>>This could be said about so many different aspects of Apple products that I find it hard to believe that concern for user happiness and understanding is really that big of an explicit concern.
I can assure you it absolutely was in my experience. The problem is that there are so many of these issues and so much pressure to release new features that delight users that Apple has scaling pains.
It’s also possible that the C-Suite doesn’t think like that at all, as a grunt I had no insight into their actual motives. But I assumed the values they told us to uphold were genuine. It’s just really hard.
To this point, I’ll mention a talk Ive gave to new interns where he outlined the (then) controversy over the headphone design (the wired ones that come with your phone and slide into the ear). He was tasked with one earbud design, and for some people with different ears it just didn’t work. But for most people it was the most durable and best sound quality, yadda yadda. He talked about focusing on the majority case, making it as good as possible, and then giving a fallback that is also excellent (the old style rubber pad earbuds) for everyone else. Don’t be worried if someone does some niche better than you, he was saying, do the the absolute best for a large number of people and let other people own those niches.
I can assure you it absolutely was in my experience. The problem is that there are so many of these issues and so much pressure to release new features that delight users that Apple has scaling pains.
It’s also possible that the C-Suite doesn’t think like that at all, as a grunt I had no insight into their actual motives. But I assumed the values they told us to uphold were genuine. It’s just really hard.
To this point, I’ll mention a talk Ive gave to new interns where he outlined the (then) controversy over the headphone design (the wired ones that come with your phone and slide into the ear). He was tasked with one earbud design, and for some people with different ears it just didn’t work. But for most people it was the most durable and best sound quality, yadda yadda. He talked about focusing on the majority case, making it as good as possible, and then giving a fallback that is also excellent (the old style rubber pad earbuds) for everyone else. Don’t be worried if someone does some niche better than you, he was saying, do the the absolute best for a large number of people and let other people own those niches.