5 ms·

> they're willing to ship something that is kind of shitty because of a cost-benefit analysis, or they can't even see that it's shitty Your use of the word "sh

by zmmmmm 13y ago

> they're willing to ship something that is kind of shitty because of a cost-benefit analysis, or they can't even see that it's shitty Your use of the word "shitty" here is highly subjective though. The evidence seems to be that most (or at very least a non-trivial subset of) consumers don't know, don't care or even actively prefer the "shitty" experience. Thus one could even argue that Samsung, far from being unaware or lazy is actively choosing this as the most rational and logical path to profits. It may just be that the people such as yourself are in the 10% of the population who are a) particularly sensitive to this sort of thing and b) extremely used to the iPhone level of experience. Now I myself also find the stock Samsung experience incredibly ugly and laggy. The interesting thing is that you can remedy it in about 30 seconds by dragging a few widgets off the screen, disabling a few useless services and/or putting an alternative launcher on. Thus most of the lagginess is only "skin deep" and not a fundamental property of their phones. I think internally Samsung actually does very good engineering and optimization of their phones. At some point the marketing department gets a hold of the phone and completely ruins it, but thankfully it is too far down the chain for them to do any fundamental damage to it.

gfodor 13y ago
I mean, you are largely re-iterating my argument, it just sounds like you are taking issue with my use of the word "shitty." I am pretty sure Samsung is aware of this stuff, but as you say they choose not to address it (or are unable to, or whatever.) The difference is that if the iPhone 5S for example was choppy when exiting out of apps, Apple would just not ship it, even if they think a lot of people would not notice. There is still such a thing as craftsmanship. When building a dresser, a craftsman ensures the back of the dresser looks as clean and elegant as the front, despite the fact that people will generally never see the back. A corporation churning out dressers as cheap as it can will just line the back with particle board. In furniture, where things generally don't change, this is a sound strategy, but in technology, building a company churning out garbage (relatively speaking) I think tends to catch up to you since you won't attract craftsmen to help create the next big thing. If it wasn't obvious already, I'm an Apple shareholder, and I am not worried about Samsung. Samsung has made it very clear over and over that there is very little element of craftsmanship in their corporate culture, from the output of their work (like laggy animations and stock installs reminiscent of Windows 98 crapware) and the Onion-seque internal slide decks where they robotically ripped off every element of the iPhone they legally could, likely without asking themselves why those things were designed the way they were. I'm far more worried about Google, who have shown that they both can and want to get better at design, and have a unparalleled capability to build services to power well-designed products. And Microsoft has shown they have the will to change, and are swinging the bat, even though they haven't hit the ball yet. Comparatively speaking Samsung is kind of a joke and when a new paradigm comes along (wearables, a dramatic shift in smartphones, etc) unless they can xerox their way to keeping up they will be left behind. They caught this particular wave perfectly, and are leveraging a very unique situation (Google being a free remote engineering department) to their advantage. I'm pretty sure the cat is out of the bag and Google is going to ensure Samsung is not riding their coattails to profits when the next wave hits.
- zmmmmm 13y ago
  > Comparatively speaking Samsung is kind of a joke and when a new paradigm comes along I don't think you can really say this. They throw a lot of stuff against the wall that is original, and some of it does stick. The Galaxy Note was ridiculed by everybody but turned out to be a hit. The large size and stylus turn out to be a big selling features to people you wouldn't expect (eg: small women seem to love galaxy notes - because they were never able to fit a phone in their pocket in the first place, and many are used to carrying around a paper diary that is almost the same size anyway). They certainly copy a lot of stuff from Apple (and others) where they think that's the right path, but it's unfair to say they add nothing new. > I'm an Apple shareholder, and I am not worried about Samsung I'd go so far as to say that your kind of viewpoint might well be dominant inside Apple itself, and the "blind spot" it creates might be a major reason why Apple has struggled to compete against Samsung.
  - cageface 13y ago
    I'd go so far as to say that your kind of viewpoint might well be dominant inside Apple itself, and the "blind spot" it creates might be a major reason why Apple has struggled to compete against Samsung. Bingo. Samsung doesn't have the same kind of refined, surgical design discipline that Apple does but that doesn't mean that they're incapable of coming up with interesting new features. They just arrive at them in a different way. Honestly after using iOS 7 for a while I'm worried that Apple has seriously lost its way. There are so many instances of simplistic design ideology trumping usability in iOS 7 I'm not even sure where to start listing them. iOS < 7 was visually cheesy in some respects but it was extremely polished and usable.
    - rdouble 13y ago
      What's less usable? I was suspicious initially but after using it for weeks usability seems about the same, if not a bit improved. It does need a lot of polish, and some of the built in apps are uglier, like clock and notes.
      - 13y ago

