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...and it hasn't occurred to you to wonder why all of your friends want Apple devices? There'a a lot to dislike about Apple. But your friends know that airdrop

...and it hasn't occurred to you to wonder why all of your friends want Apple devices? There'a a lot to dislike about Apple. But your friends know that airdrop will always work between each other. If Merlin appeared and made airdrop interoperable with your device... Your friends would leave Apple, because all of those experiences would become as fragmented and unreliable as open ecosystems are. 100% cool to hate Apple and wish regulatory doom on them. But don't think that Apple customers will be thankful. They will move to the next closed ecosystem that offers vertical integration and better UX. Because that's what they want.

danparsonson 4y ago
I think it has a lot to do with costly signalling - Apple has focused on being the luxury option. That's what a lot of people really want; the closed ecosystem and UX are secondary concerns.
- scarface74 4y ago
  How is something a “luxury” that is owned by over 50% of the American market? Since it is easy to pay for a phone on an installment plan, anyone making $15-$20 a hour can pay for one with two hours a month. Even your typical fast food restaurant has to pay that much these days to attract workers.
  - lexhart 4y ago
    It's luxury in the financial sense because it's one of the expensive options compared to the competition. Someone making 20 dollar can also afford to eat caviar, that doesn't make it mainstream. Apple just made sure that it's spoons, forks and plates only accept caviar and not cereal or lasagna.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      If I walk into a store and buy the average Android phone for $300 on a no interest 24 month installment plan from T-mobile , I will be paying $12/month. If I buy a midrange iPhone 13, it’s $24.95 a month. That’s not even mentioning an iPhone SE that is still faster than high end Android phones for $429 or $17.95 a month. And that “luxury” iPhone 8 (circa 2018) will have a better resale value and will get OS update for years still runs the latest OS and the iPhone 5s (circa 2013) has had a security update in the last year.
      - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
        These are all perceptions of status created by the marketing of these global companies. Saying Apple is luxury is kinda like saying an Applebee’s is luxury - only because there is a cheaper McDonald’s across the street. Phones are definitely status symbols but their ceiling is relatively low. That being said, in my country iPhones are a much more of a status symbol because everyone really is poorer. Scoffing at Apple’s pricing is the norm here.
        zamnos 4y ago
        Globally, an interesting question is what happens if you take a date to McDonald's. Living in America, that's gonna be the end of your date. Meanwhile, it depends on where in the rest of the globe you're talking about. There are plenty of places in the world where that's a decent, if not high status place to take a date. (There are also non-America places where it's not, mind you.) (A McDonald's-date index would be a fascinating bit of sociology research.)
        scarface74 4y ago
        So are people going to AppleBees only for “status” and not because the food is actually better than McDonalds? Not everyone wants a $60 Blu R1 HD for $70 no more than everyone wants to eat off the $1 menu at McDonalds. Many people find the entire Android ecosystem janky.
        scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
        Both, I would assume. I don’t know what a “Blu R1” is so I can’t bother to go off with you on that tangent. But my point was only that all of these products are designed and priced for global-scale mass consumption. Apple isn’t a Michelin-star restaurant. They’re about as much better as that difference in price is.
  - danparsonson 4y ago
    I said "the luxury option", not that owning an iPhone is a luxury. Most people will spend whatever they can to get the look they want. Look at their advertising - it's much more about style than features - or notice how you can often tell when someone owns a pair of AirPods because they never take them off. Apple tech is as much about making a fashion statement as it is about the functionality. They may now have over 50% US smartphone market share but that's only recently the case; however they've had the lion's share of the money for a long time.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      So 50% plus of Americans only buy a phone because of the “look”? Bluetooth headphones and not taking them off has been a thing since they first became popular. Even before that as far back as the Walkman people have walked around with headphones.
      - danparsonson 4y ago
        > So 50% plus of Americans only buy a phone because of the “look”? Again, not what I said. I feel like we're talking across each other really, sorry about that. Incidentally I'm not an Apple fanboi if that's your concern - I own an iPod nano from about 2010 but that's it. edit to add: nor do I intend to knock Apple products, just trying to make an objective assessment of their marketing strategy.
      - danparsonson 4y ago
        Maybe "premium" would be a better word than "luxury"? Apple are trying to be the premium option and people like showing off the premium items they own (which is referred to in scientific circles as 'costly signalling'). Does that make it clearer?
