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That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

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Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#331

Post by zanny »

js2 wrote: post #163
zanny wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to say this. If you are legitimately poor, you can get a used Moto G 2013 for $35 and activate it on Freedompop for some free data each month and use wifi wherever possible. That would be a phone on a budget. iphones are absolutely just for prestige, the same way Macbooks in universities are.

iphones are absolutely just for prestige I have an iPhone 6S (and previously an iPhone 5) on Verizon, through my employer. Personally, my wife has a Nexus 4 and my daugther a Moto G, both on T-Mobile pre-paid. Both of them tell me about crappy network coverage, poor camera image quality, and so forth. I'm not saying these aren't perfectly acceptable alternatives when you're on a budget or are frugal or these just are…

I agree the lowest tier of phones cameras are not as good as an extremely expensive phone camera. Besides the whole I want to actually own computers in my possession part, part of the reason I have an S4 is for camera fidelity. My grandmother has a Note 4, predominantly for its good camera.

But we are not talking about luxurious features. A Moto G camera still takes better photos than almost any consumer camera from before 2003 that most people had (I'm talking the old disposable point and shoots or a a bulky film camera). If you need to take pictures, an entry level phone like the Moto G does more than enough of a good job - you can easily take photos of anything, you have flash, and they will be reasonable pictures. You will know what it is a picture of and discern light detail. It does the job.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#332

Post by siegecraft »

qznc wrote: post #268
blub wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with those cheap phones is that your private information will be mercilessly sucked into the Google cloud. Some of that is disguised as perfectly innocent and helpful features: contacts syncing, back-ups, connecting more easily to WiFis, etc. The end result though is that your entire digital life will be on some Google server. Preventing this requires significant effort and technical expertise. We got win…

Just never enter your Google password into your Android phone. The problem is: Access to the App Store. Not sure, if you can work around this.

You could use alternative app stores (Amazon's comes to mind, although of course you have to sign in to amazon for that) or download APKs directly.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#333

Post by rockshassa »

protomyth wrote: post #251
ar0 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on the interpretation of Phil Schiller's statement. You are basically arguing "for many people an iPad is a better computing device than a PC because there is less that can go wrong with it". Which I think is a very valid point, however it does not hinge on how old these PCs are - your argument works just as well for new PCs without properly configured backups and anti-virus protection. If you read…

> What the author of the article finds offensive - and which also put me off when watching the live presentation - was the suggestion that using old hardware is "sad". Using old hardware is sad. I work in a depressed area and we constantly fix our students computers. 5 years is a long time on a hard drive and the forced Windows 10 upgrade has been a pain to people on 5 year old hardware. Its fine for technical people…

This is a great point as well, and I wish I did a better job articulating that in my own comment.

Ultimately, there is nothing noble about "good hardware" in a vacuum. Hardware and software can achieve nobility only when they're serving humanity, be them rich or poor, technical or non-technical.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#334

Post by ams6110 »

skywhopper wrote: post #223
kdamken wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember, it's tough to be a teenager. It's a shame they have to go through that. But at the end of the day if you can't afford lunch, you need to reevaluate your priorities. Maybe get a slightly older iPhone, or one of the many cheaper but comparable Androids.

Just because the school provides free lunch to everyone does not mean the family cannot afford lunch. At some point it becomes cheaper to just give everyone lunch than to deal with the hassle of deciding which kid owes $1.55 and which doesn't. In fact, providing free lunch to all children in public school is an extremely cheap way of marginally reducing kids' awareness of who's poor and who isn't.

Very marginal if at at all. Believe me especially by middle school and older, everyone knows who is poor, who is rich, who is a slut, who is religious, who is a jock, etc. And there are other ways, e.g. everyone has a swipe card or number code to "pay" for their lunch and you never know who's on the free lunch program or not.

I've never heard of a school giving free lunch by default, though. Maybe in areas where 99% of the kids would qualify anyway?

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#335

Post by ksk »

rockshassa wrote: post #12

I just can't bring myself to feel the author's anger, in any capacity. He wants to position this as a jab against those who build their own PCs, but that is utterly irrelevant. What percentage of those 600 million five-year-old PCs do you really think are being thoughtfully maintained by modders? Does the author realize that most people do not want the responsibility of maintaining their own hardware? Or that they do…

Not everyone in the world has access to fast internet. Or even internet that would allow large bandwidth consumption as you are forced to have with iCloud. (not going into the general unreliability of Apple services)

Why don't poor people just eat something from the fridge when they're hungry?

