Comment by dkarl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dkarl | Hacker News Reader

What computer would you rather use? A MacBook running Windows 7, or, say, a Lenovo ThinkPad running Mac OS X 10.7?

Gruber, like everyone else, knows that the ThinkPad is a legendary design and that there are many people who prefer it over everything else. Picking it to serve as his example of inferior hardware was his signal that only true Mac fans should read on, so I didn't. Kudos to him for letting me know up front that the rest of the article wasn't my cup of tea.

Wouldn't it be nice if my MacBook Pro wasn't... didn't... was less... I'll spare you the complaints, and the praise for the ThinkPad T-series. They could both learn from each other.

I realize it's a matter of opinion which piece of hardware is superior. That's the point. Gruber threw up a billboard in paragraph four that says, if you think it's at all unclear that the MacBook Pro is the greatest laptop design of all time, read no further. If even he doesn't think this bit of hagiography ought to be read by a broader audience, who are we to contradict him and post it to a broader audience on HN?

I think you misinterpreted it. The ThinkPad was grouped along with "top-of-the-line HTC, Samsung, or Nokia handset running iOS 5" as being the best non-Apple hardware. I think it was a compliment to the ThinkPad that he didn't enumerate any other PC laptops like he did with phones.

You missed the point of the paragraph and cherry picked a sentence out of context. The first two sentences of the paragraph you cite are:

"For me, the answers are easy. It’s the software that matters most to me. "

He then partners iOS and Mac OS software on competitor hardware because it is the software that matters most to him. He isn't using the ThinkPad as an example of "inferior hardware".

"That's the point. Gruber threw up a billboard in paragraph four that says, if you think it's at all unclear that the MacBook Pro is the greatest laptop design of all time, read no further."

No, he didn't.

The point is that we, he, and Jobs would pick our preferred software on an inferior hardware device over our preferred hardware running inferior software, not the particulars of the choice.

In an ideal (or even sane) world, we wouldn't have to pick. We'd just run the software we want on the hardware we want.

Perhaps. But that flexibility is a tradeoff. That's the point here. The reason the pieces fit so well together is that they were designed to fit each other without regard for compability with a larger ecosystem (I'm being deliberately vague here whether I'm talking about the relationship of hardware to its case, or software to hardware, or subsystems to each other). If you want flexibility then you have to accept some wiggle room in how the pieces work.

The particulars of the choice are telling. The context called for a piece of clearly inferior hardware, and he picked a design legend. There are many outstandingly crappy examples of laptop hardware, and instead he picked a polarizing but very highly regarded design. He did it on purpose -- you don't accidentally choose the only laptop on display at the Museum of Modern Art as your exemplar of bad design (though, if you're a bit arrogant and poncey, it's a clever mistake to pretend to make.) You do it to polarize the debate and filter your readership to the folks who are likely to agree with you.

By not reading on though -- you missed the link in the footnote:

Famously, upon returning to Apple in 1997, Jobs used a ThinkPad running OpenStep until, presumably, Apple shipped a PowerBook that met his standards. http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2209

"The context called for a piece of clearly inferior hardware"

No, you misunderstood the article. The context called for a piece of SUPERIOR hardware. Your entire complaint here is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the point Gruber was trying to make.

This doesn't require a Steve Jobs mind-meld though.

When everyone stopped buying NeXT's elaborately designed hardware, Jobs slapped the OS onto beige 486 clones faster than you could press the turbo button.

An aluminum ThinkPad would be god-like. I think at that point you literally could drive a car over it and it'd be fine.

I like not having to worry about scratches.

What scratches? My five – soon six – year old MBP doesn’t have any scratches. It has dents and some sort of strange chemical reaction happened where my palm usually rests, leaving a spot with small black pits.

Aluminium is prone to denting. That’s what you have to worry about.

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