4 ms·

Most comments in this thread strike me as being anti-"normal users". This is the elite, talking about how they can maintain their elite position.

tudorizer 15y ago
Well observed :)
onosendai 15y ago
That's not what the parent, or the article is saying. Don't turn this into some sort of class warfare for the sake of trolling. The ability of an OS or application to expose data in order to allow you to manipulate it as you see fit, does not preclude it being user-friendly and straighforward to use. That funcionality might very well be hidden away, but available if you're inclined to use it. The point that is being made is that this level of openess and flexibiliy is directly at odds with the need for control of some companies over their OS/applications and the content whithin, usually for the sake of profits.
- martinpannier 15y ago
  Sorry, but the article says nothing about companies maintaining control for the sake of profits — only the parent developed this point. The article made the point about the lack of composability of iOS, with the Grail of composability being the command-line. And I stand by what I said. Design is the result of trade-offs: you can't have ease of use and composability. Steve Jobs understood the necessity of trade-offs better than anyone else.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  But it does. Or at least, it does in every way that we've yet to imagine. What the author of the article suggests would be not "anti-programmer" are necessarily "anti-user". Breaking everything down into composable components and forcing the user to compose even simple, everyday procedures before being able to use them? How terribly difficult and exclusive to techies only! Similarly, he suggests that the only way for meaningful interaction to occur between programs is through the unfettered access to a filesystem - as users have demonstrated time and time again the past decade or so, they don't want that. They will pile heir music and photos and movies happily into one big dump so long as a much more proficient application handles the intricacies for them. They don't want a filesystem - it's a toy for people like us. The ability of an OS to expose data for manipulation does not necessarily preclude it from being user friendly, but that's only true in a very ephemeral, theoretical way. The only ways we know how to expose said data, up till now, is entirely anti-user, and part of why the popularity of computers with the general population has not exploded until so late. For too long we've kept the keys to the kingdom, and you know what, fuck all of that noise. And the claim that iOS (and other similarly restrictive OSes) have been developed primarily to protect the company's interest is patently absurd. The iPhone has been by far the best thing to happen to mainstream computer users in the past two decades. They have power at their fingertips that they can actually comprehend now, and use without navigating a tome of quickly outdated knowledge. This is the age of the device you don't have to take a class to use! The empowerment here is incredible, and people have been throwing gobs of money at Apple, Google, and everyone else who has realized this. The main reason these OSes are restrictive is because it guarantees usability and consistency in a way that completely open platforms do not (Gimp, anyone?). This whole article, and resulting thread, really disappoints me. I'd have thought that what we've seen in the last 4-5 years would finally wake up the tech community and make them realize that computational resources are pointless unless it benefits the rest of humanity somehow, and chief among these is mainstream usability. But no, it looks like a large contingent of HN is happy to view users as stupid plebes - if only they knew the value of free OSes and would take the time to learn the command line! Screw that train of thought, and damn the people who continue to reinforce the false assumption that technology need be complicated and obtuse. I'm sick and tired of looking at all the cool things we can do - things that are of real benefit to people - and having it locked away behind a glass wall of techno-wizardry when it does so much more good out in the hands of the masses.
  - cageface 15y ago
    I wonder how many of the people here decrying iOS as a radical loss of freedom would be willing to learn how the engine of their car works in order to drive it, or how all the machinery in a dentist's office works in order to get a checkup. We live in an age of specialization and iOS just represents a far less leaky abstraction for the average user than the operating systems of the past.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      I'm not anti-iOS, I'm anti-all current mobile OSes. I think you present a false dichotomy. I shouldn't have to know how the engine in my car works, but I should have the option of tinkering with it if I wish. And I do expect my car to be componentized. I expect it to have a transmission, an alternator, a radiator, etc. While I have no preferences for how those components are designed, I expect them to work, on the whole, as one would expect those types of components to work. That is they have an input and output. I wouldn't buy a car where all of these components were replaced with 1 proprietary, untinkerable, thing. What I want is Canonical or Mozilla, or whoever, to be able to write an OS that can be installed on just about any phone hardware, the way it can be done on any x86 computer. Whether it's the crazy patent situation or harder engineering challenges that prevent that today, I'm not sure.
      - glhaynes 15y ago
        In the theory that comes from a cursory glance, someone could make an OS that's portable, composable, open, free, changeable and tinkerable, etc. and that's easier to use than any system that's available today. That'd be great. But in practice, as systems exhibit more of those traits more strongly, they, as a general rule, become less and less of a coherent, unified whole and more of the internal workings become exposed to the user. This has a direct impact on usability. Until somebody resolves this seemingly-fundamental engineering constraint, we'll have to settle for different systems that varyingly trade-off flexibility and usability. iOS has been so successful because Apple has deliberately chosen to fall more on the usability side and a tremendous number of users have found that the tradeoff is worth it: that decreased flexibility doesn't harm them remotely as much as poorer usability would. Happily, there are also extremely flexible systems available. Looks to me like this setup allows everybody to win as much as we know how to in this "imperfect world".
vacri 15y ago
Nonsense. It's about the loss of functionality, not the point that there's a simplified UI available.

