Does Apple Really Listen to You?
August 16th, 2007Yes, I know Steve Jobs often says that this feature or another was added to a Mac or the Mac OS because customers asked for it. I would normally be inclined to agree with him, because Apple does offer ways for you to send your feedback on their products, and certainly the return of some features to Mac OS X can be attributed to requests. Take Labels for example, although it doesn’t work quite the same as it did with Mac OS 9.
On the other hand, sometimes you have to wonder whether such claims are just marketing spin. Take the new iMac, with the glossy screens. Now is Apple correct that most of you wanted it that way? Or did they get a really great price on glossy LCD panels and hoped to keep production costs down as much as possible?
Or did they just misjudge your reaction to such things?
Now it may be that they are measuring the proportion of glossy screens sold on the MacBook Pro, where you have an option of one or the other. That is quite conceivable, except that dealing with reflections on a note-book computer is decidedly different than dealing with them on your desktop. The note-book can be easily moved, but the 24-inch iMac may not be conveniently transported from one location to another, especially if it’s best suited to a desk that attracts plenty light and window illumination from the wrong direction.
This past week, I’ve been talking to guests for this week’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE both on and off the air on the subject, and author Kirk McElhearn and Macworld’s Rob Griffiths didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic over the idea of a large flat panel display with a glossy screen. Now I suppose you can say that they aren’t your typical Mac users. Being exposed regularly to the latest and greatest Apple hardware, you might think of them as elitist, although both are just regular guys. But you have to take their opinions seriously regardless.
On the other hand, if customer acceptance of the new iMac suffers, and Apple blames it on their choice of glossy over matte, don’t be surprised if they tell you that customers really wanted a choice after all. I mean, it’s not as if they have to admit they made a mistake.
Then there’s that new wireless keyboard. Now in the past, an Apple Bluetooth keyboard simply mirrored the wired version, sans the wires. They both functioned in pretty much the same fashion, except for the fact that the wireless version, for obvious reasons, didn’t feature a pair of USB ports.
In switching to aluminum, Apple has two distinctly different versions. The wired edition has the standard numeric keypad and Page Up/Page Down keys. The wireless version, coming shortly, doesn’t. Why should that be? Don’t customers want their wireless keyboards to duplicate the version tethered by cables?
Of course, Apple hasn’t given us a reason, and let’s hope we’re not being confronted by the same logic that created the notorious hockey puck mouse that lived its infamous existence in an earlier generation iMac.
Now I suppose Apple could make some good excuses as to why the wireless keyboard ended up this way. First is that most people don’t use numeric keypads, and Page Up and Page Down are also alien visitors, so why not dispense with them? Second, a narrower keyboard would center nicely in your lap, and that might make a whole lot of sense, at least to them.
This doesn’t mean that Apple always ignores the wishes of Mac users. I rather suspect they listened to some of us when they designed iWork ’08, particularly the new version of their combo word processor and page layout application, Pages.
You see, a lot of word processors can read and write Microsoft Word files. But few, if any, support the critical Track Changes feature. That is a capability that allows writers and editors to keep tabs on the progression of a manuscript from the initial writing into final production. That’s why almost every publisher I know of demands a Word document.
Well, the new version of Pages fully supports Track Changes, in both directions. I tested it carefully with a large book manuscript and the translation was perfect. Rob Griffiths tells me that he used it just as successfully when he recently reviewed another iWork ’08 component, the Numbers spreadsheet application. He had high praise for Pages too, and I wonder if Microsoft is beginning to feel the pressure. Consider that iWork ’08 sells for a mere $79, and even the Student and Teachers version of Office will likely cost just about twice that.
Pressure indeed. And I fully suspect Apple didn’t add Track Changes just to have another feature to put on a bulleted list. They did it with specific goals in mind, and taking a few sales away from Office may indeed be one of them.
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Maybe this is off topic but I can hardly stand to view this site on my iPhone due to the awful “native” theme. I didn’t buy an iPhone to see the baby Web. It’s the same feeling as using a Treo, what is the point of it exactly? The idea with the iPhone is that it adjusts to the real Web but the guy who made his theme did not get the memo, it is not doing us any favors at all.
