7 ms·

Pro (noun.), abbreviation of Professional: born 1798, died 2019, aged 221

47 points by Contax 7y ago

close04 7y ago
The difference between this and the hundreds of other products using the "Pro" moniker is that this is Apple and it generates controversy (and clicks) better than most other brands. It's a label to differentiate product lines, like "Turbo" on an electric car. It's enough to do a search for "Pro" on the very same website above to see how many not-so-Pro products they covered over the past 20 years (like phones, cheap SSDs, or consumer cameras). I do appreciate the article tag is "Humor" though.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- TremendousJudge 7y ago
  >like "Turbo" on an electric car. or on a compiler!
rado 7y ago
PS4 Pro lmao
- rafadc 7y ago
  There will be more pro esport players with their ps4 pro than professionals using airpods pro for their respective jobs.
  - abakker 7y ago
    Nope, I'll bet that many, many professional consultants and lawyers will now use these to take conference calls in even more comfort than the originals. Seriously, if you spend all day on the phone (aka, a professional), they're awesome.
    - rado 7y ago
      Yes, and if quality is better than AirPods 1, they can replace pro wireless microphone kits from Røde, Sennheiser etc., just like iPhone Pro can replace many cameras.
SwiftyBug 7y ago
I always loved how the Gudang Garam cigarettes brings a "Professional" label in its box: https://www.clovecigarettesonline.com/images/stories/virtuemart/product/gg_professional_4ea6d81ab22eb.gif https://www.clovecigarettesonline.com/images/stories/virtuem...
- renke1 7y ago
  You have to be a professional smoker to enjoy them for sure.
kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
Airpods aren't professional? At least people aren't telling me that they are also not made of air or shaped like pods. That would warp my sense of reality to such a degree that I wouldn't know what to do with my life and I would have to write a 7,500 word essay on why everything should be named literally and post it to medium.com, thus bringing shame to myself, my ancestors, and my descendants.
jmisavage 7y ago
What about Porsche with their Turbo trim EV? Turbo, Pro, whatever are just being used to denote something better like plus and premium used to do. Besides aren't most professional things labeled Enterprise now anyway?
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  We had turbo buttons on PC's years ago, most of them did nothing.
  - AdrianB1 7y ago
    They always did something; the Turbo button was switching the CPU frequency on older PC's that ran software with no speed auto-dectection and adjustment. On IBM PC XT the turbo button was switching between 4.77 and 9.54MHz, on AT it was 8-12 or ever 16 MHz. They were needed on faster computers because some games were otherwise unplayable at the higher frequency. You may have had a turbo button on a PC case that was not connected to anything, that is a different story. If you put a 486 in a case from a XT the turbo button "not working" is your fault only.
    - gambiting 7y ago
      So the question is.....why weren't those machines running at the higher frequency in the first place? Why would you only enable the turbo mode to play games but no to work in Excel?
      - aphextim 7y ago
        Energy efficiency/consumption would be my first thought.
      - jessaustin 7y ago
        The games were unplayable at the higher frequency, presumably because they made some sort of assumption about the relation between clock speed and play speed. Typically the computer was on "turbo" all the time.
kwhitefoot 7y ago
Where and when I grew up pro was an abbreviation for prostitute. No one would ever have described themselves as a pro with the possible exception of a golfing professional.
- throwaway413 7y ago
  That’s...unfortunate.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
I've seen so much controversy the last couple days over the Airpod Pro for this "reason" that I'm wondering why it took people this long to learn the basic life skill of not taking marketing at face value. I suppose 2019 is better late than never for these people.
- grawprog 7y ago
  I don't think I've ever actually seen professional equipment marked as being 'pro' or 'professional'. Usually actual professional equipment is the the stuff you buy out of catalogs that lack prices or from manufacturers that focus their marketing towards business or professionals, which, from what i've seen, tends to consist of mostly just listing features and capabilities. I always assume if the marketing is geared towards average consumers or can be bought readily in many places, it's likely not something professionals actually use.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  > I've seen so much controversy the last couple days over the Airpod Pro... I wonder if this is a viral marketing play. Maybe I'm too jaded.
  - UI_at_80x24 7y ago
    My first thought too. I am jaded. Not enough though.
jhbadger 7y ago
Tech products have a long history of misleading names, though. In the 1980s and 1990s, a very popular compiler was called "Turbo Pascal" and computers often had buttons to change the clock speed marked "Turbo". Obviously, these products didn't have literal turbochargers in them.
flexie 7y ago
Pro has been added to the name of sports equipment for decades although 99 percent of the pro rackets, pro swimwear and pro boots are bought by amateurs.
jasonmp85 7y ago
Why did someone submit this? Why is it still here? A photo site owned by Amazon making dumb jokes based on their misunderstanding of how language works. Insightful.
elil17 7y ago
People seem to forget that words can have multiple meanings and those meanings can shift. You can still use the abbreviation "pro" to refer to professionals - a pro tennis player, for example. At the same time, "pro" has been used as an adjective meaning "very good" for a long time, and not just for tech systems, but for people as well (eg, "they're very good, they're a pro").
mikestew 7y ago
For you youngsters just tuning in, welcome! Today we are going to learn how marketers misuse terms to sell you shit. For folks my age, it was words like “space age” and “turbo”. The very first episode of the original Battlestar Galactica had the character Starbuck using the “turbos” in his spacecraft. Those unaware might not know that turbines compress air, which outer space is sorely lacking. But it sounds cool, huh? Today your generation has to deal with abuse of “pro”. Same shit, different generation. Difference is, back in my day we shrugged it off as salespeople doing what salespeople do, went on about our day. Now we can write indignant blog posts, but frankly I don’t know that it’s worth getting that worked up about it.
- crgwbr 7y ago
  > The very first episode of the original Battlestar Galactica had the character Starbucks using the “turbos” in his spacecraft. Those unaware might not know that turbines compress air, which outer space is sorely lacking. It’s pedantic, but rockets do have “turbos” actually. They use turbo-pumps to feed fuel and lox from the tanks into the combustion chamber.
  - mikestew 7y ago
    I will grant you one Pedantry Credit to use, as it sounds familiar and I have no reason to not believe you. But in return I will point out that I doubt that’s where Starbuck was going with that. :-) (And for the second time, auto-correct, the character’s name is STARBUCK, singular. FFS, Apple, Moby Dick is a default book included in the Books app, did no one there read it?)
    - paranoidrobot 7y ago
      If you're interested, Scott Manley gives a good intro to the way rocket engines work, and in particular turbo pumps[1] at ~3:30. [1] https://youtu.be/4QXZ2RzN_Oo?t=212 https://youtu.be/4QXZ2RzN_Oo?t=212
Tepix 7y ago
I'm not the only one to remember the Competition Pro joystick. This was a long time ago (around 1986). Back then there were no professional e-sport players.
backtoyoujim 7y ago
"pro et contra" precedes.
theklr 7y ago
Did people forget about Prosumer? Pro markets are ridiculously niche and have the price to match (Mac Pro). Most of the areas people complaining about pro I don't get. Not everyone wants to have "professional grade" everything at all times. I use to be a professional photographer, but I couldn't justify 2k+ and all my dev budgets at the same time so most of these "pro" products hit my sweet spot. Not over the top where I'm now learning how to use the tool, but just more than enough to be dangerous if i want to take some quick photos to see if I kept my "eye." So far most of this angst is from professionals who don't speak on their own "pro" tools but will in an instant shit on anything mass marketed with the term. Sigh.
samtrack2019 7y ago
We do use the `Pro` abbreviation for proffesional quite often in french

