Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around • Hacker News Board

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#41

Post by culturalzero » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #28

meesterdude wrote: post #10

This is a pretty ironic statement, given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own. I dont see AI at apple being any different. Its for them FIRST, us second, if at all. "humanity" may as well mean corporations since the…

> given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own. That's simply not true, and it's a really offensive statement for pretty much anybody working at Apple. There's no company I can think of that cares more about the user…

Part of the 24 hr marketing response team?

Seriously, I've never met a real person who didn't feel screwed by the planned obsolescence and painfully staggered hardware updates that lag behind the curve. Apple's beginning ideals != to the Apple of today.

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#42

Post by ErikBjare » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #28

meesterdude wrote: post #10

This is a pretty ironic statement, given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own. I dont see AI at apple being any different. Its for them FIRST, us second, if at all. "humanity" may as well mean corporations since the…

> given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own. That's simply not true, and it's a really offensive statement for pretty much anybody working at Apple. There's no company I can think of that cares more about the user…

Apple is great at UX, the person you responded to didn't say otherwise. What they aren't great at is empowering the subset of their users who want to use the machine on their own terms.

Instead, Apple shoehorns whatever they think is the right thing. The headphone jack is one example, the buy vs bring your own music is another. They do this because of both UX concerns and business reasons. But that's not all that matters, as Tim Cook just said, which is ironic.

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#43

Post by soperj » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #38

soperj wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is extremely user-hostile, they make it hard to do anything they don't want you to do with YOUR device. It's simple things like using uncommon screws internally, or soldering in the ram, or requiring a certain set of bits at the front of your hard drive, or making it so the batteries cannot be removed.

That's not user hostile, that's user friendly, those things enable them to delivery a standard experience (something you cannot get on a droid) on their appliance to users who by the way love the shit out of them for how well their phones work. You might not like Apple, but their users do precisely because of those things. Apple sees their phones as appliances, not as personal computers to be customized; that approac…

Bullshit. No one loves apple because of using torx screws and requiring certain bits at the front of their hard drives or soldering the empty ram slots shut so that you can't upgrade it later. It doesn't provide a "standard experience", or make their "phones" work any better.

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#44

Post by aphextron » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

xroche wrote: post #32

Does it mean that technology companies should pay their taxes, to serve humanity, rather than playing tax optimization tricks ?

Don't blame individual companies for taking advantage of a broken system. This is a political issue, not a business issue.

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#45

Post by gnaritas » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:06 PM UTC

soperj wrote: post #43

gnaritas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not user hostile, that's user friendly, those things enable them to delivery a standard experience (something you cannot get on a droid) on their appliance to users who by the way love the shit out of them for how well their phones work. You might not like Apple, but their users do precisely because of those things. Apple sees their phones as appliances, not as personal computers to be customized; that approac…

Bullshit. No one loves apple because of using torx screws and requiring certain bits at the front of their hard drives or soldering the empty ram slots shut so that you can't upgrade it later. It doesn't provide a "standard experience", or make their "phones" work any better.

I didn't say that, I said they love the standard experience, and that standard experience is enabled by making the phone an appliance that isn't meant to be hacked on or tampered with, i.e. those things. They are not personal computers to be "upgraded" or hacked to your hearts desire, they're toasters, use them as is, that's the intended experience and that's exactly what their customers by in large prefer. If they didn't do that, they'd be droid with all droids inconsistencies and weirdness from phone to phone having to deal with all kinds of different hardware.

If you want that kind of control over your phone, Apple isn't for you, use a droid.

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#46

Post by ChrisLTD » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

soperj wrote: post #37

ChrisLTD wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure being able to access Siri from a prominent button was boon to users that have little or no eye sight. Also, recall this was added to iPhones before any other major phone had similar built-in functionality.

I have the google assistant on my galaxy s3, stock.

Siri was added to the iPhone in 2011, the Galaxy S3 came out in 2012.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_III

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#47

Post by ErikBjare » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #38

soperj wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is extremely user-hostile, they make it hard to do anything they don't want you to do with YOUR device. It's simple things like using uncommon screws internally, or soldering in the ram, or requiring a certain set of bits at the front of your hard drive, or making it so the batteries cannot be removed.

That's not user hostile, that's user friendly, those things enable them to delivery a standard experience (something you cannot get on a droid) on their appliance to users who by the way love the shit out of them for how well their phones work. You might not like Apple, but their users do precisely because of those things. Apple sees their phones as appliances, not as personal computers to be customized; that approac…

I think you're right, but that kind of thinking is what leads to less open devices and software, which in turn leads to technology serving whoever controls it first and foremost.

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#48

Post by blazespin » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

paapi__gudiya wrote: post #24

Why is the Hacker News community up-voting these blatant PR pieces? This statement coming from Tim Cook seems like a joke.

Read the article. It's practically a death knell for iOS. If iOS can't come to grips with figuring out how to let AI get more access to the user, it could lose the AI race against Google.

Already, people are installing Google Assistant on their iPhones. You have to understand, that the future may make most apps other than games and entertainment, completely irrelevant. You just want a Web Browser and an AI Agent.

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#49

Post by aetherson » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #28

meesterdude wrote: post #10

This is a pretty ironic statement, given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own. I dont see AI at apple being any different. Its for them FIRST, us second, if at all. "humanity" may as well mean corporations since the…

> given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own. That's simply not true, and it's a really offensive statement for pretty much anybody working at Apple. There's no company I can think of that cares more about the user…

Apple is a big company, and I'm sure that there is a lot of diversity in how individual people and indeed teams or departments go about making their products.

But during the Jobs days at least, despite Apple's reputation for user experience excellence, I think it was a company that was at best indifferent towards the experience of its users per se. What it was focused on was delivering a clean, powerful, beautiful device.

In a lot of ways, that focus created, as a side effect, a good user experience. Things like really smooth scrolling were born out of a desire to not have the device ever seem janky or struggling, for example, but it resulted in a pleasant user experience.

The App Store featured extremely strong reviews and protections to make sure that people's dumb apps couldn't screw over your battery or slow down your phone or otherwise compromise your experience. That limited utility, but created a clear, consistent, easy user experience.

In other ways, it led to shitty user experiences. My wife could never tell when her phone was ringing. Its ring was soft compared to Android phones and the vibration was much more subtle. But a loud ring or an emphatic vibration don't lead to a prettier, more iconic device. They'll never be features that a tech reporter will do a feature on. They're easy for other phones to do as well. So Apple didn't care.

The keyboard for iPhones was awful for years. Only a single spelling suggestion, no ability to get anything other than letters without hitting a chord key, hard to tell if you were in capitalization or lower-case. But it was a pretty, uncrowded keyboard, despite being just incredibly slower and more painful to use than equivalent Android keyboards. So Apple didn't care.

It was an interesting time, full of UI highs and lows for Apple.

Re: Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

#50

Post by petra » Fri, Jun 09, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #28

meesterdude wrote: post #10

This is a pretty ironic statement, given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own. I dont see AI at apple being any different. Its for them FIRST, us second, if at all. "humanity" may as well mean corporations since the…

> given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own. That's simply not true, and it's a really offensive statement for pretty much anybody working at Apple. There's no company I can think of that cares more about the user…

Well, most of what Apple did for UI was low-risk for them, and self-serving.

And they did some more altruistic things beside.

But compared to their power and scale , has Apple been much more altruistic/benevolent compared to other companies ? Have they taken large risks for that ?