Whether it’s ensuring that the back of the original Macintosh looked as good as the front or hand-painting the corners of every single iPhone box to make the color uniform, Apple has always sweated the little details.
The latest example of this kind of obsessive perfectionism? That Apple reportedly insists that the tiny screw divots in its temporary Apple Store barricades are covered up. Because Apple.
A worker was out front patching a thousand imperceptible screw divots in the construction wall of our Apple Store.
“I guess it wasn’t smooth enough, eh?”, I said.
“I guess! All this for a temporary wall!”, he replied.
“Welcome to Apple”, I said pic.twitter.com/dm9t7YLh29
— Cabel (@cabel) April 4, 2019
Welcome to Apple!
The story was shared on Twitter by a Portland, OR-based Mac and iOS developer. Walking past a temporarily closed Apple Store in the area, he had a conversation with a contractor. The contractor told him that he had been tasked with patching the thousands of screw divots in the temporary wall.
Needless to say, this usage of dozens of man-hours shows impressive (alarming?) attention to detail. While it might not make sense to everyone, Apple’s perfectionism has always been about presenting the best possible user experience. It shows that it’s a company which pays attention to absolutely everything done in its name.
Based on issues like the broken MacBook keyboard, you can argue that this isn’t true across the board. But it is a reminder that Apple is willing to go the extra mile for something that most people are never even going to notice.
We guess when you’re a company nearing $1 trillion in value, you can afford to do it. Even if many wouldn’t.