5 ms·

There's plenty of times in Apples history where looking cool has won out over practical concerns. People have more money than sense and will happily ignore that

There's plenty of times in Apples history where looking cool has won out over practical concerns. People have more money than sense and will happily ignore that they could buy a rock solid (literally) feature phone for <50 dollars, if in doing the opposite they can look trendy.

Syonyk 5y ago
> There's plenty of times in Apples history where looking cool has won out over practical concerns. I'm not even sure "looking cool" was a factor in some of the worst ones. "Winning industrial design awards for being thinner than possible" stands out to me. In pursuit of that, they had four years worth of laptop keyboards that didn't work long term, and got rid of the most amazing feature ever for laptop charging (MagSafe), to thin things out further with USB-C. Not a bad connector, but definitely a bad charging connector compared to MagSafe for people with kids, pets, etc. I'm glad they've gone back to a laptop that seems to work, but... I've lost interest.
scarface74 5y ago
Apple’s history goes back over 45 years. Was it the Apple // era, Macs, iPods, iPhones, iPads, Watches, AirPods, etc? What feature phone in 2021 has anything that a modern consumer would find acceptable?
- projektfu 5y ago
  Assuming you want a feature phone because you want something small that isn’t going to monopolize your attention, the Nokia 6300 4G probably fits the bill.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Or a cellular Apple Watch…
MathCodeLove 5y ago
Suggestions for a rock solid <$50 phone? Been wanting to buy a few for hands on application testing.
- gonzo41 5y ago
  I would stick to using an emulator if you can, but the ZTE and vivo cheapies are pretty good.
ornornor 5y ago
Eh yes and no. I’m a firm member of the function over form camp. I’ve had Androïd for a decade after Apple forced an update to the iPhone 3G that made it so slow you couldn’t even dial a number anymore. But a couple years ago, I bought a used iPhone 6s because I got tired of the Androïd flakiness and lack of quality in general. All my trust in google also eroded over time. I don’t regret jumping ships again. The iPhone works well, I can still block all ads (except in the YouTube app) using nextdns.io, my 6 years old iPhone still gets updates and runs well. The only thing I miss is newpipe but the trade off was worth it. The 50$ China androids you mention are riddled with spyware and provide few or no updates once the phone has been released. Then you have to deal with alternative roms if they exist which means you’re spending more time making your phone work that actually being able to use it normally. Not saying it can appeal to some but it’s not for everyone if you want something that just works and is affordable. I paid 200$ for my used iPhone 2 years ago and I’m keeping it until they stop proving iOS updates AND then new features in the new iOS would actually be useful to me. I replaced the battery myself last year (cost 10$ + the ifixit tool set for 70$ which I’ve used many times to fix other things). It’s not quite 50$ but it’s not 1000$ either. Edit: not talking about MacBooks. This is a completely different story with brain dead decisions to look good even if it fails constantly (their shitty keyboards of the last 4–5 years) or refusing to even acknowledge let alone fix serious issues (like that MacBook with the gpu desoldering itself and failing in groves while apple was saying lalalalala and ignoring the problem for YEARS. I won’t ever buy a MacBook, they’re not good value and I don’t trust Apple to make good decisions about them or own up their mistakes with them. Plus they cost multiples more than a decent used laptop or workstation on which you can run Linux and upgrade components whenever needed so it can last you 5–10 years.

Syonyk 5y ago

> There's plenty of times in Apples history where looking cool has won out over practical concerns. I'm not even sure "looking cool" was a factor in some of the worst ones. "Winning industrial design awards for being thinner than possible" stands out to me. In pursuit of that, they had four years worth of laptop keyboards that didn't work long term, and got rid of the most amazing feature ever for laptop charging (MagSafe), to thin things out further with USB-C. Not a bad connector, but definitely a bad charging connector compared to MagSafe for people with kids, pets, etc. I'm glad they've gone back to a laptop that seems to work, but... I've lost interest.

scarface74 5y ago

Apple’s history goes back over 45 years. Was it the Apple // era, Macs, iPods, iPhones, iPads, Watches, AirPods, etc? What feature phone in 2021 has anything that a modern consumer would find acceptable?

projektfu 5y ago
Assuming you want a feature phone because you want something small that isn’t going to monopolize your attention, the Nokia 6300 4G probably fits the bill.
- scarface74 5y ago
  Or a cellular Apple Watch…

MathCodeLove 5y ago

Suggestions for a rock solid <$50 phone? Been wanting to buy a few for hands on application testing.

gonzo41 5y ago
I would stick to using an emulator if you can, but the ZTE and vivo cheapies are pretty good.

ornornor 5y ago

Eh yes and no. I’m a firm member of the function over form camp. I’ve had Androïd for a decade after Apple forced an update to the iPhone 3G that made it so slow you couldn’t even dial a number anymore. But a couple years ago, I bought a used iPhone 6s because I got tired of the Androïd flakiness and lack of quality in general. All my trust in google also eroded over time. I don’t regret jumping ships again. The iPhone works well, I can still block all ads (except in the YouTube app) using nextdns.io, my 6 years old iPhone still gets updates and runs well. The only thing I miss is newpipe but the trade off was worth it. The 50$ China androids you mention are riddled with spyware and provide few or no updates once the phone has been released. Then you have to deal with alternative roms if they exist which means you’re spending more time making your phone work that actually being able to use it normally. Not saying it can appeal to some but it’s not for everyone if you want something that just works and is affordable. I paid 200$ for my used iPhone 2 years ago and I’m keeping it until they stop proving iOS updates AND then new features in the new iOS would actually be useful to me. I replaced the battery myself last year (cost 10$ + the ifixit tool set for 70$ which I’ve used many times to fix other things). It’s not quite 50$ but it’s not 1000$ either. Edit: not talking about MacBooks. This is a completely different story with brain dead decisions to look good even if it fails constantly (their shitty keyboards of the last 4–5 years) or refusing to even acknowledge let alone fix serious issues (like that MacBook with the gpu desoldering itself and failing in groves while apple was saying lalalalala and ignoring the problem for YEARS. I won’t ever buy a MacBook, they’re not good value and I don’t trust Apple to make good decisions about them or own up their mistakes with them. Plus they cost multiples more than a decent used laptop or workstation on which you can run Linux and upgrade components whenever needed so it can last you 5–10 years.