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Comment by neuronic | Hacker News Reader

Not sure how this can fly over peoples heads, but the point is marketing.

There is virtually zero disadvantage in making the phones 2mm thicker and add to their robustness and battery life this way.

Virtually zero... except _marketing_ and hence sales.

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If Apple released a new phone or laptop this September and specifically marketed it as being better built and longer lasting (and therefore thicker and heavier), I'd buy it. Am I the only one?

But didn't you buy the previous phones anyway?

No.

I'd buy a fatter, easier to repair, MacBook Pro (like the old model they still sell), but only if I could order it with 32 GB of memory.

The thing is Macs used to last a very long time. I kept my 2008 MacBook for about 8 years and it was still a fine laptop until the last day. Today, my work requires a little bit more memory and 16 GB doesn't quite cut it anymore.

This is probably why I'm getting a hefty Thinkpad E for a fraction of the price of the laptop Apple can't build yet because thinner parts don't exist.

its not like the change of thickness is a single variable from one gen of a phone to the next. Id wager there are other variables that make people purchase new phones rather than 1mm shaved off.

If they're anything like me, it's because they broke their old, thin phone.

Which is why I'm now happy with my relatively chunky Moto G5S

If sales increase when it is thinner, it stands to reason that customers want thinner devices.

Just because you disagree with them doesn’t mean you’re not wrong for saying there is zero disadvantage. The disadvantage is not giving customers what they want.

We can’t know that.

There would have to be two otherwise identical devices, one thick; more robust; larger battery.

I'm pretty sure marketers and designers really do know that. How light a device feels in the hand is pretty much the very first thing someone notices when picking up a new device, and sets the stage for the rest of their expectations.

We also know that in most cases (of course not every case) first impressions are a much bigger influence on the final decision to purchase than later analysis and consideration, regardless of what people think about their own decision making process. Pretty much every company that has ever sold anything cares about this stuff, and many of them have plenty of resources, so this has been studies to death for decades. A lot of super smart people have spent a huge amount of time devising very clever ways to test this stuff.

> We also know that [...] first impressions are a much bigger influence on the final decision to purchase than later analysis and consideration

But this is the whole point of the GP's criticism: The whole design of the device is driven by optimizing purchase, not actually by making it usable, useful or durable.

Of course we can know that. Basically all manufacturers save apple have a very long tail of non-flagship phones which nobody really pays much attention to, but which absolutely can answer questions like that. They have dozens of models, mostly basically identical save for minor changes.

> If sales increase when it is thinner, it stands to reason that customers want thinner devices.

This isn't something that can be A/B tested when there's only one (thinner) offering. People "need" to upgrade their devices and will ultimately buy and put up with the newer model even it means trading a decent keyboard, potentially better battery life, or a headphone jack.

Correlation is not causation. If the only new products in the Apple ecosystem is thinner, have a non-removable battery, no headphone jack, no SD card slot, no magsafe power, then it is easy to reason that all people who brought new Apple products wanted those features. The problem is, they never had the choice.

This is the usual excuse to justify questionable design decisions. It ignores which information customers use to make their decisions and how we have whole business sectors that do nothing else than control and shape this information. (PR, marketing and advertising)

By the same logic, if a crappy movie (by reviews) nevertheless earns a good profit on the first weekends due to an intense marketing campaign and flashy, misleading trailers, that would magically make it a good movie, because obviously "customers wanted that".

>If sales increase when it is thinner, it stands to reason that customers want thinner devices.

No it means consumers think they want thinner phones, not that they actually prefer using them in practice. That's what marketing means.

And of course, the reason they think thinner is better is also marketing. Keep repeating something and people will internalise it without criticism.

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