Great content but my feedback is please consider dropping this awful theme and give us a standard Web page.
A point we have to consider. That is a feature we can turn off, and we might just end up doing that.
Peace,
Gene
Gene,
Great column. I read it daily and have contributed to your cause. I support your brand of quality.
I applaud the new keyboard design and actually prefer the action of a laptop’s keys. I would also guess that the wireless keyboard has the laptop owner in its sights as well as the desktop user. The smaller size might be considered transportable by some. Why have a compact computer and a keyboard that is almost the same size ? Personally, I miss the numeric keyboard on my 17″ MBP, but realize you can’t have everything.
Keep up the good work.
Does Apple really listen? I’m guessing not as often as we’d like. Just recently, take glossy screens and iMovie 08.
For a graphic designer, today’s iMac is a pretty good fit, but throwing a glossy screen on the new models is hopeless in a graphic design studio. There are many lighting variables to deal with as opposed to matte displays. I thought Apple would’ve thought about this and at least offered a matte option for Pro users like they did for the MacBook Pro. Seems not. Actually, I don’t get the attraction of glossy screens at all. So they’re shiny, but since when do they actually provide any other added benefit over a matte display? It seems glossy is the new black.
iMovie 08 has also caused some backlash from iMovie HD users too. Like many I thought 08 looked great until I found out much of iMovie HDs past capabilities have been removed. Who does that? I can’t even remember the last time I used any software where the latest upgrade actually stripped out many the programmes common capabilities. I’d love to know the decision making process that went into that one.
I think Apple just have selective hearing. Either that or they get so consumed with something that common sense sometimes goes out the window. Leopard is just around the corner and already we have this odd transparent menu bar and 3D dock that users are debating the practical merits of. The beauty of the Mac community is we have forums like this we can discuss our concerns/ideas, but whether or not Apple value the users opinions or choose to listen – who knows…?
I don’t really think that Apple is going after MS, but I do think that they’re going after that small (or large, who knows) niche of the market that neither wants or needs the MS behemoth. I know there’s a lot of talk out there these days about “Office” alternatives, but I think a lot of it is just that: talk. Most people, or corporations, don’t really want to learn (or buy) something new. Even if the learning curve is practically flat and the overall cost is less. For the moment MS has the advantage. It may slide away from them, but it won’t be anything Apple does. It will be their own doing.
Re: glossy screen.
LCD monitors and iMacs may not be easily transportable, but they are desktop devices. You don’t have to conserve power as you would with laptop batteries and you can crank up the brightness to reduce reflections on the screen. I read more concerns over the color accuracy than over reflections.
Apple got a great deal
On the 20″ iMac screen, they went the way of everyone else and switched to the cheap, glossy, TN panel LCD.
I think the new iMac keyboard is the same deal – shares the MacBook keyboard, so cheaper for Apple.
The new wireless keyboard is for holding the thing on one’s lap and typing. Ever try that with an Apple extended keyboard? The alphabet keys are not centred. And if one moves the keyboard so they are, then the number keys are cracking against the armrest. Quite awkward. I’m looking forward to that annoyance being solved with the shorty.
The issue of whether Apple listens or not is an interesting one.
The answer is, to some degree, Yes. But to a far greater degree Apple has succeeded because it actually knows better what users want/need than the users themselves do.
Most users have fixed and limited visions of what is possible. They lobby for their own pet peeves which are often beset by inertia – the desire for no change, no disruption, no interference with the “work flow”, no learning, no improvement.
Yet, at the same time many people scream for “improvements” based on very limited views of the technology and tailored to their specific individual desires. Most users lack understanding of technology and they also lack imagination.
Apple would not be anywhere close to where it is today if all it did was listen to users. You can square that last sentence.
Apple is not always right – nobody is. But name me another company that would have the balls to declare the floppy disk dead, take the heat from such an outrageous declaration and stick with the decision. Same can be said for USB and many other Apple supported or developed technologies.
