly, Apple thinks of completely everything when its designing its wares.
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Well if you can't physically deal with ports on the back of a tiny laptop (all that god-awful "leaning"), I'd urge you to stay away from ALL of Apple's desktop computers or Thunderbolt display. They require a massive amount of leaning if you don't want to scratch up the aluminum when plugging something in.

But it's one thing with a desktop that's always sitting in the same place, and another with a laptop that's always on the go and you're plugging bits and bobs in an out all the time...

Plus, if you get a nice Apple Keyboard (the best keyboard ever), then you have ports on there for you!

Apple thinks about all of these things, whereas HP just doesn't think at all...

But I am much more of a MacBook man than a iMac man...

Though if Apple thinks I should lean, then lean I will!

 

[Blaze4G]

No, he is simply saying that the MacBook is for people who want a thin and light laptop and don't mind making some sacrifices for it. They are prepared to use Bluetooth keyboards and mice that connect directly to the laptop without the need for USB dongles, adapters for hooking up USB peripherals and cloud services for file storage in place of external storage.

Or perhaps their use case is such that all these drawbacks you mentioned are simply non-issues for them. I personally would be one such person. Most of my stuff would be stored on Dropbox. I would use that USB-C to HDMI adaptor to connect the MacBook to my external monitor and hook up a powered USB hub for the rest. I have an Apple TV in my classroom that I can mirror to.

Were I in the market for a new laptop, I see myself picking up a MacBook over a MacBook Air. I gain a thinner, lighter laptop with a better display, and as I just mentioned, the drawbacks simply don't affect me.

Okay that's reasonable. If I had to choose I would probably go with the spectre. Although I prefer the look of the macbook, I can't give up a much better processor for less money. But I like both windows and Mac OS unlike most people here.

 

[Queen6]

I think you vastly overrate Apple Engineering. When I see what the PowerMacs used to be like in the eartly-to-mid 2000s (the sheer simplicity of everything and how easy it was to open, upgrade, etc. and now how everything they do is to purposely keep you from even replacing a simple battery or fan yourself while the Apple stores have "geniuses" that can't even change that battery for you (they just mail it into Apple and give you a used replacement IF they have one in stock; otherwise, too bad) and I have to laugh at people's postings that THINK Apple really is run by "geniuses". The genius was Steve Jobs. Everyone else seems to not have a clue what to do since he died.

iOS updates have been buggy as hell. OS X has been all "let's convert to Jony's 'flat' vision" rather than actual solid improvements and they have had huge bugs as well considering there's been very little change under the surface. Metal was supposed to be huge, but all it did was bring the GUI speed back to where Yosemite made it slower than molasses (assuming you have a GPU that supports it). I see massive BLOAT in the operating systems, bugs galore and yet the iPad "Pro" for all its pretense is little more than an updated iPad V1.0 with a stylus added (something Steve HATED). So that's innovation?



Comparing Apple since Mr. Jobs died with Tchaikovsky is a bit like saying Coors Light is the best tasting beer ever made. Only a mass market consumer that's never tasted anything better (or doesn't like the taste of actual beer) would even DARE to suggest such a thing and yet I've seen such suggestions on places like ratebeer.com (despite the irrefutable fact Coors has almost no flavor what-so-ever compared to any non-macro beer). But given Tim Cook has made investors more money (issuing dividends for the first time; something Steve also was against) so I can see how one might compare Apple to Coors Light in terms of profitability, but TASTE? Come on. Apple has been copying its own past hardware designs for some time now and the Apple Watch isn't exactly a must have product.

Oh yeah, there was that "trash can" Mac Pro design a couple of years ago. It removed 100% of the internal upgradability that professionals wanted (and thus many hated it and said so LOUDLY), removed any chance of consumer GPU upgrades by using a custom connector and hasn't been updated since it was introduced. GREAT STUFF APPLE!

The old Mac Pro may have looked like a cheese grater (the PowerMac-era Macs were beautiful by comparison), but at least the INSIDE was first rate, easy to open and upgrade and extremely functional and versatile. The new Mac Pro screams "I have to be different" while offering nothing except to a limited crowd of video editors (while Final Cut Pro X killed most of the actual professional video editing market for Macs by replacing a fully functional program with a veritable new POLISHED TURD).



Jony Ive was a good hardware designer when reigned in by management, but OS X "Yosemite" proved how utterly generic and blind the man is when it comes to software GUIs. Yosemite was a train wreck (and not just the GUI but how bloated and slow it was) and I given the polls on this site, I KNOW I'm not alone in that assessment.

But what you call that quoted wall of text above is what the rest of us call GENERIC (i.e. the flat 2D ugly interface introduced in Yosemite). OS X used to be a thing of beauty. Replacing the Aqua "jeweled" stop-light window buttons that have been there since the first consumer release of OS X with FLAT fills (that even a 5-year old could manage with zero issues in Photoshop) doesn't exactly thrill me and many others let alone motivate us to compare Jony Ive with Tchaikovsky....



One who can read design language properly? Those people must have ... just not much sense at all? Excuse me a moment, I suddenly feel nausea coming on....

