iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch • Hacker News Board

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#241

Post by abcd_f » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:04 AM UTC

qqg3 wrote: post #186

atemerev wrote: post #72

"Throwing a tantrum"? The review in question is something along the lines of "the control app is flashing and doesn't work at all. This is junk, don't waste your money on it. 1/5 stars." If you make any public facing products, you will occasionally get such (and worse) reviews even if your product is a shiny perfection forged in heaven by angels themselves and wrapped in magic. Fact of life. On the other hand, the su…

It's quite clear a lot of people in here are approaching this with a "B2B" mindset where clients and contracts can be fired and terminated. This scenario is "B2C", "the customer is always right" may be a tired phrase but it rings truer than you might think. A lot of people are saying this guy should be respectful of this small, indiegogo compnay. Problem is, they are ignoring the fact the product is being sold on Ama…

> this guy should be respectful of this small, indiegogo compnay

This guy should be respectful in general.

That's a basic prerequisite for any normal communication regardless of the context.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#242

Post by bschwindHN » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:05 AM UTC

exDM69 wrote: post #227

bschwindHN wrote: post #138

What's the right way to design an IoT product to not be dependent on a startup's cloud servers? - Allow the app/device to point to a different host (running an open source version of the backend)? - Support LAN connectivity without round-tripping to a third party server? - Allow the user to load their own firmware onto the device? I don't know where the line is for these things, it seems to be a balance of convenienc…

> What's the right way to design an IoT product to not be dependent on a startup's cloud servers? How about providing a single board computer like a Raspberry Pi and the software images (or source code if you can) to run the software? This is obviously not a solution for everyone but it would probably work great for the DIY crowd. That said, I'm not buying any IoT devices, self-hosted or not, in the foreseeable futur…

> How about providing a single board computer like a Raspberry Pi

The issue is more about connection to external servers than the particular board itself. A product that both runs great out of the box, and is also hackable to the point where it doesn't 100% rely on the original company being around to run is the sweet spot I'm thinking of. I'm mostly just thinking aloud about what features the product needs to have in order to hit that sweet spot.

> That said, I'm not buying any IoT devices, self-hosted or not, in the foreseeable future

That's cool, but this isn't about the average HN user. Consumers want to, and indeed they do, pay for these devices. I just want a nice model where these products can be sold while not leaving the customer stuck if the original company goes under.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#243

Post by atemerev » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:05 AM UTC

tnone wrote: post #219

atemerev wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not that simple. Do you remember one of those bear toys that were sending the recordings of their conversations with children to an exposed MongoDB instance? I bought one of them for my daughter a few months before. And I am a software engineer who knows what an exposed MongoDB instance is. My voice and my daughter's voice are now in the leak. Thankfully, the toy was only used with my supervision, so I know wha…

There's a really easy solution to this. Don't buy junk you don't need sold by people who don't care. Who convinced you you needed it in the first place? That's probably a bigger source of noise pollution...

I want (in fact, I need, because of my sensitivity to CO2 levels) a nicely working CO2 sensor in my room. I tried a few cheaper options, but they didn't work as reliably. I did my research, and it was either NetAtmo or some industrial-grade sensors, more expensive and ugly.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#244

Post by qume » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:06 AM UTC

arjie wrote: post #153

qume wrote: post #53

Dear customer, We are a small team who don't have the resources to test every single OS version on every device. Problems will happen. As such we're happy to issue you a refund, and you can keep the device. All we ask is that you let us update the app to make sure it's working on your device, and hopefully others. Thank you for helping us find the issue. We will work tirelessly until it is fixed. If at some stage you…

Which companies do the refund + keep-device if unsatisfied?

Big difference between company policy (which will be abused) and good decision making by the company in individual cases.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#245

Post by Xylakant » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:07 AM UTC

tnone wrote: post #219

atemerev wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not that simple. Do you remember one of those bear toys that were sending the recordings of their conversations with children to an exposed MongoDB instance? I bought one of them for my daughter a few months before. And I am a software engineer who knows what an exposed MongoDB instance is. My voice and my daughter's voice are now in the leak. Thankfully, the toy was only used with my supervision, so I know wha…

There's a really easy solution to this. Don't buy junk you don't need sold by people who don't care. Who convinced you you needed it in the first place? That's probably a bigger source of noise pollution...

