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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

#511

Post by abecedarius »

> And I bought an easily moddable, upgradable piece of hardware that can adapt to new technologies in ways no Apple product could ever hope to.

Funny thing: the Apple ][ was the flag bearer in its time for that kind of upgradability. Wozniak insisted on this against Jobs, and it kept the ][ alive through the 3's flop and well into the Mac era -- the Mac did not succeed right away.

Is it so impossible for Apple to bring back some of that spirit of open design? The Jobs lockdown was and still is their greatest turnoff for me as a customer.

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

#512

Post by zerohm »

SyneRyder wrote: post #77
rockshassa wrote: post #12

I just can't bring myself to feel the author's anger, in any capacity. He wants to position this as a jab against those who build their own PCs, but that is utterly irrelevant. What percentage of those 600 million five-year-old PCs do you really think are being thoughtfully maintained by modders? Does the author realize that most people do not want the responsibility of maintaining their own hardware? Or that they do…

I have two 10-year old PCs in active use on my desk right now - both are running Windows 10, one is playing back Netflix right now while I type this on a third (brand new) machine. The kicker? Those two 10-year old "PCs" are actually MacBooks. They still run fine & do everything I need those machines to do - but I had to install Windows 10 on them, because Apple stopped supporting their own hardware. A machine that m…

This. The computer that by far gets the most use in my house is a 2009 Mac Book Pro. I've upgraded the hard drive to an SSD so it's still quite snappy. The monitor is still bright and colorful. All the keyboard keys still have good action. The mouse pad physical click is the only thing that has fizzled out and I could fix that for $100.

So yeah, it doesn't look great when Apple says "replace your 5 year old computer" but as a whole, they do a great job of making products that last. Also, news flash, they are in the business of making money.

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

#513

Post by mangeletti »

asmosoinio wrote: post #462
mangeletti wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not important that it's 7x better. It's important that the increase in productivity (or enjoyment, etc.) is enough to justify the $600 difference in price over a (perhaps) 24 month period (e.g., do you get ~$1/day more out of it). Not to mention, a 2 year old iPhone will probably sell for $250-350, while a $100 smartphone will probably sell for $25 after 2 years. This makes the difference more like $300. So, "Do…

I thought this thread was in the context of people who could not really afford an iPhone - or at least have to really think about their spending to be able to buy one. In that context the 0.50$ makes a huge difference. To me it seems interesting that a lot of people here want to play up the excellence of iPhones.

> people who could not really afford an iPhone

Isn't it a bit strange to make the assumption that somebody who owns an iPhone can't afford to own an iPhone?

What I'm suggesting is that perhaps we'd be served better to not assume somebody "can't afford" something, and spend a bit more time learning why they decided they can afford that thing.

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

#514

Post by groovy2shoes »

cableshaft wrote: post #205
Retric wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought those where locked/discounted phones. First is: Boost (67.99), or Sprint prepaid (104$) Second is: AT&T Go Phone only. But, it looks like you can get a new unlocked smartphone for 60$. http://www.amazon.com/BLU-Advance-5-0-Unlocked-Smartphone/dp...

I got the Lumia 635 for $30 last year as a temporary replacement for my Nexus 5 that I walked into a lake on accident, and it's worked out so well I still have it with no plans to upgrade. I've gotten cheap Android phones that have felt sluggish and super buggy after a mere 6 months (not the Nexus 5, though, that just had a crap battery life, but I also spent ~$450 on it, so it wasn't cheap), but this one still opera…

My first smartphone was the first Samsung Galaxy S that cost me $200 with a two year contract. It lasted just over a year before the radio stopped functioning and it became unusable as a phone.

Then I replaced it with a Motorola something-or-other that cost me $140 with a two year contract. That one lasted just under a year before the SIM card reader stopped working, and it was good for emergency calls only.

I replaced that with a Nokia Lumia something-or-other that cost $90 with no contract. After three years, it still works to this day.

However, I did feel the need for a hardware upgrade, so in November I replaced it with a Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE, which cost me $40, again with no contract.

I've been very happy with the Lumias. The UI is very fluid and responsive, and it does everything I want it to do and then some. The build quality is also an order of magnitude better than a cheap Android phone, and the battery lasts longer. The only drawback is that there aren't a hell of a lot of third party apps. That's manageable because the ones I care about are available: Web browser, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Skype, Weather, maps, navigation, a PDF reader, Kindle, a Reddit client, an SSH terminal, emulators for retro game consoles, and a guitar tuner. It also comes with a fully functional mobile version of Microsoft Office, and OneNote was a game-changer for me. I can also enable Internet sharing, so if I'm somewhere with no wifi, I can enable a hotspot on my phone and connect from my laptop (things may be different now, but on my Android phones that was only possible by using a custom ROM, e.g. Cyanogenmod).

