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Every single company that sells things does this. You are talking about an Apple event and promo page where they are quite literally giving a sales pitch for th

Every single company that sells things does this. You are talking about an Apple event and promo page where they are quite literally giving a sales pitch for their new products. That they (over)hype their own products is not only not notable or interesting, it's entirely expected. It is a bit bizarre that your comment, or variations of it, appears for every single Apple release. For those people so jaded and annoyed at the existence of Apple, why not just skip those threads? There's something unique about Apple that draws in the detractors, however (seriously -- just look at the comments! What a junkyard of noise). It's a bit like a thread about the Super Bowl having hundreds of comments by people announcing that they aren't interested in the Super Bowl. Neat.

Grakel 5y ago
If Apple didn't do it above and beyond not just what is normal but what is reasonable without an eye roll, then it wouldn't appear in every announcement, would it?
- defaultname 5y ago
  Everyone overhypes their product releases. But the reality is that most of us just don't pay attention to them. Microsoft talking about Windows? Eh. Samsung announcing something? Neat. Apple announces something, however, and the detractors just have to flood in and give their hot takes. I suppose that speaks to the influence of Apple now.
  - factorialboy 5y ago
    No need to get defensive. People are allowed to be unimpressed with Apple's marketing speak.
    - usui 5y ago
      Yes, they are allowed, of course... but being "unimpressed with Apple's marketing speak", a topic having been thoroughly traversed, seems counter to Hacker News's stated desire for comments that substantiate new thought, or create new or interesting discussions.
      - falcolas 5y ago
        To the contrary, it's sparked quite the deep discussion about marketing hype, software companies, and views about the same across the world. More valuable, perhaps, than discussing an incremental upgrade to the iPad Mini?
        usui 5y ago
        That's fair, I agree that it has sparked interesting discussions. Looks like we can't write off topics just because we think it's been thoroughly discussed already. How "new" are the discussions though? Maybe we should try to find a previous thread where someone said the same thing and compare the discussion there?
  - 12ian34 5y ago
    And the promoters flood in to defend the supreme overlord with a colourful history of abhorrent factory labour practices (suicides, child labour), proprietary ecosystem lock-in, tax avoidance etc.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
delaaxe 5y ago
Obnoxious overhyping is not normal in most cultures around the world.
- tomtimtall 5y ago
  What? Yes it definitely is. Look at every single traditional market in every single European country, or in South America. You’ll find people screaming about the worlds best this and world best that. If you walk down a random street in England you see 14 of the world best beers and 7 of them will be the worlds oldest pub. Naturally all the commercials are the same. You’d have to be a recluse to think that overhyping in sales pitches is not normal.
  - dboreham 5y ago
    Haven't been to Scotland then.
    - geodel 5y ago
      Yeah, the place that proudly claims to be producer of most mediocre whiskies in the world. To be fair no true Scotsmen would do such thing.
      - dboreham 5y ago
        Marketing for Scotch is done by people in the local markets and is not representative of the true Scotsman.
- stnmtn 5y ago
  What is a company that doesn't do obnoxious overhyping?
  - widowlark 5y ago
    Casio
jfkdkdlsla 5y ago
> There's something unique about Apple that draws in the detractors I think you've almost figured it out. Apple and the Super Bowl both have something in common: really obnoxious fans.
anm89 5y ago
They really don't. most of them make a bad commercial with a attractive people using the product and call it a day. Maybe list some features. I can't really think of any other company who's brand is to self label that every thing it does is some breakthrough for humanity. Segway?
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Penis enlargement pill pushers!
EGreg 5y ago
Apple also lies Steve Jobs with his distortion field used to say RISC was better than Intel right up until they switched to Intel, then the story switched. They acted like they invented the omnibox for safari browser… Also they used to tout the size of their phones as perfect, then unceremoniously eliminated that size for nearly a decade (until this year!) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AptLR1gS-Pg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AptLR1gS-Pg
- mint2 5y ago
  In fairness to the size thing, until last year I was still using the older se and had that form factor since my first smart phone, the iPhone 4. When I got the 4 it was great. By the time I finally changed the form factor last October, the world had changed and by that I mean much of the web was unusable due to the screen size and how no one optimized for non-phablets. What’s perfect one year may not be perfect the next because things change. Accounting for an allowance of standard marketing hyperbole on top of that, i don’t see anything particularly wrong with that one claim.