47 points by Contax 7y ago

The difference between this and the hundreds of other products using the "Pro" moniker is that this is Apple and it generates controversy (and clicks) better than most other brands. It's a label to differentiate product lines, like "Turbo" on an electric car. It's enough to do a search for "Pro" on the very same website above to see how many not-so-Pro products they covered over the past 20 years (like phones, cheap SSDs, or consumer cameras). I do appreciate the article tag is "Humor" though.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TremendousJudge 7y ago
>like "Turbo" on an electric car. or on a compiler!

rado 7y ago

PS4 Pro lmao

rafadc 7y ago
There will be more pro esport players with their ps4 pro than professionals using airpods pro for their respective jobs.
- abakker 7y ago
  Nope, I'll bet that many, many professional consultants and lawyers will now use these to take conference calls in even more comfort than the originals. Seriously, if you spend all day on the phone (aka, a professional), they're awesome.
  - rado 7y ago
    Yes, and if quality is better than AirPods 1, they can replace pro wireless microphone kits from Røde, Sennheiser etc., just like iPhone Pro can replace many cameras.

SwiftyBug 7y ago

I always loved how the Gudang Garam cigarettes brings a "Professional" label in its box: https://www.clovecigarettesonline.com/images/stories/virtuemart/product/gg_professional_4ea6d81ab22eb.gif https://www.clovecigarettesonline.com/images/stories/virtuem...

renke1 7y ago
You have to be a professional smoker to enjoy them for sure.

kilo_bravo_3 7y ago

Airpods aren't professional? At least people aren't telling me that they are also not made of air or shaped like pods. That would warp my sense of reality to such a degree that I wouldn't know what to do with my life and I would have to write a 7,500 word essay on why everything should be named literally and post it to medium.com, thus bringing shame to myself, my ancestors, and my descendants.

jmisavage 7y ago

What about Porsche with their Turbo trim EV? Turbo, Pro, whatever are just being used to denote something better like plus and premium used to do. Besides aren't most professional things labeled Enterprise now anyway?

