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Comment by Bud | Hacker News Reader

Could we please not say silly, easily-disproven things like Apple "never admit[s] they're wrong", when 10 seconds of Googling instantly gives the lie to that assertion?

It might not happen every day, but it happens frequently enough that it's easy to find a lot of examples.

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I expected the knee-jerk lazy downvotes from the usual suspects, so:

Apple admits mistake, says it’s back in EPEAT https://channeldailynews.com/news/apple-admits-mistake-says-...

Apple Admits the Mac Pro was a mess https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/4/15175994/apple-mac-pro-fai...

Apple Admits iPhone 7 Manufacturing Fault https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/feb/11/apple-iphone7-...

I could go on for pages, but I trust the point is made.

Ok, Apple rarely admit they are wrong, and when they do, they tend to spin it heavily. I don’t think this meaningfully changes the primary message of my comment though.

Or the changes to the new version of Safari in response to user feedback.

But that was GP's point: They listen to feedback and improve things, but typically quietly, rather than admitting a mistake. Exceptions do prove the rule.

What was the mistake for this example though that they would admit to? Iterating aggressive UX changes in a beta?

Every single one of them was to the point Apple could no longer hold the bad press or damaging to sales figure they admit they were wrong. Or more like they didn't, they just accept defeat.

Mac Pro was a mess when one of their largest customer told them they will switch their whole studio away from Apple right in front of Eddy's Cue face before some thing was being done.

I wondered if Apple would ever say that you want more than one mouse button. They started having an option to use each side of the mouse as a separate button (even if it looked like a single one and defaulted that way), but I've never heard that two buttons are better than one from Apple. With Steve gone, who even cares now?

When Apple was designing Mac as personal computer for everyone, a single button mouse is truly godzillion times better than two button. There used to be an Apple guideline on how to move a mouse and not to lift the mouse up into the air, but mapping the horizontal plane of the mouse to the vertical plane on the screen. Even that was difficult for some people.

People just dont realise how normal people have problem with mouse. Of course as we progress I think Two Button mouse could make sense as default. The role of PC also changed. The PC for everyone is now an Smartphone.

One button is better than two, for people who don’t know how to use two. I imagine the number of such users is higher than most of us here assume.

> One button is better than two, for people who don’t know how to use two.

It's like the three seashells. They don't know how to use them.

In the early days of Macintosh they tried hard to make this true. The excessive and inconsistent use of click vs double-click in apps even then was confusing.

These days it's hard to find an app that can get by without Cmd+click which is harder than click on the right button, which would be even easier if the right button was physically distinguishable. Long-press is super annoying as well as force click--I never want the action that comes up when I accidentally force-click. With the prevalence of touch phones, the two-finger-tap might be the easiest of them to remember (if not as precise).

The primary input device to Apple hardware is the trackpad, so it’s kind of irrelevant. But two button mice have been well-supported since classic Mac OS circa 1997-1998.

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