Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#51

Post by ThePherocity » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 9:29 PM UTC

jpxxx wrote: post #31

ThePherocity wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, besides an environment impact, and the fact that we're running out of resources and should be trying to get the most out of these devices? No, I don't. I'm listing the three competitor OS's and explaining that they all suck. Yes, it does. Because there is nothing wrong with the device from a technological standpoint, and it most certainly can handle the tasks. There are a few new things in iOS 6 that are going…

Up voted you elsewhere, but you're claiming that flagship 2012 software features could or should fit into a device sporting a single core ARM processor with 256MB of RAM and a GPU that is verging on obsolescence. We're an order of magnitude further out in performance AND userbase, and a trillion dollar market is up for grabs. This is the new life cycle.

Not every feature, sure. But there are a lot of features that don't have an increased hardware requirement. I know this because I use TomTom turn by turn on the iPhone 4 right now, same maps data that's on iOS 6. I also use video calling ove 3g on the iPhone 4. So yea, it's a little hard to swallow why these features are being excluded, well except for the money. I'd even accept 3 years for a tablet, but not two.

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#52

Post by ChrisNorstrom » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 10:15 PM UTC

jcr wrote: post #33

petercooper wrote: post #10

I'd cut it right back to people merely being weird and antagonistic for no reason. It's easier to realize sometimes you're just the latest random target of a touchy, unstable human animal and drive away as if in a safari park. We had a woman come up to us on vacation and say our 2 year old daughter was an "evil little thing" merely for chattering away while eating lunch. I said nothing and just grinned at her until s…

First off, what happened to you and your daughter is just disturbing. It's a great example of offensively manipulative and disagreeable people, as well as how to deal with them effectively. People like that actually do exist, and knowing how to deal with them is beneficial. The less obvious but much larger problem is simply miscommunication. It happens all the time, and the limitations of written text only compound t…

I see the same sort of thing constantly on HN and everywhere else. A poorly worded statement, misinterpreted out of context, spiraling the discussion out of control in some pointless, heated, and in some ways harmful direction.

This is why the last few months I just stopped commenting here on HN, and quit a lot of other forums/communities. My communication skills just don't seem to be solid enough to help me avoid unintended conflict.

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#53

Post by recoiledsnake » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 10:23 PM UTC

zainny wrote: post #24

Marco and the like are probably a bit guilty of stirring the pot and encouraging this sort of behaviour to an extent, but reading this article his definition of a fanboy did certainly come to mind: http://www.marco.org/2011/04/10/fanoboy-fan-boi fan•boy |ˈfanˌboi| noun 1. informal derogatory: a term used to describe people who bought a product that competes with the one you bought, which is probably more popular than…

The very funny thing about that is that Marco wrote that as a counterpoint to people calling him an Apple fanboy, when the iPhone was more popular than Android.

>which is probably more popular than your choice, for reasons that you wish to discredit

At that time, the usual suspects Horace,Gruber, Siegler et al. were vehemently claiming that Android would never overtake the iPhone(which Marco seemed to have fallen for) but it happened later in 2011.

So that quote seems especially funny now in retrospect as it has been turned on its head and now actually describes Apple fans calling Android fans "fanbois".

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#54

Post by marklindhout » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 10:32 PM UTC

Free software allows for freedom.

Most (if not all) frustration in tech comes from the lack of it.

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#55

Post by jkubicek » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 10:36 PM UTC

ThePherocity wrote: post #20

silvestrov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone 3GS will be 3 years old when iOS 6 is released. iPhone 4 will be 2 years old. It will only lack Siri, FaceTime over cellular network and support for 'Made for iPhone' hearing aids. I wouldn't call that 'most features'.

iPad 1 released in 2010 (two years old) lacks all features. iPhone 4 lacks turn by turn navigation, 3D maps, Siri, and Facetime over cellular. So I get what with an iPhone 4? Passbook, Facebook, and a maps app that no longer tells me what train I can take? Im going to have to stick to the most features.

> So I get what with an iPhone 4?

The ability to run apps targeting iOS 6 and above, which is arguably more important than everything else you listed.

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#56

Post by spitfire » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 11:36 PM UTC

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #52

jcr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, what happened to you and your daughter is just disturbing. It's a great example of offensively manipulative and disagreeable people, as well as how to deal with them effectively. People like that actually do exist, and knowing how to deal with them is beneficial. The less obvious but much larger problem is simply miscommunication. It happens all the time, and the limitations of written text only compound t…

I see the same sort of thing constantly on HN and everywhere else. A poorly worded statement, misinterpreted out of context, spiraling the discussion out of control in some pointless, heated, and in some ways harmful direction. This is why the last few months I just stopped commenting here on HN, and quit a lot of other forums/communities. My communication skills just don't seem to be solid enough to help me avoid un…

It isn't your communication skills. There's no natural filter or limiting in online forums.

People who would normally be reigned in socially, or simply excluded from conversations have nothing stopping them from spiralling conversations out of control. This is not an easy problem to solve - we've been trying to solve it for the last 30 or so years.

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#57

Post by azakai » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 11:47 PM UTC

Relevant to this is the story about working at Apple stores,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151336

It isn't just writing nasty emails to people that positively review products from competing companies. It's that the level of adoration and devotion is so high in some cases, it affects people's choice of career. One quote in the article basically said, "I pushed Apple products for free, so getting paid to do it is even better".

I do not understand this behavior myself. I can see being a fan of various things (I'm a fan of Linux for example), but of a multinational corporation like Apple, Microsoft or Google?

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#58

Post by gbog » Sun, Jun 24, 2012, 12:20 AM UTC

> When you buy a product, you are, in a way, locking yourself in.

Yes, but more or less.

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#59

Post by Karunamon » Sun, Jun 24, 2012, 12:36 AM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #15

ThePherocity wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS 6 won't run with most features on 2 year old hardware. Windows Phone 8 - Won't run on They're all shite.

iPhone 3GS will be 3 years old when iOS 6 is released. iPhone 4 will be 2 years old. It will only lack Siri, FaceTime over cellular network and support for 'Made for iPhone' hearing aids. I wouldn't call that 'most features'.

The problem is it's dickery, pure and simple. There is no technical reason those add ons can't run on the 4-non-S. I'm running a freaking Siri app from Cydia and it works just as well as the real thing. The battery life isn't reduced any appreciable amount, the phone isn't slower or more prone to running out of memory.

Yes yes I know Apple doesn't owe people free upgrades. It still bugs me.

Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech

#60

Post by quandrum » Sun, Jun 24, 2012, 12:58 AM UTC

planetguy wrote: post #3

Good article. I'm trying to think of other products which inspire this sort of pointless religious war. Cars are the big one; try reading the comments section on autoblog one of these days. Typical Ford POS. Glad to see they haven't changed at all...same irrelevant company with the same irrelevant, mediocre products. Gm is just not good at making decent cars.i cannot think of a single GM car that i would ever conside…

Almost anything that involves subjective judgement can cause this sort of thing, I think.

Because at that point it is about you. At a certain point, iOS vs Android or Ford vs Chevy comes down to something personal. Something about you made that choice, so you better defend who you are(not what the product is).