Steve Jobs about the good old Miele washing machines
      	
                        
                            
      Is there anything well designed today that inspires you?
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.
-- Steve Jobs in 
Wired in February 1996