Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

thenextweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 245 posts

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#61

Post by andremendes »

onion2k wrote: post #35
sudosushi wrote: post #3

As someone sitting at a nearly 5 year old Macbook Pro, I took the comment as an off hand throwaway. I understand not liking the comment, but this isn't news. A company thinks everyone should be using the latest of their products. Oh no.

A company thinks everyone should be using the latest of their products. Oh no. An alternative way to read this is that Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years, and will therefore fail to support them properly in the long term. Anyone in the market for a computer to last longer than that (eg most home users, and many corporate users who don't lease) might have to look elsewh…

>Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years

I think you got the gist of this thread! It's not actually about the poor but about competing products lasting longer than their product planned lifespan, and that's a bad thing for them.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#63

Post by gracenotes »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #12

I swear, if a modern tech company went up and said 'We think you should buy our product", someone would start yelling about how its insulting how a company is endorising capitalism and materialism. We've gone from "Won't somebody think of the children" to "Won't somebody think of every single possible group that is possible to somehow offend in some way"

> "Won't somebody think of every single possible group that is possible to somehow offend in some way"

I'm pretty sure that is part of the job description of marketers.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#64

Post by pjc50 »

slantyyz wrote: post #46
mikehearn wrote: post #36

I interpreted that comment as a jab at the PC industry. The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade. Isn't that the correct interpretation, considering the whole point of bringing that up is because they're positioning a new device intended to replace the PC? I seriously doubt it's intended to mean (to quote the article) "LOL poo…

>> The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade Compelling reason why I had to upgrade my iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and original iPad after less than 3 years? Painfully slow and unusable. Well if the compelling reason to upgrade is "painfully slow and unusable", then maybe a >= 5 year old PC that still works isn't a bad thing. If I'm no…

Compelling reason why I had to upgrade my iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and original iPad after less than 3 years? Painfully slow and unusable.

Exactly. Upgrading is a cost; not just money but also time. I upgraded my 1st gen iPad's OS exactly once (5 -> 6 I think) and it was a completely horrendous experience, involving PC iTunes.

The main driver of PC upgrades, apart from improved games, is bloat and the slow deterioration of Windows installations. It's not as bad as it used to be but reinstalling the OS and cleaning the fans can often substantially improve an old PC.

I still have my original iPad, but it's used for a very limited set of things as the browser is crashy and many apps aren't available for its OS.

Users want neither forced upgrades, manufactured obsolescence, nor bogus SaaS rentalware like Adobe Creative Cloud.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#65

Post by agumonkey »

slantyyz wrote: post #46
mikehearn wrote: post #36

I interpreted that comment as a jab at the PC industry. The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade. Isn't that the correct interpretation, considering the whole point of bringing that up is because they're positioning a new device intended to replace the PC? I seriously doubt it's intended to mean (to quote the article) "LOL poo…

>> The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade Compelling reason why I had to upgrade my iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and original iPad after less than 3 years? Painfully slow and unusable. Well if the compelling reason to upgrade is "painfully slow and unusable", then maybe a >= 5 year old PC that still works isn't a bad thing. If I'm no…

Surely true, phone hardware was quite 'limited' at first, unlike PC which were mostly capable of swallowing any task thrown at them (unless transcoding 1080p in real time or rebuilding LFS counts). On PC the main issue is: subpar and/or unsupported GPU (to avoid burning the main cpu for entertainment), absence of SSD, bad software stack.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#66

Post by slantyyz »

johnhattan wrote: post #18

Actually, my main development tower is about nine years old. And in that time, I've upgraded the processor, doubled the memory, upgraded the hard drive to an SSD, switched the video card twice, upped the number of connected monitors from one to three, and upgraded the OS from 32-bit Vista to 64-bit Windows 10. It was pretty leading edge when I built it, and it's still pretty leading edge today. What's sad is the expe…

I try to overspend on my computers to ensure that I have a computer that can last at least five years.

I loved the Macbook Pro unibodies because they were expandable. My 2011 MBP had its memory upgraded and maxed out as prices came down, and its storage upgraded to larger and faster drives and SSDs as prices came down.

If it weren't for one thing, it would have still been my main computer and delayed my switch to Windows.

The infamous overheating problem with my model of MBP turned it into a brick a few months before Apple acknowledged the defect and announced a repair program. The replacement part was known to have the same defect (I already had my logic board replaced once), and being out of AppleCare, there was no way in hell I was paying >500 out of pocket for yet another defective board. So I just switched to a Windows machine since nothing I did was OS dependent anyways.

