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Confirmation bias turning HN into an anti-Apple echo chamber of niche, subjective rants is really getting old (...and it's not even been a week). As an iOS dev

by Gorbzel 10y ago

Confirmation bias turning HN into an anti-Apple echo chamber of niche, subjective rants is really getting old (...and it's not even been a week). As an iOS developer, I've got the experience to know this kind of drivel doesn't reflect reality. More then that though, I simply find it amusing how people here rush to judgment about a product they've never used, then circle the wagons. I guess it's not surprising, developers and entrepreneurs tend to be god-awful at understanding the needs of end users, tale as old as time. What's more concerning is that despite over 40 years of technical revolutions, attention to minor detail wins, and adoption/consideration of community input, industry "professionals" won't give Apple even the slightest hint of the benefit of the doubt. But I do wonder about the empathy and humanity of people who say that Apple "doesn't care." They has over 125,000 employees worldwide, many of them hardware engineering, open-source software, and design veterans who know and are passionate about the work they do. Passionate enough to know about tradeoffs you make when shipping a successful product. Marginalizing these people simply because you've decided to switch to Desktop Linux reflects really poorly on you, not on the Touch Bar. Nor does it get anything done, as time and time again Cupertino shows that the haters have less memory than a Nomad and are lame. Meanwhile, scores of developers will use the tbMBP, Xcode, and even iTunes Connect to do tons of productive things with their time. Maybe think of that next time you decide to lower the discourse +1 on every damn article.

izacus 10y ago
> Confirmation bias turning HN into an anti-Apple echo chamber of niche, subjective rants is really getting old (...and it's not even been a week). Oh come on, HN is one of the most pro-Apple communities around. That still doesn't mean people can't criticise them when they do something they don't like.
vegabook 10y ago
> As an IOS developer..... k so you're at the center of Apple's attention. You're lucky. You perhaps don't need 32 Gig. Many of us do though, and 16 gig limit is just as nonsensical as it gets on a "Pro" computer and no amount of "oh this is getting old now please stop" is going to change the hard fact that Apple screwed up, or is dumping serious power users. I'm still angry, and I agree with the backlash. I want to toolup away from Apple as well. There is something useful to me in posts that show that I'm not alone, because it suggests a certain momentum towards alternatives, reducing my risk. There is also something very useful to Apple's competitors in gauging frustration as it may push them to create closer alternatives.
- aioprisan 10y ago
  > There is something useful to me in posts that show that I'm not alone, because it suggests a certain momentum towards alternatives, reducing my risk. No, there really isn't anything useful in statistically insignificant samples, except to further your confirmation bias. Stats 101.
  - vegabook 10y ago
    How are 1800 comments in one HN thread post-Macbook-pro launch, an "insignficant sample"? Stats 101. And should we ignore the qualitative evidence that this issue has been picked up by multiple independent sources, including the ultra-Apple-friendly Macrumors itself?
    - aioprisan 10y ago
      You analyzed 1800 comments and can say which way each leans? 1800 comments from people who come here and want to be heard is not a good sample and is statistically useless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias
      - vegabook 10y ago
        oh please. Not everything in life has an rsquared and a p-value. It's perfectly obvious, when perusing the HN comments and the rest of the internet, that the Macbook Pro has been generally poorly received by high end users, for credible reasons. You don't need a degree in statistics to figure that out.
- rayiner 10y ago
  Surface doesn't support 32GB either. My Thinkpad 450s maxes out at 20GB. XPS 15 only added 32GB support on the latest refresh. It's not like Apple will never offer a 32GB laptop. At most it's one refresh cycle behind.
kabdib 10y ago
For the most part I like Apple's engineering efforts. They're in the rather cool position of having enough margin to do things mostly right. After 20+ years of Windows I started using Macs a few years ago, and they were great for getting work done. Of course, Apple has screwed things up all along: Skeumorphic apps. Lack of repairability of devices. The howling, churning cesspool that is the iTunes UI. But they do awesome things, usually on their own (with the help of a pile of money), with small teams, and that's pretty admirable. But then we have the last couple of years, and it seems like stuff is going off the rails. This "server" thing is laughable without hardware to back it up. Office infrastructure (which this claims to be) needs to be run on hardware utterly different from any of Apple's current offerings. Oh, you can probably get away with running it on a spare laptop or mini or whatever, for a while. But anyone making their company financially dependent on this thing will eventually be let down, and hard, and that is going to suck. Maybe next week Apple will announce a rack-mounted "pro" (or Apple's cool-but-screwy take on real server hardware) and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief that Apple hasn't gone full bull-goose crazy and left the tracks entirely, that there is someone at the helm who knows WTF they are doing. Could happen. Not holding my breath.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  '[T]his "server" thing' has existed for years, this is just the latest update. It's hardly meant for enterprise environments, that hasn't been the target for some time. As others have pointed out, the target audience is small businesses with a fair number of Apple computers to manage. It makes that task relatively easy. If this is what "going off the rails" is, then they went off the rails more than a decade ago (when they discontinued their Xserve line but persisted with the server software).
Touche 10y ago
Question: How many profitable companies are out there that started their lives as mobile apps? The PC birthed Microsoft, Adobe, VMWare. The web gave us Google, Amazon, and Facebook as giants. I guess Instagram would probably be profitable if it were on its own? Maybe Snapchat is? I don't know how companies like FiftyThree, Flipboard or Foursquare are doing, but you don't hear much about them any more?
johnydepp 10y ago
I am sorry for my rants. I admire Apple for so many amazing things they invented. This frustration is not sudden, it took time to build up. And I share this opinion with many of my colleagues and many other developers. This is similar to what happened to Windows and Microsoft thing which happened to Microsoft. iOS development has been getting frustrating and Android is improving A LOT. AppStore search algorithm/flow is now so brutal that its getting very difficult for new developers to get a breakthrough.

