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

Apple's brewing shitstorm

scripting.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 76 posts

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#61

Post by JBiserkov »

harshpotatoes wrote: post #50
megablast wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read your list, did not see anything that could not be added by a SP into Vista. I see Windows 7 and Vista as no different to XP and 2000, and Windows ME and 98. Yes, there are new things in each OS, but they are not different enough to warrant being called a new OS.

And linux kernel 2.4 is just a patch away from being 2.6, and os9 is just a patch away from being osX. Just because we like discussions here doesn't mean we have to argue for the sake of arguing.

  Win2K: NT 5.0
  WinXP: NT 5.1
  Wista: NT 6.0
  Seven: NT 6.1

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#62

Post by sacrilicious »

webginja wrote: post #29

Denial and hesitation seems to be Apple's modus operandi (they aren't the only ones). As a software developer the bit about their algorithm for determining signal strength is absolutely ridiculous. IMO they probably released an update that actually faked your signal strength in order to cover up the crap antenna. That sounds more reasonable to me. Remember back when Snow Leopard was deleting user data if you used the…

Never again? Despicable and completely disrespectful denial and hesitation?

My counterpoint, not to dismiss legitimate concerns that the huge number of customers affected by crappy AT&T coverage have, is twofold: Denial is spin, PR. Hesitation is having less R&D resources to do anything about it. It's well known Apple has a smaller headcount than Microsoft, and values certain things more than others.

Mr. Winer and you are totally entitled to your opinions, but mentioning the axes you have to grind in your criticism of Apple aren't great ways to be persuasive.

In order: OSX and Apple's hardware, because its worth owning, and nothing else. ChromeOS(via Hexxeh, at this point) can't adjust screen brightness. Ubuntu can't support 'proprietary wireless chipsets' on first boot - like it should matter. Vista was difficult to use for everything, it was disrespectful anyone got stuck with any of the 7 flavors of that turd. I looked at the font on a blackberry yesterday and could barely make out numbers; it's just so crappy.

Embrace the black plastic of all these windows-bundled laptops, I'll enjoy a machine I need to use for hours on end that feels designed and extruded instead of matte and injection moulded.

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#63

Post by commandar »

dieterrams wrote: post #10
nreece wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's done a crappy job dealing with the antenna fallout. At the same time, the press and other attention seekers are blowing this way out of proportion. Look at it this way, the press and other attention seekers are blowing this way out of proportion because Apple's done a crappy job dealing with the antenna fallout.

That's part of it, sure. But it's not a justification. By definition, blowing something out of proportion is to exceed to the justifiably proportionate response. Like I said, there are a variety of easy fixes. They range from being as cheap as a strip of electrical tape, to $30 for a bumper. If that's such a huge deal for you that it outweighs the merits of the phone, then return it, wait for a fix, or use another ph…

If the new Mercedes S class had a flaw that could be fixed with something as simple as a strip of duct tape up to a $400 widget (paid for out of pocket by the customer), would that be acceptable?

Because that's how Apple positions themselves in the market.

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#64

Post by commandar »

dasil003 wrote: post #41

Speaking of Microsoft, this article reminds me decades past when geeks would whine about Microsoft day after day, year and year. But did that actually accomplish anything? No, the tides did not turn until changing times started to turn Microsoft's cash cows irrelevant by default. Similarly, Dave Winer releases a very well-written piece decrying Apple's hubris and bad faith, then signs off saying, "Oh btw, I wrote thi…

>Similarly, Dave Winer releases a very well-written piece decrying Apple's hubris and bad faith, then signs off saying, "Oh btw, I wrote this on an imac while checking my Apple stock on my iphone."

I took that as heading off the crowd that would start up with ad hominems claiming Winer only wrote this because he hates Apple and wants to see them fail. He wants to see them succeed, which is why it sucks that they've handled this issue so poorly.

And I mean, I understand where he's coming from. I think Apple has traditionally built great products and I love my Macbook Pro. That said, I disagree with their walled-garden approach to the iPhone and it's looking increasingly likely that I'll be replacing my MBP with a PC notebook running Linux because of the way they've let OS X stagnate over the past few years.

I want to see Apple continue to make great products, and if they build products I want, I'll buy them. That doesn't mean they get a pass when they do something I think is stupid, however.

