3 ms·

It is kind of amazing how much the landscape has changed. I have always used Apple computers and phones, and I used to view Apple as a vaguely sinister company,

by fhood 8y ago

It is kind of amazing how much the landscape has changed. I have always used Apple computers and phones, and I used to view Apple as a vaguely sinister company, but one that produced the best products. It is very weird to me that they are now a model for non-evil practices among large tech companies.

cptskippy 8y ago
> I used to view Apple as a vaguely sinister company What about Apple gave you the impression they were sinister and what has changed? I've actually been going the opposite direction with my opinion of them. All of their talk of "you are not the product" and "we respect your privacy" is great but feels opportunistic given the current climate. The foundation of Apple's products that they are touting as privacy focused were actually about controlling the experience. They've cleverly spun happenstance into a platform to promote their products. None of that really strikes me as sinister though, when I say that they've been going in the opposite direction I'm referring more to the way they support their hardware and their shady tactics when it comes to device repair. For Apple the profit is in selling you a new device, they make no money if you don't upgrade. A repaired device isn't a profit, it's the burden of continued support. So what we're seeing is products that look great but aren't designed with longevity in mind and replacement focused support. Apple shipped the iPhone 6 with a battery that degraded quickly and by most would be considered faulty. Rather than issue a recall or some other pro-consumer solution, they hid the fact that batteries weren't functioning to specification by throttling the CPU/GPU and degrading performance. This also had the nice benefit of coaxing users to upgrade because their device was slow. When Apple got called on this, their response was to claim it was a benefit to the user rather than admit the batteries were faulty. They then graciously offered to lower the price on a battery replacement. So instead of a costly recall, they're profiting or breaking even on you having to pay for a replacement. If that wasn't enough, many people are reporting that Apple is refusing to replace batteries on devices without first fixing other faults like cracked screens or "broken" microphones [0]. Apple is also using it's new found position as bastion of your privacy to justify other shady practices like disabling components or bricking hardware entirely if it isn't "genuine" and then claiming it's to protect the consumer's privacy. Their growth as plateaued and I feel like this is only the beginning of the Comcastic abuses of the customer we typically see from the market leader trying to find new ways to grow. That's why I think they've been becoming more sinister anyways. [0] https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3031484/apple-demanding-unnecessary-repairs-before-replacing-iphone-batteries https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3031484/apple-dema...
- dingaling 8y ago
  I'm not the OP but since the early 1990s I've had an uneasy feeling about Apple, primarily due to their ability to sustain a cultish following. It went beyond encouraging loyalty bymaking good products ( though that was the era of the dire Performa ) and into mocking and belittling non-believers, and rewriting history in a sort of Soviet-airbrushing style. I don't know whether the company itself nutured that but it was unsettling. Microsoft was explicitly dominating like a tyrant, but Apple was a cult leader with a thin smile and an army of vehement adherents.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    The cult like follow Apple has enjoyed has never really bothered me. From a business sense it makes sense that they would cultivate it if the culture was beneficial to them. You see the same sort of fanaticism with cars, guns, televisions, cameras, watches, sunglasses, and a myriad of other products. I think that understanding of marketing and brand, in addition to the value of engineering, is what made Jobs such a great leader. He understood enough of both sides of the business to make them work together cohesively where other companies tend to favor one or the other.

by fhood 8y ago

cptskippy 8y ago

> I used to view Apple as a vaguely sinister company What about Apple gave you the impression they were sinister and what has changed? I've actually been going the opposite direction with my opinion of them. All of their talk of "you are not the product" and "we respect your privacy" is great but feels opportunistic given the current climate. The foundation of Apple's products that they are touting as privacy focused were actually about controlling the experience. They've cleverly spun happenstance into a platform to promote their products. None of that really strikes me as sinister though, when I say that they've been going in the opposite direction I'm referring more to the way they support their hardware and their shady tactics when it comes to device repair. For Apple the profit is in selling you a new device, they make no money if you don't upgrade. A repaired device isn't a profit, it's the burden of continued support. So what we're seeing is products that look great but aren't designed with longevity in mind and replacement focused support. Apple shipped the iPhone 6 with a battery that degraded quickly and by most would be considered faulty. Rather than issue a recall or some other pro-consumer solution, they hid the fact that batteries weren't functioning to specification by throttling the CPU/GPU and degrading performance. This also had the nice benefit of coaxing users to upgrade because their device was slow. When Apple got called on this, their response was to claim it was a benefit to the user rather than admit the batteries were faulty. They then graciously offered to lower the price on a battery replacement. So instead of a costly recall, they're profiting or breaking even on you having to pay for a replacement. If that wasn't enough, many people are reporting that Apple is refusing to replace batteries on devices without first fixing other faults like cracked screens or "broken" microphones [0]. Apple is also using it's new found position as bastion of your privacy to justify other shady practices like disabling components or bricking hardware entirely if it isn't "genuine" and then claiming it's to protect the consumer's privacy. Their growth as plateaued and I feel like this is only the beginning of the Comcastic abuses of the customer we typically see from the market leader trying to find new ways to grow. That's why I think they've been becoming more sinister anyways. [0] https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3031484/apple-demanding-unnecessary-repairs-before-replacing-iphone-batteries https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3031484/apple-dema...

dingaling 8y ago
I'm not the OP but since the early 1990s I've had an uneasy feeling about Apple, primarily due to their ability to sustain a cultish following. It went beyond encouraging loyalty bymaking good products ( though that was the era of the dire Performa ) and into mocking and belittling non-believers, and rewriting history in a sort of Soviet-airbrushing style. I don't know whether the company itself nutured that but it was unsettling. Microsoft was explicitly dominating like a tyrant, but Apple was a cult leader with a thin smile and an army of vehement adherents.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  The cult like follow Apple has enjoyed has never really bothered me. From a business sense it makes sense that they would cultivate it if the culture was beneficial to them. You see the same sort of fanaticism with cars, guns, televisions, cameras, watches, sunglasses, and a myriad of other products. I think that understanding of marketing and brand, in addition to the value of engineering, is what made Jobs such a great leader. He understood enough of both sides of the business to make them work together cohesively where other companies tend to favor one or the other.