Steve Jobs discusses Miele and european front loaders

Design is not limited to fancy new gadgets. Our family just bought a new washing machine and dryer. We didn't have a very good one so we spent a little time looking at them. It turns out that the Americans make washers and dryers all wrong. The Europeans make them much better - but they take twice as long to do clothes! It turns out that they wash them with about a quarter as much water and your clothes end up with a lot less detergent on them. Most important, they don't trash your clothes. They use a lot less soap, a lot less water, but they come out much cleaner, much softer, and they last a lot longer.

We spent some time in our family talking about what's the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table. We'd get around to that old washer-dryer discussion. And the talk was about design.

We ended up opting for these Miele appliances, made in Germany. They're too expensive, but that's just because nobody buys them in this country. They are really wonderfully made and one of the few products we've bought over the last few years that we're all really happy about. These guys really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years.

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Post# 607636 7/2/2012 at 11:33 (4,314 days old) by AquaCycle (West Yorkshire, UK)
Checkrate/Likes Design is not limited to fancy new gadgets. Our family just bought a new washing machine and dryer. We didn't have a very good one so we spent a little time looking at them. It turns out that the Americans make washers and dryers all wrong. The Europeans make them much better - but they take twice as long to do clothes! It turns out that they wash them with about a quarter as much water and your clothes end up with a lot less detergent on them. Most important, they don't trash your clothes. They use a lot less soap, a lot less water, but they come out much cleaner, much softer, and they last a lot longer. We spent some time in our family talking about what's the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table. We'd get around to that old washer-dryer discussion. And the talk was about design. We ended up opting for these Miele appliances, made in Germany. They're too expensive, but that's just because nobody buys them in this country. They are really wonderfully made and one of the few products we've bought over the last few years that we're all really happy about. These guys really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years. CLICK HERE TO GO TO AquaCycle's LINK

Post# 607640 , Reply# 1 7/2/2012 at 11:43 (4,314 days old) by aegokocarat (United Kingdom)
Checkrate/Likes Miele used to be called the rolls royce in my world, now they will be called the apple of the washing machine world lol

Post# 607670 , Reply# 2 7/2/2012 at 14:21 (4,314 days old) by dj-gabriele ()
Checkrate/Likes 1 *the apple of the washing machine world* That would be very denigratory of poor Miele ;) I used to own a Quadra 840AV, that was a computer, it thashed all the wintel offer back in the day! Now Apple stuff is just trendy and fashion for those who don't need to work with a computer, lack of compatibility with standards and no real innovation and a too big price tag for the quality they offer, plus here in Italy they had loads of trouble for offering an American style warranty that is way less than what they should have offered under Italian and European law! Hopefully at least this was (almost) sorted out.

Post# 607771 , Reply# 3 7/2/2012 at 20:53 (4,314 days old) by jerrod6 (Southeastern Pennsylvania)
Checkrate/Likes Yeah but that comment was from 1996. Do FL Euro washers still use less water per amount of clothes than today's FL USA washers? Do Euro washers still take more time than USA Fl? I don't know. I have a Miele 220V washer from 2003, so I know how it operates...not sure about water consumption and clean/rinse ability of the front loaders sold in the USA in 2012.

Post# 607847 , Reply# 4 7/3/2012 at 03:06 (4,313 days old) by mieleforever (SOUTH AFRICA)
Checkrate/Likes *We had a Samsung* Frontloader, and it was not that bad, but really you can't compare the Miele with a Samsung. Our Samsung was only five years old, and in that period we had to change a belt, pump, the balancing was out and the poor machine had no idea how to balance a load. I can attest to the fact that our Miele really uses little water and the wash results is still amazing. It has no difficulty in balancing a load and it does not walk down the road when spinning. So still a very solid machine IMHO. regards