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As someone sitting at a nearly 5 year old Macbook Pro, I took the comment as an off hand throwaway. I understand not liking the comment, but this isn't news. A

As someone sitting at a nearly 5 year old Macbook Pro, I took the comment as an off hand throwaway. I understand not liking the comment, but this isn't news. A company thinks everyone should be using the latest of their products. Oh no.

TearsInTheRain 11y ago
There are two articles about this non-story on the first page of HN. What a joke
- bargl 11y ago
  I think this may be a consequence of HackerNews not having a downvote option for stories. I like the fact that they don't and I wouldn't suggest making the change but it tends to allow stories that have a higher dislike to like ratio to rise because the number of people who have an opinion are very high. This does tend to prevent some filtering of storied I do think should stay up on the top. It would be an interesting experiment to add a downvote to stories button to see what happened, even if that button didn't actually affect where the stories showed in the list at first.
  - jaimex2 11y ago
    or you know, we could use our internal filters. I am disappointed with myself for clicking this link. Sometimes the comments are too hard to pass up.
onion2k 11y ago
A company thinks everyone should be using the latest of their products. Oh no. An alternative way to read this is that Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years, and will therefore fail to support them properly in the long term. Anyone in the market for a computer to last longer than that (eg most home users, and many corporate users who don't lease) might have to look elsewhere. This is not an offhand throwaway comment. This speaks to the absolute heart of Apple's strategy.
- ams6110 11y ago
  Apple makes no money on the OS. That is included with the hardware and upgrades are free. So aside from services such as App Store and iTunes, Apple has to sell hardware to make money. It's not in their interest to encourage people to hang on to older hardware as long as possible.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    It's not in their interest to encourage people to hang on to older hardware as long as possible. There's a difference between encouraging people to hang on to hardware for as long as possible and actively driving away your customers by laughing at them or suggesting that your own products will be obsolete before the customer is ready to update again. To maximise their profit on hardware Apple should be encouraging users to stay within the Apple ecosystem, even if those customers only upgrade every 10 years. This is especially true in today's climate of very powerful computers that will easily do most things a home user wants to do even after a decade. As someone who writes web software I am acutely aware that there are users who are still using old PCs with old software. For Apple to push their customers to abandon Apple products in favour of things that last longer is corporate suicide.
- andremendes 11y ago
  >Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years I think you got the gist of this thread! It's not actually about the poor but about competing products lasting longer than their product planned lifespan, and that's a bad thing for them.
- bluthru 11y ago
  >An alternative way to read this is that Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years Didn't he say Windows PC's? Also OS X supports Core2Duo hardware, which is nearly 10 years old.
- r00fus 11y ago
  > An alternative way to read this is that Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years My late 2008 Aluminum Macbook is still supported on their current OS (El Capitan). That's a 7.5 year old device. This is par for the course for Apple. The current iOS supports iPad2's - a 5+ year old device.
agumonkey 11y ago
That's an odd fact about markets. You have the high rate of progress phase where technological advances almost sell themselves. I didn't have to wonder for long to want a Pentium 200 MMX instead of my Pentium 75. Nowadays it's really tough to convince someone naturally and strongly. They have to push for new 'needs' (4K ?) or allow for crapware and subpar software to trigger the religious reflex newer = better = faster.
- paulmd 11y ago
  4K monitors are a little marginal. 27" is really too small, most people need some DPI enlargement to feel comfortable. The bigger panels increase significantly in price, but I think 32-36" would probably be about right in terms of ppi. 27" 1440P monitors are fantastic though, they strike the perfect balance between resolution, size, and price. If you're used to 22-24" monitors I really encourage you to give it a try, it's very nice for productivity. You can get a cheap Korean VA/IPS monitor for $200 on eBay or a very nice one for $300 or so (the nicer ones have DC backlights which help prevent eyestrain from PWM flickering). Definitely worth it.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    I never used something above 21/22 IIRC, but as a secondary monitor. I'll give it a shot, although nowadays I'm having a retro fetish, give me a 10" orange / black CRT and I'll be happy.
  - slantyyz 11y ago
    Here's my experience with 27" 4K monitors. I originally planned on getting a single 32" 4K IPS monitor, but got tired of waiting for it to come out in Canada. I test drove a few smaller 28 4K screens in the local computer store and realized that I could easily live with 1:1 on a 28". I ended up getting a Dell 27" 4K monitor because I wanted an IPS panel. I realize I'm in a very small minority of users who can use 4K with no scaling at 27" -- I use a standing desk and I have single vision computer glasses for the distance my monitors are away from my face. When I first got the 27" 4K monitor, I was in awe of the glorious real estate it afforded me. That awe didn't last long, however, because I ended up wanting even more real estate. So I bought a second, matching 4K monitor, and it's great. It's like having 8x1080p monitors. I would love the additional real estate from a third and fourth monitor (i.e., 8K equivalent) but things would get harder at that point because of neck movements, stand availability and the fact that I have a small form factor PC with no room for additional video cards.
chasing 11y ago
Also, the event was an hour long advertisement. Not a TED Talk or Nobel Prize acceptance speech. An ad. "The old products suck. Buy our shiny new products!" If advertising offends you, fine. But don't watch an hour-long ad and then get irritated because they try to sell you shit.
jxy 11y ago
As someone typing on a 2011 Macbook Air, I really don't like that comment. What's wrong with using a 5 year old computer? Fortunately their hardwares still last for you and me. I had to send in mine for repair twice. Once for the keyboard and the other for the touchpad. If the company is pushing people to dump their 5 year old hardware, I'm going to be a little nervous to buy their new product.
- Tiktaalik 11y ago
  This was my immediate thought while watching the press conference to. It sounded more a simple tone deaf statement. I buy Apple hardware because I think it's really high quality and I can expect it to last. I was troubled that maybe Apple doesn't align with my beliefs.