I don’t known how Apple pulls all this off but I am very glad that they do. The user is not always right. There are smarter people in the world than users. In fact, there are many such people.
Apple is as good as I have ever seen in capitalizing on that fact.
Bob Perdriau
bobp@marketwriter,com
Yes, it is an interesting question, but one we’ll never get a satisfactory answer. I’ll give you an example to illustrate why. Apple used to (and maybe still does) have a form on their Web site where people could suggest improvements. A few years ago I used it to suggest that Apple needed to include with OSX a serifed Unicode polytonic font as well as the sans-serif Lucida Grande. And a few revisions later, without any fanfare at all, a polytonic version of Times New Roman was added. Was this in reaction to me, a single individual filling out that form, did hundreds of other people make the same suggestion, or did Apple’s Unicode team figure this out on their own? I’ll never know, because Apple never wrote to thank me. Of course they didn’t, because of a fear that if they acknowledged the suggestions for improvement that they chose to adopt, some suggesters would come back at them with their hands out, expecting some kind of remuneration. I’m sure Adobe, Microsoft and many similar corporations operate on the same principle. So corporate reaction to user feedback is very hard to track.
“Apple is not always right – nobody is. But name me another company that would have the balls to declare the floppy disk dead, take the heat from such an outrageous declaration and stick with the decision. Same can be said for USB and many other Apple supported or developed technologies.”
But that’s the problem: instead of prematurely declaring the floppy disk dead, it could simply have stated “next year we won’t include floppy disks in our Macs, please adjust your plans accordingly”. Many of us had to pay for a four times more expensive external USB unit because of Apple doing things in its traumatic ways. Meanwhile, in the PC world, the floppy disk has died of old age, no traumas, no one unhappy, and I wonder why us macs users had to endure that. Another example is Apple turning a very low cost motherboard component, the fax-modem, into a rather expensive for what it is, USB port-consuming peripheral (faxing is still king when you have to do frequent business operations and require uncontestable proof of actual reception). And then there is the tragedy of Firewire, Apple using it as a premium feature condemning it to lose the battle against USB2 for peripheral availability (it is arguably losing the mainstream external hard drive market).
They are very hit-and-miss, computers-wise, specially when dealing with pro users, the result of applying consumer electronics tactics to that clientele. That this problem is extending to the non pro ones, as iMovie and the recent iWeb woes demonstrate is alarming.
On the other hand, I think I had a happy experience with the improvements suggestions form (it is still there, really buried in their new style website) regarding localized names for the home account and system standard folders (Applications, Music, etc.) which was resolved via the .localized invisible files and a nametable.
In conclusion: I’d rather have Apple listen to real world test groups before implementing things, because oftentimes close observation of customers’ practices and needs would have avoided several snafus and changes for change sake. Being bold is good, but being smart pays too.
Most likely not listening to what users request. Almost every PC nowadays comes with a built-in multi-memory card reader. Why doesn’t any Apple computer have one. How expensive could it be to install such a simple piece of hardware?
Then again how many users are really so desperate for that feature?
Peace,
Gene
“Most likely not listening to what users request. Almost every PC nowadays comes with a built-in multi-memory card reader. Why doesn’t any Apple computer have one. How expensive could it be to install such a simple piece of hardware?”
Why do I need such a thing? Just because it can be done and just because it is not expensive does not mean it should be provided. Why complicate things? Why provide several ways to accomplish the same thing? How do you get data into a PC if it doesn’t come from a memory card? Well, of course, you do it using USB or FireWire. Why add more complexity? Why add another hole in the computer? Why add more instructions? Why add more support problems? Why offer the opportunity to lose a samall card? Is it really that much more convenient to plug in a memory card than to simply connect your camera with a cable? I don’t remember the last time I took a card out of a camera.
Your comment supports my contention that Apple often does know best. Including what to leave out.