Granted I would have switched when the Macbook Pro got unusable (unibodies are gone and don't like the new soldered on approach), but I think that wouldn't have happened until at least 2018.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#67

Post by onion2k »

ams6110 wrote: post #48
onion2k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company thinks everyone should be using the latest of their products. Oh no. An alternative way to read this is that Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years, and will therefore fail to support them properly in the long term. Anyone in the market for a computer to last longer than that (eg most home users, and many corporate users who don't lease) might have to look elsewh…

Apple makes no money on the OS. That is included with the hardware and upgrades are free. So aside from services such as App Store and iTunes, Apple has to sell hardware to make money. It's not in their interest to encourage people to hang on to older hardware as long as possible.

It's not in their interest to encourage people to hang on to older hardware as long as possible.

There's a difference between encouraging people to hang on to hardware for as long as possible and actively driving away your customers by laughing at them or suggesting that your own products will be obsolete before the customer is ready to update again.

To maximise their profit on hardware Apple should be encouraging users to stay within the Apple ecosystem, even if those customers only upgrade every 10 years. This is especially true in today's climate of very powerful computers that will easily do most things a home user wants to do even after a decade. As someone who writes web software I am acutely aware that there are users who are still using old PCs with old software.

For Apple to push their customers to abandon Apple products in favour of things that last longer is corporate suicide.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#68

Post by kzrdude »

wrong_variable wrote: post #33
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #12

I swear, if a modern tech company went up and said 'We think you should buy our product", someone would start yelling about how its insulting how a company is endorising capitalism and materialism. We've gone from "Won't somebody think of the children" to "Won't somebody think of every single possible group that is possible to somehow offend in some way"

No. What apple is saying today is something that it has always said - but its only recently that people in america are too poor to buy american products. I grew up around windows and linux, and whenever I tell that in a job interview - people think I am not being serious since "real developers" use mac. In my first software job - I was told to abandon my personal cheap linux and use the company's brand new expensive…

> Also you will notice this in poorer countries - a strong ecosystem for recycling exists everywhere outside of the US/UK. When I brought my first bike in the UK, I wanted to repair it and was told to just ditch it and get a new one !

I'd call the US, UK poor for lacking a system of recycling. And indeed in many ways they are poorer than the most well functioning societies.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#69

Post by slantyyz »

pjc50 wrote: post #64
slantyyz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade Compelling reason why I had to upgrade my iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and original iPad after less than 3 years? Painfully slow and unusable. Well if the compelling reason to upgrade is "painfully slow and unusable", then maybe a >= 5 year old PC that still works isn't a bad thing. If I'm no…

Compelling reason why I had to upgrade my iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and original iPad after less than 3 years? Painfully slow and unusable. Exactly. Upgrading is a cost; not just money but also time. I upgraded my 1st gen iPad's OS exactly once (5 -> 6 I think) and it was a completely horrendous experience, involving PC iTunes. The main driver of PC upgrades, apart from improved games, is bloat and the slow deterioration o…

I still have all three of those iOS devices (and my wife's now retired 4S) mentioned in my original post.

The saddest thing?

The iPhone 4 has only one easy job to do. Play music in my bedroom. It can't even do that reliably. My iPhone 3G (now a desk clock) is more stable than the 4.

There's a reason I left iOS for Android on the phone side and Windows on the tablet side. I've been burned enough that I don't care to be burned again. Granted, Apple's devices are probably less prone to bloat now that Federighi took over from Forstall, but there's nothing compelling for me on the iOS side right now. A Pencil-enabled Mini would be very interesting, but that's about it.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#70

Post by agumonkey »

sudosushi wrote: post #3

As someone sitting at a nearly 5 year old Macbook Pro, I took the comment as an off hand throwaway. I understand not liking the comment, but this isn't news. A company thinks everyone should be using the latest of their products. Oh no.

That's an odd fact about markets. You have the high rate of progress phase where technological advances almost sell themselves. I didn't have to wonder for long to want a Pentium 200 MMX instead of my Pentium 75. Nowadays it's really tough to convince someone naturally and strongly. They have to push for new 'needs' (4K ?) or allow for crapware and subpar software to trigger the religious reflex newer = better = faster.
Post reply on HN