I'm glad there are companies that try to compete with Apple. I think it isn't healthy for anyone when there is a dominating presence. But I see no reason not to deride products which are clones of other companies' products with no improvements (or that are in fact worse).

Put it another way, I don't see a reason to automatically grant extra lenience or extra credit to anyone that produces a clone of an Apple product. This isn't golf and there are no handicaps. Either make a better product, or be ridiculed.

It's also worth remembering that all our deriding, ridiculing and arguing counts for little in the real world. As Jobs nicely put it in an interview (paraphrased): if we build something people want then they buy it and we get to come to work another day.

I don't think so. It's a rip off when they copy everything, and copy it badly.

For instance, the keyboard design on the Mac has "separated" keys because it's needed to give better structural support to the unibody frame. It's not just a "cool design thing". Jony Ive talks about it here: http://youtu.be/t0fe800C2CU?t=2m46s

Watching other companies copy this keyboard design in many ways resembles the first people trying to fly by flapping their cloth covered wings. "It looks exactly the same as what the bird does, dammit, why isn't it working?!"

Now, imagine how many different, _better_ products one could have if only more companies had someone as obsessed with product design as Ive, and gave him some authority.

What if some laptop manufacturer made a thinner, more sturdy ultraportable design that for some reason didn't need this keyboard design? It wouldn't have to look anything like the MBA, and it wouldn't be accused of being a rip-off.

http://www.lenovoblogs.com/designmatters/ - designers at other companies sweat the details too.

Yes, that is also why iPhones have no gratuitous text about things like where they were designed on their back.

Not sure what point you are trying to make. Do you disagree with what I said, or do you think this text (or the Apple logo) is any proof that I'm wrong?

I'm implicitly wondering whether you think the back side of the iPhone is good enough for Ive, why or why not, and what that implies about the amount of details Apple "sweats."

It seems to me Apple "sweats" details until they don't, and the classification under which the underside of the X1 wouldn't be good enough but the back side of the iPhone - complete with FCC and CE logos - is seems rather arbitrary.

I'll try to explain the difference.

Without a battery cover to hide them, I think those logos need to be there. It certainly seems like they have put thought into the placement, font size etc. Given the constraints, the designers did the best they could.

The underside of the X1 has many "arbitrary" vent holes and screws. Why are they placed like that? Well, probably because the internal components demanded they be like that. The designers did the best they could given the constraints.

Now, why were the internal components designed like that? Who knows. Could they have been designed in another way to make the vent holes look more symmetrical? Yes, but it would probably be very expensive. That's one of a ton of decisions that are made, where someone at Apple said "screw it, lets spend the money and do it the proper way".

So, to me, the X1 backside tells a deeper story about the design process of the product, how engineers and designers worked together to create the product, and how compromises were made. The iPhone backside only tells you that some regulators wants their logos on products, and that some marketer (maybe Steve Jobs) wanted you to feel good about owning a product assembled in China.

To me, the iPhone backside suggests a compromise between aesthetic properties of a "clean" backside and engineering, manufacturing cost, and user experience properties of not having an ordinarily-operable battery cover, and is in fact quite interesting to think about. Consider what would have had to change had Apple wanted the logos off the backside but to still comply to relevant regulations. Do you think someone hadn't said "screw it, lets spend the money and do it the proper way" about an Apple-grade cover that would allow for the logos to be hidden? Is it not interesting to think of why that decision was not made?

I do agree it's interesting to think about. The decision to not have a battery cover was a controversial one, and probably one that was not taken lightly.

I'd be wrong to say that this isn't a compromise, but they thought a clean and thinner design and fewer parts was more important than keeping the logos off the back and allowing the user to easily replace the battery.

If a battery cover was important to them, they would have spent the resources to make it work. Likewise, if a clean backside was important to the Lenovo designers, they would have fixed the ugly vent holes.

A cynical answer would be that it generates pageviews and discussion. If the article was just "ASUS Zenbook--it's okay but not brilliant", it would not have gotten onto hn at all, and if it did I certainly wouldn't be discussing it quite as fervently. I doubt the author consciously planned it this way; however, it's perfectly reasonable that he subconsciously wanted to make a more striking point but unfortunately came over as overly antagonistic.

I disagree. A MacBook Air with an unusable trackpad is emphatically not okay- it's absolutely worthless, ruined by one component. (At least if you don't fall into the USB-mouse-on-a-laptop camp.)

The MacBook Air was never about specs, where the Zenbook might be okay (except for weight and height).

Or if you fall into the power-user camp that uses the keyboard almost exclusively like I do (this is both with a nice touchpad and even on desktops with a physical mouse).

The newer touchpads like the ones on my laptop and Macs are okay, but constantly switching between that and the keyboard is ultimately slower than just using the keyboard. Once you get used to navigating around with the keyboard as much as possible--assuming your OS supports it well--the quality of a touchpad stops mattering.

I am now consistently annoyed by web apps and programs that force me to use the mouse unless I really have to.

Ultimately though, my point wasn't really so much about the laptop as about the tone of the article, which your post doesn't seem to address. Even if the Asus deserves derision, and antagonistic response is still not necessary, and still generates more views and comments.

The worst bit is that--by virtue of replying here and commenting on the thread--I've shown that his tactics are successful.

Upvoted because I totally forgot about keyboard-only ninjas.

The title itself I think is not too bad, but after seeing the URL slug, I tend to agree on the childish tone.

You can think of Marco Arment as Gruber Lite...

I for one hope that this Ultrabook is a wild success, if I want to buy a Mac in my country I have to pay about 900$ more compared to the US and I don't even get AppleCare, but an equivalent. The world shouldn't begin and end with Apple, competition is healty.

The problem is not "offering [...] competition to Apple", it's building an inferior copy to their lines. Note the part about it being inferior, because that is the issue.

If this laptop was better than the Air, or significantly cheaper, it would not get panned. But it's not, and it's not.

> Why we (or this class of person) have chosen to deride it I don't understand.

Because it's garbage?

Have you used the product in question?