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Obsession with thinness: why is Apple so out of touch with its customers?

S

saintforlife

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
1,046
329
Why is Apple so obsessed with making iPhones and iPad thinner at the expense of battery size/life? The incredible advances they make in power sipping processors every year is negated by the barely adequate battery size. Why can't they make the iPhone and iPad 1 mm thicker and put a bigger battery in there? I don't think anybody would complain. Most people use a case with the iPhone and iPad anyway, so the marginal return on thinness that a user gets is much less than the marginal return you get from improved battery life.

I hope Apple sees the light of the day sooner and gives what people really want on their smartphones and tablets - better battery life.
 
I don't think Apple is "out of touch" with its customers. Most people want thinner phones, because it's pushing the envelope in terms of design and technology. That's not to say that I agree, I would love better battery life at the expense of a millimeter, but the numbers don't lie. People expect thinner phones and are buying them.
 
I agree. I wouldn't be displeased if the iPhone 6/+ were thick enough to negate the protruding camera lens or if the iPad Air 2 were a bit thicker. My iPad "4" still has incredible battery life, some more of which would be welcome on the Air 2.
 
Disagree with the OP strongly. I want a very thin iPhone, iPad, Macbook Pro, and iMac.

I believe Apple is delivering exactly what customers want: thin, light, stylish tech that works.
 
1. Maybe they actually did market research.
2. The 6+ does have much better battery so your premise is wrong from the beginning.
 
Velin said:
Disagree with the OP strongly. I want a very thin iPhone, iPad, Macbook Pro, and iMac.

I believe Apple is delivering exactly what customers want: thin, light, stylish tech that works.
Click to expand...

When they had the keynote for their new iMac and touted "thinner and lighter" I was legitimately in disbelief, and got quite a kick out of it. Seriously? A desktop? Must a desktop be thinner and lighter?

I personally think the iPhones and iPads are thin enough. The 6+ is going to be my first phone that I've ever put in a case....which kind of defeats the purpose of thinner, doesn't it?
 
McDaddio said:
2. The 6+ does have much better battery so your premise is wrong from the beginning.
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By making it a phablet (or whatever the kids call them these days). :) I think they were already thin enough to be sexy. Keep the same size and make the battery bigger. Now they are thin enough to bend with much less force. Completely form over function.

A general question: When does it stop? Which iPhone is not going to be any thinner and disappoint the "make it thinner" crowd.
 
palmerc2 said:
When they had the keynote for their new iMac and touted "thinner and lighter" I was legitimately in disbelief, and got quite a kick out of it. Seriously? A desktop? Must a desktop be thinner and lighter?

I personally think the iPhones and iPads are thin enough. The 6+ is going to be my first phone that I've ever put in a case....which kind of defeats the purpose of thinner, doesn't it?
Click to expand...
I'm sure when the Apple II came out, people were like, "I was legitimately in disbelief. Seriously? A desktop? Must a computer fit on a desk?" And when the Macintosh Portable came out, people were like, "I was legitimately in disbelief. Seriously? A portable? Must a computer be portable?"

The fact is that more compact objects are more versatile. They can fit in more places (eg. on a wall, or farther back on a desk when you need room to work). It also reduces resources, which saves the environment.
 
Here's Captain Picard holding his data pad in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation:

7457769_3_l.jpg


The iPad Air 2 doesn't look all that much thicker than that to me. And I'm sure in time as battery technology evolves with an eye towards thinness, something the thickness of that data pad will be made with better battery life than we now get from our current devices.
 
What's so important about thinness is how old it makes the previous products seem. The device people use everyday is fine, until they get to hold one that's thinner, then they can't look at their current device the same way anymore.

Is it as practical as focusing on battery life? No. Does it sell more products? I believe so.
 
Supermallet said:
Here's Captain Picard holding his data pad in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation:

Image

The iPad Air 2 doesn't look all that much thicker than that to me. And I'm sure in time as battery technology evolves with an eye towards thinness, something the thickness of that data pad will be made with better battery life than we now get from our current devices.
Click to expand...
Maybe one day wireless energy transmission at high efficiency will become commonplace, and the only batteries we'll need are for backup. But I imagine that is many decades away. Or of course, a breakthrough in how much power a battery can hold.
 