The "sold by people who don't care" is a bit of a problem. How do I know they care? I'm a software engineer, I'm much more technical than most people around me. I have a hard time picking my way through that - is that childs toy bluetooth or wifi, with whom does it communicate what, how do they handle the data that they may or may not gather. Is it using a secure protocol to do so? How am I going to explain that to my less technical friends that don't have my knowledge? How can I educate them or how can they self-educate to a point where they can make a conscious decision about which toy is trustworthy? Heck, Miele had their dishwasher hacked, generalize for all IoT devices.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#246

Post by abcd_f » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:12 AM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #20

Garadget is a "cloud-enabled garage door opener" sold for $99 on Amazon. The manufacturer seemingly disabled the product, or primary advertised features of the product, in retribution for a short negative review left on Amazon. IMO Amazon should immediately drop the product when they catch wind of that, and so should any other retailer that carries it. The manufacturer's abused their relationship with the retailer (w…

> A journalist has already reached out to the customer.

Then let's hope the journalist won't forget to talk to Garadget as well.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#247

Post by ztjio » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:14 AM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #104

dangrossman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you feel if you bought a Tesla Model S, then a few weeks later they called you up and said "we don't like your online review of your car, so we're going to disable most of its functionality, but you can return it for a refund". $8000+ in option packages on that car rely on cloud functionality run by Tesla. If you don't -want- a refund, but -want- the car you already paid for that's sitting in your driveway,…

Yes, great analogy. But Amazon can nuke accounts and disable "purchased" books, video, etc, at will. So there's a gray area. I think what Amazon does ought to be illegal, but hey.

So, with a little shame I'll admit I've actually been "banned" from Amazon. The one thing I can still access is all the digital content such as books, videos, and like, games or game keys that are associated with my account. I can't get into half of the account settings, can't even view my stored payment methods, for example.

But, to their credit, I can read my stupid Kindle books. Luckily their eBook DRM is terrible and I have liberated my content, but, still... to their credit, they did not block what I had paid for.

Now, I'm not saying it's impossible for them to block this content, but, it seems they are sensitive to the dubious legality or morality of doing so. I suspect it might have something to do with the huge negative backlash they got a few years ago when they did disable someone's entire content library and it got publicized.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#248

Post by throwanem » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:25 AM UTC

abcd_f wrote: post #241

qqg3 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite clear a lot of people in here are approaching this with a "B2B" mindset where clients and contracts can be fired and terminated. This scenario is "B2C", "the customer is always right" may be a tired phrase but it rings truer than you might think. A lot of people are saying this guy should be respectful of this small, indiegogo compnay. Problem is, they are ignoring the fact the product is being sold on Ama…

> this guy should be respectful of this small, indiegogo compnay This guy should be respectful in general. That's a basic prerequisite for any normal communication regardless of the context.

If you can't or won't maintain professional conduct in the presence of others who conduct themselves less than professionally, then you can't really consider yourself professional either, can you? You're just playing at it, when doing so suits you.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#249

Post by yunolisten » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:25 AM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #72

"Throwing a tantrum"? The review in question is something along the lines of "the control app is flashing and doesn't work at all. This is junk, don't waste your money on it. 1/5 stars." If you make any public facing products, you will occasionally get such (and worse) reviews even if your product is a shiny perfection forged in heaven by angels themselves and wrapped in magic. Fact of life. On the other hand, the su…

> I am also quite surprised by the number of comments here at HN siding with Garadget.

This behaviour is all too common, sad but true.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#250

Post by dozzie » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:29 AM UTC

qqg3 wrote: post #181

vbezhenar wrote: post #143

Client is bad. I don't care, it's his problems. Service is not that good. I care about it, those could be my problems. I don't behave like that client, but who knows, what they don't like. Actually I'm surprised if it's legal to do. In my country, if you're doing public business, you can't choose your clients. You set price, client pays money, you serve client. You can't deny your service just because of reasons. The…

Client isn't "bad". They are a customer not a client, the relationship is so very different, you can't just fire a customer or tell them to go away, especially not if you're selling your product on Amazon where people have an expectation of quality.

> They are a customer not a client, the relationship is so very different

Mind you, for many non-native English speakers this is very subtle, non-obvious difference. In my language, for instance, we don't have separate words for clients and customers.