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Apple is a traditional business

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Re: Apple is a traditional business

#211

Post by fragmede »

mikestew wrote: post #165
et-al wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has this talk with a friend, but it was actually centered around accessibility of technology for older people (or less technologically-inclined people, if you must). If Jobs had aged, needed reading glasses, and maybe had Parkinson's, would there be more of a push towards making devices easier to use? Would Siri be more functional? I know Jitterbug exists, but it seems almost insulting. (If anyone has used one and fe…

If Jobs had aged, needed reading glasses, and maybe had Parkinson's, would there be more of a push towards making devices easier to use? There are accessibility settings on iOS that mitigate every one of those items (and more), and iOS has consistently been one of the most, if not the most, accessible phones out there . What specifically are you looking for?

I want an iPad sized machine that displays as much as an iPhone, and I want an iPhone who's home screen has 2x3 grid of icons instead of ever-so-slightly bigger 4x5 icons when zooming is turned on.

Thankfully Android allows for alternate launchers, even though some icons are horribly ugly.

Would Apple ever admit to doing something functional-yet-ugly?

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#212

Post by scarface74 »

thanatropism wrote: post #195
scarface74 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Window Manager - nothing stopping you from using XWindows. The Finder - it's just a file manager, what's stopping you from using any other file manager? Cocoa - is just a Framework for building Mac apps. Nothing stopping you from using another Framework Xcode - just an IDE on top of open source build tools. IMessage - just a messaging program. Nothing stopping you from using another messaging program. FaceTime -…

The word "kernel" has a special meaning for operating systems.

I understand that. What exactly do you want to change at the kernel level?

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#213

Post by indemnity »

mygo wrote: post #180
Aditya_Garg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, if you don't pay the developer fee, you can only install 2 apps per apple account and they get deactivated in a week. If you do pay, I think its unlimited apps and a 3 month long period before they get deactivated.

not true. I’ve written a couple personal apps that sync with health kit data collected from my Apple Watch and nutrition apps to help me track things in a way that is useful for my fitness goals. In 2016-2027 I used these apps to put on 30 lbs and stay relatively lean but I’ve never wanted to publish them in the app store. I don’t pay for any developer program. Just need to download some (free) developer tools / SDK…

If you turn on WiFi debugging the install can be untethered.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#214

Post by scarface74 »

Spivak wrote: post #210
scarface74 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos specifically said that the entire purpose of their hardware is to get people to buy more stuff from Amazon. You really don't think both Amazon and Google are collecting data to improve their real money makers - targeted ad revenue and marketing?

And the iPhone exists to get people to use more Apple products and services. Vendor lock-in isn't the same thing as data harvesting. Those companies may very well be collecting your data but your statement doesn't prove it.

With a 40% margin, Apple would be quite happy if you never bought anything but an iPhone. Why would Amazon sell you something that even the CEO admits that he isn't trying to make money off of?

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#215

Post by nojvek »

gonehome wrote: post #209
noxToken wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...like smart speakers, with their threat of big brother-style surveillance in exchange for a minimal increase in convenience It seems like everyone in this thread is forgetting that the HomePod[0] is a thing. Apple's privacy practices are better than the other listed companies, but they do have a smart speaker just as capable as the others. [0]: https://www.apple.com/homepod/

As someone who owns a Homepod, Google Home, and an Echo - the Homepod is hardly as capable as either of the others. It can consistently tell me the weather and set alarms, but it's bad at everything else.

Siri calls one contact (my wife), adds reminders, timers and weather consistently. Works every time Everything else is terrible.

If Apple can make all of that offline, i’d be even more loyal.

We don’t need the stupidity of sending everything you say to cloud and back. Latency just kills it.

Apple is still the most focused company of the big tech giants. They deserve kudos for that.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#216

Post by kgwgk »

dang wrote: post #208
kgwgk wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of these days I'm going to write a bot to keep track of title changes. "Apple is a traditional business" is the current title, for the record. I expect (I hope!) it will be changed again soon, because it doesn't make much sense.

We changed the title because the original one was arguably linkbait, and the site guidelines call for changing those (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ). When we do that, we try to find a phrase in the article itself that represents what the author is saying. That's what we did here. If there's a better, more representative phrase, we can change it again.

"Apple is a rock of common sense in an industry that’s gone rogue" (the subtitle) would be better.

