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In my opinion Apple products are ridiculously overpriced so much so that a laptop with similar specifications to a 15 inch MacBook Pro (Price: $1,999) can be bought for $1,100. I could go on all day about how much Apple overcharges its customers by but there is another side to this whole story. Whatever Apple does, whatever product it develops, whatever the finished product might be, it will always conform to the highest standards set in the industry and then some. Even the tiniest details will be perfect to the point that Apple could set the Germans and the Japanese to shame. Case in point the Apple MacBook Charger.
Whereas chargers for laptops are generally bulky and disproportionately large, MacBook chargers are small, efficient and convenient. One could even call them a work of art. Firstly, Apple has wasted to space in this piece of hardware. The cable attached to the power supply can be detached and stored by itself whereas the cable that connects to the computer can be wrapped around two flap like pieces of plastic that open up on two sides of the charger. Since being mobile is the main purpose of the laptop, Apple has handled this aspect incredibly well. There have been some complaints about the thickness of wire that connects to the power supply but industry standards require a certain thickness in order to deal with heavy currents expected during high power consuming processes.
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Finally, the cherry on top of the icing. When one steps on the charger cable on a normal laptop one of two things happen. Either the laptop comes crashing down to the ground or the cable breaks or gets damaged. Apple though has been extremely smart about this problem. Instead of having a pin that gets inserted into the laptop to keep the cable in the port, Apple uses a magnet which keeps the cable attached to the port. As soon as the force on the cable exceeds the magnetic force, the cable comes out of the port without damaging anything. This truly is a work of genius on the part of Apple. Not only have they employed the use of Occam's Razor and used the simplest solution possible, but their strategy of improving on even the simplest detail over and over again till it is perfect can clearly illustrate why they hold such a dominant position in the global laptop and computer production market.
As I began reading, I immediately wondered what you would have to say about the magnetic charger feature which is meant to prevent the cord from being pulled and bring the laptop crashing down from a higher surface. While I can truly appreciate the ingenuity of this feature, I believe that the strength of the magnet could be increased fairly significantly while still accomplishing the same end result. As it is now, the charger becomes unplugged at the smallest amount of force, which in the end is even more annoying to me than the risk of my computer coming crashing down. I am constantly having to plug the charger back in anytime someone slightly tugs the wire by accident. In addition, forget about using the charger when you are forced to be a fairly large distance from the outlet. Any slight twist or turn of the laptop, and the charger becomes undone. All that is to say, I believe the magnet strength could be increased so that rather than becoming unplugged at the smallest force applied, it would only become unplugged when the force reached an amount closer to the amount required to move the laptop.
ReplyDeleteI understand the issue with the magnetic charger and I think is is a nice design feature to have with a computer. The ability for the cable to have a backup force helping it stay connected with the computer is much needed. I know that when I step on my computer, the cable comes out and the computer soon follows as it crashes to the ground. The look and style of the charger also help its design qualities.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what Paul means when he describes how annoying it can be when the cord becomes unplugged with a small movement of the computer when the cord is already stretched out. However, I like that Apple errs on the side of the magnet being too weak versus too strong, so then my computer runs a much smaller risk of being pulled off a table. I would rather be annoyed a few times then have to risk fixing a broken computer. As you mentioned, I love how compact the charger is with the cord wrap and the folding plug-in. My favorite part is probably the small light on the charger. It lets me know if the computer is charging at all and if it is fully charged. This is very convenient because I do not have to open my laptop to see the battery status.
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