- zepto 5y ago
  > Steve Jobs with his distortion field used to say RISC was better than Intel right up until they switched to Intel, then the story switched. What are you talking about? He never changed his story about RISC, and guess what Apple is using now? The only reason they switched to intel was because nobody else was manufacturing a chip that was competitive.
- acdha 5y ago
  > Steve Jobs with his distortion field used to say RISC was better than Intel right up until they switched to Intel, then the story switched. He generally made specific claims which were true — for example, when they added AltiVec they talked about media processing and other SIMD-friendly tasks — and then let the press/fanboys generalize that. Towards the end they also started talking about things like battery life or software features when there simply wasn't a compelling comparison like that.
downWidOutaFite 5y ago
We're allowed to point out hyperbole! Comment threads always have criticisms of everything. What's bizarre is Apple defenders that always show up feeling personally slighted somehow.
- defaultname 5y ago
  Sure, point out the hyperbole. I'll point out how predictable it is. The universe is balanced.
golergka 5y ago
> Every single company that sells things does this. Software companies moving from update releases to subscription models are a great counter-example. There's plenty of bad sides to a subscription model, but at least PR and marketing departments can be much more honest about slow and incremental updates.
root-z 5y ago
You are right that it's just sales language, but people, tech folks in particular, don't have to like it and it's nothing wrong to voice their complaints. In fact it would be quite freshing today if some company start talking down to earth languages, like "hey we are giving you basically the same phone as last year with slightly better camera etc. It's useful though."
- chalst 5y ago
  Fairphone did exactly this with the Fairphone 3+: they emphasised that they were just upgrading two components of the Fairphone 3 that had attracted criticism (the camera and speaker) and otherwise didn't want to change anything about their super-easy-to-repair phone with promises that replacement parts would be available for many years. Fairphone's marketing is rather unusual in the marketplace in this respect.
  - q-rews 5y ago
    What’s a fair phone though. You don’t make money with bland marketing. Nobody knows what that is. Edit: lol @ people downvoting because I judged their phone. As if I cared about imaginary points on throwaway accounts.
  - johnchristopher 5y ago
    It's interesting you mention that because I went to their website today and they are running a secret product campaign at the moment: > The ...............* that can change a whole industry > *Coming soon. Subscribe for updates and a chance to win big! So it may be a laptop, a fairphone 4, a DIY geosync satellite. Or simply the old trick that tickles curiosity and get them subscribers to their newsletter. Not that unusual. And as a techie I say "fine, keep your secrets then" though.
- kklisura 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't think those statements would seen positive by the shareholders. I imagine shareholders would interpret them as lack of innovation and would probably trigger a sell on stocks.
mioasndo 5y ago
> Every single company that sells things does this. Nope. > It is a bit bizarre that your comment, or variations of it, appears for every single Apple release. For those people so jaded and annoyed at the existence of Apple, why not just skip those threads? For those people so jaded and annoyed at people critiquing apple - why not just skip those threads? > There's something unique about Apple that draws in the detractors, however (seriously -- just look at the comments! What a junkyard of noise). Maybe the only unique thing here is your need to defend apple with no arguments other than your own annoyance at apple being criticised?
wanderer2323 5y ago
Marketing links have no place on HN, but until the mods recognise this fact, it's actually refreshing to see people call out marketing bullshit.
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Well, when things like superbowl or similar events are happening the overspill tends to get inacceptable. Rave and rant all you want about it on appleinsiders, mac rumors, or whatever. Regarding the expected (over)hyping, why is that an exuse? It's like the commercials for washing powder/liquid, toothpaste and all the countless other non-sense. In other words a lie, or euphemistic reality distortion field. Who does that? Fraudsters! edit: and just for the fun of it [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore_of_Babylon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore_of_Babylon & [2] http://www.sutjhally.com/articles/advertisingattheed/ http://www.sutjhally.com/articles/advertisingattheed/ [3] https://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Advertising-at-the-Edge-of-the-Apocalypse-Transcript.pdf https://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Advertising-at-the-Edge-... & [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Grakel 5y ago

