We tolerate less poor design, because spending time on money on something which in the end is not truly worth the time or money is focusing on something unimportant to most people....especially at a job they most likely hate.
We spend a huge amount of time using computers. Considering not just the share of time but also the share of concentrated attention, they are an even more important object in our lives.
Why would you not desire the tool you use to be the absolute best you can have? And if eating cornflakes is important to you, the Laguioles may be worth it. After all, they will probably last ten years or twenty. Compared to many completely irrelevant, even burdensome objects we own, that's not that much.
Bruce Sterling once held a talk about minimalism and objects which stuck with me, long before Marie Condo commoditized the trend. He basically said: Spend a lot of money on things that you eat or put on your skin, on your bed, on your tools and beautiful objects. Get rid of the rest.
At the core, what I cherish about Apple objects is that they don't steal my attention and efforts for some inferior, fake promise. Looking at them and using them is the same, there is hardly any broken promise. It's that integrity which counts.
Which is funny because the touchpad is by far the best touchpad I've ever used, it's the first touchpad I'd ever used that made me think a touchpad could compete with a mouse. It even made me start donating to the linux touchpad improvement project that got posted on HN [1].
My thinkpad is the exact opposite. Decent keyboard for a laptop but terrible touchpad.
[1] https://www.gitclear.com/blog/linux_touchpad_update_december...
Apple's far from perfect—the competition just doesn't seem interested in actually competing.
Though perhaps I’m being overly harsh on Ive … have they sorted out spellcheck yet? The way they’ve conducted that the last while is I think some of the most disrespectful product management ive (should be I've) seen since Cadbury replaced quality chocolate with a drumming gorilla.
One thing that makes me tend to prefer Apple is the stores and support. I recall support for HP and VAIO computers being extremely painful. PC manufacturers have so many models they don’t even have parts available for a computer that was being sold last year. That was my experience with a Samsung laptop.
