Today I got a lesson in Apple build quality.

Pugwash69

My old Dell laptop only had a couple of screws holding it. The plastic trim at the top unclips, then the keyboard lifts from two or three prongs at the bottom.
I only replaced it to fit a backlit one I bought. I didn't feel the urge to trample-test it.

Edinburghlass_2

Not just any Apple but a Marks and Spencers apple...

Gratis

OK, Fifer, as promised I’ll now sort this one out for you.

Fifer wrote: »

I'm using the common definition of average rather than the statistical (See 2b under noun and 3 under adjective). Sorry, I didn't realise that English wasn't your first language.

The first thing to say about your posting is how much it saddened me to see one who was formerly a lion on MSE reduced to making such a cheap, cliched and, frankly, pathetic jibe in response to such a simple and politely expressed question.

(Mais, c’est vous-même que vous humiliez avec votre moquerie, pas moi. )

I didn’t ask you for a definition (unattributed) of the word “average”.

I asked you to define what you believe an “average user” of a laptop to be.

That’s a completely different question; one which you either no longer possess the intellect to grasp or are trying evade because you can’t justify the phrase.

I asked you because I know many people, in many different walks of life, and they all use their laptops differently, in various different sizes, on various different operating systems, in various different environments, in various different configurations, deploying various different applications, in various different combinations, to perform completely different tasks. None of them (and I would argue nobody) could be defined as an “average user” of a laptop. Their use of their laptops is completely different; how can it possibly be described as average?

If there are five houses in a street, one occupied by a pensioner living alone, one occupied by the single parent of an only child with a pair of budgerigars, one occupied by a childless couple with four cats, one occupied by a couple with twins and three dogs, and the fifth occupied by a five adults with eleven children and a pig, large amounts of taxpayers’ money would happily be squandered enthusiastically compiling, calculating, announcing, publishing and debating the fact that “the average household” consisted of 5.4 people – comprised of 2.2 adults plus 3.2 children – with four fifths of a cat, three fifths of a dog, two fifths of a budgerigar and one fifth of a pig.

None of which reflects the circumstances and needs of any one of those five households.

So, I ask you again, what is your definition and description of an “average user” of a laptop”. You used the phrase, so justify it. (English will do fine, if that’s your first language. )

What size of laptop does your “average user” have?

What does your “average user” do with his or her (presumably) “average sized” laptop” ?

Does your "average user" use it for "gaming"?

In what environment does your “average user” of a laptop use it?

And so on. Convince me that such a thing as an “average user” of a laptop exists.

Because I believe that there is no such thing as an “average user” of a laptop.

Fifer wrote: »

Hyperbole is another common English language device. I'm certain Hume was no stranger to it.

Although I imagine there would be many on MSE who, when confronted with the word Hyperbole, would eventually conclude with a degree of puzzlement that it is some major American football stadium, I am correctly familiar with the term (in all my languages ).

Hyperbole is, however, a tool that a wise man deploys sparingly and with an appropriate sense of proportion. Otherwise it ridicules the user of it himself with the uncontrolled excess of its perspective.

I won’t ask you for the evidence of your certain belief that David Hume was no stranger to hyperbole but I’d make a fair bet that he’d regard invoking the reputedly 6,500,000 rivets in the Forth Bridge in hyperbole for 50 screws holding a laptop keyboard in place to be going totally over the top.


Moving on, and to deal in one posting with the points you then raised further,

Fifer wrote: »

Ah! The reason I couldn't find in on google is that it is not (contrary to the claim in post #46) a 'roll up keyboard', but a rigid keyboard with a membrane component which, when disassembled, can be rolled up. Not quite the same thing.

So I return to my original point. 50 screws to make an inexpensive floppy membrane rigid in a mass produced item, does not strike me as efficient or elegant engineering. Although my experience as an engineer in high volume consumer electronics manufacturing might make me slightly biased.

I’ll let you off your somewhat arcane assertion that a “roll up keyboard” is a different thing to a keyboard which can be rolled up. I called the thing a “roll-up keyboard in Post # 46 because that is how the OP described it.