        scarface74 4y ago
        Again have you ever thought that something is “premium” based on its feature set and how well it works - not just to impress people? The difference is that you can buy an iPhone for $17-$25/month compared to $4-$12/month for an Android phone. It’s like going to McDonalds and choosing not to eat off the value menu. Over 50% of the market including my 80 year old mom are not buying iPhones to impress people.
  - RobotToaster 4y ago
    >How is something a “luxury” that is owned by over 50% of the American market? Diamond rings are marketed as a luxury, and are probably owned by a similar proportion of the population.
- asimpletune 4y ago
  Luxury is just one of their offerings. They are one of the few companies where the "cheap" version of their products is just last years. This is actually super nice and speaks not only to how they're not purely luxury but how they make stuff that lasts a long time.
  - danparsonson 4y ago
    I don't mean to imply that's it's all bling and no substance - their build quality is indeed generally very good but that's part of it isn't it? Good build quality is a luxury these days, especially in tech.
eredengrin 4y ago
> But your friends know that airdrop will always work between each other The funny thing is, I've literally heard my friends muttering to each other in the car that their airdrop isn't working. Unfortunately most people aren't quite so understanding if an open source equivalent ever breaks for any reason, even if it's just as reliable on average.
zamnos 4y ago
KDE Connect works as well as airdrop between iOS and Desktop Linux and Android, and isn't a unintrospectable proprietary protocol. (Which is to say honestly it's spotty, but so is Airdrop. It's the underlying Bluetooth that's at fault with both.) Even then, Apple could choose to let their protocol be reimplimentable by others but they've chosen very explicitly not to. They've locked it down with Apple signatures that can't be used by competitors. As you pointed out, it's a competitive advantage for them to lock others out, so they have. It's working, but it's gross. We can dream about better, but for now, no buying books on the Kindle/Amazon app on your iphone, or buying video off Google Play on your iphone, or Chromecasting AppleTV to your Chromecast (just buy an Apple TV like you're made of money).
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  It's still super weird that people complain about Apple making features for its platforms and then NOT making them interoperable with other platforms. It's a weird refusal to understand how markets and platform advantages work.
- brookst 4y ago
  Airdrop does not use bluetooth. It uses AWDL, which uses the wifi radio to establish a time-sliced network of nearby devices. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326928162_One_Billion_Apples%27_Secret_Sauce_Recipe_for_the_Apple_Wireless_Direct_Link_Ad_hoc_Protocol https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326928162_One_Billi...
lapcat 4y ago
> But your friends know that airdrop will always work between each other. https://www.google.com/search?q=airdrop+unreliable https://www.google.com/search?q=airdrop+unreliable
joshspankit 4y ago
> Your friends would leave Apple, because all of those experiences would become as fragmented and unreliable as open ecosystems are. The reasons for that are also anticompetitive. Open standards that are not battlegrounds can simply work and be implemented easily. TCP, SSH, BGP, and thousands more work basically flawlessly no matter who is building the software.
- brookst 4y ago
  So how’s the consumer UX for BGP? Your parents like it ok? Ingredients can be standardized and commoditized. Apple uses the standard networking protocols (mostly), normal stainless steel formulations, typical interconnects for their display controllers. But a product, in the sense of something a person decides to buy and someone sits in front of and uses, cannot be standardized while providing a good user experience. That’s literally the truth under the “better mousetrap” saying: people will throw money at you if you make something better, and therefore different, from what’s in the market today. Yes, differentiating your products is anti-competitive, in the sense that you’re trying to get people to buy your products instead of someone else’s. But it is also fiercely competitive, in the sense that you are competing for business. The critical insight here is that purchasers value UX over the benefits of standardized, commoditized, undifferentiated products. You can legislate and regulate to prohibit differentiation, but left to their own devices that is not what people want.
  - joshspankit 4y ago
    You’ve drastically undercut your argument. The consumer UX for BGP is awesome. It’s invisible. To fix your argument, let’s pick one that end-users actually interact with: HTTP. The UX for raw HTTP is pretty rough, and very few people could even use it without at least a refresher on the commands. However, since HTTP is standardized, anyone can make an application with excellent UX and even applications that have excellent UX for specific markets (devs, visually impaired users, non-technical boomers, non-technical millennials, etc). This is typically what people are arguing for: let companies compete at the application level and keep the underlying technologies as open standards.