Well, a memory card reader would be handy for folks who have digital cameras. The loss of the internal modem is more serious, and more puzzling. Apple should have kept it and added a speed-dial feature to Address Book. That’s such an obvious move, I never understood why they never did it. And now you can’t use your Mac for FAXing without buying an external modem and tying up a USB port. In an age where Apple spends time touting wirelessness, it shouldn’t require us to use more than the bare minimum of peripherals. And I can’t believe a Mac with an internal modem would be a whole lot more expensive.
Dana, you and I have very different ideas (and maybe needs) when it comes to using a computer. It is all well and good to say a memory card reader would be “handy” but is that really true? Do you want to have to handle data from a USB stick differently from data from a camera card because you think it may be “handy”?
Especially on a notebook do you really want the extra electronics, mechanics, OS changes, varying instructions, power consumption issues, extra holes in the computer, pre-mature obselescence as the cards change depending on the camera maker, new failure points, an increase in size, etc because all this would be “handy”?
I am dumbstruck my your desire to have an internal modem. I would not use a modem in this day and age unless life itself was threatened. I recently travelled through the Outback of Austrailia. I never needed a modem even in facilities that resembled an outhouse.
A “speed dial” feature in Address Book? Get an iPhone.
I have never, over many years, ever met a FAX program I liked on any computer at all. I have not sent a FAX since Christ was a kid. Even from a real FAX machine – let alone a computer. Given the cost of FAX machines these days there is no – zero – need to FAX from a computer if, indeed, there ever was.
If you need to send a readable document make it into a PDF. If it a physical piece of paper scan it and make it into a PDF. I do not understand the facination with FAX. I expect Apple is trying its best to kill it and I wish them God Speed. I hope FAX dies quicker than the floppy.
“In an age where Apple spends time touting wirelessness, it shouldn’t require us to use more than the bare minimum of peripherals. And I can’t believe a Mac with an internal modem would be a whole lot more expensive.”
Dana, don’t you think that Apple is trying to minimize the number of peripherals you need? I mean you no longer need a floppy or a modem. And it is not just the lack of a modem that is important. It is also the fact that that hole can be filled with a much more useful plug – like another USB port. Right? You do not need to deal with built-in “camera cards” because Apple does not offer them. Again, less complexity. Its standard USB and FireWire all the way baby. It is simple and it is directly aimed at reducing complexity in both operation and hardware and the OS.
“And I can’t believe a Mac with an internal modem would be a whole lot more expensive.”
It would not be a lot more expensive hardware wise except from the development and support POV for what is a rapidly diminishing market that should be killed on purpose. Like the floppy disc and the FAX machine.
Time to change operating procedures Dana. Yes, it is going to cost you some money and thinking and education to do that. I try to budget for the impact because the impact is not going to go away in our lifetime.
Bob
Er… yes, we would like to have the extras, thank you. Why wouldn’t we, pray tell? 😀 Having card readers means less USB cabling to carry around.
We do use fax in our ad agency daily. Why? Because fax confirms the success of transmission, leaves a paper trail, and guarantees it’ll be noticed in any workflow that involves it, while eMail won’t, too prone to simply not being noticed, being accidentally erased, or the ISP having a bad hair day. We’ll use email for sending ads and other content, but contracts will always go by fax, too risky otherwise, in our experience. So no, faxing is far from dead. That Apple’s fax software is abysmal is another thing entirely, and doubly stupid that when they finally implement some barebones fax functionality they decide to quit including the hardware in the package. If they wouldn’t support that minimum our administrative tasks would go to a Windows machine, period!
Now, a question: why does Apple kill these technologies while they are perfectly valid and functional, instead of letting them die when their time comes? Frankly, the only explanation is their bottom line, not our benefit. The same goes for when Apple resists adopting new ones or turn them into premium features, see the years-long Firewire and USB 2.0 HiSpeed fiascos. So no vote of confidence from me here when the company goes all prima donna/father knows best: after decades of using its products and suffering their arbitrarities, I’ve become immune to the RDF. A computer, specially a “best OS in the world/we make the whole widget” one for Pro users ought to adjust to our workflow, not us adjust to its limitations (quite grating when compared to just plain everything else out there’s capabilities).
