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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

#81

Post by gopz »

Apple says this shit every time it has a major press event. Saying it mocks poor people is digging around for something to be offended about. Is the author really offended every time they see an ad for a newer car model when current and prior models work just fine? Saying it mocks good hardware isn't out of touch. Seriously, what did they think Apple was going to say:

> Buy a new iPad pro.

Schiller turns around, goes back to the slides, stops midway, turns to the crowd and says "But I still use an old PC, because if it ain't broke, don't fix it!", winks, and continues the presentation.

Come on, this article is grasping at straws.

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

#82

Post by kdamken »

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'd disagree, no one is forcing people to buy iPhones. If the kids all have iPhones, then they have parents who aren't very good at not buying things they can't afford and teaching their kids that worth doesn't come from possessions.

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

#83

Post by vegabook »

Udo wrote: post #10

I'm an Apple-only user at the moment, both mobile and desktop. When Apple asserts that a desktop computer should be replaced by a locked-down handheld device with very limited capabilities, the odd thing seems to me is they don't realize these devices do very different things and fulfill very different needs. I don't worry about the demise of the desktop because I'm nostalgic, I worry about the loss of power and prod…

> Apple is misjudging the needs of their users, to the point where trendsetters like programmers will be switching away from the platform

I feel like this. I feel like the content creators (creative or coding) are being left behind by Apple which has pivoted far too far towards consumer tech.

I know professionals aren't profitable compared to the IOS devices, but they surely punch way above their weight on contributing innovation to the Apple ecosystem.

A small detail provides clear evidence of the problem: the drop in fusion-drive NAND Flash from 128 to 24 GB late last year. Probably this still serves 90% of users perfectly well, but it's an insult to power users.

I for one hope Apple will stop the drift of OSX towards IOS-like candification, and that it will keep up a serious effort on the professional market for the Mac. A good start would be a reversal of the Mac-mini "update" joke, which was actually a regression from 2012, with a user-servicable, 32-GB capable, skylake 4C/8T design as in, now, and please, can we have a proper Cinema display that's not 6 years old?

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

#84

Post by ashitlerferad »

masklinn wrote: post #19
jMyles wrote: post #11

In addition to the point the author makes about the benefits of modularity, this strikes me as environmentally tone-deaf as well. Do we just expect devices to enter the waste stream every 5 years now? Can't we do better?

That, sadly, is something Apple really doesn't support or encourage, by and large they've kept moving away from reparable and upgradable products[0] even though that's by far the most ecological option (short of not using industrial products in the first place) [0] to trade them for form (soldered RAM, fused display panels), for assembly convenience (tons of adhesives, thankfully they've at least started moving to ad…

At least oranges are delicious.

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

#86

Post by metafunctor »

cballard wrote: post #62
ricw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Modern iPads have something called “Split View”, where you can have two apps open and active at the same time. Only two, though, but it mostly solves this problem.

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

#87

Post by snowwrestler »

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…

Yes, this is the moment in the post when he moves the goalposts:

> I also own a desktop PC that’s five years old. I haven’t upgraded that either. Why? Because it’s a desktop PC: I can pull out parts and replace them with newer versions as they age. I don’t need a wholesale upgrade.

In the course of 3 sentences the standard went from "upgrade" to "wholesale upgrade", which is of course not what Phil Schiller said. A PC that has had a bunch of new parts installed is not what Schiller was talking about.

That said, I largely agree with the author that it was a dumb thing for Schiller to say. It doesn't make any point about the iPad Pro, and it makes Apple look like they are mocking people who can't afford their products--never a good look for any company, and undercuts the "doing good" message the rest of the keynote attempted to deliver.

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

#88

Post by ultramancool »

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'm not so sure about that. I could fairly easily afford a new iPhone or some other flagship device like that. Yet if I were to buy a new phone right now... factory refurb Nexus 5 on for $150 USD is probably the most tempting option.

If the cheap ass option does everything you'll need, you still don't waste money on the more expensive one.

I'm guessing this combination more than likely just boils down to some people who aren't very good at making financial decisions...

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

#89

Post by Gorbzel »

neonhomer wrote: post #18
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…

Those some good points, but if some one is living paycheck to paycheck they still can't afford a new device. Also iCloud backup only does so much data before it costs something, so that could be another additional cost that some people are not going to be able to afford.

But that's the problem: the good points about hardware quality are objectively true regardless of an end user's ability to afford a replacement or the article author's proclivity to get offended.

Things are improving, but many components in a PC are known to eventually give out — the metric for hard drive longevity is literally known as "mean time to failure," batteries have cycle counts, etc.

Nor is the gap between quality components and inferior alternatives bridged suddenly because someone heard Phil Schiller say something they didn't like. An $150 Acer trackpad is going to be significantly worse than a $1500 MacBook trackpad. I highly doubt this article gets published if the author had tried to use a 2011 budget PC laptop.

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

#90

Post by fpgeek »

consto wrote: post #40
widdershins wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can see, Apple 'get' the different use cases better than some others in the industry. That's why they've been reluctant to add touch screen to their laptops as Microsoft have done, because they don't see it being useful. I think this was just an ill-judged offhand comment. P.S. I'm typing this on an 2010 MBP which, with an SSD upgrade, still works beautifully.

My laptop has a touch screen, and I have it disabled in device manager to stop people (including me) touching it.

Conversely, my 7 year old daughter dramatically prefers her guest account on my touchscreen laptop as opposed to the non-touch Chromebook we had intended for her to use. She just has a hard time wrapping her head around the idea of a screen that doesn't do anything when you touch it.
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