Small Things
rishad.substack.com
rishad.substack.com
I used to be anti-Apple. I used Android or Windows Phone and used Windows or Linux on PC. I thought the extra cost of Apple was a scam. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate a company that doesn’t BS me and waste my time.
Windows has ads and malware built into the OS. They charge you for OS upgrades. macOS is just free and ad-free.
The laptop hardware doesn’t cut corners. Yes, it’s expensive, but everyone knows of its quality. in 5 years it still has value. Try and sell a 5 year old windows laptop.
This extends to all their other products and services. I pay more to not be the product, and to have privacy. I’ll make that deal all day.
Random example: One of the first things I asked when I got there was “why, when you turn on a Windows PC, does it start your user experience by filling the screen with scary gibberish?” That got fixed, but it took many years, partially because of all the coordination needed in the PC ecosystem to do anything, but mostly because nobody really cared all that much.
Too many SKUs tend to be correlated with lack of polish and attention to detail. And this comes from someone who prefers Linux, and hence ThinkPad.
Even basic user experiences, such as buying online, are vastly better at Apple. For instance, lenovo.com is handled by a third party in many markets, including the EU.
So true. Back a decade ago, Nokia had an enormous amount of SKUs. The firmwares were usually crap, and even the hardware was often subpar. You were obviously not expected to keep the same Symbian smartphone for 5+ years, with the possible exception of the Communicator.
Blackberry, on the other hand, had much fewer SKUs and much better quality.
The technical talent of their R&D was top notch, and it was sadly wasted by a dysfunctional decision making culture.
People here on the HN tend to value engineers highly and look with disdain on mere managers. They may be right when it comes to the Pointy-Haired Bosses, but good management is a large force multiplier when it comes to the capabilities of any org. And bad management will easily drag a good engineering corps into an endless mire of meaningless work.
The first touch point on a new Apple product is the box, and they use high end, thick cardboard that’s got a great finish.
...I can’t agree with this. Their boxes are bad! They’re probably really proud of their boxes and think they’re the best, and they do have a nice surface sheen, but they’re bad.
They’re too heavy, too hard to open, near impossible to break down to recycle.
Every time I mention this somebody says “that’s out of date, they’ve really improved recently”, but I’m still seeing the same shitty plastic-infused boxes.
Nintendo are great at doing amazing things with simple cardboard. But there are plenty of other companies doing this now. Apple is well behind the times.
I'm not denying that there's "plasticized paper" in the box, but as far as I could tell, it was 100% recyclable. As for "breaking down the box", if you flip the lid around to the bottom of the box, and then stack them together, then it saves a good bit of space. But yes the moulded cardboard that held the laptop itself was a pain to get out of the bottom section.
On the contrary, it costs a LOT to make the box that good.
I can't find it now, but I recall some article posted here about how lots of startups spent insane amounts of money trying to make their packaging as good as Apple's (UHD foam, aluminum milling) when they should be working on their actual product instead.
I don’t actually know, but my impression is that they work harder “under the hood” than on the user facing stuff (which ironically is what I want. But in applications and user interfaces, in many cases they have simply lost their way.
But the physical quality from, as you say, the box to the device does feel like it improves the quality, making up in part for indifferent software.
The double irony here is that I can afford to buy expensive goods, but I won’t buy a Prada pullover any more because the zippers are functionally poor. Apple provides a luxurious experience (a nice box with a lovely watch inside) at a cost that a supermarket worker can afford.
I'm not an apple user but it is obvious to me that apple users aren't paying more just for the box.
faulty logic. if that was the case, they would intentionally over engineer the box, and leave everything else shitty, in order to save money. the box doesn't matter, the product matters.
So the box matters; and the product; and the customer service. Focussing on just the product is missing the big picture.
The box matters to some people including me, it is, after all, part of the package that you buy, and the most visible one.
That does not mean that I would buy worthless product just because it has a great box. It just means that I appreciate work spent on the box design, too.
