Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth • Hacker News Board

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#71

Post by tedunangst » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:21 PM UTC

egor83 wrote: post #56

rbarooah wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how the 90% market share statement is wrong unless you include boxes sitting in warehouses or returned products as 'sold'. What's wrong with the price comparison? I agree that the smooth/small thing was underhanded, although let's not forget that that statement was made as Samsung admitted that they hadn't actually sold 2m devices as they had previously claimed.

1) I don't see how the 90% market share statement is wrong From the article: Apple sold 14.8 mln iPads. Samsung sold 2 mln Tabs. Do you imply that these figures are not correct? If so, please provide better data. But if we use these figures, Apple has 14.8 / (14.8 + 2) ~ 88% market share, and a claim about "> 90%" is outright wrong. Please note that no other competitors were included in this count. 2) What's wrong wi…

2 million Tabs is the number shipped to stores, not sold to consumers.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/31/samsung-galaxy-tab-sa...

No real number given, but anything under 1.6 million makes 90% feasible.

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#72

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:22 PM UTC

NickPollard wrote: post #18

wmeredith wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a large one, I'd imagine. The Nook and Kindle are a pretty far cry from the iPad in terms of capability. To me it seems like it's a very close parallel to a smart phone vs. a feature phone.

So you're saying the iPad has sold more than 90% of all devices that are like iPads? Seems verging on tautological to me.

"So you're saying the iPad has sold more than 90% of all devices that are like iPads?"

Or to put it another way, there are no other products like iPad.

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#73

Post by Keyframe » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:23 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #41

stcredzero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a sign that they're running scared a lot more than they're letting on. It's only a matter of time before the iPad style tablet becomes commoditized. Quite a few years ago, Apple was one of the design leaders in the laptop space, then others caught up, more or less. The same thing happened in the smartphone space. The same thing will happen to tablets. In a way, they are subject to the same forces that…

> Quite a few years ago, Apple was one of the design leaders in the laptop space, then others caught up, more or less. The same thing happened in the smartphone space. Who are these companies? Seriously. Have you used an Apple product side by side with a non Apple equivalent? Does any company come close to the build quality or original design of Apple? If other companies are almost catching up, it still means they ar…

Design, in this case, is mostly a matter of taste. Having said that, I prefer design of VAIOs over Apple Macbooks for example. Newer HPs are good too.

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#74

Post by kmfrk » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:24 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #14

jokermatt999 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And thankfully, good journalists will call them out on it. I'd argue that's an important function of journalism, even.

That's fine, but the tone of this piece was surprise that Apple would use its own marketing event to make Apple look good. Calling them out on facts is good, but there's no need to tell me that Apple will selectively present features based on how good it sells.

“In what seems like a ritual at this point, I watched Apple's iPad 2 keynote in disbelief, noting the factual errors that kept coming up minute after minute.”

The only surprise is that a journalist bothered to fact-check a Stevenote.

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#75

Post by bostonpete » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:25 PM UTC

rbarooah wrote: post #63

bostonpete wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I buy it, or at least that reasoning doesn't match Apple's apparent position on this. For example, at the iPhone 4 launch, the retinal display was the big topic. It would seem hard for them to then turn around and say that the better resolution of the XOOM is irrelevant. This is the first product version launch I can remember where Apple wasn't on the leading edge in terms of specs. If they launched mont…

Except that we know why the iPad resolution hasn't changed: 1. There are 65,000 apps tuned to work with it, so a minor bump to 'compete' on specs would make the user experience worse . 2. We know they are going to double it to 'retina' levels when they can. If motorola want to follow that approach, it's going to be longer before a double size panel is available. 3. The Xoom has an aspect ration that is better for pla…

> I'm not even sure where the idea that they are behind the Xoom spec-wise is coming from.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's another side to this argument, but the article explicitly lists where the XOOM exceeds to ipad2:

- higher resolution

- superior cameras (w/flash)

- stereo speakers

- upgradeable to 4G

- micro-USB/SD Card reader

- probably more RAM (author suggests it may be double)

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#76

Post by daten » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:26 PM UTC

nkohari wrote: post #70

kgermino wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for design, I know most people think that Thinkpads look ugly, however regarding build quality I own a Thinkpad T500 I bought 2 years ago and I have: +Dropped it way more times than I can count, usually while closed and turned off but also while it was running, and while it was open (both running and not). +Totally stood on it, putting my full weight on the closed lid many times. +Left it running in my…

It's not just build quality, it's also aesthetics. You say you can't speak for design, but that's what most people care about more than the ability to bounce their laptop off of concrete. That's why the average consumer isn't in the market for a Toughbook.

