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Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

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Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#201

Post by Narishma »

wlesieutre wrote: post #121
Spooky23 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You represent the 5% of PC consumers. The average person goes to Walmart/Bestbuy/BJ's/Staples and spends $475 on some shitbox laptop. The 25th percentile user (ie. millions of people) probably spent $275-325. That average person who bought that average PC in 2011 has an aging HP/Dell/Asus laptop with a failing battery, $30 Celeron or AMD processor, 2GB memory, integrated graphics, a 500GB 5400rpm disk and integrated…

Don't forget the 1366x768 screen! They were selling those as standard on 15.6" laptops with the good old "It's a good screen because it has more inches" line. Only in the last year or two has anything better than that become remotely common.

"Were"? As far as I'm aware that's still the case for the vast majority of cheap mainstream laptops all the way up to 17" ones.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#202

Post by balls187 »

craigmccaskill wrote: post #160

I'm using a ~5 year old PC I built myself and it still outperforms the hardware in any available mac product (desktop, tablet or laptop) that isn't a Mac Pro (starting price $2999,00). I don't have a compelling reason to upgrade until the launch of VR headsets.

I am also using a phone that outperforms the hardware of any available PC that wasn't built in this century.

Putting aside the hyperbole, I'm willing to bet the USB 3.0 and TB2 ports on my MBP out perform the ports on your 5-year old PC.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#204

Post by jdietrich »

slantyyz wrote: post #46
mikehearn wrote: post #36

I interpreted that comment as a jab at the PC industry. The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade. Isn't that the correct interpretation, considering the whole point of bringing that up is because they're positioning a new device intended to replace the PC? I seriously doubt it's intended to mean (to quote the article) "LOL poo…

>> The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade Compelling reason why I had to upgrade my iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and original iPad after less than 3 years? Painfully slow and unusable. Well if the compelling reason to upgrade is "painfully slow and unusable", then maybe a >= 5 year old PC that still works isn't a bad thing. If I'm no…

This is why Chromebooks are brilliant devices for a lot of users. You lose out on functionality, but you completely avoid bloat. They reliably boot in 6-8 seconds and stay responsive with a dozen tabs open, even with a puny little Atom or ARM processor.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#205

Post by logfromblammo »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #95
wrong_variable wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. What apple is saying today is something that it has always said - but its only recently that people in america are too poor to buy american products. I grew up around windows and linux, and whenever I tell that in a job interview - people think I am not being serious since "real developers" use mac. In my first software job - I was told to abandon my personal cheap linux and use the company's brand new expensive…

> I grew up around windows and linux, and whenever I tell that in a job interview - people think I am not being serious since "real developers" use mac. How true is this? I have noticed the proliferation of Macs in the developer community and I was wondering how much it would hurt me professionally by not owning one. Do devs really make snap judgements based on your platform of choice and could this impact me profess…

Real real developers use a precision flathead screwdriver and a bank of DIP switches.~

One of the great triumphs of computing was abstracting the algorithm away from the specifics of the hardware using compilers. We have the good fortune to be able to configure those compilers to generate several varieties of executable containers, such as ELF, a.out, COFF, EXE (MZ), EXE (PE/COFF), JAR, Mach-O, and others. As long as the OS has an installed virtual machine or ABI that can handle the executable, it will be able to run it.

If anyone got snooty with me about my hardware, I think I'd consider myself lucky to not need to work with them.

Does it have a text editor? Does it have a compiler? Yes to both means that real developers can use it.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#206

Post by balls187 »

I believe that an iPad (or comparable Android Tablet) is better for most computer users than any low/mid-tier 5-year old PC.

With PC's you can upgrade them, and make tweaks to squeeze out every bit of performance, but by and large for most people, when taking into account that mobile content consumption is on the rise, a tablet is a better upgrade than a new PC. Tasks like email, text, video, music, photography, facebook, are pretty much now done via mobile phone. For these people, PCs are anachronistic.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#207

Post by atonse »

paulmd wrote: post #80
atonse wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great exception to the rule. The overwhelming majority of computers Apple is talking about, are probably shitty $400 PCs that were underpowered from day one, which are just barely chugging along. Because that is actually what most people buy.

