Apple Unveils the iPad Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#821

Post by Spivak » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 3:21 PM UTC

stouset wrote: post #578

TeMPOraL wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's marketing. And when it comes to marketing its far more true than that Lynx will get you laid (lol), or that some new detergent will revolutionaze how clean your clothes are, or that some GAP clothes will make you part of the "in" crowd. Yes. It's marketing - the magic context in which we suspend our disbelief and let people lie to our faces, and we then applaud and pay them.

You confuse advertising and marketing. Marketing is the process of figuring out who a product is for and how to get them to want to buy it (through channels like engineering, design, and yes, advertising). Apple being an excellent marketing company isn't a slur — it's an incredible complement. They absolutely excel at understanding who their target audience is, building devices that appeal to that audience, and adver…

Eight, let's not try to twist words here. Apple is great at marketing but I don't think that was person's intended meaning. He means that Apple is good at manipulating people.

They make okay products (in absolute terms, not implying that anything is better) and would not have their completely rabid following did they not manipulate people into buying into their status, lifestyle, and that they're more valuable than their worth.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#822

Post by prapam2 » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 3:24 PM UTC

gress wrote: post #814

prapam2 wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they unsuable?

They are underpowered even for running android apps and are used almost exclusively as messaging devices.

And where are you getting the stat? Years ago maybe not these days. The newer $100 mobiles sometimes are way better then say 200-300 mobiles. And btw messaging would be a app. Nobody uses sms where i live. All are on whatsapp.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#823

Post by gress » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 3:46 PM UTC

prapam2 wrote: post #822

gress wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are underpowered even for running android apps and are used almost exclusively as messaging devices.

And where are you getting the stat? Years ago maybe not these days. The newer $100 mobiles sometimes are way better then say 200-300 mobiles. And btw messaging would be a app. Nobody uses sms where i live. All are on whatsapp.

Remember - the discussion is about what platform is dominant. The fact that messaging is implemented an app doesn't change that. New developments occur on iOS first for a reason.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#824

Post by gress » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 3:52 PM UTC

anjc wrote: post #817

gress wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already demonstrably false. The iPad is already in use for professional purposes, and if you'd watched it, you have seen the stage demo prove you wrong.

What professional purposes?

Medicine, CAD, Commercial Aviation, Finance, Retail, Graphic Design & Illustration...

Pretty much everything serious.

https://www.apple.com/business/mobile-enterprise-apps/health...

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#825

Post by mamon » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #714

mamon wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a "technical bias", it is more your bias towards Apple. Take the last year's iPhone 6 as an example: HN members complained about small screen sizes for a long time, and it took Steve Job's death to actually make that happen, but gues what? iPhone 6 is most succesfull iPhone ever. Apple did some innovations few years ago (original iPhone, iPad), but since then most of new features in Apple products are taken…

So 3D Touch is something Android has? This is mostly a tongue-in-cheek comment, but the broader point is that of course Apple has "innovated" since the original iPhone, iPad, iWhatever. In some big ways, and in some small ways. But so have other players in the industry. Apple has borrowed some good ideas from them, just as they have borrowed good ideas from Apple. However saying Apple hasn't innovated since those ori…

3D Touch is just a gadget, not a feature that would help Apple raise their sales. Bigger screens were such selling point, so was NFC support, so was swipe keyboard in AppStore - and all those were added by Apple only after they became popular in Android phones. Of course Apple made some improvements when adopting them, but it seems that they are using Android phone owners as their beta testers :)

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#826

Post by kbenson » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 4:07 PM UTC

Fiahil wrote: post #641

bjacobel wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really galling part is the total refusal to admit they're not doing anything innovative. "There has never been another product like the iPad Pro before" was a real quote from today's presentation, and is a complete falsehood.

I prefer to think of this as mermaid marketing . It's nice to hear them sing, but don't fall for it or they will eat you. Watching theses events is like this famous passage of the Odyssey. Once you are tightly attached, and don't risk to go overboard (and start buying stuff you don't really need), then enjoy the show. I've been told their exciting song is the most detailed and beautiful thing you've ever heard :)

The considerate seafarer might consider warning others, rather than sitting back with popcorn. All these arguments really center around two points, will the mermaids eat you, and even if they will eat you, should we care that the singing tricks people or just accept it?

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#827

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 4:21 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #742

Spooky23 wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the wrong kind of user. I do end user architecture in a large enterprise, we ran into this with a lot of early adopters. People who are mobile (as in floating around an office or travel) whose job tasks are easily attributable to specific applications are very happy with iPads. Ideally, the number of applications they use every day on a traditional PC is less than 5. Examples: Sales, Executives, auditors, poli…

"We had one group of auditors who literally sent my team a $200 fruit basket in appreciation for their iPads." Were they using a custom made app for their specific task or something like that?

It was a web app. With a laptop, their compliance requirements required hibernation. So the workflow was:

- Pre-boot authentication. - Windows sign-in - VPN two-factor sign-in - Web Portal access - Find your thing.

Best case, that process took 7-9 minutes, at a customer site using guest wifi or air-card in an office building, with a potentially angry customer. Not fun. The typical user does that 5-10 times a day, and in many cases the workers were actually preparing paper reports on their own time to function.

Enter iPad. Access was a snap, and it performed better with marginal cellular connections. Accessing the web portal did still require a two-factor challenge, but that two factor was effective for ALL of their internal access. We used a web browser that gave them a native iPad browsing experience (vs. an SSL-VPN'd IE) and access to several different systems via app.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#828

Post by jcl » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 4:31 PM UTC

MengerSponge wrote: post #734

jcl wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stylus is interesting in that it's a total about-face for Apple. So far as I can tell, no Apple store has ever stocked an iPhone- or iPad-compatible stylus -- not the cheap capacitive ones nor even the iPad-exclusive pressure-sensitive Wacom stylus for artists, despite stocking Wacom tablets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YY3MSaUqMg

Ahem: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HHVE2ZM/A/pencil-by-fiftyt... It's more than a year old now. And you're deliberately misinterpreting that keynote. Unlike the devices that basically were on the market, you don't need a stylus to navigate the OS or use the device at all.

Ah, I wasn't aware of this. Looks like it was first stocked in Apple stores in January (despite it and other styluses being available well before):

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/21/pencil-available-apple-s...

I guess I hadn't asked in a store since then. :)

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#829

Post by WorldWideWayne » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

dublinben wrote: post #677

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shipments of Windows servers has been dominating for years - http://www.computerworld.com/article/2469469/network-softwar...

Those statistics are old and useless. How many linux servers are "sold" before use?

They're better than bullshit anecdotes.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#830

Post by Someone » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

Splines wrote: post #675

Someone wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk with Microsoft's approach is that companies will think "our Windows app runs fine on Surface" and invest little on making their application work great on Surface because they form a small part of the market. The risk with Apple's approach is that companies will think "it's too much work to make a custom UI for such a small market". I guess time will tell who wins this. Possibly, things will go like they went…

It's interesting to note that the Surface 3 diverges from the Surface 2 and RT in that it has an x86 processor. I think this may be a concession that bringing developers over to write WinRT applications is an uphill battle, and the device marketplace is not going to stand still and wait for that to happen. "Our Windows app runs fine on Surface" is a better story than "Our Windows app doesn't run on Surface at all".

But the risk is that most Surface owners will attach a keyboard and a mouse to it, turning it into a nice laptop. That decreases demand for tablet apps, and from there to fewer tablet apps, more users who buy keyboards, etc.