Mass consumer, volume sales, enough said. Completely agree, sadly I am almost done with the Mac & OS X, with much of the premium only being the price point, perception & spin.

Same with OS X, the flattening of the UI, poor choice of font, lack of contrast only serves to reduce readability significantly, too what point? I have no idea, equally if 10.12 follows the same trait it will not be a concern of mine. Not sure if Jonny Ive is the culprit, equally if so, an adult needs to take the crayons away.

Q-6

 

[iamnotme]

I love the new logo. Almost look like an upside down hand giving you the finger. I still like it. It's an interesting looking laptop but I can't give up the ability to run OSX/Windows and Linux all at the same time so Windows is a no go for me.

 

[numlock]

So are you saying non pros don't use flash drives, have a smartphone to connect to laptop, don't use external mouses?

Oh by the way, I think the Macbook looks better to me than the Spectre. Never been a fan of shiny metal on electronics. Nor am I a fan of copper / bronze color.

of course they dont. they live in the wireless world. was being sarcastic in my other post.

it really is an interesting predicament apple has created with their laptops. if you want a retina screen there is only the macbook and the pro and based on the answers in this post quite a lot of people with very modest demands need a machine with the pro moniker.

 

[JackANSI]

Oh this thread...



Everyone go home and play with your cat.
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It is clear you have little to zero understanding of how Apple operate, and why their hardware is always slightly lesser spec than the bleeding edge others. They are not "propped up" - this statement is so ridiculous, I'll end the reply to it now, beyond ridiculous.

Okay: Apple hardware uses older specs because they CARE about the EXPERIENCE, not having the latest processor iteration inside - they care about long, hard testing, refinement and then more testing, refinement, reduction, rinse and repeat. Comparing cache sizes and clock speeds - that's for hardware fanatics, the majority of whom spend SO much time obsessing over specs and benchmarking them, that they have NO time left to be a real person using the product in the way a REAL PERSON does, doing actual work - work which involves USING the software, not counting milliseconds and measuring CPU temps.

People who buy Macs buy them to take them out of the box, plug them in and GET WORK DONE. It's not Apple to baffle (and deter) prospective buyers by rattling off long lists of meaningless numbers and tech acronyms to them - that'd be IDIOTIC. Mac and iOS users KNOW, beyond a shadow of a doubt... it's the unspoken "given", that the Apple experience is absolutely unparalleled and unmatched. Take it or reject it, that's your choice - that doesn't make Apple less successful - only someone with a heavy anti-Apple agenda would say "they're propping themselves up" - you're borderline delusional.

If you (falsely, imho) think Apple are in a "sad state" - then I'd like to see what you think is a GOOD state - they're building a GIGANTIC second campus, costing many billions of dollars. Okay, I can't be bothered to be honest - your comments are beyond ludicrous, insane, unjustifiable, skewed and baseless.

Have a nice day in denialworld.

:lol:

If you think the latest technology inside doesn't matter... you are in a sad state.

So far the current Apple user experience also includes tons of bugs. I'd dare say more than Windows 10. My wifi has never stopped working due to an update on Windows 10. In fact W10 has been my "go to" more than any Mac because I know it will always be there, working.

 

[KidAKidB]

Yeah right because on Macrumors nobody ever would bash Apple for making things thinner... congratulations on your personal RDF.

Maybe I'm wrong about Macrumors, but I know on the /r/Apple subreddit they all seem to love anything getting thinner and losing any practicality.

 

[Ursadorable]

That said, i'm actually very close on switching after 16 years of Mac's. And i'm not alone. Many other pro users are thinking the same.

I find this amusing, simply because Windows 10 was the reason for me switching back to Mac after 6 years of using Windows. Once I gave up caring about PC gaming, the choice was a no brainer.

 

[Tunster]

I use my computers to create stuff. i don't spend time looking at it and i hate that i have to pay for fugly design.

That said, i'm actually very close on switching after 16 years of Mac's. And i'm not alone. Many other pro users are thinking the same.

Fair enough, but for personal use; people care about what it looks like.

Regarding the MacBook Pro design; it's still selling well and personally I think it's still one of the best/simplistic designs on the market. However, it's the OS that keeps me locked. I would love to go and hackintosh, but I really can't be doing with the effort unless I go back to owning a desktop one day.

 

[sentiblue]

Honestly... similar to quite few users here, I don't need that much of a thinness... too thin becomes more easy to drop/slip.

I'd like a decent thickness in exchange for some more battery life. I travel a lot of on 10+ hours flights.... If I can watch movies/shows on the laptop plus doing work on the side the whole flight, that would be awesome!!!

Too bad I don't get to travel on premium class where they got the power ports, so yeah battery life is a great deal for me. That's why I'm using an MBA right now and together with the iPad to combine the battery hours, I'm good on any flight but still rather have a single device that covers the whole flight.

 

[saha.anjan86]

Yeah Nope. Never gonna buy that one. Looks like a disaster. Although Im glad it doesn't have a touch screen. Having a touchscreen on a laptop seems plain retarded.