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Cars are most manufacturers' "loss leader" Trucks are profit.
In many ways you can look at PCs similarly. But that doesn't make sense, does it?
Ok, I won't deny that Apple, like anybody else, will have the occasional 'lemon.' What you overlook is that while that MacBook may be "overheating", what you have is a massive heat sink drawing the heat away from the components and thus protecting them as compared to, as you put it, "... my cheap, plastic Sony." Then again, your complaint about the 'light leaking' displays seems to fade away as the device 'ages', merely pointing out that most of those products where people have complained are barely off the assembly line where the adhesives used aren't fully cured yet. For that matter, that 'light leakage' problem barely affects most users as the device is used in full daylight or a brightly-lighted office most of the time. Only somebody looking for defects with the intent to denigrate the product would even consider that a failure.
On the other hand, I'm fully aware of 'ghosting' and quite honestly I've seen it even on Apple's older displays. Quite honestly it's little different from the old CRT's 'ghosting' due to a high-contrast image sitting at one place on the display for any kind of significant time. This is why screen savers were originally created and honestly it's why they're still needed. Reducing the intensity or sharpness of the display would obviously reduce the ghosting. The retina display is only a higher-resolution display using the same old LED technology. Apple does tend to set the display to a high-contrast mode by default, which I will complain about, but merely reducing the brightness and the contrast by about 25% makes a huge difference in the level of ghosting. By the way, Apple's displays aren't the only ones that 'ghost', they're merely the ones people choose to make vocal complaints about as they try to denigrate the brand.
You are right; on average people don't know and don't care about the internals of their devices--they simply want them to work. That also means that a more reliable device will last longer for them. Which again means more overall savings. Since most laptops now are placed on some sort of cooling stand any more, that 'overheating' thing isn't nearly as bad as you'd like us to believe.
Oh, and that cars tangent? Cars themselves supposedly have razor-thin profit margins--if any. Trucks on the other hand have anywhere from 20% to 50% profit margin (depending on model and equipment) that means for most brands their trucks subsidize their cars and at least where I live trucks appear to be a good 30% of the traffic if not more. Part of this is obviously due to the less expensive construction (body on frame vs unibody) but they obviously don't need to be quite as tightly engineered simply because the truck has so much more room in the cab compared to most cars, which makes the engineering itself less expensive. True, trucks are becoming more popular as family vehicles, but they're still easier and cheaper to build as a result. Those headlights? Sealed-beam was a federal mandate back in the '50s and only for the US as far as I know. The models that went with plastic lenses and reflectors went to smaller but no less expensive replaceable bulbs that could still be user-replaced--if the user knew how to dismantle the assembly. It wasn't an attempt to force users to take it in for replacement, it was merely the user's ignorance of the procedure that made them take it in.
Ok, I won't deny that Apple, like anybody else, will have the occasional 'lemon.' What you overlook is that while that MacBook may be "overheating", what you have is a massive heat sink drawing the heat away from the components and thus protecting them as compared to, as you put it, "... my cheap, plastic Sony." Then again, your complaint about the 'light leaking' displays seems to fade away as the device 'ages', merely pointing out that most of those products where people have complained are barely off the assembly line where the adhesives used aren't fully cured yet. For that matter, that 'light leakage' problem barely affects most users as the device is used in full daylight or a brightly-lighted office most of the time. Only somebody looking for defects with the intent to denigrate the product would even consider that a failure.
On the other hand, I'm fully aware of 'ghosting' and quite honestly I've seen it even on Apple's older displays. Quite honestly it's little different from the old CRT's 'ghosting' due to a high-contrast image sitting at one place on the display for any kind of significant time. This is why screen savers were originally created and honestly it's why they're still needed. Reducing the intensity or sharpness of the display would obviously reduce the ghosting. The retina display is only a higher-resolution display using the same old LED technology. Apple does tend to set the display to a high-contrast mode by default, which I will complain about, but merely reducing the brightness and the contrast by about 25% makes a huge difference in the level of ghosting. By the way, Apple's displays aren't the only ones that 'ghost', they're merely the ones people choose to make vocal complaints about as they try to denigrate the brand.
You are right; on average people don't know and don't care about the internals of their devices--they simply want them to work. That also means that a more reliable device will last longer for them. Which again means more overall savings. Since most laptops now are placed on some sort of cooling stand any more, that 'overheating' thing isn't nearly as bad as you'd like us to believe.
Oh, and that cars tangent? Cars themselves supposedly have razor-thin profit margins--if any. Trucks on the other hand have anywhere from 20% to 50% profit margin (depending on model and equipment) that means for most brands their trucks subsidize their cars and at least where I live trucks appear to be a good 30% of the traffic if not more. Part of this is obviously due to the less expensive construction (body on frame vs unibody) but they obviously don't need to be quite as tightly engineered simply because the truck has so much more room in the cab compared to most cars, which makes the engineering itself less expensive. True, trucks are becoming more popular as family vehicles, but they're still easier and cheaper to build as a result. Those headlights? Sealed-beam was a federal mandate back in the '50s and only for the US as far as I know. The models that went with plastic lenses and reflectors went to smaller but no less expensive replaceable bulbs that could still be user-replaced--if the user knew how to dismantle the assembly. It wasn't an attempt to force users to take it in for replacement, it was merely the user's ignorance of the procedure that made them take it in.
Posted by Vulpinemac
7th Jul
