Hacker News Reader

Comment by colinramsay | Hacker News Reader

Are there things here where Apple is significantly further ahead than the competition? Innovating on keyboards, trackpad, battery life, power usage and form factor - there just seem to be innovating simultaneously on more levels than the competition.

Another thing - that vibrating trackpad gizmo feels like a couple of innovations away from true touch feedback on an iPhone? Any thoughts?

View on HN

Apple's role here is often to be more opinionated, or braver, than others. They were the first to adopt USB, first to stop shipping floppy drives, first to ditch optical drives, first to make high-DPI ('retina') displays a standard feature... they are willing to be the one who goes out there and says 'we all know this is where things are going - so let's quit pussy-footing around and just do it'.

This new MacBook announcement was just item after item of taking things to the next logical step, and it's setting a new bar which every other laptop manufacturer out there will now have to meet.

Plenty of laptop manufacturers had laptops without optical drives before Apple, so I'm guessing you mean across the whole line?

I said first to ditch optical drives, not first to add them. The MBA was, at the time of its launch, controversial for its lack of a DVD drive. The 'air' referred to the fact it got all its software over the network - which was wireless, because it also lacked ethernet (also controversial).

Netbooks around well before the air were also lacking optical drives, so Im not sure how it was controversial.

Macbook Air - announced January 2008. Netbook - well, okay, I'll give you that the Eee PC came out in October 2007 (Asus have always been the outlier in experimental PC form factors) - but other manufacturers weren't seriously playing in the netbook space before the Eee sales numbers came in, so I don't think you can say 'everybody' had legacy-free optical-driveless netbooks out before the MBA.

But more to the point, a netbook was optical-drive-free because you weren't expected to use it for more than just web browsing; you weren't going to need to load software onto it. The MBA was optical-drive free in spite of it being intended to be a fully-functional notebook computer. You would install software onto it over wi-fi. And you wouldn't need to rip CDs because you would buy all your music from the iTunes store. In 2008 that was still a bold idea.

My old Thinkpad X41 didn't have an optical drive ten years ago, back in 2005, and, unlike a netbook, was very much a fully-functional laptop computer.

The x21 didn't have an optical drive either, nor the x31 before it.

Of course, one could argue they were specialist laptops which never had a large market. But maybe the same could be said of the MBA?

The Air came out at a time when optical disks were actually pretty necessary. In fact, Apple released the air with the ability to use the optical drive on a desktop or laptop connected to your network.

Apple's abandoning of the optical drive played a huge role in ensuring everyone provided a non optical disk way of getting their software or media content.

they all sucked though, the Air was a decent laptop

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted, what you say is true.

Apple did not invent the 'sub-notebook' form factor. There have been many notebooks without optical drives before it.

Netbooks were an evolutionary dead end that failed to get traction. (Speaking as a happy owner of three of them for Lab Purposes)

There were a number of high-performance < 3 Pound laptops without CD drives prior to the MacBook Air, so Apple wasn't the first one. I don't recall it being controversial that they didn't have a CD drive in the MBA.

Where they were first (to the best of my knowledge), and were a bit controversial, was removing them as an option for their Desktops. That raised a few eyebrows.

Well, Apple has a long history of laptops without removable storage. (And I've owned most of them).

Apple were about the first to drop them in consumer stuff; most previous companies to drop them did so in ultra-expensive (think those $4,000 Vaios Sony used to do) ultra-portables only.

Strictly speaking, Apple has not dropped optical drives across the line; you can actually still buy a 13" non-retina Macbook with one. Though given that it's worse in practically every way than the Air, and more expensive, I doubt that anyone does.

first to adopt USB

Do you mean they were the first to bring out a desktop/laptop with usb?

I mean first to make it an explicit part of their product strategy that the only peripheral connection standard they would support was USB. Now, to be fair, Apple had been in a ghetto of their own making for peripherals with their DIN serial ports and ADB keyboards, but the iMac's total switch to USB happened when PC makers were still mixing USB with parallel and serial ports (and I still have PS/2 and 9-pin DIN ports on most of my windows machines). I don't think it's controversial to say Apple were the first to make a 'legacy-free' computer with the iMac.

Ok I see, good point. Made me thinking: how did Apple got into this position where they could pull such tricks without customers going completely mental but sometimes even rather the opposite: craving for the newer device? I mean, imagine it's the year 2000 and a company like Dell or HP says: 'we drop the parallel port'. Hell would brake loose.

Well, those were dark days for Apple. They were sort-of circling the drain in danger of going out of business. Their market had been whittled down to die-hard Apple fans. So they could do things like drop floppy drives from the iMac when the only alternative to was buy an external USB floppy drive or an external CDRW which cost about $400 at the time. Many of their customers would happily just throw out their old peripherals or jump through the dongle/adapter hoops when Apple would EOL some tech.

I mean, some people complained, bought adapters, and life went on.

Don't forget ditching Flash support.

First to ditch wired network connector. Pain in the arse.

You get diminishing returns on "innovation" when working inside an existing paradigm. Companies are rarely significantly further ahead of their competitors unless they invent or popularize a new class of product.

They still have competitors that are doing interesting things. I think apple just talks about it as part of their keynote, while their competitors might not have keynotes going into the manufacturing details and innovations that they have done.

For example, the NEC LaVie Z HZ550 is 1.75lbs and the case is made out of a magnesium-lithium alloy. The keyboard is integrated into the case. It uses a processor that consumes more power (an i5), but they will probably release a new one in a while that will use the same 5W core M and get similar battery life. The laptop is a whole 3mm thicker than the new air, but you get ports as a result.

I'd say they're more progressive than innovative. A solitary USB-C port is kinda ugly. Now your charger shares the same port as everything else. For business use this can be annoying especially for those who give presentations or just need an easy to to plug in USB thumb drive port. Or a dongle for a third-party mouse or trackball.

Also, do we consider price anymore? I tend to buy machines at most $500. An $800-1200 Mac really isn't an option for me. I don't care to spend that much, nor understand why I should. I guess a Mercedes is better than my Jeep, but that doesn't mean Jeep can't innovate. Its just they have to hit a certain price points and deliver certain things at that price point. The Mercedes can have auto-assist driving and rich Corinthian leather, but I don't really need those things.

Apple considers price. If you want a $500 laptops there is a wide range of competing options and there is no need for them to involve themselves with that.

> that vibrating trackpad gizmo feels like a couple of innovations away from true touch feedback on an iPhone?

I could see this being a new setting in iOS. There's a "Vibrate on touch" setting in Android (Settings > Sound > Vibrate on Touch), the device vibrates very slightly when typing and when you press navigation bar buttons.

I don't think anyone else has done a terraced battery. Apple was also one of the first companies to move to moldable Li-Po cells to fit more capacity in smaller form factors.

Most other laptop manufacturers are still using cylindrical off-the-shelf cell designs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com