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

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

#91

Post by ugh » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:48 PM UTC

thwarted wrote: post #78

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…

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".

Did they ever say that? (The first part, not the second.)

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

#92

Post by taken11 » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:48 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #72

NickPollard wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

hm, whats with the other 10% if there are no other products?

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

#93

Post by jshen » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

daten wrote: post #76

nkohari wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

consumer sales?

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

#94

Post by Kylekramer » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #71

egor83 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple reports the same shipped to stores numbers. Why not compare them?

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

#95

Post by Qz » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

sorbus wrote: post #80

jonhohle wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 be…

I suspect this is more of a branding issue. Macbook Pro is a relatively memorable name; U36Jc took me longer to type than the rest of this sentence, let alone remember (I won't).

Apple is better at being the original-design-brand, even if they're not the only brand doing awesome original design.

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

#96

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:53 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #84

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…

I know most people think that Thinkpads look ugly I don't think so. Most people I know love the look of Thinkpads. It's still my favorite looking laptop. It has a classic styling too. It's a design that looked good 10 years ago, and still looks good now. I'm not sure any other laptop exists that can make that claim.

The styling of UPS delivery vans shares this longevity. I think it's because we all know Thinkpads just keep looking the same, so they never look out of date. Whereas, we can tell a Dell from 5 years ago is going to be a lot slower.

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

#97

Post by ugh » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:53 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…

There is no cheaper Xoom. There simply isn’t. The comparison is entirely valid.

Prices matter. Case in point: Apple has no competitive budget laptop. Their cheap plastic laptop costs $1,000 while competitors sell budget laptops for $500.

Sure, some spec might be minimally better here and there, that doesn’t change anything about the fact that those $500 laptops are perfectly competent and Apple has nothing to beat them.

(The only difference is that Apple explicitly doesn’t want to sell a budget laptop but the iPad’s competitors position themselves as, well, competitors.)

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

#98

Post by orangecat » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:58 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…

We know they are going to double it to 'retina' levels when they can. If motorola want to follow that approach

They don't need to. The iOS development environment encourages you to use absolute pixel layouts, so a minor resolution increase would break lots of apps. Android uses layout managers that scale better to arbitrary screen sizes. Most existing Android apps will run fine on the Xoom, although certainly many can be improved with tablet-specific interfaces.

The Xoom has an aspect ration that is better for playing a small subset of HD videos, but is worse for using in portrait 'magazine' orientation. It's not actually better for a lot of users.

It still has more vertical pixels than the iPad. Completely agreed on the aspect ratio in general, it's ridiculous that it's almost impossible to find a laptop without a 16:9 display other than from Apple.

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

#99

Post by spooneybarger » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

huherto wrote: post #66

spooneybarger wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

This is one of my favorite quotes. But, in this case I don't think so. People involved are known to be extremely capable.

Even the extremely capable do stupid things.

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

#100

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

recoiledsnake wrote: post #77

rbarooah wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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