A Guy Walks into an Apple Store • Hacker News Board

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#301

Post by hyperdimension » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

cable2600 wrote: post #243

dheera wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> standard 60W incandescent lightbulb Which is why nobody uses incandescent bulbs anymore. You can get the same amount of light for 1/5 of that power with LEDs, i.e. your phone could power that amount of light for an hour.

No more EZBake ovens or Toy popcorn makers that use inky bulbs.

>EZBake ovens

Yeah, 'kids these days' just get nichrome wire instead of a good old light bulb. :)

There was an article I read a while back (can't find it at the moment) that involved someone modifying a 'modern' EZ-Bake oven to be powered off a USB-C PD charger. The future we live in!

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#302

Post by nikau » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:24 AM UTC

joduplessis wrote: post #41

I'm always surprised how much petty bitching people do about Apple.

It's akin to paying decent money for a Lexus and then having the dealer ask you to buy a tank of petrol - it sullies the experience.

They could have at least included a 60 cent usb-a to usb-c dongle so you can charge with 99% of the existing power bricks out there.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#303

Post by tasogare » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:30 AM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #143

I really hate arguments about how much electricity wireless phone charging wastes because it makes people feel like they’re doing something when in fact they aren’t. Charging a cell phone every day for a year consumes about 1-2 kWh per phone. The average American household consumes 10,399 kWh per year, meaning that a typical smart phone consumes one 5000th, (0.02%) of a typical home’s electricity (excl. natural gas)…

Yep, most of what is said by "green" partisans is total bullshit because they don’t take into account the magnitude of things: they put emphasis on some kind of moral instead of backing claims with science. This is how you get people advocating changing a nuclear power plant with a bunch of wind turbines.

And honestly I’m tired to be asked to change lot of little things in my life when all of them cumulated won’t even account for the pollution generated by a random factory in a day.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#304

Post by x3ro » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:31 AM UTC

Nbox9 wrote: post #265

rushils wrote: post #242

If Apple was truly out to help the environment, they would kill the lightning port altogether. Simplifying their product line to USB-C and aligning with the cables that the rest of the industry uses would actually contribute to helping the environment.

Lightning port is there for legacy reasons. It use to be much better than the USB options. Now USB-C is good enough, and when they kill the lightning port a billions of cables will become useless in just a handful of years. I’d honestly prefer to see the wired charging port go away completely. Wireless charging is cheap and good.

That'd be amazing. Finally I could throw away all of my very good but obviously obsolete wired headphones and buy some AirPod Pro's instead*

* battery not replaceable, buy new headphones every 3-5 years

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#305

Post by dagurp » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:39 AM UTC

0df8dkdf wrote: post #197

ashtonkem wrote: post #143

I really hate arguments about how much electricity wireless phone charging wastes because it makes people feel like they’re doing something when in fact they aren’t. Charging a cell phone every day for a year consumes about 1-2 kWh per phone. The average American household consumes 10,399 kWh per year, meaning that a typical smart phone consumes one 5000th, (0.02%) of a typical home’s electricity (excl. natural gas)…

stop supporting new devices. Do we really need them?

Kind of, smartphones are not designed to last.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#306

Post by chrisseaton » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

fiblye wrote: post #118

chrisseaton wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the iPhone as useful as before? So it’s the same price as before.

It’s not as useful because without a charger I can only use it until the battery dies. It’s like selling a car without tires, saying it’s a big savings for the company while not changing the price.

It's expected that everyone has a charger these days. If you do not, you can buy one for a few dollars.

It's more like selling a kettle without water. It's expected most reasonable people will have their own water supply.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#307

Post by chrisseaton » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #185

chrisseaton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do you care what their costs are? What will you do with that information? Either the product is worth it for what you need or it isn’t.

It will impact my assessment of product worthiness and feelings about the company in general. If you lived in a small town with only a single bakery in it, would it not matter to you whether the bakery is selling you bread for a bit over their production costs, or 2x, or 5x those costs? The word that's used to refer to mass market goods sold with large profit margins is "overpriced" .

Prices aren't set by production costs though. They're set by the market.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#308

Post by Hamuko » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:42 AM UTC

luma wrote: post #266

lemmonii wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s absolutetly not very easy. I would say it’s very hard, indeed it requires a set of specialized tools.

The same is true of watches and nobody is calling for an act of congress about it. If you want something to be waterproof and small and lightweight, you are probably going to trade off some service accessibility. They haven't gone out of their way to make replacing batteries difficult, but it is more difficult than it used to be before phones were waterproof and tightly packaged.

>The same is true of watches

Sure, it requires special tools, but isn't a battery change on a quartz watch pretty easy? I think the going price for a battery change is like 10€. There can't be that much hard work involved with pricing like that.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#309

Post by majewsky » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:49 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #296

ashtonkem wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watches are a luxury product, and their environmental impact is effectively 0. The same can’t be said of smart phones anymore.

> The same can’t be said of smart phones anymore It can be said about iPhones. I like having a thin, light and watertight phone. If the cost of that is limited avenues for servicing, that’s a tradeoff I am fine with.

If the impact on society is significant enough, society can and does forego individual judgment. You wouldn't be able to put asbestos in your house today even if you were fine with the associated tradeoff, because society has decided that it's just out of limits.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#310

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:50 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #307

TeMPOraL wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will impact my assessment of product worthiness and feelings about the company in general. If you lived in a small town with only a single bakery in it, would it not matter to you whether the bakery is selling you bread for a bit over their production costs, or 2x, or 5x those costs? The word that's used to refer to mass market goods sold with large profit margins is "overpriced" .

Prices aren't set by production costs though. They're set by the market.

In a working competitive market, prices are expected to be asymptotically approaching production costs.