danparsonson 4y ago

I think it has a lot to do with costly signalling - Apple has focused on being the luxury option. That's what a lot of people really want; the closed ecosystem and UX are secondary concerns.

scarface74 4y ago
How is something a “luxury” that is owned by over 50% of the American market? Since it is easy to pay for a phone on an installment plan, anyone making $15-$20 a hour can pay for one with two hours a month. Even your typical fast food restaurant has to pay that much these days to attract workers.
- lexhart 4y ago
  It's luxury in the financial sense because it's one of the expensive options compared to the competition. Someone making 20 dollar can also afford to eat caviar, that doesn't make it mainstream. Apple just made sure that it's spoons, forks and plates only accept caviar and not cereal or lasagna.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    If I walk into a store and buy the average Android phone for $300 on a no interest 24 month installment plan from T-mobile , I will be paying $12/month. If I buy a midrange iPhone 13, it’s $24.95 a month. That’s not even mentioning an iPhone SE that is still faster than high end Android phones for $429 or $17.95 a month. And that “luxury” iPhone 8 (circa 2018) will have a better resale value and will get OS update for years still runs the latest OS and the iPhone 5s (circa 2013) has had a security update in the last year.
    - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
      These are all perceptions of status created by the marketing of these global companies. Saying Apple is luxury is kinda like saying an Applebee’s is luxury - only because there is a cheaper McDonald’s across the street. Phones are definitely status symbols but their ceiling is relatively low. That being said, in my country iPhones are a much more of a status symbol because everyone really is poorer. Scoffing at Apple’s pricing is the norm here.
      - zamnos 4y ago
        Globally, an interesting question is what happens if you take a date to McDonald's. Living in America, that's gonna be the end of your date. Meanwhile, it depends on where in the rest of the globe you're talking about. There are plenty of places in the world where that's a decent, if not high status place to take a date. (There are also non-America places where it's not, mind you.) (A McDonald's-date index would be a fascinating bit of sociology research.)
      - scarface74 4y ago
        So are people going to AppleBees only for “status” and not because the food is actually better than McDonalds? Not everyone wants a $60 Blu R1 HD for $70 no more than everyone wants to eat off the $1 menu at McDonalds. Many people find the entire Android ecosystem janky.
        scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
        Both, I would assume. I don’t know what a “Blu R1” is so I can’t bother to go off with you on that tangent. But my point was only that all of these products are designed and priced for global-scale mass consumption. Apple isn’t a Michelin-star restaurant. They’re about as much better as that difference in price is.
- danparsonson 4y ago
  I said "the luxury option", not that owning an iPhone is a luxury. Most people will spend whatever they can to get the look they want. Look at their advertising - it's much more about style than features - or notice how you can often tell when someone owns a pair of AirPods because they never take them off. Apple tech is as much about making a fashion statement as it is about the functionality. They may now have over 50% US smartphone market share but that's only recently the case; however they've had the lion's share of the money for a long time.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    So 50% plus of Americans only buy a phone because of the “look”? Bluetooth headphones and not taking them off has been a thing since they first became popular. Even before that as far back as the Walkman people have walked around with headphones.
    - danparsonson 4y ago
      > So 50% plus of Americans only buy a phone because of the “look”? Again, not what I said. I feel like we're talking across each other really, sorry about that. Incidentally I'm not an Apple fanboi if that's your concern - I own an iPod nano from about 2010 but that's it. edit to add: nor do I intend to knock Apple products, just trying to make an objective assessment of their marketing strategy.
    - danparsonson 4y ago
      Maybe "premium" would be a better word than "luxury"? Apple are trying to be the premium option and people like showing off the premium items they own (which is referred to in scientific circles as 'costly signalling'). Does that make it clearer?
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Again have you ever thought that something is “premium” based on its feature set and how well it works - not just to impress people? The difference is that you can buy an iPhone for $17-$25/month compared to $4-$12/month for an Android phone. It’s like going to McDonalds and choosing not to eat off the value menu. Over 50% of the market including my 80 year old mom are not buying iPhones to impress people.
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  >How is something a “luxury” that is owned by over 50% of the American market? Diamond rings are marketed as a luxury, and are probably owned by a similar proportion of the population.
asimpletune 4y ago
Luxury is just one of their offerings. They are one of the few companies where the "cheap" version of their products is just last years. This is actually super nice and speaks not only to how they're not purely luxury but how they make stuff that lasts a long time.
- danparsonson 4y ago
  I don't mean to imply that's it's all bling and no substance - their build quality is indeed generally very good but that's part of it isn't it? Good build quality is a luxury these days, especially in tech.