Sometimes. Other times not so much. Sometimes they make changes just for the sake of making changes so that they can continue to be the "cool new thing" and in so doing they make things objectively worse. The canonical examples were the butterfly keyboard and the touch bar.
Another example is the move away from discoverability and towards hidden controls. In mail.app, for example, the controls to save attachments are hidden until you hover over them. There is no visual clue that they exist until you hover. You either have to know where they are, or stumble upon them by sheer luck. There is, obviously, no manual to clue you in.
>windows has ads and malware built into the OS
windows "ads" are suggestions about what software to use, the same as mac has
>the charge you for os upgrades
not for either 11 or 10
> The laptop hardware doesn’t cut corners. Yes, it’s expensive, but everyone knows of its quality. in 5 years it still has value. Try and sell a 5 year old windows laptop.
you can find plenty on resellers at a considerable fraction of their original price, same as with mac hardware. obviously laptops that were cheap when they were sold don't fetch much.
> I pay more to not be the product, and to have privacy.
you pay for a fashion statement. nobodies blaming you for that, but lets be honest
I find that developers who disrespect Apple and use Android, Linux, and Windows, have almost never written a single GUI app with the platform tools. Which I find baffling. The desktop environment is what you interact with all day, why wouldn't you learn to customize it?
you're not wrong; nothing is free: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_mask_syndrome
> ...subjects develop depression and physical illness as a result of prolonged, unnatural smiling.
In my house we must have a good attitude or be silent. It's fine to be angry or sad, just no crying or whining. Every request for a hug must be met with a hug.
I expect the emotional exercise to help workout the management of emotions and adjusting of attitude.
I'm not familiar with that. What is it?
I'm not Mormon. Not familiar with the culture.
Jesus cried twice in three years. There is a time and a place.
Gloating isn't permitted.
Most of the discussion and instruction are related to being able to integrate well with others.
I'm weird. Everyone is a little odd. Quirks aren't wrong but can be unattractive or situational inappropriate. Guidance is given.
Having grown up in a house like that and re-learning to express my feelings and being able to empathize with people close to me later in life - I ask you to take a harder look at that stance.
I appreciate your encouragement.
I wasn't taught that attitude was a choice. It was hard learned over many failures. My stress evaporated. My anxieties faded.
Crying for emotional manipulation is not permitted.
The kids can turn off the tears when they want if the manipulation is shown as ineffective
Meeting a tantrum with "I know you don't like the taste of vegetables, but they're an important part of growing up and you must eat them before having sweets." is different from "In this house, you cannot cry if there's no real pain."
There's no fine line between valid responses and manipulation. For manipulators, the pain FEELS real. The pain is a part of a learned behavior. Guiding those feelings instead of making a hard rule cutoff will have better results and build better trust.
On the one hand, I agree that it is important for children to learn that manipulation is not the best way to get the things that they want. On the other hand, I think it is also important for them to learn that they can trust their parents to be there for them when they truly feel they have a problem, even if it isn't physical pain, and even if it is really quite silly. But you don't want them to learn that they can't trust you, because someday they might have problems that aren't silly.
Today it might be "the socks you picked out for me aren't the right color and the boys at school will make fun of them". But tomorrow it might be a developing drinking or drug problem or early signs that a romantic interest is becoming abusive. If they learn they can't bug you about the socks, they might also learn that they can't bug you about those things either.
Those are well managed. I practiced tonight with name calling.
After preparing him I insulted my oldest.
I said "you have donkey breath"
I asked if what I said was true. "No." Okay. Now you have power and I have none. Lies cannot hurt you. Insults are lies. No one can harm you with words if you know who you are.
Your kids can't cry, or complain? And they have to give someone a hug even if they don't want to?
This all seems very unhealthy long-term.
No matter what, if they request a hug they get one. Mid punishment? During correction? They want a hug? Absolutely. Love and affection will never be denied.