What data are basing the opinions of "most people" and "average consumers" on?

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#77

Post by recoiledsnake » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:28 PM UTC

rbarooah wrote: post #24

corin_ wrote: post #8

Completely agree. I'm not exactly an apple fanboy, but I do love my iPad, and there isn't yet a competitor's device I'd want to replace it with (although I'm hoping BlackBerry's will change that). If he had come out and given all the ways that the iPad 2 is better than the iPad, I'd have been impressed. But spending half the time criticising competitors just came across as the kind of tacky tactic that really shouldn…

I agree that it seems negative and I'd rather he didn't do it, but I can see why he does. There are plenty of even less accurate commentators who are prepared to make analyses of the situation that are unfavorable to Apple. Most people don't take the time to critically analyze the 'news' they hear and are actually influenced by this stuff. Apple needs to at least state their viewpoint so that it is out there alongsid…

>Most people don't take the time to critically analyze the 'news' they hear and are actually influenced by this stuff.

Err, I thought most of his presentation was targeted at exactly those people who will walk away with wrong impressions of the competition. Jobs knows that this presentation will be much more widely publicized than this criticism and that's why they wanted to do it.

Seriously, how much percentage of the people who watched that slide containing the misquote of Samsung's exec would come to know it's a misquote? I would say 5% at the maximum.

You seem to imply that it's better to spread lies and misinformation about some facts around because some analysts may do the same about different facts. I don't know how that computes.

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#78

Post by thwarted » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:29 PM UTC

bostonpete wrote: post #26

grav1tas wrote: post #5

I'm curious if specs in mobile devices have become less important when the device is only supposed to do more or less what it's advertised to doand what the user bought it to do, and not much else. Apple advertises all the apps that work on the iOS line of devices, but these apps are (should be) designed to fit "inside the box" of functionality on the device. Android seems to take a different philosophical approach w…

I'm not sure I buy it, or at least that reasoning doesn't match Apple's apparent position on this. For example, at the iPhone 4 launch, the retinal display was the big topic. It would seem hard for them to then turn around and say that the better resolution of the XOOM is irrelevant. This is the first product version launch I can remember where Apple wasn't on the leading edge in terms of specs. If they launched mont…

the retinal display was the big topic. It would seem hard for them to then turn around and say that the better resolution of the XOOM is irrelevant.

They had no trouble changing from "number of applications is irrelevant" when it came to the Mac and games on the Mac to "iPhone has the most apps".

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#79

Post by lukifer » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:30 PM UTC

kmfrk wrote: post #68

coderdude wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cheap jab at Microsoft with no citations that doesn't even follow the conversation, in an Apple thread no less. I'm shocked.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm a Windows user. If you can't recall any egregious Microsoft failures, you're the fanboy trapped in a distortion field. Microsoft may have a lot of things going for them, but they are ginormous klutzes. Do you seriously think that there isn't stupidity involved in any billion-dollar projects and companies?

For that matter, Apple made plenty of boneheaded moves themselves. Hockey-puck mouse, iPod socks, and of course, the under-resourced clusterfudge that is MobileMe and its progenitors.

Re: Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth

#80

Post by sorbus » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:32 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #41

stcredzero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a sign that they're running scared a lot more than they're letting on. It's only a matter of time before the iPad style tablet becomes commoditized. Quite a few years ago, Apple was one of the design leaders in the laptop space, then others caught up, more or less. The same thing happened in the smartphone space. The same thing will happen to tablets. In a way, they are subject to the same forces that…

> Quite a few years ago, Apple was one of the design leaders in the laptop space, then others caught up, more or less. The same thing happened in the smartphone space. Who are these companies? Seriously. Have you used an Apple product side by side with a non Apple equivalent? Does any company come close to the build quality or original design of Apple? If other companies are almost catching up, it still means they ar…

Asus has superior build quality to Apple (measured in failures within 3 years; Apple is around 17% and Asus is 15%, as I recall), lots of original designs (they started the netbook craze, and have a line of laptops made with bamboo), and they don't look half bad either. The U36Jc is completely comparable spec-wise to the 13-inch macbook pro, except for lacking an optical drive, while costing $200 less. It also has better graphics, a larger hard drive, better battery life, is thinner, and weighs about a pound less.

So yes, there are companies that produce hardware comparable to Apple. They're just not as well known.