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#336

Post by croon »

masklinn wrote: post #224
croon wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not much a context can change with a sentence like "ultimate pc replacement"... The word "ultimate" doesn't leave anything up to interpretation.

Of course there is: the context of a use case or population.

1) They named it after their "Pro" line of products, and showed statistics of ALL PC users, not a subset.

2) That would have been phrased "a PC replacement for X users".

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#337

Post by zanny »

vollmond wrote: post #159
zanny wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to say this. If you are legitimately poor, you can get a used Moto G 2013 for $35 and activate it on Freedompop for some free data each month and use wifi wherever possible. That would be a phone on a budget. iphones are absolutely just for prestige, the same way Macbooks in universities are.

I was going to say you could get a similar level iPhone for a similar price -- most people seem to compare top-of-the-line iPhones with low- or mid-range Android devices. But then I looked up the iPhone 4s (2013's low-range) on eBay and didn't see one for less than $70. I'm honestly surprised by that.

I'm a huge advocate of using refurbished two or so year old phones for anyone I have influence on the purchasing decisions of, because while there was a period of extremely rapid feature growth (2009-2014) since then phones have been "good enough" in the same way notebooks and desktops have been "good enough" since about 2007.

There is a price floor I find on any older phone. They generally won't fall below $50, and I always find the Moto G 2013 exceptional in how you can get them really cheap. A great example is that I am always watching S series phone prices on Swappa, but in my experience (pre-S7, usually this list shifts down a price tier when the new phone comes out):

S2 for $80, S3 for $100, S4 for $150, S5 for $225, S6 for $300. When the S7 comes out, the S3 will probably drop to S2 range and S4 might drop to S3 range, but I expect less of a decline than that because since the S3/4 the feature differences have diminished substantially. An S4 is still a beast phone today - 1080p 5" screen, quad core CPU, 13MP camera.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#338

Post by CaptainZapp »

JohnBooty wrote: post #275
noxToken wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not sure if I was suddenly without money, the iPhone would be what I would want to give up. If you have an iPhone and then become poor, sure. You probably won't get ahead much by getting rid of your iPhone. If you're already poor, then an iPhone (not a smartphone) is definitely a luxury. There are capable smartphones for much cheaper then an iPhone that could get the job done. That's what GP was likely getting…

> If you're already poor, then an iPhone (not a smartphone) is definitely a luxury. It's not wrong, nor necessarily economically irresponsible, for "poor" people to have a few nice things. Assuming a lifespan of 3 years, the cost difference between a $600 phone and a $300 phone is barely more than $0.25 per day - and probably even less, considering that iPhones have a higher resale value. Maybe that "poor person" car…

I'm not sure if you have any perspective what being poor means.

This link : http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

Seems quite appropriate and - I hope - illuminating.

Re: That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

#339

Post by bryondowd »

smarx007 wrote: post #180
rileymat2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if I was suddenly without money, the iPhone would be what I would want to give up. The utility of the device is incredible: Mapping. Phone. Internet. Email. Alarm Clock. Calendaring. Photography. If anything we should work to get smart phones in the hands of the poor. It would be a great way to improve their lives for a somewhat modest cost. I am not sure it is all for looks. Maybe we could quibble abou…

First, let's get the internet part clear. Mobile internet is consistently more expensive that fixed line (in xUSSR at least). And as somebody with more than 1 degree, I can tell you that you don't need an iphone map, phone, alarm, or camera functionality to make your life better, while internet and email on a mobile device is counterproductive. If you really want to save money and get better, go buy a core 2 duo desk…

Well, I pay $5 for the limited data plan on my phone, here in the US (Walmart Family Mobile). That's on top of $25/mo primary line and $20/mo additional lines. The cheapest internet line for my home I could find was around $30 at a promotional rate, which bumped up to $45 after a year. Yes, I can get more data per dollar out of that $45 line, but aside from entertainment purposes, I can get by on my 1GB of data. Or I could bump it to 5GB for another $10 and that would get me by on everything short of regular streaming or large downloads. So, being frugal, it does make sense in some cases to just get a cheap phone with a data plan, even more so if you don't need a home PC, as many poor folk.
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