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Comment by geoffeg | Hacker News Reader

Apple wasn't always like that, just the current iteration of Apple. Back in the 80s and 90s Apple was more focused on longevity and building really great user interfaces than purity of design. Their Human Interface Guidelines were some of the best in the industry and they spent a lot of time and money on human factors research.

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I feel people often have pink glasses over the old period of Apple. 90s was tons of Mac product lines competing with each other. No shortage of quality problem on those hardware. A nice operating system but was falling behind in many modern OS concepts (while trying to build a new OS from scratch and failing).

I used apple all my life (including the 90s) and it was definitely not the best period of apple.

Yeah, I burned through a few new Macs in late 90s early 2000s. They all were obsoleted pretty fast. I have an old Silver Door Mac G4 that was really just crap new out of the box.

But, the Late `09 Mac Mini I bought new has been as solid as one could ever hope for. I just ordered a refurbished late `14 Mac Mini from OWC to replace it and I expect it should last a few years too.

I mostly just write code for a web app I sell so I don't need the latest or most powerful Mac and the `14 model will run the current Mac OS and the latest versions of the software I use most, mainly BBEdit and web browsers.

I know I'd be pretty disappointed if I'd bought a Macbook M1 and that happened to me.

To be fair, every computer got obsoleted fast on those years. The Moore law was strong back then.

I consider M[Int] Pro line as a solid return to form, and I bring that up here because of the braided MagSafe cable which comes with it.

I'm hard on cables, and I have an instinct for what's going to crap out on me. I expect this cable to last. That thing where they can afford to make a decent cable, know how, and just... wont? This cable isn't one of those.

It will, however, show grime. They haven't let go of Apple White Which Reveals If You're a Slob yet, and I'm dubious they ever will.

Edit: have to take that last paragraph back, they sell them in black. I did figure on having two...

> It will, however, show grime. They haven't let go of Apple White Which Reveals If You're a Slob yet, and I'm dubious they ever will.

Haha, we had an all-hands meeting in-person for the first time since Covid last week. There were about 15 of us sitting around a huge conference table. Many white Macbook chargers and their cables sprawled across the table.

I did get very self conscious when I realized all the rest were pristine white - as if they had just unwrapped them for the first time - while mine was pit-stain yellow with the connector frayed and blue. I had never noticed how gross it was until seeing it right next to the newer, clean chargers.

I blamed it on the cat - he sits on the cord when it's lying on the bed. I'm not sure they were buying it, though.

Apple offered upgrades from the IIe to IIGS. It was an in-store motherboard and lower case swap

and apple almost went bankrupt after that.

Someone here pointed out to me, when I made a similar comment, the hockey puck mouse.

I think the Apple III is also an example of their susceptibility to letting aesthetics or marketing dictate over function

80s Apple computer were not speced for a long, useful life.

80s apple computers were highly upgradeable. Multiple expansion slots and 3rd party options.

It was a completely different ecosystem, but it was when Woz was making design decisions on the apple II

While Woz certainly made some good decisions todays PCs are incomparibly more upgradeable and have longer shelf life due to also changing the CPU to a better model or use 5 years from the future graphic cards.

I don't mean the specs but the quality of the hardware design itself.

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