“Apple is finally putting function over form,” Todd Haselton writes for CNBC. “Under Jony Ive, Apple seemed obsessed with creating really thin devices but, at least if you consider the previous butterfly keyboards, at the cost of function.”
Apple has started to make its products thicker in an effort to give people what they want: functionality over form. This is a good thing. There are two recent examples: this year’s iPhones and the new 16-inch MacBook Pro.
This is a theory, but it seems this may be that there are some design changes being made after the departure of Apple’s former chief design officer Jony Ive. Ive was known for creating gorgeous products but, sometimes as we’ve seen with the older MacBook keyboard, perhaps at the cost of functionality. Form over function, as they say.
I’m not knocking Ive or his ability to create great products. Just look at the iPhones over the past several years along with the iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods. You name it, he had a hand in it. But sometimes there were just parts of those products that seemed to be flawed because the products were too thin…
This year, Apple put a huge focus on battery life because it knows that’s one of top things people want from their phones (along with great cameras). As a result of the larger battery, this year’s iPhone 11 is slightly fatter at 8.3-mm thick. It’s barely noticeable but shows that Apple knows people are willing to sacrifice on thinness for a phone that lasts all day… Apple also focused on battery life in its new laptop. It lasts an hour longer than last year’s model and charges fully in just 2.5 hours. That’s partly because Apple was able to increase the battery size, something that likely contributed to the larger and heavier form factor.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, Jony Ive helped turn Apple into what it is today. Yes, by the end of his time at Apple, he got a little weird and seemed more than a little bored/distracted, but his myriad contributions to Apple over many years cannot be overstated!
That said, while being right nearly all the time is a tremendous cross to bear, we gladly carry this burden for you as always:
The law of diminishing returns can also be applied to industrial design. Apple’s eternal quest for thinness eventually runs into issues such as bulging camera assemblies, battery capacity, strength (breakability), etc. – is Apple’s quest for thinness now bordering on the quixotic?
So, is it “you can never be too thin” or is it “thin enough is thin enough?” — MacDailyNews, December 21, 2015
What’d be wrong with slightly thicker iPhone with more battery life and a flush camera assembly? — MacDailyNews, December 21, 2015
Hey, Jony: Enough with the thin.
Everything is thin enough. Sometimes too thin. Thinner isn’t the answer to everything, nor is thinness intrinsic to good design. We’d gladly take a bit more robustness and battery life over more unnecessary thinness, thanks. – MacDailyNews, June 25, 2018
If Apple made an iPhone model that was the smartphone equivalent of the Panasonic Toughbook — thick, heavy, full of battery, and virtually indestructible — they’d never be able to make enough of them. — MacDailyNews, November 2, 2018