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Comment by jonhohle | Hacker News Reader

But why did try to copy it at all? Why not go in another direction completely?

Just how many different ways can you make a light blink?

There are infinite many ways of doing so. :)

For example, somewhat like the Fibonacci sequence like it is incorporated in the Lateralus song by Tool. That would be awesome.

See, you're already limiting yourself. The object isn't to indicate sleep with a blinking light, it's to indicate sleep.

A sleeping computer could softly snore. Or the logo text on the lid could blur like tired vision. Neither of those is a blinking light.

It's not hard to imagine a PC laptop manufacturer designing a light that moves side to side like a Cylon. In fact, this might even be a good fit for an Alienware laptop.

That's not an indicator that your computer is sleeping. That's an indicator that your computer is going to try and annihilate the human race.

(I think Mozilla has an oscillating status bar they use, which is called a "Cylon".)

Could've used two lights to recreate the effect of eyes sleepily almost-opening, blinking and closing.

they didn't invet the blink sir... sigh

No, they didn't, but they tied it to something unique: human breathing at a resting pace. They anthropomorphised it.

Ok, that's done, Apple took it. What's next? What's even more intuitive or revolutionary?

We'll never know if major companies with insanely great designers constantly regurgitate what Apple did years before.

I don't think its unreasonable to hold companies other than Apple to the same design standards. Certainly most large consumer electronics companies have similar resources (human, industrial, capital, etc.) to use.

Other companies prioritize features over usability. Apple does not create as feature rich programs, focusing instead on making them simple, easy to use, and aesthetically pleasing. Google, Microsoft, Linux devs, etc. build more feature-packed, customizable products. It is difficult to make software both feature rich and yet uncomplicated and easy to approach. I like the Firefox way of doing things: put commonly needed preferences in menubar->preferences and hide everything else away in a strange place like about:config that the user can find if they need.

Personally, I am satisfied with Android 2.2's, Ubuntu's, and even Windows 7's UIs and prefer the richer sets of features (not that I dislike iOS or Apple products; I actually use them at work on a daily basis). I think there are benefits to doing software both ways and I think the range of program complexity and power in the consumer software market reflects that.

Easy and simple to use IS a feature, though. All the customizability goes unused by 99% of the population. Apple knows this.

I made the distinction between features and usability deliberately. In the context of my comment, a feature could be defined as "something the program can do," rather than "something the marketers will list as a feature," so in that context, easy and simple to use is certainly _not_ a feature. Like I said, there is a market for all levels of complexity and flexibility in software stemming from varying preferences and needs.

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