(Apple minimizing peripheral requirements? It’s just the other way round: every cheap I/O component they decide to get out of Macs means us having to buy it at fourfold the price, occupy an USB port and quite often an AC socket, plus the usual cabling mess)
Bob, you tell me “”A “speed dial†feature in Address Book? Get an iPhone.” I’m supposed to shell out four hundred bucks and sign a two-year contract just because some guy named Bob (or some guy named Steve, for that matter) doesn’t want me to have this feature in my Mac???
All right folks, this is not going well and we are beginning to waste electrons. Last comment.
“Er… yes, we would like to have the extras, thank you. Why wouldn’t we, pray tell? Having card readers means less USB cabling to carry around.”
I would not go anywhere with a notebook computer without a USB cable and an Ethernet cable, for that matter. Having “card slots” would not change that habit. Such “slots” merely would mean more to worry about and the possibility of losing small cards that are more fragile than a cable.
“We do use fax in our ad agency daily. Why? Because fax confirms the success of transmission, leaves a paper trail, and guarantees it’ll be noticed in any workflow that involves it, while eMail won’t, too prone to simply not being noticed, being accidentally erased, or the ISP having a bad hair day.”
I must work in a strange place. The FAX machines are scattered around. The paper that comes out of them is often lost or miss – shuffled as people pour through it before you get there. If you do find a piece of low quality FAX paper (with no color) it will have a date and time stamp. Nothing that can’t be replicated – and more – using advanced email and electronic receipts and PDF files. Don’t have to leave your desk. No more trips to the water cooler.
“Now, a question: why does Apple kill these technologies while they are perfectly valid and functional, instead of letting them die when their time comes? Frankly, the only explanation is their bottom line, not our benefit.”
Snafu, I think you have hit the problem of the current subject and the root of the controversy right on the head. At least as to our differing opinions. You and me. IMHO I love to see technology die and be replaced by better solutions to real needs. I will really pay to see that happen. The faster the better. I want faster, better, smaller, less power consumption, etc products. You have a different opinion and I do respect it even as I don’t chose to follow it.
Killing old stuff in favor of the new (and better) is the fastest way to get ahead. Innovation is what has made this country great for a long time. I don’t want to see us lose in a global economy.
We have only so many days on Earth. I’m still pissed as a newt that after 30 years I can’t get fiber to my home and I live and work in Silicon Valley. Have for over 38 years. (No, not for Apple, never for Apple or any company remotely associated with Apple.)
“(Apple minimizing peripheral requirements? It’s just the other way round: every cheap I/O component they decide to get out of Macs means us having to buy it at fourfold the price, occupy an USB port and quite often an AC socket, plus the usual cabling mess)”
Snafu, I’m going to guess you are an engineer based on that statement. (So am I.) The point is not what Apple “gets out” in terms of components. That is a real piss hole in the snow in terms of cost and has exactly nothing whatever to do with the price you pay for an Apple (or any other hi-tech) product.
You are paying for the value that you perceive the product to deliver to you and the way in which it does it. If the product does not deliver for you do not buy it. If you cannot conceive of ways to eliminate FAXes, modems and killing trees then just don’t worry – until it is too late and you are forced to change your ways. Nothing in the world, short of being non-competitive, says you have to be proactive or learn new things.
“Bob, you tell me “â€ÂA “speed dial†feature in Address Book? Get an iPhone.†I’m supposed to shell out four hundred bucks and sign a two-year contract just because some guy named Bob (or some guy named Steve, for that matter) doesn’t want me to have this feature in my Mac???”
Dana, I have not a clue as to why you would want “speed dial” on a Mac. Do you use your Mac to make phone calls? I do use my Mac to make VoIP calls – computer to computer and usually with video. I have never felt a need for a “speed dial” feature. Maybe I’m missing something?
As Gene says: Peace.
As I say: and Goodnight.