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
We had turbo buttons on PC's years ago, most of them did nothing.
- AdrianB1 7y ago
  They always did something; the Turbo button was switching the CPU frequency on older PC's that ran software with no speed auto-dectection and adjustment. On IBM PC XT the turbo button was switching between 4.77 and 9.54MHz, on AT it was 8-12 or ever 16 MHz. They were needed on faster computers because some games were otherwise unplayable at the higher frequency. You may have had a turbo button on a PC case that was not connected to anything, that is a different story. If you put a 486 in a case from a XT the turbo button "not working" is your fault only.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    So the question is.....why weren't those machines running at the higher frequency in the first place? Why would you only enable the turbo mode to play games but no to work in Excel?
    - aphextim 7y ago
      Energy efficiency/consumption would be my first thought.
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      The games were unplayable at the higher frequency, presumably because they made some sort of assumption about the relation between clock speed and play speed. Typically the computer was on "turbo" all the time.

kwhitefoot 7y ago

Where and when I grew up pro was an abbreviation for prostitute. No one would ever have described themselves as a pro with the possible exception of a golfing professional.

throwaway413 7y ago
That’s...unfortunate.

hombre_fatal 7y ago

I've seen so much controversy the last couple days over the Airpod Pro for this "reason" that I'm wondering why it took people this long to learn the basic life skill of not taking marketing at face value. I suppose 2019 is better late than never for these people.

grawprog 7y ago
I don't think I've ever actually seen professional equipment marked as being 'pro' or 'professional'. Usually actual professional equipment is the the stuff you buy out of catalogs that lack prices or from manufacturers that focus their marketing towards business or professionals, which, from what i've seen, tends to consist of mostly just listing features and capabilities. I always assume if the marketing is geared towards average consumers or can be bought readily in many places, it's likely not something professionals actually use.
AlexandrB 7y ago
> I've seen so much controversy the last couple days over the Airpod Pro... I wonder if this is a viral marketing play. Maybe I'm too jaded.
- UI_at_80x24 7y ago
  My first thought too. I am jaded. Not enough though.

jhbadger 7y ago

Tech products have a long history of misleading names, though. In the 1980s and 1990s, a very popular compiler was called "Turbo Pascal" and computers often had buttons to change the clock speed marked "Turbo". Obviously, these products didn't have literal turbochargers in them.

flexie 7y ago

Pro has been added to the name of sports equipment for decades although 99 percent of the pro rackets, pro swimwear and pro boots are bought by amateurs.

jasonmp85 7y ago

Why did someone submit this? Why is it still here? A photo site owned by Amazon making dumb jokes based on their misunderstanding of how language works. Insightful.

elil17 7y ago

People seem to forget that words can have multiple meanings and those meanings can shift. You can still use the abbreviation "pro" to refer to professionals - a pro tennis player, for example. At the same time, "pro" has been used as an adjective meaning "very good" for a long time, and not just for tech systems, but for people as well (eg, "they're very good, they're a pro").

mikestew 7y ago

For you youngsters just tuning in, welcome! Today we are going to learn how marketers misuse terms to sell you shit. For folks my age, it was words like “space age” and “turbo”. The very first episode of the original Battlestar Galactica had the character Starbuck using the “turbos” in his spacecraft. Those unaware might not know that turbines compress air, which outer space is sorely lacking. But it sounds cool, huh? Today your generation has to deal with abuse of “pro”. Same shit, different generation. Difference is, back in my day we shrugged it off as salespeople doing what salespeople do, went on about our day. Now we can write indignant blog posts, but frankly I don’t know that it’s worth getting that worked up about it.

crgwbr 7y ago
> The very first episode of the original Battlestar Galactica had the character Starbucks using the “turbos” in his spacecraft. Those unaware might not know that turbines compress air, which outer space is sorely lacking. It’s pedantic, but rockets do have “turbos” actually. They use turbo-pumps to feed fuel and lox from the tanks into the combustion chamber.
- mikestew 7y ago
  I will grant you one Pedantry Credit to use, as it sounds familiar and I have no reason to not believe you. But in return I will point out that I doubt that’s where Starbuck was going with that. :-) (And for the second time, auto-correct, the character’s name is STARBUCK, singular. FFS, Apple, Moby Dick is a default book included in the Books app, did no one there read it?)
  - paranoidrobot 7y ago
    If you're interested, Scott Manley gives a good intro to the way rocket engines work, and in particular turbo pumps[1] at ~3:30. [1] https://youtu.be/4QXZ2RzN_Oo?t=212 https://youtu.be/4QXZ2RzN_Oo?t=212

Tepix 7y ago

I'm not the only one to remember the Competition Pro joystick. This was a long time ago (around 1986). Back then there were no professional e-sport players.

backtoyoujim 7y ago

"pro et contra" precedes.

theklr 7y ago

Did people forget about Prosumer? Pro markets are ridiculously niche and have the price to match (Mac Pro). Most of the areas people complaining about pro I don't get. Not everyone wants to have "professional grade" everything at all times. I use to be a professional photographer, but I couldn't justify 2k+ and all my dev budgets at the same time so most of these "pro" products hit my sweet spot. Not over the top where I'm now learning how to use the tool, but just more than enough to be dangerous if i want to take some quick photos to see if I kept my "eye." So far most of this angst is from professionals who don't speak on their own "pro" tools but will in an instant shit on anything mass marketed with the term. Sigh.

samtrack2019 7y ago

We do use the `Pro` abbreviation for proffesional quite often in french