eredengrin 4y ago

> But your friends know that airdrop will always work between each other The funny thing is, I've literally heard my friends muttering to each other in the car that their airdrop isn't working. Unfortunately most people aren't quite so understanding if an open source equivalent ever breaks for any reason, even if it's just as reliable on average.

zamnos 4y ago

KDE Connect works as well as airdrop between iOS and Desktop Linux and Android, and isn't a unintrospectable proprietary protocol. (Which is to say honestly it's spotty, but so is Airdrop. It's the underlying Bluetooth that's at fault with both.) Even then, Apple could choose to let their protocol be reimplimentable by others but they've chosen very explicitly not to. They've locked it down with Apple signatures that can't be used by competitors. As you pointed out, it's a competitive advantage for them to lock others out, so they have. It's working, but it's gross. We can dream about better, but for now, no buying books on the Kindle/Amazon app on your iphone, or buying video off Google Play on your iphone, or Chromecasting AppleTV to your Chromecast (just buy an Apple TV like you're made of money).

ubermonkey 4y ago
It's still super weird that people complain about Apple making features for its platforms and then NOT making them interoperable with other platforms. It's a weird refusal to understand how markets and platform advantages work.
brookst 4y ago
Airdrop does not use bluetooth. It uses AWDL, which uses the wifi radio to establish a time-sliced network of nearby devices. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326928162_One_Billion_Apples%27_Secret_Sauce_Recipe_for_the_Apple_Wireless_Direct_Link_Ad_hoc_Protocol https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326928162_One_Billi...

lapcat 4y ago

> But your friends know that airdrop will always work between each other. https://www.google.com/search?q=airdrop+unreliable https://www.google.com/search?q=airdrop+unreliable

joshspankit 4y ago

> Your friends would leave Apple, because all of those experiences would become as fragmented and unreliable as open ecosystems are. The reasons for that are also anticompetitive. Open standards that are not battlegrounds can simply work and be implemented easily. TCP, SSH, BGP, and thousands more work basically flawlessly no matter who is building the software.

brookst 4y ago
So how’s the consumer UX for BGP? Your parents like it ok? Ingredients can be standardized and commoditized. Apple uses the standard networking protocols (mostly), normal stainless steel formulations, typical interconnects for their display controllers. But a product, in the sense of something a person decides to buy and someone sits in front of and uses, cannot be standardized while providing a good user experience. That’s literally the truth under the “better mousetrap” saying: people will throw money at you if you make something better, and therefore different, from what’s in the market today. Yes, differentiating your products is anti-competitive, in the sense that you’re trying to get people to buy your products instead of someone else’s. But it is also fiercely competitive, in the sense that you are competing for business. The critical insight here is that purchasers value UX over the benefits of standardized, commoditized, undifferentiated products. You can legislate and regulate to prohibit differentiation, but left to their own devices that is not what people want.
- joshspankit 4y ago
  You’ve drastically undercut your argument. The consumer UX for BGP is awesome. It’s invisible. To fix your argument, let’s pick one that end-users actually interact with: HTTP. The UX for raw HTTP is pretty rough, and very few people could even use it without at least a refresher on the commands. However, since HTTP is standardized, anyone can make an application with excellent UX and even applications that have excellent UX for specific markets (devs, visually impaired users, non-technical boomers, non-technical millennials, etc). This is typically what people are arguing for: let companies compete at the application level and keep the underlying technologies as open standards.