Apple’s Philosophy on Products: Finding the Right Balance Between Experience and Technology, Not Making Compromises

How many of us out there want a 5" iPhone? I imagine millions of hands went up. And how about this one. Macbook Air with Retina Display with the same 9 to 12 hours of battery life? Still, millions of hands. And iPad mini with Retina Display? The same thing. Well, you can forget about it for the moment until Apple finds the right balance between providing the best user experience allowable by any technical breakthrough it can bring to the market at the right time. The more and more I think about it, Apple products all fit this philosophy, one that has benefitted users whether its a lowly iPod to the iPhone to the Retina Display Macbook Pro. And balance is something that is taken seriously. However, do not mistaken it for compromise. How does Apple know what that is? Well, imagine Steve Jobs and Jony Ives sitting around tinkering around with different designs and, then suddenly, it just sort of hit them. You just know it. More than just finding the right designs, Apple will not, I repeat, will not make compromises to products. Take for instance why Apple has not released a bigger screen iPhone when all of its competitors have 5”-6” screen phablets. Even a couple to be released later this year that go beyond 6”, pitting them ever closer to the 7” tablets. While Apple might be able to give the market a 5” iPhone now, it probably won’t be able to do that without compromising its form factor and, more importantly, the battery life of such a device. And with respects to many reviewers or Android fans regarding phablet use, I find the battery life lacking for the most part and their uses awkward at times. From the sound of things, Tim Cook, who had addressed the idea of a bigger screen iPhone, isn’t opposed to the idea. That has me believing that Apple already has something in the works. Apple is unwilling to make a compromise with the device such as a shorter battery life. So, Apple engineers and designers will continue to work on it until it finds the absolute right balance of a bigger screen iPhone. And that is an example of how Apple works. Also, don’t forget the transition from 2G in the original iPhone to the 3G iPhone and from iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S with LTE. Sure, tech pundits complained about how Apple should have gone earlier with 3G or LTE antennas but no one complained about th battery life like users did with the HTC Thunderbolt, one of the earliest LTE phones that, by some accounts, barely lasted 5 hours of use.