The New Apple Advantage • Hacker News Board

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#331

Post by code_duck » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 1:11 AM UTC

socratic wrote: post #47

Gruber's argument confuses me: 1. Steve Jobs, the only CEO to ever successfully lead Apple in the company's 25-year history, has resigned. 2. Because of the current popularity of the iPad, iPhone, and MacBooks, Apple has great economies of scale. (However, Gruber primarily gives us anecdotes to support this.) 3. These economies of scale are evidence that the new CEO, an operations guy, will be able to lead the compan…

There's no reason to even try to analyze it to that extent. Gruber's essay composition plan appears to be to start with the conclusion, which is invariably that Apple is the best possible at everything, will reign eternally supreme. Then he fills in whatever works in the middle to get there.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#332

Post by statictype » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 1:30 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #249

statictype wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently, Apple had a 13" Macbook Air, a 13" MacBook and a 13" MacBook Pro. As a first-time Mac buyer last year I was certainly confused about the difference between the plastic MacBook and the MacBook Pro. I find it hard to believe that simplicity of choice is a reason people buy Apple laptops. If you're looking at the various MacBook models, you've pretty much already made a conscious decision to consider buy…

But you can just look at the pictures to tell them apart. Oh, that one's tiny and made of aluminum, that one's bigger and made of plastic, and that one's bigger and made of aluminum. I didn't have to click through meaningless pages of non-differentiating differentiations to see those options, they were right there on the page.

I could certainly tell them apart by looking at them. Question was why they had these 2 different models in the first place

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#333

Post by Xuzz » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 2:08 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #328

salgernon wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gdb /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes (gdb) fb ptrace (gdb) run [ breaks at ptrace ] (gdb) return [ type 'y' to return to the parent, skipping the call ] pirate your music or whatever you wanted to do. I'm not sure who this was supposed to prevent from doing what, although I'm sure that it wouldn't be in there if there wasn't a contractual obligation to do something for the people providing them with con…

If you skip the ptrace call, you can't "pirate your music or whatever you wanted to do". The whole point of running GDB is to call ptrace.

You're not skipping gdb's ptrace, you're skipping when iTunes calls it. iTunes calls ptrace() with PT_DENY_ATTACH to disallow gdb from attaching to it, which this method easily skips to let you attach to iTunes without any issues.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#334

Post by ptomato » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 3:03 AM UTC

kleptco wrote: post #282

armandososa wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could we possibly, as a community, just agree that a blacklist of Gruber posts is good for us? If I am to be considered to be part of that community then no, I can't agree with that. I actually like quite a lot the way he writes even if I don't agree with him most of the time. In fact, I think the community has already agreed that they like Daring Fireball posts, otherwise it wouldn't be on the front page. We can agr…

DF is an evangelist for the Apple religion, so he reliably brings out the true believers. This stuff might be entertaining but it's certainly not informative. BTW, this is part of the diabolical genius of Apple - it is not a consumer choice, it is belief system.

He even more reliably brings out all the somehow even more annoying people with an irrational hate-on for all things Apple.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#335

Post by eropple » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 3:16 AM UTC

jarek wrote: post #320

eropple wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to learn. Just not with their software. You know that going in, it's not a secret if you've done your due diligence regarding these things about which you purportedly care. Personally, I grew out of computers-as-ideology a long time ago. I'll trade the ability to run GDB on my media player the zero times I'll ever want to do it for a fantastic user experience for the other 100% of the time I'm using my co…

While I see your point, the frustrating thing is that blocking itunes from gdb in no way helps them deliver a fantastic user experience.

Sure, but you know going in (again, if you've done your research) that they do it. So if it's important to you, don't buy it. I don't care about that, so I will.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#336

Post by eropple » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 3:19 AM UTC

slowpoke wrote: post #322

eropple wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to learn. Just not with their software. You know that going in, it's not a secret if you've done your due diligence regarding these things about which you purportedly care. Personally, I grew out of computers-as-ideology a long time ago. I'll trade the ability to run GDB on my media player the zero times I'll ever want to do it for a fantastic user experience for the other 100% of the time I'm using my co…

> Just not with their software. Again, why? It's still not an argument to hide what the program does on your computer. To put it bluntly, it's bullshit and you know it. > I'll trade the ability to run GDB on my media player the zero times I'll ever want to do it for a fantastic user experience That's completely besides the point - this has nothing to do with the "user experience" (which is quite the opposite of "fant…

> Again, why? It's still not an argument to hide what the program does on your computer. To put it bluntly, it's bullshit and you know it.

Nope. The argument is simple: I don't care. I really don't--I just fundamentally don't care that I cannot run GDB on the iTunes executable. I have much more important things to be annoyed at than that. If you do your research into issues that are important to you, then you know, going in, that Apple does this. (Also, as noted elsewhere in the thread, you can still use GDB to view the executable if you really want to. It's possible. Just not via the conventional method.) If that decision is unacceptable to you, don't buy their stuff. It is acceptable to me, so I will. This really isn't that difficult a concept.