“Dana, I have not a clue as to why you would want “speed dial” on a Mac. Do you use your Mac to make phone calls? ” I use my Mac to STORE phone numbers, Bob. Don’t we all? When I want to dial one, what’s easier, pick up my handset and punch in seven or more numbers, or double-click the icon that should be next to each number in an Address Book entry and have the connection made automatically? At least to me, this seems like an utter no-brainer. We all take that level of convenience for granted on our cells, I can’t understand what puzzles and evidently distresses somebody about my expecting the same functionality on a home or office landline. Sure, I can do this by buying an external modem and a piece of third-party software, but my point is that the expense, the peripheral, and the occupation of a USB port all ought to be unnecessary. And this, I think, is a pretty good illustration of what Gene was talking about.
Too late to abandon boat (and I seriously considered dumping my home Mac last year because of a series of incredible tech support issues and seeing working with my sister’s Toshiba was quite endurable. At my job I depend on several Mac-only apps with a reusable projects history a decade long, so I am trapped. Plus I somewhat like the OS (it’s the less aggravating one in the crowd).
What I find most difficult to accept from Apple is the way it dictates terms and tries to redefine reality at each turn in a Stalinistish way (“the floppy is dead”. No, sorry Apple, it wasn’t so by then, far from it, lots of floppy disk-based installers for a start. That it looked ugly in an iMac and was a component you’d rather not contract is another thing, plus by the way you left us with no means to move small files around, no CD-burner in entry-level iMacs and expensive FLASH memory USB keys not arriving to the market until sometime later) and its constant disregard for its Pro customers (still no eSATA, for example).
If Apple does a move, hardware or software-wise, I want them to at the very least test it with real world users and get some input about it, even if ultimately it decides to disregard it later, because so many very obviously untested in the field decisions have come to bite us in the ass. Why, they don’t even test them themselves enough, see the latest iWeb ’08 fiasco and several of this year’s OS updates.
I’ve seen all the articles around about Leopard, and I am terrified: it’s so “folders full of loads of heterogeneous files”-oriented that us Pro users that manage structured and systematically named trees of folders are so going to suffer (the most agile way of navigating them, docked folders, will turn into Stacks that neither will let us see items’ full names nor navigate them back and forth at the flick of our wrists). It’s like the transparent menu bar: nobody can argue that it is an advantage, but it’s here to stay, and no feedback in the world is going to convince them to at least let us control transparency (or, at Stacks, that Apple keeps traditional docked folder menuing as an option), knowing Apple.
And it’s not just Pro users that suffer: the iMovie ’08 move has just left lots of heavy iMovie ’06 users with no means to “devolve” their projects into ’08, knowing ’06 will be non-updated and end-of-lifed soon.
(the USB cable I meant to replace by having card reader slots is not the standard cable but the typically special socketed one for the camera, a real pain to carry around and forget)
Let’s get back on topic.
Glossy screens: if my eyes screw up when I stare at a glossy screen for 16 hours a day — not doing graphics — but just plain word processing, don’t tell me Apple knows better than me, in terms of what is better for my eyes.
My iMac is 7 months old now, and if there are no matte iMac’s when it comes time to upgrade, I’m going to see how long my current matte iMac can last, and then I’ll downgrade to a Mac Mini in order to get the matte screen.
Search google for:
matte glossy iMac “will not buy”
matte glossy iMac “refuse to buy”
matte glossy iMac “did not buy”
matte glossy iMac “won’t buy”
imac “detest glossy”
imac “hate glossy”
Apple, you are losing sales. Losing potential revenue. Let’s get real. That is the only reason that Apple would ever listen.
I understand your viewpoint, but it appears that the iMac has been a great success for Apple, particularly the new version with the glossy screen.
So it may be that some people don’t like glossy, and I’d think that Apple ought to have an alternative. But the number, despite the Google searches you list, may be fairly small in the scheme of things. You see people who don’t like something are much more apt to complain.
Peace,
Gene
Personally, I’d like to think Apple are in a better position now where they can move beyond the ‘one size fits all’ scenario. Clearly there’s a demand for non glossy screens. Is it really that hard for them to offer a matte option for the iMac if people wanted one? If they did I’d certainly buy one. I also wonder with the MacBook Pro how many users are opting for the glossy option over the matte, but I guess we’ll never know.