If Apple didn't do it above and beyond not just what is normal but what is reasonable without an eye roll, then it wouldn't appear in every announcement, would it?

defaultname 5y ago
Everyone overhypes their product releases. But the reality is that most of us just don't pay attention to them. Microsoft talking about Windows? Eh. Samsung announcing something? Neat. Apple announces something, however, and the detractors just have to flood in and give their hot takes. I suppose that speaks to the influence of Apple now.
- factorialboy 5y ago
  No need to get defensive. People are allowed to be unimpressed with Apple's marketing speak.
  - usui 5y ago
    Yes, they are allowed, of course... but being "unimpressed with Apple's marketing speak", a topic having been thoroughly traversed, seems counter to Hacker News's stated desire for comments that substantiate new thought, or create new or interesting discussions.
    - falcolas 5y ago
      To the contrary, it's sparked quite the deep discussion about marketing hype, software companies, and views about the same across the world. More valuable, perhaps, than discussing an incremental upgrade to the iPad Mini?
      - usui 5y ago
        That's fair, I agree that it has sparked interesting discussions. Looks like we can't write off topics just because we think it's been thoroughly discussed already. How "new" are the discussions though? Maybe we should try to find a previous thread where someone said the same thing and compare the discussion there?
- 12ian34 5y ago
  And the promoters flood in to defend the supreme overlord with a colourful history of abhorrent factory labour practices (suicides, child labour), proprietary ecosystem lock-in, tax avoidance etc.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

delaaxe 5y ago

Obnoxious overhyping is not normal in most cultures around the world.

tomtimtall 5y ago
What? Yes it definitely is. Look at every single traditional market in every single European country, or in South America. You’ll find people screaming about the worlds best this and world best that. If you walk down a random street in England you see 14 of the world best beers and 7 of them will be the worlds oldest pub. Naturally all the commercials are the same. You’d have to be a recluse to think that overhyping in sales pitches is not normal.
- dboreham 5y ago
  Haven't been to Scotland then.
  - geodel 5y ago
    Yeah, the place that proudly claims to be producer of most mediocre whiskies in the world. To be fair no true Scotsmen would do such thing.
    - dboreham 5y ago
      Marketing for Scotch is done by people in the local markets and is not representative of the true Scotsman.
stnmtn 5y ago
What is a company that doesn't do obnoxious overhyping?
- widowlark 5y ago
  Casio

jfkdkdlsla 5y ago

> There's something unique about Apple that draws in the detractors I think you've almost figured it out. Apple and the Super Bowl both have something in common: really obnoxious fans.

anm89 5y ago

They really don't. most of them make a bad commercial with a attractive people using the product and call it a day. Maybe list some features. I can't really think of any other company who's brand is to self label that every thing it does is some breakthrough for humanity. Segway?

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Penis enlargement pill pushers!

EGreg 5y ago

Apple also lies Steve Jobs with his distortion field used to say RISC was better than Intel right up until they switched to Intel, then the story switched. They acted like they invented the omnibox for safari browser… Also they used to tout the size of their phones as perfect, then unceremoniously eliminated that size for nearly a decade (until this year!) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AptLR1gS-Pg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AptLR1gS-Pg

