Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

techinasia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 595 posts

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

#491

Post by fabianhjr »

noxToken wrote: post #98
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…

> 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…

Google/Android has the Android One Program. https://www.android.com/one/

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

#492

Post by saturdaysaint »

croon wrote: post #201
saturdaysaint wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the odd thing seems to me is they don't realize these devices do very different things and fulfill very different needs." They realize it - remember Jobs' "truck vs. car" analogy - and they're betting that 90% of the population's needs are better met with a car rather than a truck.

And here's the crux. I don't get the vibe as much that they cater to a specific usergroup, but rather steers/controls them in one direction, with the limitations of their systems. With PC/Linux(/Windows) you can get either the practically grandma safe Ubuntu or Mint installation with everything working, or you can go for Gentoo or Arch or even just a customized Ubuntu or Mint when needing more freedom. There's a thin…

With so many of my fundamental apps being cross platform and/or web-based, I don't see why too many users would feel "controlled".

In any case, I think we underestimate the market and normal people in these conversations. Any iPad user can freely access the internet and quickly find out that their device is basically unusable for programming or a lot of forms of content creation and even gaming. As software eats the world, the cachet for programming has never been higher, especially among the kids/teens we "worry" about, and the tools have never been cheaper or more accessible.

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

#493

Post by bluthru »

peeters wrote: post #438
bluthru wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't think it's fair to expect Apple to support 32-bit processors anymore. It might not be fair to expect it, but it's absolutely fair to count it against how Apple supports their customers.

I don't understand what you mean. Are you saying that Apple doesn't support their customers well because they don't spend time writing software for 10 year old hardware?

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

#494

Post by hutattedonmyarm »

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…

> if Apple sold an Apple TV with a keyboard and mouse (or other pointing device) that had Pages, etc., I would recommend that.

sounds like a Mac Mini to me

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

#495

Post by peferron »

My wife's iPad 2 slowed down to a crawl after updating to iOS 8. She doesn't use it anymore because of that. Obviously Apple doesn't want iOS devices more than 5 years old to remain in use either.

In the meantime I've upgraded my parents' PC from Win XP to Win 10 and it runs as fast or even faster than before.

I agree with the Apple exec that it's really sad.

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

#496

Post by protomyth »

hutattedonmyarm wrote: post #494
protomyth wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> if Apple sold an Apple TV with a keyboard and mouse (or other pointing device) that had Pages, etc., I would recommend that. sounds like a Mac Mini to me

Nope. The Mac mini is more expensive ($499 versus $149) and harder to maintain. Apple spends quite a bit of time on self managing. I'm hoping Apple or one of the Android devices will fill this niche. I keep looking, but all I keep seeing are failed kickstarters.

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

#497

Post by georgeglue1 »

I'm preaching to the choir here, but the obvious third case the author omits is 'semi-technical folks who don't want to deal with the friction of a new environment', which is not so offensive.

And 600 million 5+ year PCs seems like a low number...

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

#499

Post by eric_h »

sametmax wrote: post #487
charlesdm wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the reasons why I haven't upgraded my iPad 2 past iOS6. It still streams Netflix great though, but the browser is starting to show its age - I can't load all webpages anymore. :( Looks like I might need to pick up a new iPad..

"Looks like I might need to pick up a new iPad.." That is insane. I can load all webpages on any laptop from 5 years ago. A browser doesn't become "slower". Even with bigger pages, they are still web pages, not 3D games. It means the ipad itself is, for some reason, rendering itself slow. And you can't do anything about it because you can't hack it. And your idea of the solution to the problem is to buy a new one ? M…

In the last 5 years, bloat on web pages has increased considerably. Tracking script counts on all pages has gone way up, and I very frequently will find that if I leave some web pages in a background tab, their memory usage will climb into the gigabytes, even for pages that are mostly just text! Since the ram on those older devices is not getting any bigger, of course web pages are going to get slower.

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

#500

Post by maxxxxx »

skywhopper wrote: post #206
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.

If you're poor and don't want everyone around you to know it, why would you buy the phone that screams "hey, I'm poor and got the cheapest possible phone!" Everyone has something they do to stand out from the people that surround them. It's cruel to suggest that folks living in poverty can only be deserving of assistance if they embrace their poverty and advertise it to the world. There are real costs to appearing po…

I am not poor and have a beat up Moto E bought for $99. I don't think anybody thinks I am poor either. A phone (and $300 sneakers) are very bad devices for signaling status.
Post reply on HN