Riccardo Mori

Nick Heer, closing his commentary of Owen Williams’ article, Thinner and Lighter Laptops Have Screwed Us All:

Williams’ article also, as usual, blames Apple for the industry’s broader woes:

The pursuit of thinner, lighter laptops, a trend driven by Apple, coinciding with laptops replacing desktops as our primary devices means we have screwed ourselves out of performance — and it’s not going to get better anytime soon.

Apple may prioritize thin and light in their portable products, but that doesn’t make a trend. The industry following their lead does make a trend, but that’s the fault of those companies. If they thought that they would be constrained by the thermal envelope of thinner notebooks or that Apple was making a mistake in their priorities, they could have released different products.

The thing is — they have. At least some of them.

I follow Dave Lee on YouTube (one of the first to show the 2018 MacBook Pro’s severe CPU throttling just a few days ago), and Dave reviews a lot of laptops. Most are gaming-oriented machines, but in his balanced reviews Dave usually points out whether a particular laptop can also be suitable for creatives and creators. There are a few interesting candidates in his recent videos — all laptops which have clearly been designed to put performance first, but which are also decent in the looks department. Okay, they don’t have the Intel Core i9 of the high-end 2018 MacBook Pro — they all feature the 8th-generation Intel Core i7-8750H with 6 cores, they’re all 15-inch laptops, and with regard to the GPU they all feature the NVIDIA GTX 1070 (Max‑Q). They are:

• Gigabyte Aero 15X
• MSI GS65
• Razer Blade 15-inch
• Dell XPS 15 9570

(The Dell in Dave’s review featured an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti GPU, and is also available with an i9 CPU.)

Now here’s an interesting comparison:

Laptop	Thickness	Weight
Gigabyte Aero 15X	18.9 mm	2 kg
MSI GS65	17.5 mm	1.88 kg
Razer Blade 15-inch	16.8 mm	2.07 kg
Dell XPS 15 9570	17 mm	1.93 kg
MacBook Pro (15-inch)	15.5 mm	1.83 kg

All these laptops are thicker and heavier than the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro. All of them — at least according to Dave Lee’s tests — feature minimal to no throttling. In fairness, when it comes to i9 configurations, the only competitor here is the Dell XPS 15, but Dave notes that it, too, throttles the CPU under heavy, sustained load. The only other laptop with an i9 CPU that offers an astounding, unbridled performance, is the Acer Predator Helios 500, which is a true monster of a machine. And yes, it’s a gaming laptop with the trite, angular ‘badass gamer look’; yes, it weighs 4 kg — but it’s also a 17-inch laptop, with a generous array of ports; the RAM is upgradable (it has four RAM slots, two easily accessible) and supports a maximum of 64 GB; it has three drive bays (two NVMe, one SATA); performance and thermal design are excellent (again, according to Dave Lee, who has tested it); and, from what I understand, it costs less than a fully-specced MacBook Pro.

My point here isn’t that Apple should start making monster laptops like the Helios 500. Although if they wanted to produce a truly powerful, uncompromising pro laptop, I think they should favour an appropriate thermal design, more port diversification, and internal expandability over thinness at all costs and their ‘upgrade now or never’ approach at time of purchase.

My point is that, from what I can see, the competition has not blindly followed Apple and the company’s insistence with thinness and lightness no matter what. A lot of thin and light machines from PC manufacturers seem to clearly target the consumer and prosumer audience, and they are positioned more as good all-round machines than pro-oriented computers making promises they might not be able to keep. And when the competition really wants to put performance first, they’re willing to sacrifice sleekness and — in extreme cases such as the Helios 500 — even portability.

Another interesting detail about what the competition is doing differently is in the I/O ports they choose to provide. When back in the late 1990s Apple pushed the USB as a versatile, forward-thinking connection, everyone followed suit. Today, I’ve yet to see a laptop from another PC manufacturer that only offers USB‑C connections. Even the Huawei Matebook X Pro, whose visual design is the one that most closely resembles the MacBook Pro, and which is actually thinner than the MacBook Pro, comes equipped with one USB‑A port.

In other words, I think we’re past the race to the thinnest laptop. Now that the competition has shown they’re capable of building thin- and light-enough machines, my impression is that they’re focussing on ways to differentiate their products by trying to offer features that could appeal to frustrated Mac users in an attempt to win them over.

[Edited to clarify: Nick Heer does mention gaming laptops too. I chose to append my commentary to an earlier point in his piece because it provided me with a better way to introduce my point; I’m more in disagreement with Williams and I apologise if that wasn’t clear enough. Also: despite having cited several gaming laptops as an example, not all PC manufacturers offering thicker laptops than the MacBook Pro are necessarily offering game-oriented machines; so my point still stands.]

In Apple’s colour strategy, Nick Heer provides a brief commentary on The Macalope’s piece, which in turn is a reaction to Mike Murphy’s Apple killed fun.

