I'm not going to defend individual design choices as I wasn't party to the tradeoffs being considered - and I disagree with some of them myself. But if you are involved in any kind of design (and I would definitely include programming here), you will be well aware of how much goes into boiling down a set of compromises into something elegant and usable - and how hard it can be to communicate why some part of that was really the best choice and took a lot of deep thought and iteration to get there. And you'll also be aware that design is never finished.
More generally, Apple have taken what many might think of as an industrial design approach and applied it to consumer design in a more rigorous way than others. So a lot of thought about coatings and materials used for screens and bodies, packaging (part of the consumer experience), and so on.
To construct a plausible scenario around your point off the top of my head, reduced size is clearly a key functional feature of a portable device, and while I'm not defending 3rd gen shuffle, it would make sense that a device you might go running with would be better if absolutely tiny. And if you are on the run, there would be an argument for having controls on the cable rather than the device. I think these kinds of things are clearly getting a lot of attention as we see the designs are being iterated and previous mistakes corrected.
Likewise, things like sealed devices are absolutely functional design decisions from the point of view of creating a mass-produced device. The success of the ipad bears this out. It may appal me that apple will only completely swap an ipad with cracked screen, or that I can't upgrade RAM in my macbook - but I can understand that standardisation and non-customisation is key to things like a predictable user experience, manufacturing and supply chain, worldwide warranties. Apple have always been about this and it's why they manufacture both hardware and software. I won't buy the 12" macbook computing device myself, but for family members it might be the ideal laptop. Anything else and I know I'm going to get several more messages a week asking me why facebook and twitter aren't working.
More generally, Apple have taken what many might think of as an industrial design approach and applied it to consumer design in a more rigorous way than others. So a lot of thought about coatings and materials used for screens and bodies, packaging (part of the consumer experience), and so on.
To construct a plausible scenario around your point off the top of my head, reduced size is clearly a key functional feature of a portable device, and while I'm not defending 3rd gen shuffle, it would make sense that a device you might go running with would be better if absolutely tiny. And if you are on the run, there would be an argument for having controls on the cable rather than the device. I think these kinds of things are clearly getting a lot of attention as we see the designs are being iterated and previous mistakes corrected.
Likewise, things like sealed devices are absolutely functional design decisions from the point of view of creating a mass-produced device. The success of the ipad bears this out. It may appal me that apple will only completely swap an ipad with cracked screen, or that I can't upgrade RAM in my macbook - but I can understand that standardisation and non-customisation is key to things like a predictable user experience, manufacturing and supply chain, worldwide warranties. Apple have always been about this and it's why they manufacture both hardware and software. I won't buy the 12" macbook computing device myself, but for family members it might be the ideal laptop. Anything else and I know I'm going to get several more messages a week asking me why facebook and twitter aren't working.