TearsInTheRain 11y ago

There are two articles about this non-story on the first page of HN. What a joke

bargl 11y ago
I think this may be a consequence of HackerNews not having a downvote option for stories. I like the fact that they don't and I wouldn't suggest making the change but it tends to allow stories that have a higher dislike to like ratio to rise because the number of people who have an opinion are very high. This does tend to prevent some filtering of storied I do think should stay up on the top. It would be an interesting experiment to add a downvote to stories button to see what happened, even if that button didn't actually affect where the stories showed in the list at first.
- jaimex2 11y ago
  or you know, we could use our internal filters. I am disappointed with myself for clicking this link. Sometimes the comments are too hard to pass up.

onion2k 11y ago

A company thinks everyone should be using the latest of their products. Oh no. An alternative way to read this is that Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years, and will therefore fail to support them properly in the long term. Anyone in the market for a computer to last longer than that (eg most home users, and many corporate users who don't lease) might have to look elsewhere. This is not an offhand throwaway comment. This speaks to the absolute heart of Apple's strategy.

ams6110 11y ago
Apple makes no money on the OS. That is included with the hardware and upgrades are free. So aside from services such as App Store and iTunes, Apple has to sell hardware to make money. It's not in their interest to encourage people to hang on to older hardware as long as possible.
- onion2k 11y ago
  It's not in their interest to encourage people to hang on to older hardware as long as possible. There's a difference between encouraging people to hang on to hardware for as long as possible and actively driving away your customers by laughing at them or suggesting that your own products will be obsolete before the customer is ready to update again. To maximise their profit on hardware Apple should be encouraging users to stay within the Apple ecosystem, even if those customers only upgrade every 10 years. This is especially true in today's climate of very powerful computers that will easily do most things a home user wants to do even after a decade. As someone who writes web software I am acutely aware that there are users who are still using old PCs with old software. For Apple to push their customers to abandon Apple products in favour of things that last longer is corporate suicide.
andremendes 11y ago
>Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years I think you got the gist of this thread! It's not actually about the poor but about competing products lasting longer than their product planned lifespan, and that's a bad thing for them.
bluthru 11y ago
>An alternative way to read this is that Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years Didn't he say Windows PC's? Also OS X supports Core2Duo hardware, which is nearly 10 years old.
r00fus 11y ago
> An alternative way to read this is that Apple themselves don't believe their own products will be worth using after 5 years My late 2008 Aluminum Macbook is still supported on their current OS (El Capitan). That's a 7.5 year old device. This is par for the course for Apple. The current iOS supports iPad2's - a 5+ year old device.

agumonkey 11y ago

That's an odd fact about markets. You have the high rate of progress phase where technological advances almost sell themselves. I didn't have to wonder for long to want a Pentium 200 MMX instead of my Pentium 75. Nowadays it's really tough to convince someone naturally and strongly. They have to push for new 'needs' (4K ?) or allow for crapware and subpar software to trigger the religious reflex newer = better = faster.

paulmd 11y ago
4K monitors are a little marginal. 27" is really too small, most people need some DPI enlargement to feel comfortable. The bigger panels increase significantly in price, but I think 32-36" would probably be about right in terms of ppi. 27" 1440P monitors are fantastic though, they strike the perfect balance between resolution, size, and price. If you're used to 22-24" monitors I really encourage you to give it a try, it's very nice for productivity. You can get a cheap Korean VA/IPS monitor for $200 on eBay or a very nice one for $300 or so (the nicer ones have DC backlights which help prevent eyestrain from PWM flickering). Definitely worth it.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  I never used something above 21/22 IIRC, but as a secondary monitor. I'll give it a shot, although nowadays I'm having a retro fetish, give me a 10" orange / black CRT and I'll be happy.
- slantyyz 11y ago
  Here's my experience with 27" 4K monitors. I originally planned on getting a single 32" 4K IPS monitor, but got tired of waiting for it to come out in Canada. I test drove a few smaller 28 4K screens in the local computer store and realized that I could easily live with 1:1 on a 28". I ended up getting a Dell 27" 4K monitor because I wanted an IPS panel. I realize I'm in a very small minority of users who can use 4K with no scaling at 27" -- I use a standing desk and I have single vision computer glasses for the distance my monitors are away from my face. When I first got the 27" 4K monitor, I was in awe of the glorious real estate it afforded me. That awe didn't last long, however, because I ended up wanting even more real estate. So I bought a second, matching 4K monitor, and it's great. It's like having 8x1080p monitors. I would love the additional real estate from a third and fourth monitor (i.e., 8K equivalent) but things would get harder at that point because of neck movements, stand availability and the fact that I have a small form factor PC with no room for additional video cards.

chasing 11y ago

Also, the event was an hour long advertisement. Not a TED Talk or Nobel Prize acceptance speech. An ad. "The old products suck. Buy our shiny new products!" If advertising offends you, fine. But don't watch an hour-long ad and then get irritated because they try to sell you shit.

jxy 11y ago

As someone typing on a 2011 Macbook Air, I really don't like that comment. What's wrong with using a 5 year old computer? Fortunately their hardwares still last for you and me. I had to send in mine for repair twice. Once for the keyboard and the other for the touchpad. If the company is pushing people to dump their 5 year old hardware, I'm going to be a little nervous to buy their new product.

Tiktaalik 11y ago
This was my immediate thought while watching the press conference to. It sounded more a simple tone deaf statement. I buy Apple hardware because I think it's really high quality and I can expect it to last. I was troubled that maybe Apple doesn't align with my beliefs.