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#65

Post by commandar »

ramy_d wrote: post #7
aresant wrote: post #2

On the topic of Apple he is spot-on, but the fact is Apple's PR team is untrained because Steve Jobs IS the apple PR team - every semi-crisis / etc he addresses personally. I expect that with critical mass unfolding Steve will come to the rescue, but it illustrates how entirely and completely dependent on Steve Apple is - it's not just product design or inspiration . . .

out of curiosity, does steve hold it differently or does he use a bumper?

There was a WaPo article linked here a couple of days ago that included a sidebar photo of Steve during the keynote using the dreaded Grip of Death. :)

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#66

Post by vollmond »

commandar wrote: post #63
dieterrams wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's part of it, sure. But it's not a justification. By definition, blowing something out of proportion is to exceed to the justifiably proportionate response. Like I said, there are a variety of easy fixes. They range from being as cheap as a strip of electrical tape, to $30 for a bumper. If that's such a huge deal for you that it outweighs the merits of the phone, then return it, wait for a fix, or use another ph…

If the new Mercedes S class had a flaw that could be fixed with something as simple as a strip of duct tape up to a $400 widget (paid for out of pocket by the customer), would that be acceptable? Because that's how Apple positions themselves in the market.

Disregarding cost, that probably depends on if the tape/widget goes under the hood somewhere or prominently in the middle of the windshield.

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#67

Post by whatusername »

risotto wrote: post #23

What happened to "all PR is good PR"? I don't have real numbers, but 3 weeks into the launch, more than 2 million phones have been sold. How many have been returned? Versus how many people that want one don't have one yet? What's the new Android phone again? All this Apple talk is drowning out all other phone news. If I think back really hard, the EVO launch was met with bitching about poor battery life. Lots of "not…

Remember that the rest of the world can't buy it yet.. I've been reassuring my brother-in-law that it's a storm in a tea cup but I'm starting to doubt that now...

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#68

Post by commandar »

AlisdairO wrote: post #58
cookiecaper wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there wasn't really anything wrong with Vista. The rebellion against Vista was largely a psychological thing, users revolting because they _hate_ it any time anything changes. I don't think there was any "real" problem with Vista if you were running it on adequate hardware. I guess a big part of the problem was that Vista was getting installed on bottom-rung $300-$500 laptops and dragging everything down.

There's no good reason why Vista shouldn't have been able to run on 1GB ram laptops. It was so slow on my parents (new with vista) laptop that it made me want to scream using it. They upgraded to 2GB, and it was still pathetically slow until SP2 came out and fixed it. It works pretty decently now. Clearly, there was something wrong with Vista.

Growing pains with a new memory manager. Vista has always been fundamentally solid as long as you had the hardware to match.

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#69

Post by redrobot5050 »

dkarl wrote: post #15
dieterrams wrote: post #3

Apple's done a crappy job dealing with the antenna fallout. At the same time, the press and other attention seekers are blowing this way out of proportion. I've seen some compare the iPhone 4's antenna issues to Toyota's accelerator disaster (which I always suspected was largely manufactured by the press and politicians), demanding a recall. That's just hilarious. At worst, they should give out free bumpers until the…

I've seen some compare the iPhone 4's antenna issues to Toyota's accelerator disaster That would be grossly unfair to Toyota. There's a measurable and reproducible problem with the iPhone 4.

And according to at least two black boxes recovered from totaled Toyotas, there was a measurable and reproducible problem with Toyotas.

Re: Apple's brewing shitstorm

#70

Post by evilduck »

lsc wrote: post #44
cookiecaper wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there wasn't really anything wrong with Vista. The rebellion against Vista was largely a psychological thing, users revolting because they _hate_ it any time anything changes. I don't think there was any "real" problem with Vista if you were running it on adequate hardware. I guess a big part of the problem was that Vista was getting installed on bottom-rung $300-$500 laptops and dragging everything down.

yeah, but if the bottom wrung has 512-1GiB ram, if your OS doesn't run on the bottom wrung, I think it's legitimate to criticize you. If you want the OS alone to eat more than that, you had better bring some compelling features to compensate, and the perception, at least, was that vista did not bring those compelling features.

That's if your bottom wrung hardware ever got driver support. I had an nForce mobo that would bluescreen anytime DirectSound was initialized. It didn't stop BSOD'ing until SP2, and by that point, I retired the computer.
Post reply on HN