Early riser
Woke up ridiculously early this morning with several things on my mind. My first thoughts were of this blog (kid with a new toy I guess).
Seconds later, I recalled Dan Hill’s ‘Insanely great, or just good enough?’ piece on Apple and their design strategy. In outline, he suggests that because Apple products are designed with little user tampering possible - that an adaptive design process is at the back of the engineers minds, and that Apple expects users to trust them to do what’s right.
In particular, he discusses the recent iPod Battery furore, and how what was seen as a design classic, has become sullied as a result of disgruntled users wanting to know why it has to be so hard to replace a battery. What was on my mind was whether this was an oversight on Apple’s part or a conscious decision (I suspect the latter). The view that Apple seek perfection in their designs suddenly becomes questionable - this particular issue suggests quite the opposite.
There’s no question that at the time of release, Apple products may seem akin to perfection to the buying public. I’m sure Apple never views them as such however - at the time of any launch, subsequent models are already lined up. Built in obsolescence is what keeps any company so profitable. Despite the seemingly noble (user centred) intentions, Apple exists to make money, and they can’t do that by shipping perfect product that no one need upgrade.
If Apple were to make the iPod truly adaptable, they may well improve the product, but would limit future sales too. As a user wishing to upgrade my iPod, the most desirable part to update (to add usefulness rather than sustaining life) would of course, be a larger hard drive. More than any other tweak, this could affect sales of subsequent models. I’m sure that none of these things are oversights - but business decisions. I think Apple hints at a perfection, but intentionally keeps it out of reach. How else do they sustain and fuel user desire?
Comparing the adaptive design of a virtual object to a physical one raises some interesting questions. At what point do incremental changes you’ve made to a virtual product effectively constitute a wholly new offering? In the virtual world, there’s no significant cost to replacing everything as part of an ongoing design ‘refit’. It could also be argued that a new model of iPod exists as a result of an adaptive design process, rather than in spite of it. Would the inclusion of ‘a removable panel, flush to the back of the casing but with a fingernail-sized catch for release’ demonstrate this? In fact, the virtual consumer is also expected to ditch a perfectly serviceable piece of software for a newer model - Photoshop 6 - 7 for instance. Granted, in this case the old verion doesn’t ‘fade away’ and force the issue. My point is that an adaptive design process isn’t excluded by (or necessarily related to) a marketing one. Incremental change happens to most products - the variable is the pricing model.
I do find these ideas very interesting, and I’m often seduced by the consideration given to the Apple Products (hockey-puck mice and CD eject buttons that only appear on the keyboard excluded) that could constitute a quest for perfection. I also happen to think that Apple is just as cynical and business minded as Microsoft. Sure, they use “design” to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace - but whenever they make a sale, they’ve already one eye on the next one. The notion of an adaptive design process is, to me, akin to Darwinism. Any product will, over time, adapt and (theoretically) be improved upon. In a capitalist society, this remains true, but you’ll pay for those poseable thumbs.
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