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That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

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Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#131

Post by laumars »

jwoah12 wrote: post #67
rileymat2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if I was suddenly without money, the iPhone would be what I would want to give up. The utility of the device is incredible: Mapping. Phone. Internet. Email. Alarm Clock. Calendaring. Photography. If anything we should work to get smart phones in the hands of the poor. It would be a great way to improve their lives for a somewhat modest cost. I am not sure it is all for looks. Maybe we could quibble abou…

You just described the functionality of every single phone on the market, though. Almost all of which are much less expensive than the iPhone.

> You just described the functionality of every single phone on the market, though. Almost all of which are much less expensive than the iPhone.

This is true. In fact I've personally used mapping tools on Sony Ericsson feature phones which are around 10 years old now. You don't need a smartphone to do any of the aforementioned, let alone a market leading one.

edit: Would the people who downvoted me please explain how I didn't use mapping tools on my feature phone? I'd be interested to know how people who have never met me remember my life better than I do ;)

Off topic, but I do think HN should have a rule that you're not allowed to downvote without leaving a counterargument. That would help kerb the abuse of negative karma to demote comments which a reader disagrees with just due to personal preferences / biases. Which we're increasingly seeing these days. Particularly in threads that have potential flamewar subjects like trendy technologies or companies.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#132

Post by d0m »

sickbeard wrote: post #110

Story time! My gf and I went to take pictures of some expensive cars at an Audi dealership. While there one of the nicely dressed sales people started talking to us about the Q7. He quoted about 70k cdn as a starting price and argued, sure it was an expensive car but it lasts longer and you save money in the long run. I think maybe that's what apple was trying to get across, buy some quality hardware that is updated…

But as someone pointed out in a different thread, Apple doesn't support their OWN old macbook ;)

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#133

Post by uptown »

throwanem wrote: post #120
rileymat2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if I was suddenly without money, the iPhone would be what I would want to give up. The utility of the device is incredible: Mapping. Phone. Internet. Email. Alarm Clock. Calendaring. Photography. If anything we should work to get smart phones in the hands of the poor. It would be a great way to improve their lives for a somewhat modest cost. I am not sure it is all for looks. Maybe we could quibble abou…

With a little forethought and initial investment, you don't have to decide between giving up an iPhone and continuing to pay three figures monthly for the privilege of using it. Consider: Sprint - ostensibly free phone, $120/mo for a 2-year contract: $2880 all told, and you don't have a choice but to pay all of it Ting - $500 up front for 64G iPhone SE, avg. $27.50/mo for the same period: $1160 all told, and you can…

Buy pre-used phone (~$50 for an older-gen device). Use pre-paid phone service. (~$40/month). Doesn't need to be expensive if you're willing to forgo the latest and 'greatest'. I use pre-paid Verizon anyway since it's the best deal for my usage pattern.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#135

Post by falcolas »

Retric wrote: post #102
jwoah12 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described the functionality of every single phone on the market, though. Almost all of which are much less expensive than the iPhone.

A SE is $399, sure you can get an ok phone for less than that. But, ED: even if that's significantly more than a 'cheap' phone it's not that expensive compared to a cellphone plan. People look at things as symptoms, but it's mostly ongoing costs that are real issues.

Cheap phones are actually in the $60 price range.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-Prevail-White-Mobile/dp...

http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-640-Annual-Contract/dp/B01...

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#136

Post by kdamken »

EliRivers wrote: post #124
kdamken wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd disagree, no one is forcing people to buy iPhones. If the kids all have iPhones, then they have parents who aren't very good at not buying things they can't afford and teaching their kids that worth doesn't come from possessions.

But worth does come from possessions. Your worth is based on the opinion of other people, and they judge you based on what you have and what your job title is.

Financial worth comes from your net worth, yes. But your worth as a human being isn't related to any of that.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#137

Post by caseysoftware »

vbezhenar wrote: post #32

I can't imagine how I would replace my laptop with iPad. Some tasks are definitely doable: Web browsing, Mail processing, Music listening, Skype (though chatting on iPad is terrible because you have to switch around all the time, losing your focus, may be split apps might help, can't experience it, because my iPad have RAM like 15-year old PC). Generally speaking for power user every activity on iPad is strictly wors…

Schiller wasn't talking about you.

He qualified it as people using PCs that are more than 5 years old. They have usage patterns and goals completely different than anyone on HN. They don't use IDEs. They don't need "full Unix power" or anything similar.

Their usage probably looks like web browsing, sending/receiving email, and listening to music at most.

For them, an iPad is a probably a good functional alternative, even if the price point doesn't work.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#138

Post by andrepd »

rileymat2 wrote: post #60
waspleg wrote: post #41

I completely agree with the author of the article. Apple is the real-world incarnation of the economic premise of Huxley's "A Brave New World". This was just the mask dropping for a second to pander to the faithful. I'd like to add, as someone who works at K12 public high school, that I've seen the reality of the article played out. My building is 100% free lunch, most are extremely poor, and yet there is a sizable n…

I am not sure if I was suddenly without money, the iPhone would be what I would want to give up. The utility of the device is incredible: Mapping. Phone. Internet. Email. Alarm Clock. Calendaring. Photography. If anything we should work to get smart phones in the hands of the poor. It would be a great way to improve their lives for a somewhat modest cost. I am not sure it is all for looks. Maybe we could quibble abou…

A <100$ smartphone can do all of those things.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#139

Post by donatj »

This cuts particularly close to home for me. I work for an educational company with developers that actively mock schools with low resolution screens and poor JavaScript performance, not to mention Android and Fire tablets, while they sit on these brand new MacBook Pros with SSDs and Cinema Displays doing their testing. The schools don't have these low power machines because they're dumb or not tech savvy. The vast majority have them because they are poor. We are trying to help the poor and you are completely missing the point. If you can deliver the exact same content in a way that doesn't require a high performance machine that is the ideal. The more we can do server side the more we are giving instead of taking.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#140

Post by amalag »

sickbeard wrote: post #110

Story time! My gf and I went to take pictures of some expensive cars at an Audi dealership. While there one of the nicely dressed sales people started talking to us about the Q7. He quoted about 70k cdn as a starting price and argued, sure it was an expensive car but it lasts longer and you save money in the long run. I think maybe that's what apple was trying to get across, buy some quality hardware that is updated…

Great argument for non-depreciating assets. But too bad computers probably depreciate more than cars! But I have been converted to the cult of Apple with their Macbook Pro's. I think a used one is probably a good value. I am using a mid 2012 MBP and it is still great. I won't be able to use a non Apple trackpad anymore I think.
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