Now, perhaps Murphy’s piece is guilty of all the faults the Macalope points out — it all boils down to the author cherry-picking examples to fit his narrative — but the Macalope, in his rebuttal, does exactly the same. He points out that Apple still has colourful products: there’s the (PRODUCT)RED iPhone, there are the iPod touch colour options, there are the bands for the Apple Watch. These examples are valid, but weak. 

Yes, (PRODUCT)RED is a colour option, but it’s the only truly colourful option available for one high-end device, the iPhone 8 (okay, the iPhone 7 too, but it’s not available anymore). Yes, the iPod touch is still offered in different colour options; the iPod touch also hasn’t been updated in three years, and its design and colours differ little from the previous generation model, introduced in 2012. Whatever ‘colour strategy’ Apple has regarding the iPod touch, it’s basically the same as six years ago. And six years ago there were definitely more iPod lines (the nano, the shuffle) and more colour offerings in general. 

In 2013 Apple would introduce the iPhone 5c with its bright colours. Its tag line was even: iPhone 5c. For the colourful. Not only that, they also offered a line of equally colourful ‘see-through’ plastic cases, so that you could mix and match to create striking combinations:

And you know, maybe the iPhone 5c hasn’t been the most successful iPhone in history, but that’s because it was essentially a re-cased iPhone 5. People were definitely more interested in the 5s at the time. But the iPhone 5c was definitely marketed as a ‘fun’ device. Five years ago, Apple was still unapologetic about colour. The current iPod touch, if anything, is perhaps the only remnant, the only reminder of that era. 

As for the Apple Watch bands, Mike Murphy already mentioned them as an exception, so the Macalope’s pointing at them as example of ‘Apple is colourful’ is kind of redundant and not a strong rhetorical punch.

Overall, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Murphy’s article is ‘ridiculous’ — saying that “Apple killed fun” is a bit over the top, sure, but it’s undeniable that Apple has been progressively draining colour out of its most prominent products; and I can agree with this bit from Murphy:

Perhaps it’s just because metal looks more premium than plastic does. For whatever reason, Apple looks and acts far more like a luxury brand than a consumer-technology brand in 2018.

Agreed, not an earth-shattering insight, but colour today certainly stays more in the periphery when you look at Apple’s product lines. Apple, now more than ever, wants to push forward this luxury brand image, and there’s this idea that bright colours aren’t a good, tasteful choice when you sell $1,000 phones or expensive laptops. Therefore, the ‘colour’ options have more of a jewellery palette; what else can you do with aluminium? Vivid colours are left aside, for accessories and for the last surviving iPod. The (PRODUCT)RED is an exception, I concede, but again, the context in which it’s offered isn’t to make the iPhone 8 a ‘fun’ product. It’s in the perspective of the ‘premium variant’; it feels ‘Special Edition’.

And I agree with Nick Heer when he says that “Murphy’s passive tone here is his way of shifting the blame towards Apple and away from all of the companies that thoughtlessly copy them”. However, Nick concludes his commentary by saying:

There’s every opportunity for Samsung or Xaomi or Oppo or Google to come along and ship a brightly-coloured lineup of devices with unique shapes and clear differentiation through design, but they don’t. That’s not on Apple; that’s on them — but their lack of doing so also assuredly reflects what most consumers want to buy.

I’m not so sure about those very last words. Consumers come last in the game chain, and the chain seems to go like this:

1. Apple has definitely been shifting towards more austere hues matching their already austere product designs.
2. This translates into the (misleading) message that “All that comes in metal and monochromatic shades or in a jewellery palette is tasteful, while bright colours and non-metallic materials are tacky”.
3. Apple’s competition follows in Apple’s steps. They, too, want their flagship products to feel premium and have premium prices, so they mimic Apple’s austere choices and design cues. (Especially so in the case of emerging companies, which could try playing the whimsical card to stand out, but evidently consider it a very risky move.)
4. Consumers shrug and buy what they are offered.

When purchasing stuff, colour has always been a way to make the product more yours, a way to express yourself through your colour choices. See clothes, cars, Swatch watches, various accessories like backpacks, bags, headphones, protective cases and sleeves, glasses… you name it. I believe that consumers would certainly like more colour options in the smartphone, tablet, and even computer offerings available today. In the years when Apple shipped more colourful computer and devices, I was doing a lot of tech consulting work, and frequently visited an authorised Apple Reseller shop in Milan managed by some friends of mine. When the iMac G3 was the rage, I never heard people say, I wish Apple just made these in grey, white, and beige instead of those stupid colours. Same for the era of the colourful iPod mini, iPod nano, iPod shuffle. Actually, the major complaint was, I wish Apple made these in even more colours.

The Macalope writes:

People who spend $1,000 or more on an iPhone X are not likely to want a chartreuse option that might be out of style in six months.

