I'm no industrial designer, but devil's advocate:
- The design pushes even further Ive's design philosophy of letting the materials themselves show through
- It simplifies the geometry of the existing lineup. You could tell the old keyboard and trackpad shoe-horned a cylinder in the design just to accommodate the AA's. And the trackpad couldn't use the full top plane for a touch surface because of it.
- Rechargeable internal batteries means less waste on average (I imagine most people don't use rechargable AA's) - Apple seems to prefer to trade the flexibility of removable batteries for flexibility in design, and push people to their battery service programs
- Extend the "scissor" buttons from laptops to rest of product line
- More volume through their existing Li-ion battery supply chain. (Not sure if they use external suppliers - if so, more leverage there)
- More uses for the battery-life-extending batter controllers they launched in laptops that charges on a cell-by-cell basis.
- Broader install base for their lightning port
All those decisions seem very "Apple-y" to me
I’m not sure about the move away from AA batteries to sealed in rechargeable Lithium Ion batteries. I’ve had my current Magic Mouse since 2007, if the batteries weren’t replaceable they’d have degraded greatly by now.
Pricing is insane. In France, it's 149€. Not sure how you go from $129 in the US to $169 in France.
And again, force touch doesn't make much sense to me on a computer: we already have the right click as an alternative click.
@cenk I mean that they outsource it somewhere. That keyboard and the trackpad are so chunky. Apple used to add this air sort of feel to their products; I don't agree with their new guidelines.
@denull I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming your actual implication is that the design looks as if it were outsourced, not an accusation that it actually is.
The keyboard and trackpad definitely have a new design language, and I can't help but draw comparisons to my own reactions to the iPhone 4 design when it was leaked about five years ago.
@haseeb Haha I had the exact same reaction. It seems like the only change is the move to rechargeable batteries? Is the whole body of the mouse identical aside from that? Force touch on the trackpad is a nicer update.
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@michael_one@haseeb First I spent money on Mouse, then spent money on rechargeable batteries. I guess I will pass :)
keyboard might be exciting since I dont have one
I find the mouse literally painful to use because it is so low, but I love the current Magic Trackpad and Keyboard - arranged [TrackPad] [Keyboard] [Logitech MX Performance Mouse]
Will definitely be getting one of the new trackpads, but might well wait until the current one dies.
Regarding the batteries, the Logitech mouse is rechargeable (and useable whilst charging!), still works beautifully after years of punishment, and holds charge for a long time - so hopefully the new Apple products will do the same. I'm sure the batteries will be "replaceable" even if it requires minor surgery...
@steve228uk I love it! It's replaced my home and work keyboard. I haven't replaced any keys yet, trying to not get sucked in to that hobby.
There's a bit of a learning curve with the keyboard though. I think it took me about a month of full time use to finally feel comfortable with it.
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