Thing is, OS bloat has finally ground to a halt. Win8.1 wasn't really any slower than 7, and Win10 is actually faster in my experience. So really, you don't need a stronger machine today than you did five years ago. Any perceived slowdown is just the result of malware, fragmentation, and DLL buildup - refresh the OS and maybe install an SSD and they're fine. I'm using a laptop from 2010 with an i7-720QM and an SSD, a…

Partly. Yes, the operating systems feel faster, but they are all relying more on GPUs for their rendering. And one way cheap Windows PCs keep their costs down is by using cheap integrated GPUs that are quite underpowered.

I use Windows 10 on in VMWare every day at 4k resolution on my retina macbook pro. It feels a bit sluggish, but I know I'm pushing the limits of VM graphics on a laptop with that resolution. But I can only imagine that a computer that's 6-7 years old would start to struggle graphically in Windows 10.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#208

Post by logfromblammo »

agentgt wrote: post #162

I interpreted it as "it's sad that those Window users having been using just Windows for 5 or more years and not Mac". IMO He's catering to the audience of Apple enthusiasts (who are the ones that watch Apple events generally) and not making fun of poor people. Its sort of analogous to when Jobs said: "It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell" -- about iTunes on Windows computers Oh so Jobs thinks Wi…

Methinks Jobs had an overly high opinion of iTunes.

Giving iTunes to a Windows user is more like giving a massive, ugly, wooden horse to a Trojan, and it is so incredibly unwieldy that the lintel has to be removed from the city gate to even get it inside. Then a bunch of bearded maniacs come out of it and kill everybody.

I can't even tell you how many times I have been murdered in my sleep by iTunes. Okay, well, yes I can--zero. But that doesn't stop me from thinking it might happen one day.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#209

Post by lewisl9029 »

livus wrote: post #184
pjc50 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compelling reason why I had to upgrade my iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and original iPad after less than 3 years? Painfully slow and unusable. Exactly. Upgrading is a cost; not just money but also time. I upgraded my 1st gen iPad's OS exactly once (5 -> 6 I think) and it was a completely horrendous experience, involving PC iTunes. The main driver of PC upgrades, apart from improved games, is bloat and the slow deterioration o…

I concur with you on not wanting forced upgrades and manufactured obsolescence. But I have found rentalware (specifically Adobe Creative Cloud as I use it) to be a somewhat positive experience. Adobe pushes out updates frequently enough where you see positive increment in productivity without it being an annoying update. Plus it has bought the price within affordable range for people like me who can afford the softwa…

> The only subscription I do not see any benefit in, as a individual developer, is Microsoft Office 365. That's more aimed at business's whose full life depends on the software.

If the Office 365 subscription (for businesses) only included the Office suite, then I'd agree with you, but it also includes hosted email (for your own domain) and 1TB of OneDrive storage. To put that in perspective, Google Apps is a comparable product that offers hosted email, and it costs around the same but only includes 30GB of storage.

On paper at least, the subscription provides quite a bit of value. If only OneDrive for Business wasn't a piece of crap...

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#210

Post by intopieces »

incepted wrote: post #134
mikehearn wrote: post #36

I interpreted that comment as a jab at the PC industry. The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade. Isn't that the correct interpretation, considering the whole point of bringing that up is because they're positioning a new device intended to replace the PC? I seriously doubt it's intended to mean (to quote the article) "LOL poo…

> I seriously doubt it's intended to mean (to quote the article) "LOL poor people". He didn't mean to but this is the general reflection of the culture that permeates Apple as a company and the bubble in which they live. I remember once one of my wealthy friends saying "I don't understand why people live in one bedroom apartments". I stared at her for a solid minute to determine if she was joking but no, she was dead…

But now you've changed the substance of the utterance entirely. He didn't say, "I don't understand why people use 5 year old computers." He said that it's "sad" that they do. And, when you believe that your product -- especially the latest iteration of that product -- genuinely improves people's lives, it follows that anyone who doesn't have it is 'missing out on something great.'

This controversy ranks right up there with the 'let's make her smile' bit from the iPad Pro announcement. Manufactured to create a story, but not impactful in any way.

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