tudorizer 15y ago

Well observed :)

onosendai 15y ago

That's not what the parent, or the article is saying. Don't turn this into some sort of class warfare for the sake of trolling. The ability of an OS or application to expose data in order to allow you to manipulate it as you see fit, does not preclude it being user-friendly and straighforward to use. That funcionality might very well be hidden away, but available if you're inclined to use it. The point that is being made is that this level of openess and flexibiliy is directly at odds with the need for control of some companies over their OS/applications and the content whithin, usually for the sake of profits.

martinpannier 15y ago
Sorry, but the article says nothing about companies maintaining control for the sake of profits — only the parent developed this point. The article made the point about the lack of composability of iOS, with the Grail of composability being the command-line. And I stand by what I said. Design is the result of trade-offs: you can't have ease of use and composability. Steve Jobs understood the necessity of trade-offs better than anyone else.
potatolicious 15y ago
But it does. Or at least, it does in every way that we've yet to imagine. What the author of the article suggests would be not "anti-programmer" are necessarily "anti-user". Breaking everything down into composable components and forcing the user to compose even simple, everyday procedures before being able to use them? How terribly difficult and exclusive to techies only! Similarly, he suggests that the only way for meaningful interaction to occur between programs is through the unfettered access to a filesystem - as users have demonstrated time and time again the past decade or so, they don't want that. They will pile heir music and photos and movies happily into one big dump so long as a much more proficient application handles the intricacies for them. They don't want a filesystem - it's a toy for people like us. The ability of an OS to expose data for manipulation does not necessarily preclude it from being user friendly, but that's only true in a very ephemeral, theoretical way. The only ways we know how to expose said data, up till now, is entirely anti-user, and part of why the popularity of computers with the general population has not exploded until so late. For too long we've kept the keys to the kingdom, and you know what, fuck all of that noise. And the claim that iOS (and other similarly restrictive OSes) have been developed primarily to protect the company's interest is patently absurd. The iPhone has been by far the best thing to happen to mainstream computer users in the past two decades. They have power at their fingertips that they can actually comprehend now, and use without navigating a tome of quickly outdated knowledge. This is the age of the device you don't have to take a class to use! The empowerment here is incredible, and people have been throwing gobs of money at Apple, Google, and everyone else who has realized this. The main reason these OSes are restrictive is because it guarantees usability and consistency in a way that completely open platforms do not (Gimp, anyone?). This whole article, and resulting thread, really disappoints me. I'd have thought that what we've seen in the last 4-5 years would finally wake up the tech community and make them realize that computational resources are pointless unless it benefits the rest of humanity somehow, and chief among these is mainstream usability. But no, it looks like a large contingent of HN is happy to view users as stupid plebes - if only they knew the value of free OSes and would take the time to learn the command line! Screw that train of thought, and damn the people who continue to reinforce the false assumption that technology need be complicated and obtuse. I'm sick and tired of looking at all the cool things we can do - things that are of real benefit to people - and having it locked away behind a glass wall of techno-wizardry when it does so much more good out in the hands of the masses.
- cageface 15y ago
  I wonder how many of the people here decrying iOS as a radical loss of freedom would be willing to learn how the engine of their car works in order to drive it, or how all the machinery in a dentist's office works in order to get a checkup. We live in an age of specialization and iOS just represents a far less leaky abstraction for the average user than the operating systems of the past.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    I'm not anti-iOS, I'm anti-all current mobile OSes. I think you present a false dichotomy. I shouldn't have to know how the engine in my car works, but I should have the option of tinkering with it if I wish. And I do expect my car to be componentized. I expect it to have a transmission, an alternator, a radiator, etc. While I have no preferences for how those components are designed, I expect them to work, on the whole, as one would expect those types of components to work. That is they have an input and output. I wouldn't buy a car where all of these components were replaced with 1 proprietary, untinkerable, thing. What I want is Canonical or Mozilla, or whoever, to be able to write an OS that can be installed on just about any phone hardware, the way it can be done on any x86 computer. Whether it's the crazy patent situation or harder engineering challenges that prevent that today, I'm not sure.
    - glhaynes 15y ago
      In the theory that comes from a cursory glance, someone could make an OS that's portable, composable, open, free, changeable and tinkerable, etc. and that's easier to use than any system that's available today. That'd be great. But in practice, as systems exhibit more of those traits more strongly, they, as a general rule, become less and less of a coherent, unified whole and more of the internal workings become exposed to the user. This has a direct impact on usability. Until somebody resolves this seemingly-fundamental engineering constraint, we'll have to settle for different systems that varyingly trade-off flexibility and usability. iOS has been so successful because Apple has deliberately chosen to fall more on the usability side and a tremendous number of users have found that the tradeoff is worth it: that decreased flexibility doesn't harm them remotely as much as poorer usability would. Happily, there are also extremely flexible systems available. Looks to me like this setup allows everybody to win as much as we know how to in this "imperfect world".

vacri 15y ago

Nonsense. It's about the loss of functionality, not the point that there's a simplified UI available.