<story><title>Small Things</title><url>https://rishad.substack.com/p/small-things</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lukevp</author><text>This is something Apple does amazingly well. The first touch point on a new Apple product is the box, and they use high end, thick cardboard that’s got a great finish. When you go to open the box, the interface between the bottom and top halves is so perfectly fitted that there’s a weightiness to removing the lid, like it has a seal. It probably costs barely anything to make the box better like that, but every time I buy an Apple product I notice it, and I feel like they care about the small things.&lt;p&gt;I used to be anti-Apple. I used Android or Windows Phone and used Windows or Linux on PC. I thought the extra cost of Apple was a scam. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate a company that doesn’t BS me and waste my time.&lt;p&gt;Windows has ads and malware built into the OS. They charge you for OS upgrades. macOS is just free and ad-free.&lt;p&gt;The laptop hardware doesn’t cut corners. Yes, it’s expensive, but everyone knows of its quality. in 5 years it still has value. Try and sell a 5 year old windows laptop.&lt;p&gt;This extends to all their other products and services. I pay more to not be the product, and to have privacy. I’ll make that deal all day.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wrs</author><text>“It’s the small things” has driven Apple design for decades. And it’s a cultural thing, not just the “design department”. I remember back in the mid-90s when I left Apple to work at Microsoft and realized how rare it is to have software developers who view everything through the lens of the end user experience, even if they’re working on the file system or the boot sequence.&lt;p&gt;Random example: One of the first things I asked when I got there was “why, when you turn on a Windows PC, does it start your user experience by filling the screen with scary gibberish?” That got fixed, but it took &lt;i&gt;many&lt;/i&gt; years, partially because of all the coordination needed in the PC ecosystem to do anything, but mostly because nobody really cared all that much.</text></comment>
<story><title>Small Things</title><url>https://rishad.substack.com/p/small-things</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lukevp</author><text>This is something Apple does amazingly well. The first touch point on a new Apple product is the box, and they use high end, thick cardboard that’s got a great finish. When you go to open the box, the interface between the bottom and top halves is so perfectly fitted that there’s a weightiness to removing the lid, like it has a seal. It probably costs barely anything to make the box better like that, but every time I buy an Apple product I notice it, and I feel like they care about the small things.&lt;p&gt;I used to be anti-Apple. I used Android or Windows Phone and used Windows or Linux on PC. I thought the extra cost of Apple was a scam. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate a company that doesn’t BS me and waste my time.&lt;p&gt;Windows has ads and malware built into the OS. They charge you for OS upgrades. macOS is just free and ad-free.&lt;p&gt;The laptop hardware doesn’t cut corners. Yes, it’s expensive, but everyone knows of its quality. in 5 years it still has value. Try and sell a 5 year old windows laptop.&lt;p&gt;This extends to all their other products and services. I pay more to not be the product, and to have privacy. I’ll make that deal all day.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dmd</author><text>&amp;gt; It probably costs barely anything to make the box better like that&lt;p&gt;On the contrary, it costs &lt;i&gt;a LOT&lt;/i&gt; to make the box that good.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t find it now, but I recall some article posted here about how lots of startups spent insane amounts of money trying to make their packaging as good as Apple&amp;#x27;s (UHD foam, aluminum milling) when they should be working on their actual product instead.</text></comment>