But why not? It’s not a matter of being out of style, it’s a matter of personal preferences. There are people who would love a purple iPhone X. And they don’t give a damn whether purple is in style or out of style. It would be their very purple iPhone. If someone approached you and asked you what your favourite colour is, then proceeded to tell you, “Hah, that’s so out of style”, would you really care about their fashion advice? I wouldn’t.

The Macalope:

Apple figured out the best thing to do was make the phone disappear so you could get to doing what you wanted to do, whether it was taking a picture, reading on the web or playing a game.

Really? Because you normally wouldn’t be able to do that with, say, a cobalt blue iPhone? Or a bright yellow iPhone 5c? The Macalope’s article is supposed to be a good rebuttal of what is perceived as a ludicrous contribution (Murphy’s). It feels all a bit underwhelming to me.

Colourful design done right

I think it’s entirely possible to offer well-designed, utterly colourful products that are tasteful and don’t feel cheap. Without going too far, Jonathan Ive’s friend and fellow designer Marc Newsom has a fair amount of colourful designs in his portfolio. But if we want to stick to smartphones, the egregious example is Nokia, of course. 

In this article you can see a few examples of colourful (and successful) Nokia dumbphones, plus some images of more modern smartphones, but let me give you a few more selected examples of how colourful, beautiful, and well-designed was the Lumia line, especially when it came to more premium models:

Nokia Lumia 800

 

Nokia Lumia 920

 

Nokia Lumia 820

 

Nokia Lumia 930

 

Nokia Lumia 735 (Image: YouTube)

 

Nokia Lumia 1020 (Image: All About Windows Phone)

 

Nokia Lumia 1520

 

I have held many of these phones, and only the very low-end Lumias felt cheap — but then again, they were cheap phones. (And something can be cheap and cheerful and be successful if it nails the design and appeal). Photos tend to be misleading with the more premium Lumia models: when you feel how substantial the 930 (or even the 830) is in the hand, you know you’re holding a solid, well-executed phone, which also happens to come in bright colours and thus adds a playful touch to the experience. The iPhone in this regard — if you’ll allow a bit of anthropomorphism here — takes itself very seriously: I am a luxury device, I epitomise tasteful design, I am a status symbol. If you were in the market for a Nokia Lumia back then, and wanted a more muted option, all Lumias came in black and white too. If you want a more colourful iPhone today, well, go and pick a case. 

Sure, those Lumias ran Windows Phone, and that hasn’t been a very successful platform worldwide (sadly), but that’s not a fault of the hardware design or the presence of bright colours. 

Conclusion

In all this chain of linked articles and opinions, in the end I tend to agree with the general sentiment expressed by Murphy. Has Apple ‘killed’ fun? A bit, yes. In their products. They neutered a bit that fun, whimsical ingredient they carried in their underdog identity as a company. Like Nick Heer, I don’t agree with Murphy when he implies that it’s Apple’s fault if the rest of the industry has followed suit when it comes to offer more austere and boring colour options. But Apple has certainly stopped conveying playfulness through the use of bright colours, non-metallic materials or less ‘safe’ hardware design choices. Whatever playfulness Apple is transmitting today, it’s mostly through software (Animoji, Memoji, etc.) and some keynote demos. 

Lastly, according to the Macalope Apple has “made fun cheaper” by shifting it to their accessories. Hardly so. Genuine Apple Watch bands are not cheap. iPhone silicon and leather cases are not cheap. iPad cases are not cheap. Beats headphones are not cheap. Not even the 32 GB iPod touch is cheap at $199 (or more, outside the US — it’s €233 in my country), and today it’s probably more worthwhile to buy a 32 GB iPhone SE at $349.

For those who like to jump to conclusions: I’m not really criticising Apple, here, nor am I being negative ‘yet again’. I’m just sharing observations. This is entirely a matter of personal tastes. Apple has made certain design choices in the materials and colour palette of their products, and I respect that. Some choices I like, some less so. I love the matte black and jet black iPhone 7 variants. Or the red iPhone 8. At the same time I definitely miss a more colourful, more playful Apple, but that’s me. 

What I think Apple has really ‘killed’, in recent times, is the idea of offering truly affordable products that feel robust, well made, and fun. It’s the point I was making a couple of months ago in Apple needs polycarbonate again:

Make the MacBook the most affordable line again, even visually, with this hypothetical new ‘polycarbonate MacBook’; make it in different colours (but bright and vivid ones, like the iMac G3, the first iBooks, the iPod nanos, not the usual and boring space grey, silver and gold); make it reasonably thin (but thicker than the MacBook Pros) and give it at least a USB‑A port; cut costs by using a non-retina display, but perhaps something a bit better than the display in the current MacBook Air; and finally, give it a great battery life, something similar — or even better — than the MacBook Air.

I miss such a MacBook in the current Apple product lines. Even a redesigned, smaller Mac mini could be offered in bright colour variants and durable materials without necessarily feeling like a subpar product. 

So yes, if I have to really criticise Apple for something, it’s for ‘killing’ affordability more than fun, for making everything in shades of premium. Fun has been collateral damage.