The developer experience for Windows Phone is also great. Visual Studio beats the pants off of Xcode, and C# is a much nicer language than both Objective-C and Java (though not quite as nice as Swift, I must say).

The only thing I miss from Android is a file browser. Apps are completely sandboxed and can only access their own files, which makes a general file browser impossible on Windows Phone. But I've been living without it for over 3 years now, so it's not that big of a deal.

Despite the low price, they really are quality phones. As long as Microsoft keeps it up, I intend to stick with the Lumia indefinitely.

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

#515

Post by stcredzero »

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…

In American society poverty is associated with failure on many levels. We have our caste system as much as India, only ours is economic, and enforced ruthlessly with endless class warfare - largely in one direction.

Something I've experienced all my life, and even more strongly since I came to the west coast and the Bay Area, is the out-sized and mis-labeled emphasis placed on signaling here. Supposedly smart and well-educated professionals will use what you wear and what terms you use as a proxy for actually listening and thinking about what one has said. Recent college grads are even worse.

All societies have used class-based stereotypes as a means of regulating and preserving the status quo. However, what I've experienced in the Bay Area are people who tell themselves they are aware of this and are transcending these mechanisms while virulently and mindlessly engaging in them.

Where have all the real intellectuals gone?

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

#517

Post by nathanasmith »

skywhopper wrote: post #206
zanny wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to say this. If you are legitimately poor, you can get a used Moto G 2013 for $35 and activate it on Freedompop for some free data each month and use wifi wherever possible. That would be a phone on a budget. iphones are absolutely just for prestige, the same way Macbooks in universities are.

If you're poor and don't want everyone around you to know it, why would you buy the phone that screams "hey, I'm poor and got the cheapest possible phone!" Everyone has something they do to stand out from the people that surround them. It's cruel to suggest that folks living in poverty can only be deserving of assistance if they embrace their poverty and advertise it to the world. There are real costs to appearing po…

I am not poor yet I have a Moto E that I bought from Best Buy last black Friday for $10. I love it. Anybody that would judge me based on my choice of phone would promptly get their face laughed in.

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

#518

Post by zerohm »

jp555 wrote: post #465
rorykoehler wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphone != iphone I spent $250 on mine and it is does everything meaningful that an iphone does. Iphone is definitely a luxury even among smartphones.

the delta between your $250 smartphone and a new $400 iPhoneSE is pretty small when you consider the total cost and include the costs to provide the phone with data access - cellular plan + home internet plan. Is $150 the difference between luxury and not luxury for something that is used 4+ hours a day for years?

jp makes a valid point.

Just going to throw out some rough numbers (in the U.S.) assuming $50 for your data plan, for 3 years.

3 year iphoneSE experience ($400 + 36 months * $50) = $2200

3 year cheap Android experience ($250 + 36 months * $50) = $2050

Now compare the camera, frame rate, screen quality, security, stability, and support of an iphone 5 vs a $250 Android. When looking at the 3 year cost, you are paying a 10% premium for a far superior experience.

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

#519

Post by michaelmrose »

bluthru wrote: post #354
SyneRyder wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two 10-year old PCs in active use on my desk right now - both are running Windows 10, one is playing back Netflix right now while I type this on a third (brand new) machine. The kicker? Those two 10-year old "PCs" are actually MacBooks. They still run fine & do everything I need those machines to do - but I had to install Windows 10 on them, because Apple stopped supporting their own hardware. A machine that m…

I don't think it's fair to expect Apple to support 32-bit processors anymore. OS X will run on Core2Duo, which is nearly 10 years old. My parents' iMac is a 2006 and runs El Cap.

AMD has had 64 bit processors for 13 years. When the opteron released it was faster than intel too.

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

#520

Post by balls187 »

rockshassa wrote: post #12

I just can't bring myself to feel the author's anger, in any capacity. He wants to position this as a jab against those who build their own PCs, but that is utterly irrelevant. What percentage of those 600 million five-year-old PCs do you really think are being thoughtfully maintained by modders? Does the author realize that most people do not want the responsibility of maintaining their own hardware? Or that they do…

My son's grandmother (aka my mom) uses a stylus to type on her iPad1. It's quite endearing.
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