mint2 5y ago
In fairness to the size thing, until last year I was still using the older se and had that form factor since my first smart phone, the iPhone 4. When I got the 4 it was great. By the time I finally changed the form factor last October, the world had changed and by that I mean much of the web was unusable due to the screen size and how no one optimized for non-phablets. What’s perfect one year may not be perfect the next because things change. Accounting for an allowance of standard marketing hyperbole on top of that, i don’t see anything particularly wrong with that one claim.
zepto 5y ago
> Steve Jobs with his distortion field used to say RISC was better than Intel right up until they switched to Intel, then the story switched. What are you talking about? He never changed his story about RISC, and guess what Apple is using now? The only reason they switched to intel was because nobody else was manufacturing a chip that was competitive.
acdha 5y ago
> Steve Jobs with his distortion field used to say RISC was better than Intel right up until they switched to Intel, then the story switched. He generally made specific claims which were true — for example, when they added AltiVec they talked about media processing and other SIMD-friendly tasks — and then let the press/fanboys generalize that. Towards the end they also started talking about things like battery life or software features when there simply wasn't a compelling comparison like that.

downWidOutaFite 5y ago

We're allowed to point out hyperbole! Comment threads always have criticisms of everything. What's bizarre is Apple defenders that always show up feeling personally slighted somehow.

defaultname 5y ago
Sure, point out the hyperbole. I'll point out how predictable it is. The universe is balanced.

golergka 5y ago

> Every single company that sells things does this. Software companies moving from update releases to subscription models are a great counter-example. There's plenty of bad sides to a subscription model, but at least PR and marketing departments can be much more honest about slow and incremental updates.

root-z 5y ago

You are right that it's just sales language, but people, tech folks in particular, don't have to like it and it's nothing wrong to voice their complaints. In fact it would be quite freshing today if some company start talking down to earth languages, like "hey we are giving you basically the same phone as last year with slightly better camera etc. It's useful though."

chalst 5y ago
Fairphone did exactly this with the Fairphone 3+: they emphasised that they were just upgrading two components of the Fairphone 3 that had attracted criticism (the camera and speaker) and otherwise didn't want to change anything about their super-easy-to-repair phone with promises that replacement parts would be available for many years. Fairphone's marketing is rather unusual in the marketplace in this respect.
- q-rews 5y ago
  What’s a fair phone though. You don’t make money with bland marketing. Nobody knows what that is. Edit: lol @ people downvoting because I judged their phone. As if I cared about imaginary points on throwaway accounts.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  It's interesting you mention that because I went to their website today and they are running a secret product campaign at the moment: > The ...............* that can change a whole industry > *Coming soon. Subscribe for updates and a chance to win big! So it may be a laptop, a fairphone 4, a DIY geosync satellite. Or simply the old trick that tickles curiosity and get them subscribers to their newsletter. Not that unusual. And as a techie I say "fine, keep your secrets then" though.
kklisura 5y ago
Yeah, I don't think those statements would seen positive by the shareholders. I imagine shareholders would interpret them as lack of innovation and would probably trigger a sell on stocks.

mioasndo 5y ago

> Every single company that sells things does this. Nope. > It is a bit bizarre that your comment, or variations of it, appears for every single Apple release. For those people so jaded and annoyed at the existence of Apple, why not just skip those threads? For those people so jaded and annoyed at people critiquing apple - why not just skip those threads? > There's something unique about Apple that draws in the detractors, however (seriously -- just look at the comments! What a junkyard of noise). Maybe the only unique thing here is your need to defend apple with no arguments other than your own annoyance at apple being criticised?

wanderer2323 5y ago

Marketing links have no place on HN, but until the mods recognise this fact, it's actually refreshing to see people call out marketing bullshit.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago

Well, when things like superbowl or similar events are happening the overspill tends to get inacceptable. Rave and rant all you want about it on appleinsiders, mac rumors, or whatever. Regarding the expected (over)hyping, why is that an exuse? It's like the commercials for washing powder/liquid, toothpaste and all the countless other non-sense. In other words a lie, or euphemistic reality distortion field. Who does that? Fraudsters! edit: and just for the fun of it [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore_of_Babylon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore_of_Babylon & [2] http://www.sutjhally.com/articles/advertisingattheed/ http://www.sutjhally.com/articles/advertisingattheed/ [3] https://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Advertising-at-the-Edge-of-the-Apocalypse-Transcript.pdf https://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Advertising-at-the-Edge-... & [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]