41–50 of 182 posts
I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little similar but not really and this other Company wants this but can't get it. Only this Company. Yeah not that Company. See I figured all this out; see how smart I am? Now and then on a lazy sunday morning with a cuppa in hand and the business news in my lap, I sink in…
I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little similar but not really and this other Company wants this but can't get it. Only this Company. Yeah not that Company. See I figured all this out; see how smart I am? Now and then on a lazy sunday morning with a cuppa in hand and the business news in my lap, I sink in…
because this is about competing eco-systems and if you make your living writing software that runs in those eco-systems ("apps"), the health and capabilities of said systems is critical. iOS/OSX vs. Android/Chrome vs. Windows8/WP8 if you're just a consumer, then yes, not so interesting, but then this whole forum might not be for you.
My point isn't so much that the subject matter is relevant; just that his conclusions are obvious and have been for ages.
Put another way, did reading his essay cause you to change your mind about what you should be working on?
There is always a lot of careful insight in Gruber's posts that I like but it is tainted with a type of enthusiasm that doesn't belong in journalism. Even if he is correct, being a cheerleader with liberal praise isn't analysis. It's opinion, and Gruber often reads like an opinionist. Apple is an amazing position to build all kinds of wonderful technology, and Samsung does come across as a shallow copy cat that throw…
The other problem is he just doesn't know anything about the industry he's writing on, because he's been a tunnel-vision mac fan for decades. Current example: just below this article he credits Amazon with inventing a button that connects you to live customer service. The counterexample to that claim is Bloomberg, whose terminals have a dedicated Help key. Striking this key once gets you a help screen, but if you hit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The other problem is he just doesn't know anything about the industry he's writing on, because he's been a tunnel-vision mac fan for decades. Current example: just below this article he credits Amazon with inventing a button that connects you to live customer service. The counterexample to that claim is Bloomberg, whose terminals have a dedicated Help key. Striking this key once gets you a help screen, but if you hit…
credits Amazon with inventing a button that connects you to live customer service. oh my glob. Willfully misunderstand the world much? He's talking about consumer devices. How many devices in your home that aren't $10,000/month stock terminals have live under-5-second video support?
"That’s truly remarkable, and a unique Amazon advantage. No one else has anything like this." -- Gruber
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I simply don't believe Google has the best interests of anyone at heart except themselves and advertisers. You think Apple has your interests at heart? Or Microsoft? Like Google, they have your cash at heart. Not a thing more.
To march out some old tropes: Apple makes money by delighting users so they will continue to buy products. Google makes money by tracking users, forcefully if necessary, and abusing their advertisers. Microsoft makes money out of legacy ties these days—they don't deserve to continue existing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I simply don't believe Google has the best interests of anyone at heart except themselves and advertisers. You think Apple has your interests at heart? Or Microsoft? Like Google, they have your cash at heart. Not a thing more.
It is a question of whose interests align with yours. Do your interests align with advertisers? Mine sure as hell don't.
I guess this might be focused on the consumer end, but if you're looking for this in the enterprise, you can get it from IBM and Oracle. You can buy Oracle (Sun) hardware, Solaris, WebLogic, and Oracle database and never use a non-Oracle product. Same with IBM. And maybe I'm cynical, but "unified ecosystem" sounds a lot like "total vendor lock-in" to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I simply don't believe Google has the best interests of anyone at heart except themselves and advertisers. You think Apple has your interests at heart? Or Microsoft? Like Google, they have your cash at heart. Not a thing more.
To march out some old tropes: Apple makes money by delighting users so they will continue to buy products. Google makes money by tracking users, forcefully if necessary, and abusing their advertisers. Microsoft makes money out of legacy ties these days—they don't deserve to continue existing.
Apple makes money by making toys for the wealthy. You have to be middle-class or higher in an advanced economy to use their system, in real terms. In comparison, Google lets anyone use basically all of their stuff for free. As long as you can get online in some form, Google welcomes you, no matter how poor you are or where in the world you might be or what hardware you use. Google also doesn't force you to relinquish control of your environment, whereas Apple has a big ruler it smacks your knuckles with if you don't do things The Apple Way.
Microsoft doesn't deserve to continue existing? Perhaps you should talk to large businesses, then. What are they going to use, because it's only Microsoft that's talking to them. Unix has a love affair with the backend in business, but it's really only Microsoft that's giving them what they want in the full stack. Compare to Apple, who points at the laptops and says "Hey everyone, look how cool we are", at which point business says "oo, cool. So what enterprise tools do you have?"... at which point Apple runs off into traffic, giggling like a mad four-year-old.