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Comment by mgrouchy | Hacker News Reader

I think the Framework laptop is awesome and is very unique with some awesome features. I am left with one question, why does the industrial design on every premium laptop look like a MacBook pro? Basically the only premium laptop that looks different is the X1 carbon.

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I asked my company to get me one instead of a MacBook after many years on mac. I gotta say in person it feels and looks very different - magnesium, sharper corners, smaller edge radii, more key travel, with the OS (in my case Fedora) rounding it out. Nice!

It's just cargo culting. They're emulating Apple's aesthetic because that's what "everyone wants".

That may be part of it, but that "MacBook" look is not particularly bad either. Now as to how much it should have evolved over time vs how much it actually has... that's a different story.

I don't disagree. Certainly the 90s look of black matte plastic with separate hinges and huge bezels around the display looks cheap and low-quality and if I'm honest it's one of the reasons I don't own a System76 machine.

I really loved my previous Mac laptops (still use my 2014 Air) because I got functioning hibernate on lid close (still magical even now), the screen dimmed to ambient light levels, I got a nice sweet spot of Unix and GUI software, they had MagSafe, their track pads are consistently great.

My daily driver is a Dell XPS running Pop and frankly it’s simply not as good.

I’d suggest that it’s not what “everybody wants”, but that people love their Macs and talk about it. And manufacturers are simply trying to copy what they can. Which is only the outside.

You may like "XPS 13 Plus - Cleaner And Faster Than A MacBook! ": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fPj6mj-M_k

To be honest, that also looks like a MacBook.

Definitely a ripoff. You can see that they stole the idea of a clamshell design with a keyboard above the trackpad. And look at that tastefully centered logo on the back: there's no way any engineer could have come up with that on their own.

lol

Astronaut 1: You mean, all the laptops on the market are just shitty Mac ripoffs?

Astronaut 2: Always were...

Industrial design in the computer industry has been chasing Apple's taillights since forever ago, laptops especially so. Look at 90s laptops: almost all of the tropes associated with a 90s laptop, including the trackpad front and center with the case forming "armrests" on either side, were introduced with Apple's PowerBook series. When Apple showed with the first MacBook Air how thin and light a full-sized laptop could be, Intel countered with "Ultrabooks". And on and on. Basically if you get a laptop, you're either buying Apple or an Apple ripoff. Even Lenovo have incorporated Apple-isms into ThinkPads (mainly the keyboard and thinness).

My guess is that it's cheaper to copy a successful industrial design than to hire your own industrial designer

What other good designs are there?

Why do all phones look the same?

Sometimes, there is one clearly best option.

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