Tony Fadell on the unique nature of Apple's design process | Hacker News Reader

Tony Fadell on the unique nature of Apple's design process

networkworld.com

30 pointsanderzole9 comments

"Fadell explained that a key and yet often overlooked difference between Apple and other tech companies is that Apple ships 99% of the products that pass certain internal milestones."

Seems like an odd statement knowing Apple's history, I wonder if he means that Apple kills projects early, while other companies kill them late (sometimes even shipping them like the Microsoft Kin).

Yeah, I think this was explained in a confusing way. Other articles have said that for every product Apple ships, there are two alternative designs and 17 prototypes that don't ship. But sure, every product that passes the "ready to ship" internal milestone ships.

If I was going to complain about Apple's competitors, I'd complain that they ship too many products, including half-baked ones like Kin and the TouchPad.

This is the guy who wanted to use a small RTOS on the iPhone rather than the full OS X. And thankfully lost that battle.

Similarly, I always feel a bit bad for Jon Rubinstein when I read articles like this. Tony Fadell didn't take over the iPod division until the 3rd Generation (the one with the funny buttons lined up above the scroll wheel).

This article brings absolutely nothing to the table, but can we even talk about how great the Nest is?

It is really great.

If you'd like, say some more about what makes it great in your experience. I've been thinking about getting one...

Their marketing, website, preliminary requirements page, purchasing experience, packaging, and the operation of the device is all Apple quality.

It knows exactly how to coast to a certain temperature, it's incredibly easy to operate from anywhere, it looks good, the price seems reasonable in retrospect, and it absolutely never falters or confuses.

Great, thank you.

My only complaint is that there is some input latency with the outer ring input. It falls into some kind of uncanny valley, where turning the dial adjusts a rotary widget on the Nest's display, but there is a perception of slippage that makes it oddly disconcerting.

A nitpick on an otherwise great product.

And yeah, the article sucks. Sucking Apple's dick for pageviews.

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