How safe are apples?

isofa

I think quality of design is an incredibly important part, especially with laptops and anything portable be it a 'phone or MP3 player. Why have something ugly and functional, when you can have something thoughtfully designed, considered and functional to a higher standard?

Everyone has different purchasing criteria, be it for computers, cars, home furnishing, audio-visual etc, but there is so much poor design, both aesthetic and ergonomic based, in the World, that good design strives for excellence and should be applauded if it is well executed.

I'm not pointing out specific companies, I'm just making a generalised point.

BillScarab

Good design is important but it's not the be all and end all. My PC tower sits under the desk, it's black and fairly plain. I don't really care what it looks like as I don't look at it, I use it. My work laptop is a Dell, it looks OK and does what it's supposed to but I don't spend any time looking at it so I'm not really bothered.

I'm not saying things shouldn't be well desgined but it sometimes seems to be more important than function for some people. Phones that look good but have buttons that are too small to use or useless touch sensitive keypads being a case in point.

isofa

BillScarab wrote: »

I'm not saying things shouldn't be well desgined but it sometimes seems to be more important than function for some people. Phones that look good but have buttons that are too small to use or useless touch sensitive keypads being a case in point.

Surely 'phones that look good, but have buttons which are too small or with useless touch sensitive features are poorly designed too though

Good design should cover all elements: aesthetics, ergonomics form and function.

I agree re. a tower under a desk or in a cupboard, but nowadays many home users are abandoning the idea of a home/office, and the computer is becoming more of a household appliance in a living room of some description.

PrinceGaz

Design is important for laptops, phones etc. You carry them with you and something which looks nice and stylish is preferable to something which looks like a brick. So long as functionality isn't sacrificed (it is with the MacBook Air which has next to no peripheral connectors), if it looks good that is a plus.

When it comes to desktop PCs (which these days means mini-towers), I really don't care what mine looks like so long as the case provides plenty of cooling (I like to overclock my CPU and graphics-card a bit), the fans aren't overly noisy (cooling and noise is always a compromise), and the case has plenty of front-bays for hard-drives, optical-drives and other odds and ends.

Many enthusiasts do go for cases with plastic windows, LED illuminated fans, cold-cathode lights and the like, probably because they take them to LAN parties. I'm more than happy with a plain aluminium case as it just sits next to the rest of my gear and I spend my time looking at my monitor, not the computer (unless checking for hard-drive activity). My computer looks good where it matters most, how well it performs.

I've got nothing against Apples as such, but they are seriously over-hyped by many people - almost as if every new Apple owner must receive some sort of cashback if they post lots of messages saying how great it is Apple themselves often over-exaggerate how good they are, like with their MacBook range
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11348
MacBooks might look nice physically, but so do many other laptops, and some of those others look a lot better when viewing the screen on them.

BillScarab

isofa wrote: »

Surely 'phones that look good, but have buttons which are too small or with useless touch sensitive features are poorly designed too though

Fair Point !