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That awkward moment when Apple mocked good hardware and poor people

techinasia.com

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

#61

Post by ff10 »

waspleg wrote: 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…

Why is it Apple that's a real-world incarnation of Huxley's world? Why is it not the whole society itself (including Apple as a very prominent figure) – as you aptly described with your observations – that is the real real-world incarnation of the Brave New World?

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

#62

Post by cballard »

ricw wrote: post #45
vbezhenar wrote: post #32

I can't imagine how I would replace my laptop with iPad. Some tasks are definitely doable: Web browsing, Mail processing, Music listening, Skype (though chatting on iPad is terrible because you have to switch around all the time, losing your focus, may be split apps might help, can't experience it, because my iPad have RAM like 15-year old PC). Generally speaking for power user every activity on iPad is strictly wors…

The iPad clearly isn't for your use cases. The vast majority of people only want to browse, look at photos, read emails and occasionally write some text. For them it's a cheap ($280 for the cheapest iPad) and easy solution.

Even those tasks are irritating on an iPad - outside of the limited multitasking, viewing multiple things at once is impossible. I can't look at an email and reference a website linked in it. I can't look at a few websites while composing an email. Comparing multiple travel booking sites side-by-side? Nope. If I try switching back and forth, the iPad has probably unloaded one of the tabs in the meantime due to memory pressure - why can't their state be archived to disk and loaded from that, at least?

It's interesting because for a very long time Apple said "maximizing is usually a waste of space" with the zoom button's behavior.

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

#64

Post by bwindels »

rileymat2 wrote: post #60
waspleg wrote: 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…

I know I would, Mapping. Phone. Internet. Email. Alarm Clock. Calendaring are also my primary use cases, but there are devices that cost a lot less than an iPhone that do those things just as good or even better.

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

#65

Post by massysett »

craigc wrote: post #47
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…

You are right that iOS could solve pain points for some of these customers, but then THAT is how Apple should sell people on it. That's what their marketing of old was like. Insulting those people does no one any good. Most likely the people running the types of PCs you speak of do not even know any better. I'm sure a large percent of the PC users are content also. It's not like iOS is some magic piece of software. I…

"You are right that iOS could solve pain points for some of these customers, but then THAT is how Apple should sell people on it. That's what their marketing of old was like. Insulting those people does no one any good."

Marketing of old was "I am a PC" which always left me feeling like the PC guy, not the wise ass Mac guy. Apple has always had this snottiness about PCs, which probably appeals to the hard core Mac audience but is mostly impenetrable to the "I am a PC" guy because he is going to look at the iPad Pro, see it has no keyboard and no mouse and costs however many hundreds, and he's not even going to think of buying it despite whatver snottiness Apple rains out.

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

#66

Post by vostok »

craigc wrote: post #47
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…

You are right that iOS could solve pain points for some of these customers, but then THAT is how Apple should sell people on it. That's what their marketing of old was like. Insulting those people does no one any good. Most likely the people running the types of PCs you speak of do not even know any better. I'm sure a large percent of the PC users are content also. It's not like iOS is some magic piece of software. I…

I used to have an 11" MacBook Air of a similar age. It broke so I was about to buy a new one before I discovered that they still don't have retina displays and have a very small amount of ram.

They quoted such a high price for repairs that I was able to purchase a Chromebook with 4GB of RAM and an Intel NUC with 16GB of RAM for the same amount. Both are running Linux, and I'm very happy.

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

#67

Post by jwoah12 »

rileymat2 wrote: post #60
waspleg wrote: 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…

You just described the functionality of every single phone on the market, though. Almost all of which are much less expensive than the iPhone.

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

#69

Post by studentrob »

Schiller is marketing his company's product. So what?

What he said was along the same lines of rhetoric as all the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials.

There's nothing to take personally about what an executive says about the products you choose to use in your home. That's your choice.

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

#70

Post by qb45 »

bogomipz wrote: post #51

In the last year we've seen Apple produce a pencil and a watch, whats next a paperclip? I found the comment condescending and yet not at all surprising. Seriously F them.

> whats next a paperclip?

Smart paperclip was a Microsoft thing ;)

You reminded me that I need to dig out and backup my Office 97 disk before it rots.

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