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The New Apple Advantage

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Re: The New Apple Advantage

#301

Post by bane »

dasil003 wrote: post #291
bane wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're in violent agreement. But we can summarize the vast majority of Grubers posts thusly: "Something about Apple = Great" then generate a dozen or so threads of nothing but either fawning praise for Gruber or the same repeated complaints about his bias. At this point Gruber posts and the follow up "conversation" (I'm using it charitably at this point) are something one could probably machine generate, then…

The problem is everyone coming out and saying "let's ban Gruber" every time one of his stories are posting. This compels people like me to respond because I think he posts interesting stuff. If it weren't for the knee jerk reaction from the haters then we could have a decent discussion. I certainly wouldn't come in here unilaterally praising Gruber, I would respond to his points just like I do with any other post (ex…

I ask this as an absolutely honest question, when Gruber writes (as he is prone to do) a piece that consists pretty much entirely of Apple praise, what exactly is it about that you find interesting?

I'm not trying to troll, it's clear that there is a minority here, including myself that can't find any possible information in them, but the HN majority clearly find his writing absolutely fascinating and full of all kinds of information nuggets that pass me and others right by.

I always propose banning Dvorak because he is actively corrosive to intelligent discourse

No argument from me at all.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#302

Post by X-Istence »

swombat wrote: post #194
X-Istence wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Microsoft stores feel like really bad rip-offs of the Apple stores and overall their employees do not seem to be knowledgeable about the stuff they are selling. That has been my experience when walking into a Microsoft store.

To counterbalance this, I'll point out I've heard some pretty clueless things come out of the mouths of Apple Store employees too - e.g. "plugging in your macbook air into a macbook pro PSU will damage the battery" and other silly stuff.

Granted, but I don't expect store employees to know that voltage is the only thing that matters, not amps. What I do care about is people knowing what software comes with the new machine, what is installed by default, how much it would cost to get an upgrade to Professional, where Office is discounted with a laptop, what kind of graphics card is in it, how many gigs of memory and other basic questions.

The guys at the Microsoft store I visited made clueless look bright. Apparently they keep getting new machines in with no training at all.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#303

Post by [deleted] »

jellicle wrote: post #53

What I grasp from this is that John Gruber and Peter Bright are just too dim to understand basic online stores. This qualifies for mockery from Gruber/Bright: > "Everyday Computing" But this is good understandable product description: > "The ultimate everyday notebook" (that second one is Apple's marketing copy for the Macbook Air). The low-end Macbook Air is $999 in Canada. Let's compare. I just priced a Lenovo X220…

[deleted]

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#304

Post by glenra »

jarek wrote: post #283
glenra wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Depending on the airline you might do direct SFO->Hong Kong or there'd be a stop in Tokyo (Narita) or some other inconvenient location. It was one or two flights a day, not every couple of hours. Heck, I'll bet it's not a lot better now. let's take a look! Suppose I want to fly on United to Hong Kong next Friday. Kayak tells me that if I miss the one that leaves at 1pm (direct flight - total time 14 hours 5 minu…

Um, I'm not entirely convinced that a high-level Apple employee on critical business would be restricted to any particular airline. If you're willing to pay, between SFO, LAX, and YVR you should be able to find a flight heading for southern China in any next four hours, except maybe at 12:30 AM.

FWIW, if you want a direct flight there weren't any today from SFO to HKG leaving later than 1:35pm on any airline. All the flights that were available as of this afternoon that had stops took at least 4 hours longer than a nonstop - there weren't any quick connections.

You left off SJC and OAK. Not to mention Seattle, Beijing, and Tokyo... :-)

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#305

Post by rayiner »

dlss wrote: post #90
jseliger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you really wanna claim that Apple has an equally confusing product lineup compared to other manufactures? That’s a quite daring claim (and also some impressive misleading quoting you are doing there). Apple doesn’t ask you to decide based on non-sensical marketing blabber like that. They use it, sure, but it isn’t central in the decision process of the buyer. One other point: all three Macs I've owned were ready…

What an odd way to decide which machine you'll use every day for the next year or more. A clean install is really easy -- maybe one hour if you sit and watch it, fifteen minutes if you use your old laptop while it's going... why would you let a cost of Setup time is part of the cost of a system. I'm sure that the apple machine isn't actually ready for you to use it out of the box -- if you're like most HN readers you…

