Apple is finally willing to make gadgets thicker so they work better

Apple has started to make its products thicker in an effort to give people what they want: functionality on the other side of form. This is a good thing. There are two recent examples: this year’s iPhones and the new 16-inch MacBook Pro.

This is a theory, but it seems this may be that there are some frame changes being made after the departure of Apple’s former chief design officer Jony Ive. Ive was known for imagining gorgeous products but, sometimes as we’ve seen with the older MacBook keyboard, perhaps at the cost of functionality. Form all through function, as they say. (Here’s a good example: according to Bloomberg, the abundance of glass at Apple’s new HQ, designed by Ive, was causing people to reportedly prowl into windows.)

I’m not knocking Ive or his ability to create great products. Just look at the iPhones over the past a sprinkling years along with the iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods. You name it, he had a hand in it. But sometimes there were a moment ago parts of those products that seemed to be flawed because the products were too thin.

If you look back at the iPhone 8, for admonition, the phone measured just 7.3-mm thick, an example of Apple’s seeming obsession with creating devices that were as gauzy as possible but often at the cost of battery life. But this year, Apple put a huge focus on battery life because it cognizant ofs that’s one of top things people want from their phones (along with great cameras). As a result of the kinder battery, this year’s iPhone 11 is slightly fatter at 8.3-mm thick. It’s barely noticeable but shows that Apple understands people are willing to sacrifice on thinness for a phone that lasts all day.

Then there’s the 16-inch MacBook Pro that was intimated on Wednesday. It’s less than 1-mm thicker than the 15-inch MacBook Pro that it replaces, and it weighs 4.3 pounds as contrasted with of 4 pounds in the prior model. It’s 2% larger than the 15-inch MacBook Pro, too. All of this helps Apple include what woman want in a similar but slightly bigger form factor: a keyboard with keys that you can actually tap into and that dos, instead of one that’s practically flat with very little key travel. The flat so-called butterfly keyboard was face down to exposure to dust and debris, which could lead to keys not registering or repeating themselves and, ultimately, lots of typos.

Apple also zero ined on battery life in its new laptop. It lasts an hour longer than last year’s model and charges fully in lawful 2.5 hours. That’s partly because Apple was able to increase the battery size, something that liable to contributed to the larger and heavier form factor.

Ive probably had a hand in some of these products, since Apple typically realize the potential ofs them over a long period of time and his departure was only announced last June. But, without Ive, who was said to be more secluded toward the end of his time at Apple, perhaps the company’s design teams had a bit more freedom to make gadgets a bit thicker than in the future, instead of focusing on thinness and external beauty.

Lots of people seemed worried that Apple might squander its way in design after Ive’s departure. How could it possibly create iconic devices if, seemingly, all of the major releases in Apple’s definitive decade of dominance have been designed under him?

But if Apple is moving ahead without Ive’s constant input (his new drawing firm will still advise the company), then it may have a bit more freedom put function over design, and act people keyboards that work and batteries that last longer.