I bow to your experience, however unspecified, in high volume consumer electronics manufacturing but it’s not clear whether any admitted bias that comes with it extends to making a backlit keyboard for a laptop nor whether your preference is for laptops that are heavy or for laptops which have been designed to be light, incorporating compromises in manufacturing method which make them so. (Nor which of these two you would regard as “average”. )

Lastly, I’d point out that Apple never intended the keyboard in this laptop to be taken out and taken apart by the user. Doing so is bound to be an extremely fiddly task. Assembling it in the factory, however, would be a swift and efficient process, using a purpose-built self-loading tool with a magazine of the tiny screws. Zapping fifty of them into place would take just seconds.

I trust that covers all your [STRIKE]insults[/STRIKE] points.

I do still regard English as my first language but my home is in Var, Provence.

And after having to spend so long back at my family’s home in England, undergoing and recuperating from a series of eye operations at Moorfields in London, and then having to return here for many months to execute the Estate of my companion after her untimely death last year, all I really want to do now is get back to it as soon as possible.

In the meantime, please would you be so kind as to define and describe substantively for me what you regard the "average user" of a laptop to be, what you regard their average laptop as being and what you regard as being the average use to which the "average user" puts it.

mikey72

Gratis wrote: »

....................I bow to your experience, however unspecified, in high volume consumer electronics manufacturing but it’s not clear whether any admitted bias that comes with it extends to making a backlit keyboard for a laptop nor whether your preference is for laptops that are heavy or for laptops which have been designed to be light, incorporating compromises in manufacturing method which make them so. (Nor which of these two you would regard as “average”. )

Lastly, I’d point out that Apple never intended the keyboard in this laptop to be taken out and taken apart by the user. Doing so is bound to be an extremely fiddly task. Assembling it in the factory, however, would be a swift and efficient process, using a purpose-built self-loading tool with a magazine of the tiny screws. Zapping fifty of them into place would take just seconds.

.......................................>

</p>
You'll have to bow to his experience. There is no way that was designed to be assembled by a robotic process. That was done by manual labour.

Fifer

Sorry , I haven't had time to read this, as some might say "nonsense ... that took up half the page" (I'd hope not to be so blunt), but this did catch my eye:

Gratis wrote: »

your intellectual discipline seems to have gone into decline this last year. For that, you have my sympathy. Age takes a cruel toll, eventually.

And this:

Gratis wrote: »

in response to such a simple and politely expressed question.

I hadn't realised that sarcasm passed for polite expression these days. I must be (as you point out so, uhmm "politely?"), getting old.

Not so old mind, that in over 35 years of using and owning desktop and laptop computers in industrial, educational and domestic environments, I've ever had to replace or repair a faulty keyboard.

WilliamO

dipsomaniac wrote: »

MBP?? wish 'i' people would not speak in abbreviations. i had to google it as i guessed that it might be short for for My Beloved Pad

As an Independent Financial Adviser are you saying you don't like V.A.T

C_Mababejive

Apple dont seem to be doing so well in the mobile phone dept. Samsung are massively over selling their superior products. I guess Samsung make lappys too?

Gratis

Fifer wrote: »

Sorry , I haven't had time to read this, as some might say "nonsense ... that took up half the page" (I'd hope not to be so blunt), but this did catch my eye:

And this:

I hadn't realised that sarcasm passed for polite expression these days. I must be (as you point out so, uhmm "politely?"), getting old.

Not so old mind, that in over 35 years of using and owning desktop and laptop computers in industrial, educational and domestic environments, I've ever had to replace or repair a faulty keyboard.

Fifer,

My question to you was indeed simple and politely expressed.

Gratis wrote: »

May I, with great respect, ask you to define "the average user" of a laptop?

Personally, I believe there to be no such thing.

And, like David Hume, I strive always to proportion my belief to the evidence.

Most certainly, I believe the Forth Bridge to have more rivets than any laptop (including a Macbook Pro) has screws securing its keyboard. So, I'd also be grateful if you'd adduce for me the evidence for your statement to the contrary.

I long held you in high regard on MSE but, sadly, your intellectual discipline seems to have gone into decline this last year. For that, you have my sympathy. Age takes a cruel toll, eventually.