"Apple is the perfect tech company for this day and age, an example to the rest of Silicon Valley" (the take-home message in the first line) would be better.

The Apple "is a traditional business" remark refers to the main point of this opinion piece, which appears right before that statement:

"This is a time when companies whose innovations are more intrusive than useful, more gimmicky than problem-solving, operate with business models that either burn investors’ cash or turn the users into products.

"At a time like this, Apple is a rock of common sense, sobriety, dignified engineering supremacy, prudent financial and supply chain management, effective marketing, and customer-oriented retailing."

Without the proper context, "Apple is a traditional business" could mean anything and doesn't mean anything at all.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#217

Post by Rjevski »

technofiend wrote: post #188
Rjevski wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone SE, or previous models are definitely affordable, and it seems like a good investment considering these devices are supported for 4 years on average, so on a 2 year-old second-hand device you’ll still get 2 years more of security updates, which is something Android can only dream about. Will you also complain about Samsung because their flagship is too expensive?

To be fair the latest Android devices offer three years of updates, so they're now somewhere in the middle. https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en >Pixel phones get security updates for at least 3 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store, or at least 18 months from when the Google Store last sold the device, whichever is longer. After that, we can't guarantee more upda…

Only for Pixel phones bought unlocked. This doesn’t apply to most people that buy (or rather are coaxed into buying by the salesperson) whatever Samsung or Huawei device from a carrier.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#218

Post by woolvalley »

gonehome wrote: post #209
noxToken wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...like smart speakers, with their threat of big brother-style surveillance in exchange for a minimal increase in convenience It seems like everyone in this thread is forgetting that the HomePod[0] is a thing. Apple's privacy practices are better than the other listed companies, but they do have a smart speaker just as capable as the others. [0]: https://www.apple.com/homepod/

As someone who owns a Homepod, Google Home, and an Echo - the Homepod is hardly as capable as either of the others. It can consistently tell me the weather and set alarms, but it's bad at everything else.

One thing I dislike about the homepod is the silent failures. Where I say 'hey siri turn off bedroom' and the homepod lights up and then does nothing without any sound whatsoever.

While the echo will always respond.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#219

Post by dang »

kgwgk wrote: post #216
dang wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We changed the title because the original one was arguably linkbait, and the site guidelines call for changing those (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ). When we do that, we try to find a phrase in the article itself that represents what the author is saying. That's what we did here. If there's a better, more representative phrase, we can change it again.

"Apple is a rock of common sense in an industry that’s gone rogue" (the subtitle) would be better. "Apple is the perfect tech company for this day and age, an example to the rest of Silicon Valley" (the take-home message in the first line) would be better. The Apple "is a traditional business" remark refers to the main point of this opinion piece, which appears right before that statement: "This is a time when compan…

"Apple is a rock of common sense in an industry that’s gone rogue" is too baity, even more than the original title we changed. It's guaranteed to provoke objections if we put it in there. Ditto with "perfect tech company"—can you imagine the arguments that would lead to?

You're welcome to make a bot to track title changes. People have done this kind of thing from time to time, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16018430. IMO the main thing it would show is how much work goes into getting this right, and how hard it is.

Edit: Btw I agree with you that the title we changed it to isn't great; I just haven't thought of a better one or seen a better suggestion. If someone has an accurate, neutral title that preferably uses representative language from the article, we'll happily change it again.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#220

Post by MBCook »

victor106 wrote: post #205
MBCook wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it was in iOS 2.0. And I don’t believe Jobs EVER thought that, that was his spin. Everything that has come out since seems to indicate that he knew web apps sucked but that was what they could get out the door fast. The internal APIs didn’t seem to be in a releasable state. Normal people have never used APT. I remember how you got software for Palm or WinCE. It was a pain, you had to search the web or buy it b…

>And I don’t believe Jobs EVER thought that, that was his spin If you read his biography he had to be convinced to have users create their own apps and install them on the iPhone. He vehemently shot down the idea before he had to be convinced of the idea by Bill Campbell (the coach) when Steve was vacationing in Hawaii. Read the book and you’ll understand more of the backstory

Oh, I understand he wanted to keep it sacred so the ‘commoners’ couldn’t sully it with their lack of taste (see: fart apps).

But it was immediately clear that everyone wanted to program for it. And once they decided to go down that path my impression from articles and interviews is that webapps were something of a stopgap until they could get native code ready to release.

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