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Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by ams6110 on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:22AM (#13307141)
Henry Ford: "If I asked people what they want, they'd say 'faster horses'"
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by bubinubn on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:43AM (#13307217)
It is unlikely, although possible, that this quote is correctly attributed.

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by jeswin on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:40AM (#13307210)
Actually, churning out better horses is what Apple does best. We are at a point where every other company has figured out how to make a good/great horse, and hence the Apple advantage is diminished.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by ekianjo on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:27AM (#13307161)
So what? The key take out here is "faster", so asking questions is not necessarily irrelevant, instead of focusing on making one's horses shinier or more economical. You need to find out what problem to fix.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by lurkinggrue on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:41AM (#13307214)
These days all apple will give you is a thinner horse with less features.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by paublyrne on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @05:54AM (#13308307)
A thinner, slightly faster, slightly blacker horse that will needs to stop for water a little sooner.

I like the 2016 MacBook Pro. The disappointment I felt was that after such a long wait for the update, I was expecting/hoping for a best of breed laptop, with no real flaws. In day to day use I don't actually think about its various (and widely discussed) flaws so much, and I just get on with using it as a tool to do my work.

The Touchbar is useless, though.

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by AnthonyMouse on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @02:21AM (#13307384)
> The key take out here is "faster"

Even that part is mostly wrong. A fast horse can run more than 40MPH which about all you can expect from a car in a city. The main reason most people don't own a horse isn't that a car is faster.

Users ask for things that are obvious. No kidding faster is better. Can we have it cheaper and more reliable too?

If you ask most people in 1870 how to improve those aspects of a horse they'll tell you all about horse breeding but that doesn't get you a car.

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by ekianjo on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @06:34AM (#13308461)
> Even that part is mostly wrong. A fast horse can run more than 40MPH which about all you can expect from a car in a city. The main reason most people don't own a horse isn't that a car is faster.

Only on flat ground. Make a horse go uphill for a while and he will soon stop if carrying anything. A car, even an ancient one, not so much.

Add to that that cars can maintain a sustained speed as long as they have fuel, and of course cars are much faster than horses all things considered, and of course this is one of the reasons of their adoption - you can get much farther with a car than with a horse in the same amount of time, and it needs less maintenance as well.

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by AnthonyMouse on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:56PM (#13311883)
> Make a horse go uphill for a while and he will soon stop if carrying anything. A car, even an ancient one, not so much.

> you can get much farther with a car than with a horse in the same amount of time, and it needs less maintenance as well.

But that's not faster. That's endurance, reliability, economy. You're arguing that the tortoise is faster than the hare, but "being faster" isn't how the tortoise won the race.

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by dragonwriter on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:59PM (#13311930)
> A fast horse can run more than 40MPH which about all you can expect from a car in a city

A slow car can go much more than 40 mph. Both cars and horses may be practically limited by traffic most of the time in crowded urban environments, but cars are still faster, even in most cities, on both peak and practically-attained-average speeds.

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by AnthonyMouse on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @03:13PM (#13312615)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T

"The Model T had a front-mounted 177-cubic-inch (2.9 L) inline four-cylinder engine, producing 20 hp (15 kW), for a top speed of 40–45 mph (64–72 km/h)."

Being faster than horses isn't why cars won. Given the choice between a modern car and a hypothetical horse with the same or higher top speed, most people are still not going to choose the horse.

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by lostboys67 on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @05:54AM (#13308308)
Your ignoring the massive additional logistic costs that horse drawn transport has vs mechanised.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by jmspring on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @03:35AM (#13307706)
I'd like an early 2015 MBP with 32 gig, faster processor and SSD and no fancy light bar....

Oh wait, that's a fancier horse...

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by amadvance on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @02:02AM (#13307295)
And Ford could have asked: "Do you prefer it faster or that it's a horse?" - "I already have a horse." - "OK, I'll make something that goes faster."
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by DashRattlesnake on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @09:34AM (#13309347)
> Henry Ford: "If I asked people what they want, they'd say 'faster horses'"

From the OP:

>>> Once they do that, they then need to go off and be Apple, but from a base of knowledge instead of a set of assumptions — assumptions that seem to be flawed and incorrect. But what Apple doesn’t want to do is start building products the way other companies do, because we don’t need “faster horses”, we need Apple to look beyond what users are asking for and figure out what they really need. That’s been Apple’s innovation strength in the past, and right now, it increasingly seems missing from the products they give us.

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by mrmondo on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:26AM (#13307160)
Exactly, I find myself needing to use this quote all too often but it is a wonderfully well considered statement on product engineering.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by jay_kyburz on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:46AM (#13307232)
Really? I have a lot of hay, and it grows in my field for free. Horse manure goes well on my roses. I don't have petrol. I really did want a faster horse.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by redler on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @02:00AM (#13307284)
You're in luck: Maximum-speed horses are indeed still available.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by mrmondo on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @02:13AM (#13307342)
Indeed, if you have the money - you can buy racing speed horses and in many countries it's still legal to ride them on the road while abiding standard road rules and avoiding highways. (The term 'Enterprise Horse' came to mind and I had a giggle)
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by Lio on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @04:55AM (#13308078)
Enterprise Horse you say?

You want a Suffolk Punch boiy[sic][1]!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_Punch

[1] boiy, or some spelling there of, is how old fellas round these parts (Suffolk, England) like to refer to each other. :)

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by lostboys67 on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @05:55AM (#13308317)
There is of course the concept of a "Young" old Boy
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by Lio on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @07:11AM (#13308596)
A very good point.

For anyone wondering what a proper young old boy sounds like I would suggest the following factual and totally legit documentary on the storm of 1987 ...as described by one "Brian from Melton":-

https://vimeo.com/130537730

Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by yabatopia on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @10:58AM (#13309970)
I'd rather have a faster horse than a skinny, old horse with a touch bar.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by intoverflow2 on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @11:22AM (#13310187)
This pseudo-intellectual quote makes no sense when what was actually delivered was a slower horse with 3 legs.
Re:Apple’s 2016 in review by jmspring on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @03:35AM (#13307710)
I'd like an early 2015 MBP with 32 gig, faster processor and SSD and no fancy light bar....

Oh wait, that's a fancier horse...