by Gorbzel 10y ago

izacus 10y ago

> Confirmation bias turning HN into an anti-Apple echo chamber of niche, subjective rants is really getting old (...and it's not even been a week). Oh come on, HN is one of the most pro-Apple communities around. That still doesn't mean people can't criticise them when they do something they don't like.

vegabook 10y ago

> As an IOS developer..... k so you're at the center of Apple's attention. You're lucky. You perhaps don't need 32 Gig. Many of us do though, and 16 gig limit is just as nonsensical as it gets on a "Pro" computer and no amount of "oh this is getting old now please stop" is going to change the hard fact that Apple screwed up, or is dumping serious power users. I'm still angry, and I agree with the backlash. I want to toolup away from Apple as well. There is something useful to me in posts that show that I'm not alone, because it suggests a certain momentum towards alternatives, reducing my risk. There is also something very useful to Apple's competitors in gauging frustration as it may push them to create closer alternatives.

aioprisan 10y ago
> There is something useful to me in posts that show that I'm not alone, because it suggests a certain momentum towards alternatives, reducing my risk. No, there really isn't anything useful in statistically insignificant samples, except to further your confirmation bias. Stats 101.
- vegabook 10y ago
  How are 1800 comments in one HN thread post-Macbook-pro launch, an "insignficant sample"? Stats 101. And should we ignore the qualitative evidence that this issue has been picked up by multiple independent sources, including the ultra-Apple-friendly Macrumors itself?
  - aioprisan 10y ago
    You analyzed 1800 comments and can say which way each leans? 1800 comments from people who come here and want to be heard is not a good sample and is statistically useless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias
    - vegabook 10y ago
      oh please. Not everything in life has an rsquared and a p-value. It's perfectly obvious, when perusing the HN comments and the rest of the internet, that the Macbook Pro has been generally poorly received by high end users, for credible reasons. You don't need a degree in statistics to figure that out.
rayiner 10y ago
Surface doesn't support 32GB either. My Thinkpad 450s maxes out at 20GB. XPS 15 only added 32GB support on the latest refresh. It's not like Apple will never offer a 32GB laptop. At most it's one refresh cycle behind.

kabdib 10y ago

For the most part I like Apple's engineering efforts. They're in the rather cool position of having enough margin to do things mostly right. After 20+ years of Windows I started using Macs a few years ago, and they were great for getting work done. Of course, Apple has screwed things up all along: Skeumorphic apps. Lack of repairability of devices. The howling, churning cesspool that is the iTunes UI. But they do awesome things, usually on their own (with the help of a pile of money), with small teams, and that's pretty admirable. But then we have the last couple of years, and it seems like stuff is going off the rails. This "server" thing is laughable without hardware to back it up. Office infrastructure (which this claims to be) needs to be run on hardware utterly different from any of Apple's current offerings. Oh, you can probably get away with running it on a spare laptop or mini or whatever, for a while. But anyone making their company financially dependent on this thing will eventually be let down, and hard, and that is going to suck. Maybe next week Apple will announce a rack-mounted "pro" (or Apple's cool-but-screwy take on real server hardware) and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief that Apple hasn't gone full bull-goose crazy and left the tracks entirely, that there is someone at the helm who knows WTF they are doing. Could happen. Not holding my breath.

Jtsummers 10y ago
'[T]his "server" thing' has existed for years, this is just the latest update. It's hardly meant for enterprise environments, that hasn't been the target for some time. As others have pointed out, the target audience is small businesses with a fair number of Apple computers to manage. It makes that task relatively easy. If this is what "going off the rails" is, then they went off the rails more than a decade ago (when they discontinued their Xserve line but persisted with the server software).

Touche 10y ago

Question: How many profitable companies are out there that started their lives as mobile apps? The PC birthed Microsoft, Adobe, VMWare. The web gave us Google, Amazon, and Facebook as giants. I guess Instagram would probably be profitable if it were on its own? Maybe Snapchat is? I don't know how companies like FiftyThree, Flipboard or Foursquare are doing, but you don't hear much about them any more?

johnydepp 10y ago

I am sorry for my rants. I admire Apple for so many amazing things they invented. This frustration is not sudden, it took time to build up. And I share this opinion with many of my colleagues and many other developers. This is similar to what happened to Windows and Microsoft thing which happened to Microsoft. iOS development has been getting frustrating and Android is improving A LOT. AppStore search algorithm/flow is now so brutal that its getting very difficult for new developers to get a breakthrough.