I am not entirely unsympathetic to your viewpoint--a few years ago I went through a GNU-y phase of sorts. But from my perspective, there are things that matter, and this just isn't one. There are certainly things in technology to get all up in arms about. Things that the FSF and fellow travelers such as yourself think are important to get up in arms about are rarely, in my own estimation, in that set. This isn't, either. (This is not to say that the FSF does not sometimes have a valid point--even broken clocks are right twice a day.)

You are entirely free not to buy a computer with OS X if you find their terms unacceptable, just as I am free to buy one if they are. So do so, and enjoy it. And I'll enjoy mine, and we can get on with more important things in our lives. =)

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#337

Post by tpz » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 3:56 AM UTC

jarek wrote: post #121

rayiner wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a geek and I couldn't care less what WiFi chipset is in my laptop. I was shopping for a ThinkPad X220 for someone, and it had the option of the regular screen or the "premium" screen for $50 more. They don't tell you what the "premium" screen is or why you'd want it. I presume the regular screen is shitty. Can you even imagine Apple offering such an option? A $1000+ laptop with a shitty screen, with a $50 option…

FWIW, the "premium" screen is IPS. The regular is TN, which like all TNs (including those on Macbooks ;)) is indeed shitty. I do agree the "premium" description sucks.

It pains me to feed the trolls, but just in case someone finds their way to this page in the future and actually tries to wade through all of the bullshit: Apple uses IPS displays in every product except perhaps the iPod Nano and/or Classic, and I only mention those two because I can't be arsed to check them.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#338

Post by ericdschmidt » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 4:09 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #310

sjwright wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people drive their car without knowing how an internal combustion engine works. Most people watch television without knowing that the picture is comprised of pixels (or scan lines). Is that also sad? Must everyone understand everything they use in sufficient detail? Why should a computer be different? Why should my mum need to understand what an operating system is, let alone care about it?

> Most people watch television without knowing that the picture is comprised of pixels (or scan lines). Is that also sad? That they don't know? A bit. That most don't want to know? Very, very sad. > Why should my mum need to understand what an operating system is, let alone care about it? To better be able to protect herself against malware, to be able to better understand a very important tool in our society, to be…

I'm sure virtually everyone would like to know about everything if they could. But they know they can't; they have to make choices about how they spend their limited time. So they would be delighted to learn about TVs and computers and VCRs if they could upload the knowledge instantly into their brain like in The Matrix; but they can't. So they focus on what particularly interests them. Some people prefer to learn about Japanese post-war cinema. Again, I'm sure most people would love to learn all about that if they could do so at no opportunity cost. Just based on the specificity of the subject I can guess that you are not particularly interested in Japanese post-war cinema and will not choose to learn about it in your lifetime. But that's not sad. No one can learn about everything.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#339

Post by biot » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 4:23 AM UTC

dlss wrote: post #323

biot wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #2: plug in your previous Mac's Time Machine drive and it takes two minutes to initiate a restore. All your apps and data are restored automatically for you while you sit back and have lunch. What's that process like on Windows?

Windows also has backup solutions. If you use one of those setup time is similarly decreased. Please google first next time.

I've used Windows for decades and have yet to find a solution that is satisfactory for reinstalling apps. Documents and other data, sure that's easy on Windows and I fully agree with you there.

Rather than suggesting I google something (what, "windows backup software"? and spend several days becoming familiar with the myriad solutions?) since you seem to be so informed on similarly performing backup software as Time Machine and this is a site meant to have civil discussions, perhaps you can recommend a Windows backup solution that can restore all your apps as easily as Time Machine can. Or, for that matter, how I can network two Windows machines together and copy all the apps from one machine to the other like I can on a Mac by copying the contents of the Applications folder.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#340

Post by achompas » Sun, Sep 11, 2011, 4:42 AM UTC

dlss wrote: post #325

achompas wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're here linking benchmark charts, because as a power user you believe power users represent a large subset of computer owners. We don't. We're in the minority. My girlfriend, and everyone else in the humongous non-power-user subset, does not care about how a Vertex 3 can bury an Air's SSD. She doesn't know the Vertex exists! If she did, she'd probably ask why she should spend $300 on it if her Air already works a…

> implying that power users are the only ones who should think about performance. 1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted. This turns out to make a big difference in productivity. See http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html I'm talking about anyone who values their time. You're talking about secretaries looking at cat pictures. You're also doing that on a thread starte…

I'm talking about anyone who values their time. You're talking about secretaries looking at cat pictures.

Calm down there, Sparky. Are you really suggesting someone doesn't value their time because they bought an Air over an X220 with a SSD? You understand that such an assertion is ridiculous, right?

Here's a "point" for you: given the economic concept of utility, are you shocked that someone would pass on an X220 + Vertex in favor of an Air and a month of groceries? How about the idea that the marginal benefit of a Vertex 3 over an Air may be tiny enough to some that they'll pass?

We haven't even discussed failure rates, which are anecdotally bad on older Vertexes; can you blame someone for choosing an Air, along with 3 years of service at any Apple Store?

Also, another "point" for you: I sincerely doubt you would've responded like that in person, so you should probably re-read HN's commenting rules and think twice next time.