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Only Apple

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Re: Only Apple

#131

Post by roberthahn »

malandrew wrote: post #109
roberthahn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't know about others, but I don't want to live in a world where my only option to control my house, car, and life is to go to an Apple store." Me either. Even so, I still believe Apple got the model right. If only we could live in a world where we have a healthy competitive ecosystem of Apple-like companies. Then you would have many options at hand to control your house, car, and life.

We need forward thinking investors like pmarca to drop some of the VC cash on the W3C standards process. We have the most amount of innovations and investible companies when there are more open APIs. The image tag, the current implementation of which was first coded by pmarca, enabled tons of startups, the biggest of which are companies instagram, facebook, imgur, etc. The one API that is languishing at the W3C that…

I think you're right about using the web as an interop protocol. I want to see that future (or that present, more evenly distributed).

But I believe the browser is NOT the ideal gatekeeper. The ideal gatekeeper for your contacts is, surprisingly enough, an app designed to manage contacts. And as long as the inerop protocols are respected, switching from one contacts app to another will never be a problem.

Re: Only Apple

#132

Post by [deleted] »

malandrew wrote: post #109
roberthahn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't know about others, but I don't want to live in a world where my only option to control my house, car, and life is to go to an Apple store." Me either. Even so, I still believe Apple got the model right. If only we could live in a world where we have a healthy competitive ecosystem of Apple-like companies. Then you would have many options at hand to control your house, car, and life.

We need forward thinking investors like pmarca to drop some of the VC cash on the W3C standards process. We have the most amount of innovations and investible companies when there are more open APIs. The image tag, the current implementation of which was first coded by pmarca, enabled tons of startups, the biggest of which are companies instagram, facebook, imgur, etc. The one API that is languishing at the W3C that…

[deleted]

Re: Only Apple

#133

Post by rayiner »

WoodenChair wrote: post #127
kalleboo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at what they've managed to do, for example, with battery life. Nobody can match the hours of use per watt-hour of their tightly-integrated stack. That's not my (anecdotal) experience at all. My friends with similarly-specced phones like the Xperia Z1 Compact have their battery last way longer than my iPhone 5S. The iPhone may have better standby life, but we're heavy users, and as soon as you're using it…

The problem with hacker news (and really all online forums) is how plagued it is by "anecdotal" experiences. I would appreciate if people took the time to Google for some facts instead of writing about random anecdotal experiences that might be exceptional or misinformed. rayiner's response is really what would've helped the original post, even if it was coupled with something anecdotal.

Part of the problem with discussions about phone battery life is that the available websites don't do a very good job of testing it. My anecdotal experience with carrying an iPhone 5 for years, then a Lumia for about a year, then a Nexus 5 for about six months is that the Nexus 5 is by far the worst at dealing with marginal signal conditions, like my train commute from DE to PA. I've never seen this sort of thing formally tested anywhere.

Re: Only Apple

#134

Post by bane »

roberthahn wrote: post #123
bane wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If only we could live in a world where we have a healthy competitive ecosystem of Apple-like companies. That would require these companies to share interoperability specification. Something Apple tries mightily to not do. All that being said, Apple definitely sets the gold standard on the user-experience axis, and the entire landscape is better for it.

Not at all. Each Apple-like company would create their own inter-op ecosystem for their own devices. In this hypothetical world, Todd would get exactly the choice he asked for - all of the good user experience without the Apple brand.

Ugh, that sounds like a dystopian future to me. It reminds me of Sony's attempts at roping people into their media ecosystem during the 80s and 90s.

Re: Only Apple

#135

Post by poolpool »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #51
webwielder wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone is as cynical as you. I believe the people at Apple genuinely want to make great hardware and software that enhances people's lives. Their world-class accessibility support is proof enough of that.

Come on, you don't get to be the highest valued company in the world by being altruistic. Apple produce great products (I happen to be using one now) but they charge prices that many cannot afford in order to make more money for themselves. That's not being cynical, just realistic.

No they just ignore the lower end of the market that makes 0 money and leaves everyone else fighting over the scraps.

There is a reason Dell bought Quest for billions of dollars. It is not because they see a bright future for the consumer pc market.

Re: Only Apple

#136

Post by blahber »

joshfraser wrote: post #27

Finding your one differentiating feature is incredibly valuable for any company, especially in the context of sales. When customers ask how you compare to competitor A or B, it's awesome to be able to say "we're the only people in the world who offer ______". Having one thing that only you do, allows you to completely reframe the conversation. If the customer cares enough about that feature, you become the obvious ch…

/insight

Excellent way of putting it !

I think apple is going for the word "seamless-experience" here [1].

I do think microsoft has a word too, which they always strive for, and I hope it continues -- "backwards-compatible".

I must be honest, I find compatibility-breaking painful as a developer and as a user.

[1] I know, hyphenation is a cheap hack :)

Re: Only Apple

#137

Post by pistle »

WoodenChair wrote: post #127
kalleboo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at what they've managed to do, for example, with battery life. Nobody can match the hours of use per watt-hour of their tightly-integrated stack. That's not my (anecdotal) experience at all. My friends with similarly-specced phones like the Xperia Z1 Compact have their battery last way longer than my iPhone 5S. The iPhone may have better standby life, but we're heavy users, and as soon as you're using it…

The problem with hacker news (and really all online forums) is how plagued it is by "anecdotal" experiences. I would appreciate if people took the time to Google for some facts instead of writing about random anecdotal experiences that might be exceptional or misinformed. rayiner's response is really what would've helped the original post, even if it was coupled with something anecdotal.

I've got to say that hasn't been my experience at all with online forums. Many times, I get insightful feedback or review of a post to the point where I needn't read the original. Maybe places like Reddit, etc. really bring out more personal experience since the topics and community are so varied, but there was a poll here not too long ago about how accurate the opinions are here. That's objective data showing you that the anecdotes are as right as you're going to get. It's a fact.

Re: Only Apple

#138

Post by prawn »

Samsung dropped the ball with their smart TVs. Smart Hub is atrocious when it could've been an awesome experience for developers that let the Plex's of the world really shine. Instead we have horrible EPGs, sluggish interfaces and no flexibility or hackability.

Re: Only Apple

#139

Post by thrownaway2424 »

eridius wrote: post #108
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a 3rd party doesn't absolve the first party of responsibility for customer experience. In the iTunes case, the experience was bad, and incongruous with the rest of the iOS experience, which is usually good. That's why I reach for my iPad instead of my Nexus 7 more often than not, because I don't have time to waste on Android bullshit (and anyway, usually the Android's battery is dead). But if I pay for a TV sho…

One single bad experience which could have just as easily been caused by your ISP, or even by you (e.g. by using a DNS provider that interacts badly with CDN geolocation), turns you off forever from a service that otherwise acts better than its competitors? That's a rather extreme statement to make. Besides, do you really think the competing services don't have the same potential for problems with whatever delivery n…

Netflix and Amazon have a different failure mode where they deliver lower picture quality in order to maintain faster-than-real-time delivery. In the case of Amazon, when this happens you get an email within a day refunding the difference between the HD and SD quality stream, if you paid for the HD one. A very good experience.

Re: Only Apple

#140

Post by pistle »

Since when does Foxconn not make anything for anybody else?

This article reads a bit too much like PR+. A main point is trying to argue that Apple is genius at framing "conversations" to manage how their brand is emotionally considered. It does this by applying similar techniques like throwing the "Apple does their own CPUs!" and their stack is so unique, but that's not true enough and pervasive across all products, subsystems, etc.

The battery is another place where story has nuance to it, but we sure aren't going to get any of that here.

Crap. I've been post-baited.

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