by zmmmmm 13y ago

gfodor 13y ago

I mean, you are largely re-iterating my argument, it just sounds like you are taking issue with my use of the word "shitty." I am pretty sure Samsung is aware of this stuff, but as you say they choose not to address it (or are unable to, or whatever.) The difference is that if the iPhone 5S for example was choppy when exiting out of apps, Apple would just not ship it, even if they think a lot of people would not notice. There is still such a thing as craftsmanship. When building a dresser, a craftsman ensures the back of the dresser looks as clean and elegant as the front, despite the fact that people will generally never see the back. A corporation churning out dressers as cheap as it can will just line the back with particle board. In furniture, where things generally don't change, this is a sound strategy, but in technology, building a company churning out garbage (relatively speaking) I think tends to catch up to you since you won't attract craftsmen to help create the next big thing. If it wasn't obvious already, I'm an Apple shareholder, and I am not worried about Samsung. Samsung has made it very clear over and over that there is very little element of craftsmanship in their corporate culture, from the output of their work (like laggy animations and stock installs reminiscent of Windows 98 crapware) and the Onion-seque internal slide decks where they robotically ripped off every element of the iPhone they legally could, likely without asking themselves why those things were designed the way they were. I'm far more worried about Google, who have shown that they both can and want to get better at design, and have a unparalleled capability to build services to power well-designed products. And Microsoft has shown they have the will to change, and are swinging the bat, even though they haven't hit the ball yet. Comparatively speaking Samsung is kind of a joke and when a new paradigm comes along (wearables, a dramatic shift in smartphones, etc) unless they can xerox their way to keeping up they will be left behind. They caught this particular wave perfectly, and are leveraging a very unique situation (Google being a free remote engineering department) to their advantage. I'm pretty sure the cat is out of the bag and Google is going to ensure Samsung is not riding their coattails to profits when the next wave hits.

zmmmmm 13y ago
> Comparatively speaking Samsung is kind of a joke and when a new paradigm comes along I don't think you can really say this. They throw a lot of stuff against the wall that is original, and some of it does stick. The Galaxy Note was ridiculed by everybody but turned out to be a hit. The large size and stylus turn out to be a big selling features to people you wouldn't expect (eg: small women seem to love galaxy notes - because they were never able to fit a phone in their pocket in the first place, and many are used to carrying around a paper diary that is almost the same size anyway). They certainly copy a lot of stuff from Apple (and others) where they think that's the right path, but it's unfair to say they add nothing new. > I'm an Apple shareholder, and I am not worried about Samsung I'd go so far as to say that your kind of viewpoint might well be dominant inside Apple itself, and the "blind spot" it creates might be a major reason why Apple has struggled to compete against Samsung.
- cageface 13y ago
  I'd go so far as to say that your kind of viewpoint might well be dominant inside Apple itself, and the "blind spot" it creates might be a major reason why Apple has struggled to compete against Samsung. Bingo. Samsung doesn't have the same kind of refined, surgical design discipline that Apple does but that doesn't mean that they're incapable of coming up with interesting new features. They just arrive at them in a different way. Honestly after using iOS 7 for a while I'm worried that Apple has seriously lost its way. There are so many instances of simplistic design ideology trumping usability in iOS 7 I'm not even sure where to start listing them. iOS < 7 was visually cheesy in some respects but it was extremely polished and usable.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    What's less usable? I was suspicious initially but after using it for weeks usability seems about the same, if not a bit improved. It does need a lot of polish, and some of the built in apps are uglier, like clock and notes.
    - 13y ago