The iPhone 6 should have been the same thickness as the 5 and the extra 0.7 mm over the actual size of the 6 should have been added to a larger capacity battery. No one would have complained if the iPhone 6 was 7.6 mm rather than 6.9 mm. The added bonus of thickness is improved rigidity. When polled, users say they want longer battery life more than anything else.
 
Yes marketing thinner models are great. But if they kept the 6/6+ same thickness as the 5/5s, they could have stuffed in a battery with at least 50% (probably much more actually) more capacity. So marketing could focus on 24 hours of talk/surf time instead.

With this bending fiasco, Apple in hindsight probably wished they did design them thicker. But unfortunately they can't make the 7 thicker or the would be admitting to a design flaw.
 
eelw said:
Yes marketing thinner models are great. But if they kept the 6/6+ same thickness as the 5/5s, they could have stuffed in a battery with at least 50% (probably much more actually) more capacity. So marketing could focus on 24 hours of talk/surf time instead.

With this bending fiasco, Apple in hindsight probably wished they did design them thicker. But unfortunately they can't make the 7 thicker or the would be admitting to a design flaw.
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They can make the 7 thicker and not mention how thin it is.
 
For better or for worse Apple is trying to design a device that looks apart of the UI of iOS and sort of disappears in the background.
 
nj1266 said:
The iPhone 6 should have been the same thickness as the 5 and the extra 0.7 mm over the actual size of the 6 should have been added to a larger capacity battery. No one would have complained if the iPhone 6 was 7.6 mm rather than 6.9 mm. The added bonus of thickness is improved rigidity. When polled, users say they want longer battery life more than anything else.
Click to expand...
The iPhone 5 is the best design. The look, thickness of it, all around a beautiful phone. Not a fan of the rounded edges on the 6. Like you said, if they kept the size the same and added a larger battery, I wouldn't complain.
Battery life is my husband's biggest gripe. We want a phone that is beautiful with a good better life. Not much to ask. We don't really care about how thin it is. Never did. All of the previous iPhone designs did well. No one complained about how thick the iPhone 3, 4 or 5 was! At least none of the people I'm around!
 
Yet another Mac Rumors poster who thinks we're representative of the average Apple customer.

We're not.

Sorry. Somebody had to tell you.

MacGurl111 said:
No one complained about how thick the iPhone 3, 4 or 5 was!
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Actually, a LOT of people around here complained that the iPhone 5 was too thin. In fact, I daresay that the complaints about the 5's thinness were pretty much exactly the same as what I'm hearing now about the 6. Funny, aint it?

I am a bit curious about all those posters who apparently thought the iPhone 4 was the perfect size. Well, not that curious. I suppose they're the same ones complaining about the 6 now.
 
well how much more battery life would we realistically get it if it wasn't max thinness?

It really wouldn't be a huge game changer. Especially if the phone is being used.

Especially now with the larger space, battery life is long on the Plus.

As for the iPad, I have to check. But its can't be more than an hour standby. And a couple minutes of use extra.

Either direction is not that significant of a difference.

If we can live with this battery life, why not push the limits of thinness too after you get a point where the battery lasts all day.
 
I'm going to say that I see about 90-95% of iPhone users utilizing a case of some sort on their phones.

This adds thickness and bulk, obviously.

Adding a case the 6 series basically brings the phones back to an iPhone 5 without a case thickness.

I'm all for thinner.
 
i like how pple are so out of touch..

here, u all are talking about obsession with thinness.
when u don't really know what's out there.

it's not evident in our part of the world, but if u happen to go to shenzhen - they already have a slew of freaking thin smartphone. even much thinner than the iphone.

[iphone is not the thinnest in the entire world]


apple is in very much intouch, they could do it if they want to, but they dont seem to do so...
like the ram, geebees, etc.

They still think their battery capacity (not to be confused with battery life) is sufficient to their own ideal "usage" time.


So stop the ranting with obsession with thinness cause it's getting tiresome.
 
My bet is that the OP has no degree in marketing or any type of business administration at all. To make a blanket statement that a company is out of touch with customers SOLELY based on one point of having thin devices is absurd.
 
Apple have sold 500 million iphones.

I dont think that is "out of touch" - i think that is an absolute phenomenon!
 
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