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Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

rudism.com

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Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who loves Apple products? I love MacOS. I love iOS. I love all things Apple. Customer service is totally top notch. Physical quality is excellent, of course I have my wishes and pet peeves (don’t like cold aluminum, stupid touchbar, keyboard!). I’m willing to pay even double the cost of other cheaply made products from Asus, Acer, Samsung, etc. Not to mention the whole ecosystem thing and I trust Ap…

I'm with you entirely. I love what they're doing with hardware. I am fascinated with their SoC/SiPs. My kids are wildly successful with iOS/MacOS UIs in comparison to the competiton (especially ChromeOS, good lord is that a usability nightmare), and I think this speaks volumes about the quality of their ui/ux investment.

> especially ChromeOS, good lord is that a usability nightmare

My dad recently got one of these to have something simpler since all he really needs is a web browser, and damn, you aren't kidding. Like, the OS isn't even that "big" here, guys, how is it so thoroughly mediocre? The accessibility settings in particular are like something from the 90s, after being used to what modern iOS and macOS offer. Felt like a half-assed afterthought. Didn't work very well. Considering much of the target market for it is old people and kids, that's incredibly inconsiderate.

Oh and then of course the settings screen itself was hard to navigate and poorly organized, but that much I expected (google is weirdly bad at settings screens across basically all their products, IME)

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#113
post #100

Fundamentally it's hard to see how the current situation is any different from the situation in which anti-trust regulators moved against Nintendo and Sega in the mid-90s. In both cases you have a duopoly which essentially controlled the market and used access to the platform to force fees and conditions onto developers using their gatekeeping abilities.

One difference that comes to mind relatively quickly is that you didn't need a gaming console to live in practice.

Try being part of today's society without a smartphone running either Apple or Google software.

Apple's goal to shove off 30% of subscription fees, if successful, most likely would lead to more expensive subscription fees for end users. I wonder whether that's finally a case that has a chance to stand in court w.r.t. anti-trust laws. (Driving up end user prices through anti-competitive behavior.)

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who loves Apple products? I love MacOS. I love iOS. I love all things Apple. Customer service is totally top notch. Physical quality is excellent, of course I have my wishes and pet peeves (don’t like cold aluminum, stupid touchbar, keyboard!). I’m willing to pay even double the cost of other cheaply made products from Asus, Acer, Samsung, etc. Not to mention the whole ecosystem thing and I trust Ap…

I like Apple products too. I listen to multiple podcasts that are pretty much Apple News/commentary. I like their privacy stance, design, etc. Even products I have no use for like the watch and iPad Pros blow my mind with their use cases especially for non-developers. Having a Unix-like terminal with stable and long-lasting hardware helped me as a young developer in college. Hardware has been hit and miss lately but…

Their privacy stance is pure marketing bluff. Any alternative phone you can buy in the US is going to be better for your privacy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23329646

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#115
post #16

> The solution is obvious. Stop making apps for iOS. Sure, you’re going to take a huge hit without access to those consumers The solution is obvious. Sabotage your own business. Sure, you're going to go out of business without any customers.

If that is true then Apple is a net positive and deserves no active sabotage.

I've seen this platform issue happen in gaming too: Steam rakes in inmense profits at 30%, while smaller platforms like itch.io scrape by by only getting an 'optional' 10%. Yet, consumers prefer the DRM heavy high-cut platform.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#117

No, I'll do both.

And that's great if you just want to vent. Just don't expect change.

Both the EU and the US are already looking into Apple.

Here's the CTO of the Hey app and the chairman of the US Antitrust Subcommittee discussing this very case yesterday: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/18/21295778/apple-app-store-...

These "nothing's going to change, why even try" attitudes are so lazy. Absolutely things can change, but surely not if we don't try. Microsoft was massively impacted by the antitrust action against them, every decision they made since then has been run through the lens of that verdict (I know lots of people inside MS) and it fundamentally changed their culture and reduced their stranglehold on the industry.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, for us "tech people" it is actually easier to stop using Google and Apple and serve as example for others. Pushing for anti-monopoly legislation needs not be the only thing that we do to solve that problem. Moreover, for people who are not citizens of the USA (the large majority of the people!), there's no other clear course of action.

> On the other hand, for us "tech people" it is actually easier to stop using Google and Apple and serve as example for others. Pushing for anti-monopoly legislation needs not be the only thing that we do to solve that problem. Are you suggesting people stop using smartphones altogether?

Depends on if you consider running a phone with Google services removed "supporting Google".

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#119

Disclaimer: I only read the subject line and the first paragraph. Years ago, when Internet Explorer had market dominance, I was working on a website and I wanted to use a feature that IE didn’t support yet. I asked a question on a forum about how to do it in IE. One of the replies was "just stop using IE." Dude. It's not for me. It's for my customers.

Put up a banner that says IE is not supported, download one of these browsers instead.

If you say "No" because it will drive away your customers, then it absolutely is for you.

It sounds like you were putting profits before principles.

Re: Quit whining about Apple and just stop using them

#120

If you don’t like how Apple does business, stop using their products. If you don’t like how Google does business, stop using their products. If you don’t like how either one does business, stop using technology all together. I am being facetious, but mainly to illustrate the point that we now have a series of entrenched monopolies in the tech world so “stop using X” isn’t a realistic solution.

That’s a very cumbersome a way of getting what I want. It’s much better and easier if e.g the EU simply makes Apple do the right thing by force. The market doesn’t solve this kind of problem.
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