Do you think the people you most admire in your own life and in the broader world, both current and historical, have emotional artificiality deeply engrained in them? For me, that is very much not the case.
A smile transforms from a sign of affection into just another mandatory part of a uniform.
>they'll be the first place I'll look, and probably where I buy, even if I might be able to save $10 buying something somewhere else.
Absolutely, but in my experience on the pricing level of automobiles $xx,xxx...
The US car companies slid in the 60s and 70s by incrementally cutting “irrelevant” costs, like not painting under the seats, cheaper knobs, and the like. Each of these changes was imperceptible but their sum was noticeable. Ironically their own European and especially Japanese competition went the other way: started cheap (so people expected cheap knobs) and then incrementally moved upmarket (“Wow, this cheap car is nicer than I had expected” -> premium market).
Right now the software and especially SaaS worlds seem stuck in their own 1970s Detroit era. Dangerous crap,but with little alternative. I don’t see any “Japanese manufacturers” (to extend the analogy) on the horizon.
Their stuff costs a lot more than most, but thousands of customers thought they were worth the premium, and built their entire careers around that equipment.
I think they ran into trouble, when they started selling huge numbers of cheaper items. They made a lot of money, but their brand lost its sheen.
I'm hoping that they are re-establishing their original baseline.
It did teach me to take this stuff seriously, though. It's not a matter of process; it's a matter of culture, and that is something that needs to be developed organically.
This reminds me of something I realized fairly late (maybe embarrassingly so) into my career. For the longest time, I had all these opinions about how software should be made, that is, universally, and would often feel very frustrated and discontented because nobody seemed to want to do things the right way.
But then I finally realized at some point that what was really going on was that different projects can be very different, and different approaches make more sense for different things. To use extreme examples, a single instance of a typical website-with-some-behavior vs. the control systems for a spacecraft. It's perfectly fine to build that website in a blitz using a CMS or framework with bog standard components and limited testing. But all you're going to manage with that same approach in the latter case is to crash your spacecraft.
But I also realized that where I was going wrong was in trying to impose my desires onto whatever project I happened to be working on, rather than imposing them onto my choice of what to work on. So I started thinking harder about what kinds of things I wanted to do, and being more deliberate in finding those projects, and convincing people to bring me onto them. (With somewhat mixed success of course... career development is hard enough when just going with the flow, let alone adding on conditions...)
To bring it back on topic, the analogy I'm drawing is: If you really want to do formal verification in all your projects, you shouldn't work on websites! And if you really want to pay attention to all the small little niceties, you shouldn't build a business with tight margins that are made up in volume!
I somewhat agree with this, especially when we are talking about higher brand companies appeasing cheaper consumables.
However, the other way around, it can be done effectively. Take for IKEA instance. They made inroads into Europe and American homes, and did it by offering cheaper, well-designed and modern alternatives made of particle board. After seeing some customers wanted higher-quality products with the same design aesthetic, they introduced a sliding scale of products from cheap-and-cheerful, to better constructed, yet still flatpacked materials.
Customers could then choose the desired range and quality on a sliding scale for each product. This model seems to have worked well for them.
The other day, I was stopped behind a brand new Tesla Model S. Looked like about a $90,000 USD trim package.
The trunk was out of square.
Not that much, but noticeable.
I don't think the cheapest Mercedes would ever go out the door, with that kind of flaw. It's a matter of a couple of tweaks with an Allen wrench, to fix.
I think it's also rare to successfully go the opposite direction, taking a high value brand mass market. I mean, I think it's a common "successful" cash grab strategy, but not a success in the sense of improving the long term fundamentals of the business.
I will be spending at least three days, polishing up a "thermometer" UI, for the date ranges.
The main public app, itself, is a big aggregation of "small things," like custom transition animations, haptics, font choices, etc. The designer was quite adamant about "small things," often complaining about half-pixel (!) offsets.