I'd also refer you, without wishing to be unkind, to Post #46 in this thread.

Fifer wrote: »

That makes the T series more robust, which might make it better (or not) depending upon the use it is expected to be put to. On the other hand, it might make it ridiculously over-engineered for many applications. Goodness has to include a measure of fitness for purpose. The average user doesn't need a laptop you can jump up and down on or a keyboard held together with more screws than the Forth bridge has rivets.

What could possibly be more simple, more respectful and more politely expressed than that?

And the sympathy expressed in it was genuine and sincere.

A year ago, you would have have been the first to put exactly the same question to anyone who used a phrase like “the average user” of a laptop. It was for that intellectual discipline that I respected you. I used to ask myself, when writing a posting, “Would Fifer take issue with that?”

Sadly, no longer. Instead of answering my question with the same simplicity, politeness and respect in which it was put to you, you ducked my question and unleashed a patronising and facetious tirade at me.

It is churlish, even cowardly, for you now to take umbrage at my riposte to it in my own defence and in similar vein to that which you employed yourself. I thought what you actually wanted was a little friendly joust. There was a time when you would have welcomed the intellectual challenge that it constituted and enjoyed a bit of good-humoured sparring between two educated people. For, certainly, I respected you.

And if you had had time to read my previous reply to you, you would have divined that that respect still lingered and that what you perceived as sarcasm when glancing at it was merely gentle banter set at the level you initiated yourself.

What I’d invite you consider is whether I would have bothered to put to you a well-reasoned intellectual argument if I didn’t still respect you. You’ve seen how shortly I respond to those I don’t respect.

The real problem is that you’ve lost the sense of humour that once ran through the exchanges we used to have. I hadn’t realised that: I thought you were still up for a waspish exchange of intellectual reasoning and barbs. Forgive me for making that error: I still respect you and I am truly sorry if remarks I made which once you would have taken in good humour now offend you.

You once knew the difference between sarcasm and a friendly, well-aimed jibe at someone I respect.

And, because I respect you, I just wanted to tell you that before I depart for warmer climes and my home in France, tomorrow.

“Gratis” incidentally is the name of an Apple Mac mini in the library of my family’s home in England, available for reference and research to all who visit and stay. It, like my own Macbooks Pro, is impressively well built.

I did have a little fun with it but none of it bore any malice.

:wave:


mikey72,

mikey72 wrote: »

</p>
You'll have to bow to his experience. There is no way that was designed to be assembled by a robotic process. That was done by manual labour.

I never meant to suggest that it was a robotic process. Merely that the person assembling it would use a purpose-built hand-held tool that can just zap the little blighters into place in seconds instead of having to use tweezers and a minute screwdriver to insert each one individually.

Perhaps you’d agree with that?

mikey72

Gratis wrote: »

...........I never meant to suggest that it was a robotic process. Merely that the person assembling it would use a purpose-built hand-held tool that can just zap the little blighters into place in seconds instead of having to use tweezers and a minute screwdriver to insert each one individually.................................

I used to work in high volume high end electronics. Hand assembly was always avoided. But yes, it would have been an electric cassette loaded screwdriver for the odd screw that had to be used. But if a designer had presented that monstrosity, he would have been laughed out.

Gratis

mikey72 wrote: »

I used to work in high volume high end electronics. Hand assembly was always avoided. But yes, it would have been an electric cassette loaded screwdriver for the odd screw that had to be used. But if a designer had presented that monstrosity, he would have been laughed out.

Maybe. Nevertheless, Steve Jobs must have liked it and Jonathan Ive has just been knighted for it!

The (backlit) keyboards on my own (earlier) Macbooks Pro are silver in colour and are located with just two screws. You have to take the keyboard out to get to the hard drive bay.

The only times I've ever opened them up was to upgrade their RAM and their hard drives. The latter is quite a complex task and involves removing and replacing a lot of differently-sized screws, so it's not a task one undertakes lightly! I was, however, extremely impressed by their build quality and the general manufacture of them once I got inside them and saw this for myself.