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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

#381
post #117

"Maybe Apple really does find the idea of hardware that can function for five years 'sad' and funny these days." I don't think this is true. Apple just replaced the motherboard on my 2011 Macbook Pro for free. I've also upgraded the RAM, HD to a SSD, Battery, & Fans. Its running soooo good I love it. The price of 5+ year old macbook pros, imacs, and mac pros on ebay is proof that apple does make hardware that lasts..…

free? Does that happen only in USA? Apple care in India quoted me around 400 dollars for replacement with 6 months warranty. No way i am buying second hand Apple hardware in India if service costs so much.

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

#382
post #41

I completely agree with the author of the article. Apple is the real-world incarnation of the economic premise of Huxley's "A Brave New World". This was just the mask dropping for a second to pander to the faithful. I'd like to add, as someone who works at K12 public high school, that I've seen the reality of the article played out. My building is 100% free lunch, most are extremely poor, and yet there is a sizable n…

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…

But can get a nice Motorola for £150 and a £7 month sim - you dont need a Iphone do do all that

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

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot, but the evidence indicates that the majority of humanity judge a person's worth on their assets, money and job title. Sometimes, physical appearance as well.

You don't have to listen to random strangers' judgments though.

And what about all the people who are not random strangers? The people who can have a material effect on my life and will do so, in part, on their assessment of my worth? Shall I ignore them as well? What does that get me?

The points I was making without spelling them out explicitly, before being confronted with the sad fact that too many people appear to have been watching the Hallmark Channel, are that there is no such thing as intrinsic worth, people make decisions that affect you based in part upon their assessment of your worth, and a lot of that assessment is based on possessions, money, job title and physical appearance.

Choosing to ignore this doesn't make it go away.

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

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people don't need to 'seem less poor'. They need to be less poor. And admitting you need to save is the first step to doing so. I wonder if this need to seem less poor so often is actually part of how some of them get poor; wasting money/effort trying to influence perception instead of spending it trying to change reality.

You're close, the poor in most cases have self-defeating money habits. Any time they get money, they spend it immediately on things that have a short term feel-good effect, because their life has so little of that otherwise. This might be junk food, cigarettes/booze/drugs, lottery tickets, restaurant meals, gadgets or other "bling" etc. They rarely have a person in their life who models delayed gratification and savi…

>They rarely have a person in their life who models delayed gratification and saving behavior, let alone strategic investing, so they never see the benefit of doing that.

I'm not really sure this is correct. If you have a source please do share it.

From what I've read, the reason they have difficulty saving isn't because they weren't taught to do so but because when you constantly have to no to things you want, you use up a lot of energy, or more specifically, glucose. This in turn makes you more impulsive and less rational.

For example see: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2010/wan...

That being the case, I don't really like the idea of labeling poor people as being poor because of their inability to save or their own foolishness. There have also been studies that show that living in poverty actually changes your brain and makes you less intelligent.

See: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/poverty-disturbs-c...

It's a self perpetuating cycle as far as I can tell

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

#386
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an iPhone 3GS in 2009, that's 6 and a half years ago and my daughter now uses it at school. It even still connects to the App Store. Other than a cracked screen it works fine. Battery life isn't great, but it gets her through the school day. These things have incredible lifetimes and also keep their resale value very well. So in terms of value, I'm not convinced that iPhones are a frivolous luxury. In my exp…

I still have an iPad 1 and I have the opposite feeling. Many websites kill the browser and I can't install another one. I'm gradually running out of use cases (browsing the web in a comfortable position is my main use case) and the device hardware itself is in perfect shape.

I second you on this. My ipad one is perfect but websites are killing it. Reddit and Hcker News are working fine mbasic.facebook.com too but for other websites I expect a crash as soon as I touch the link. People talk about planned obsolescence but it's webdesigners that killed my Ipad1 not Apple.

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

#387
post #284
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they should drop the 'pro' labelling on the ipad pro. Because the surface pro line is a perfectly acceptable laptop replacement for power users and professionals looking to do computing.

The surface pro is a laptop . The iPad Pro is a tablet for professional work. There are many professionals who can get their work done using an iPad.

Actually, no, the Surface Pro is a tablet. The Surface Book is a laptop.

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

#388
post #41

I completely agree with the author of the article. Apple is the real-world incarnation of the economic premise of Huxley's "A Brave New World". This was just the mask dropping for a second to pander to the faithful. I'd like to add, as someone who works at K12 public high school, that I've seen the reality of the article played out. My building is 100% free lunch, most are extremely poor, and yet there is a sizable n…

If you carefully read the fine article, you will notice that the author states: "There are really only two reasons why people might have a computer that’s more than five years old: 1. They can’t afford an upgrade. 2. They don’t need an upgrade." and then proceeds to examine and _dismiss_ #1 as a plausible motive for these comments. What he is complaining about is disposable hardware. I am also bothered by this trend,…

Not sure we read the same article. The author did not dismiss #1 as a plausible motive. He dismissed it as the likely motive, to give Apple the benefit of the doubt, from fear about what it would mean about them otherwise.

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

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm glad you posted that: everybody should read it and truly try to put themselves in those shoes. I do not understand the fact that you seem to have posted it as a rebuttal to my post. My post was meant as a criticism of another indignity that the poor often face: other peoples' (often baseless, and always condescending) criticisms of their financial decisions. Their criticisms often carry the subtext that poor peop…

Thanks for the clarification. I think it was mostly this statement :

  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
that triggered my response. Rereading it: you're right. I'm still glad to have posted the link :)

What really riles me up is that a lot of people have no clue how expensive it actually is to be poor and how hard is it to break the vicious circle. That's in addition that a lot of poor people work equally hard as the rest of us.

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

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two 10-year old PCs in active use on my desk right now - both are running Windows 10, one is playing back Netflix right now while I type this on a third (brand new) machine. The kicker? Those two 10-year old "PCs" are actually MacBooks. They still run fine & do everything I need those machines to do - but I had to install Windows 10 on them, because Apple stopped supporting their own hardware. A machine that m…

I don't think it's fair to expect Apple to support 32-bit processors anymore. OS X will run on Core2Duo, which is nearly 10 years old. My parents' iMac is a 2006 and runs El Cap.

I think it's understandable, but also interesting when juxtaposed with Microsoft still making 32-bit versions of Windows 10 in 2016. They're supporting the same hardware that Apple won't, and also an additional 10 years of security updates (Windows 10 End-Of-Life for those 32-bit machines is October 14, 2025 [1]).

I also have a 64-bit Core 2 Duo that Apple no longer supports. OS X Lion was the last release for the 2007 MacBook 3,1.

[1] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/lifecycle

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