That's one of the reasons I write native, and also one of the reasons that I'm using UIKit/AutoLayout, because they let me do anything I want (but I don't really like AutoLayout -I'm just good with it).
People seem to like it.
Any sane human would notice that it's pointless to go out of your way to make a completely optional interaction with your customers and do it so badly that the customer will leave unsatisfied.
The only way you get that is by building a clearly stupid AI, and subjecting people to its whims. What is a management best practice, so yeah, let's do it.
"(And smiles they are free."
Forced service smiles aren't free, but a result of continuous spend on training the service personnel
People are often not good understanding and deciding what matters, groups of people are generally even worse.
It's why aircraft have checklists and companies like Apple have certain things so ingrained in their culture.
Alternatively there are companies that are always pleasant to interact with. Avemco is an insurance company I use and any time I have a question for them they either have the answer or go find it immediately. When it’s time to renew they proactively check if I’m eligible for better rates. even if someone came in with a quote at a 30% premium discount I’d probably not hear them out because I just don’t expect such service elsewhere.
It’s sad that these nice experiences get optimized away, I honestly think people would be nicer to each other if it didn’t constantly feel like everyone was constantly racing to the bottom.
Years ago when I worked at Amazon, leaders made customer experience a priority and empowered us to do what was needed to ensure a good customer experience even if would cost the company more. I am not sure if things are the same there now, but it taught me a lot about how a company's relationship with its customers matters for the company's long-term growth and customer loyalty.
The enshittification trends we see today are the opposite. Companies are all to happy to make quick profits by choosing to put what is best for the company ahead of the customer experience. Customer data is sold and shared. Ads are cramed into every possible space. Customers are opted in to onerous legal agreements and forced arbitration. Dark patterns abound.
Customers notice. Customers remember. And when the circumstances are right they will drop such companies and watch them burn with pleasure. The golden rule still holds and no company is "too big to fail".
None of our users gave two shits about the software. All they cared about was did we solve their problem on that day when they needed us.
That’s when I realized we’re a software-enabled service company. It changed how I prioritize things.
But on the other hand, the quality of the actual product catalog is now abysmal. Way too many clones of Ali Express items with literally random brand names and scam listings. I still sort of trust “Sold by Amazon” listings, but they’re making it harder to filter on that. So in this area the accounting department is clearly outranking the customer experience department.
It was entirely up to Aliexpress to lose my business and they did with gusto. Amazon probably sells the same item, just for more money, but they were reinforced as the right balance of price and assurance that I will end up with the item reasonably fast and low-hassle.
As I write this, the other browser tab for the post office web site is still displaying the 'loading' window with no end in sight after I entered all my info. I guess it is back to doing it the hard way.
IT IS the small things...
I too would notice and care if they did not. Maybe he’s on paperless?
I do not fly United anymore.
I my mind (and it's likely largely affected by which airports I frequently fly into) it's Delta, American and Alaska competing for my business. Even though I fly to/through DFW frequently, I try to avoid American because of how enshittified their frequent flyer program has become. How the mighty have fallen.
It is a little thing (the enshittified frequent flyer program), but it keeps me from seriously considering flying American unless there's no alternative.
So yes... small things matter (American) but only because big things have already eliminated potential service providers (United.)
Doing the small things right is how the big things get done right.
Attention to detail is a culture, and it's as applicable to turning planes around on time as it is to giving premium customers a premium experience, and ordinary customers a surprisingly nice experience.
Only one I've never had issues with is Alaska but Southwest is usually good, plus their boarding procedure is by far the most organized. Seriously, why do so many airlines just make it a mad-dash by group?
Imagine if they readily cancelled you, and if you were a long time customer, let you know they were either going to refund your last months bill, or gave you an additional free month, whichever would help you the most as you moved on?
I know I wouldn't ever forget that. Precisely because they had no reason to do it than to value helping me, current customer or not.
And how little would that month's service cost them? An imperceptible marginal cost.