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Comment by yarcob | Hacker News Reader

It's very typical for Apple. They make some very nice products, but they unfortunately apply a one-size-fits-all approach for most of their products and don't give a shit about ergonomics.

They sell products that work for 80% of people. I can't use the Apple mouse because it gives me wrist pain. My partner can't use Airpods because they hurt her ears. Their products work for some people, but if you're unlucky you can only go buy some other companies product.

It always struck me as odd, that despite all their focus on accessibility in software, they seem to ignore ergonomics for the most part. Probably because offering the smallest number of hardware models is more important to them than covering the whole market.

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I know from people working at Apple that they’re acutely aware of this, but it’s a hard problem to deal with. Turns out that the variance of human ears is so big that it’s nearly impossible to make something fit all. Hence you will always exclude a certain percentage of people.

This was particularly bad for the original ear pods and normal AirPods (80% if I remember correctly), is much better for the AirPod pros with their exchangeable inner ear pieces (90%), and even better with the AirPod Max’s (95%).

Though if your ears are at the extreme end you’re out of luck. I guess it’s an unfair version of Darwin’s law... can’t really blame Apple for that though. Other headphone manufacturers don’t act differently in that regard.

I think it's only really a hard problem because Apple has decided that they will only offer a single model (of most products).

Apple makes one mouse. It's going to fit 80% of people and they will like it. If you're one of the remaining 20%, go buy one from Logitech or Microsoft.

I'd say 80% for their trackpad but 40% for their mouse.

My Samsung wireless earbuds came with three sizes of earbud tip and three sizes/shapes of exterior. Apple could do better if they wanted to.

Airpod Pros do exactly that too.

Never seen over the ear headphones come with alternative cups (though easily doable with the Max as they're detachable)

> but they unfortunately apply a one-size-fits-all approach for most of their products and don't give a shit about ergonomics.

Their H1 chipset line includes a fair number of products for different uses, ears and preferences.

AirPods Mark II, AirPods Pro w/ 3 separate tip sizes, AirPods Max, Powerbeats Pro which IIRC had 4 or 5 tip sizes in the box (would have to dig it out to check), the Beats Solo Pro and the 2020 Powerbeats.

Not all of these are good fits on me, and I’ve owned or tried most of them. Pretty sure the remainder of the Beats line sold today that I haven’t listed is still on the W1 which is still a decent enough chip, although I’ve found the H1 to have superior wireless performance in crowded downtown San Francisco where the W1 would have trouble maintaining a connection to my phone.

For all the headphones they sell, I think there are still some gaps in Apple’s lineup to fill and room for other products in the market. I don’t know what their plans are, but if they intend to remain contenders they probably are working on designs that you might like more, unlike say, the mouse, where they made Ive’s platonic ideal of a mouse and seemed to have called it a day, there is no range or differentiation: you can have a Magic Trackpad or you can have a Magic Mouse. I mean that’s fine, I’m happy with my Logitech mouse.

Using a magic mouse is near-instant wrist pain for me. Although I like the idea of gestures on the mouse, it just won't work for me. On the other hand, the logitech MX ergo has been stellar for me for the past year!

Same for me - I can use almost any mouse going just fine, but any shade of the Mighty Mouse feels instantly painful to me.

Also, on the original Mighty Mouse I used to use, I frequently found however hard I pressed, I couldn't click it - my hand just didn't correctly align with where I was supposed to apply pressure.

I swear by the MX Ergo, but I splurged on a Ergo M575 late last year, and while I don't love that it only supports a single device (unlike the MX, which can switch between two), having an even flatter trackball is nice.

> Probably because offering the smallest number of hardware models is more important to them than covering the whole market.

This is in the institutional DNA of Apple because it saved the company in the late nineties. Steve Jobs famously came in and canned dozens of Mac models, arguing that only four were needed: A pro desktop and a consumer desktop, a pro laptop and a consumer laptop. And that was that.

Apple is, what, a hundred times bigger today, but I don’t think the product design side of the company has really scaled up as much. I think they could afford to expand a bit.

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