Hacker News Reader

Comment by bigstrat2003 | Hacker News Reader

bigstrat2003·

Apple in general is form over function (with a healthy dose of NIH). It's just part of their ethos, for better or for worse.

View on HN

That hasn't always been the case. Many of their products have been extremely functional -- and even repairable. Have a look at the inside of a PowerMac G4.

But they get into this weirdness where they produce a well-designed functional product, people like it, they assume it's because of the design and then produce something else that sacrifices function for design, then act confounded when people don't like it.

They've skirted the line many times while also frequently releasing great products that combine both. The apple III overheated because they didn't want to put a fan in it for aesthetic reasons. So did the original Macintosh, alright to a less problematic degree.

I honestly don't understand Apple's apparent disdain for more than one mouse button though. The OS and apps support extra buttons, everyone knows how to right click by this point, what's the benefit? At one company where I worked everyone had a MacBook, apple monitor, apple keyboard, and a white Microsoft mouse.

Their mouse and all of their trackpads support right click without extra buttons.

Technically the trackpads have had zero buttons for years now. It's all haptics and pressure sensors. It's a major step up from the old method, since you can reliably click anywhere on the pad. (They also support a hard-press gesture, but not many applications use that out of the box.)

Apple's computer mouse has supported right click for almost twenty years now, since the 2005 Mighty Mouse.

Yes, but always in a less intuitive way than just having a second button.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com