I'm a typical HN reader (and a programmer) and I don't think I've changed any settings on my Macbook Pro other than the mouse tracking speed.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#306

Post by rayiner »

rsynnott wrote: post #259
rayiner wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a geek and I couldn't care less what WiFi chipset is in my laptop. I was shopping for a ThinkPad X220 for someone, and it had the option of the regular screen or the "premium" screen for $50 more. They don't tell you what the "premium" screen is or why you'd want it. I presume the regular screen is shitty. Can you even imagine Apple offering such an option? A $1000+ laptop with a shitty screen, with a $50 option…

Apple actually do do this; it's a resolution bump.

Not really the same thing. The IPS screen on the Lenovo is just better. They don't need to have the TN option at all. The higher resolution isn't necessarily better. It makes the text smaller. Like the anti-glare option, it's a preference option not a better/worse option.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#307

Post by LaGrange »

dlss wrote: post #216
singingfish wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you be doing something CPU intensive on a MBA like computer? Surely you just ssh into the beefy workstation in the corner or in the data centre to do the heavy lifting? Seems like a non-argument to me.

That was my point: you wouldn't on a MBA like computer. You would on a high-performance small formfactor laptop like the x220. See my other replies for more information

No, you'd do it on a Mac Pro, or, if you want to try and save money, on a PC hidden in a closet somewhere. You'll need a PC hidden in a closet somewhere as soon as you need a cluster anyway. Same for compilation, Xcode even makes it easier for you to set up a distributed build.

Now, there are reasons to get a strong laptop. A good one is if you need some serious power on the go. Are you running that bioinformatics software while on an airplane?

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#308

Post by jsnell »

megablast wrote: post #254
jsnell wrote: post #17

It's hardly the first time logistics has been touted as the key competitive advantage of a company. Take Nokia for example. Massive economies of scale, designs taking maximum advantage of that, and incredible supply chain management[1]. All this kept them going for a while even after the wheels fell off, but by now they pretty much have no logistical advantage left. Apple pundits seem to think that Apple's (undeniabl…

I have yet to hear anyone say that Apple place at the top will be permanent, apart from you. I do have a problem with people setting up straw men to argue with.

In the linked article Gruber says that this is Apple's most sustainable advantage, and implies it's something that'd take competitors a decade to copy. I'll grant that it's not quite the heat death of the universe, but still pretty damn permanent.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#309

Post by rbanffy »

slowpoke wrote: post #300
rbanffy wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know... You may have a point. Some people may have been spoiled by operating systems like Linux or BSD, where you can look up each and every line of code that comprises the whole software stack, but, in fact, most people don't really care about that. Still, OSX is more open than its main competitor - you can see most of it, but not all. The fact most people don't really care about what they are using is sad, but…

> Some people may have been spoiled by operating systems like Linux or BSD, where you can look up each and every line of code that comprises the whole software stack I'm quite sorry, but what? Spoiled by having the freedom we should have for every technology? It's kind of like saying that "Some people are spoiled by having civil liberties, but most people don't care about those".

> It's kind of like saying that

That was the point ;-)

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#310

Post by rbanffy »

sjwright wrote: post #244
rbanffy wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know... You may have a point. Some people may have been spoiled by operating systems like Linux or BSD, where you can look up each and every line of code that comprises the whole software stack, but, in fact, most people don't really care about that. Still, OSX is more open than its main competitor - you can see most of it, but not all. The fact most people don't really care about what they are using is sad, but…

Most people drive their car without knowing how an internal combustion engine works. Most people watch television without knowing that the picture is comprised of pixels (or scan lines). Is that also sad? Must everyone understand everything they use in sufficient detail? Why should a computer be different? Why should my mum need to understand what an operating system is, let alone care about it?

> Most people watch television without knowing that the picture is comprised of pixels (or scan lines). Is that also sad?

That they don't know? A bit. That most don't want to know? Very, very sad.

> Why should my mum need to understand what an operating system is, let alone care about it?

To better be able to protect herself against malware, to be able to better understand a very important tool in our society, to be able to understand what your work is about when you tell her.

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