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> Apple has never had any pretense of caring about people or society, including its own customers. Very true, and it hasn't held them back in the slightest. I

by evv 12y ago

> Apple has never had any pretense of caring about people or society, including its own customers. Very true, and it hasn't held them back in the slightest. I bet a lot of people have a closeted respect for that- Apple doesn't try to hide its corporate greed. Everybody knows Apple is a shark, but Google really hustled us.

sophacles 12y ago
Not defending google. Actually just slightly ranting on a tangent... Google today is not google 5 years ago. There are different employees, different managers, etc. To say that google (an entity with a single agency, as if it was a single person) "hustled" us by going through these changes is just not an accurate statement .
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Why would middle management changes affect their culture and principles significantly? Because middle management acts as a filter on upper management's view of operations, and a filter between upper management and the people actually doing the work when it comes to directions going the other way. The effect Bruce Webster calls "thermocline of truth" [1] is one significant manifestation of this. [1] http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-themocline-of-truth/ http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-t...
vacri 12y ago
Very untrue. Apple's target demographic is the arty/greenie/little-bit-leftie. Remember the furore over the factory conditions in China? A large part of that was targeting Apple rather than other vendors because Apple were seen as being egalitarian (for some bizarre reason) and hence above that. Apple certainly does have a pretense of caring about people, society, and it's own customers... but only if they're using all Apple gear. Apple's whole 'curated garden' approach is about this. I mean, how can you say they have no pretense of caring about their own customers when they're the only hardware vendor with plenty of branded retail outlets that dispense plenty of free tech support?
- pessimizer 12y ago
  Because they determine the level of access that their customers have to their own devices based on strategic business reasons rather than for reasons that benefit their customers. They construct their devices specifically to thwart user-serviceability. Their phones don't have battery doors. They don't allow for any usage of their devices independently from their ecosystem. These decisions are aimed directly at restricting their customers, no one else. This is not done for the customer's own good, but Apple's own good. >they're the only hardware vendor with plenty of branded retail outlets that dispense plenty of free tech support? There's supposed to be nowhere else to get an iDevice serviced, so without them, who?
  - vacri 12y ago
    I'm not defending their practices, and generally find them awful and elitist - they make a nice product, but at what cost? Nevertheless, the general message from Apple is "give yourself wholly over to us, and we will take care of you" - something that doesn't agree with 'they don't even care about their customers'.
  - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
    I find that significant use of an Apple iPhone or iPad fore most people I meet is web browsing, email, SMS and phone usage. All which is outside the Apple ecosystem. I can not figure out how we are going to achieve a healthy open ecosystem of apps with significant applications without a major malware problem. I'd be interested to see how that would work.
  - simonh 12y ago
    Sure, but you know about that going in. It's part of the deal. You pay a premium and get a premium product with pretty well defined limits on it's features. It's a fair deal. The problem with Google is so many of the product they put out are utterly unfit for purpose, showing a blatant disregard for and contempt of their customer's right to a reasonable product in return for their money. First near-unusable first gen Google TV, Nexus phones with fuzzy cameras, The first gen Nexus 7 tablet with not TRIM on the flash storage for a whole year leading to rapidly degrading device performance, Chromebooks sold with 2 years of free mobile service that suddenly stops after a year, encouraging the growth of a whole ecosystem around Google Reader that suddenly goes away. I don't think Google intentionally set out to do any of those things, but equally they didn't put any significant effort into stopping them happening either. They really just don't care. Move fast, break things, iterate. That's fine for them, but it's leaving a long wide trail of broken promises and damaged users and customers in it's bull-rush into the future and it's taking that approach for entirely selfish reasons. Google may be giving you free things, I'm a happy Gmail and Google Docs user myself, but they're not doing it because they're your friend.
zmmmmm 12y ago
> Everybody knows Apple is a shark, but Google really hustled us. I find this (rather pervasive) attitude quite curious. If Google had actually committed grave ethical breaches and caused gross harm to its users I would understand it. Google actually puts "don't be evil" into their code of conduct - it's part of their employment agreement with their employees and they spell out in detail what it means. That is actually a real concrete difference to these other companies. So I am curious how you think they have they "hustled" everybody? They are surely not perfect, but the way people talk like this I can't help wondering, where's the gigantic breach of faith you are talking about?
pling 12y ago
Apple actually seems to care about not selling lemons where possible (unlike other large brands I can mention). That at least gives them slightly more credibility in my eyes. They seem focussed on that over all the other supposed corporate responsibilities.

by evv 12y ago

sophacles 12y ago

Not defending google. Actually just slightly ranting on a tangent... Google today is not google 5 years ago. There are different employees, different managers, etc. To say that google (an entity with a single agency, as if it was a single person) "hustled" us by going through these changes is just not an accurate statement .

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Why would middle management changes affect their culture and principles significantly? Because middle management acts as a filter on upper management's view of operations, and a filter between upper management and the people actually doing the work when it comes to directions going the other way. The effect Bruce Webster calls "thermocline of truth" [1] is one significant manifestation of this. [1] http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-themocline-of-truth/ http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-t...

vacri 12y ago

Very untrue. Apple's target demographic is the arty/greenie/little-bit-leftie. Remember the furore over the factory conditions in China? A large part of that was targeting Apple rather than other vendors because Apple were seen as being egalitarian (for some bizarre reason) and hence above that. Apple certainly does have a pretense of caring about people, society, and it's own customers... but only if they're using all Apple gear. Apple's whole 'curated garden' approach is about this. I mean, how can you say they have no pretense of caring about their own customers when they're the only hardware vendor with plenty of branded retail outlets that dispense plenty of free tech support?

pessimizer 12y ago
Because they determine the level of access that their customers have to their own devices based on strategic business reasons rather than for reasons that benefit their customers. They construct their devices specifically to thwart user-serviceability. Their phones don't have battery doors. They don't allow for any usage of their devices independently from their ecosystem. These decisions are aimed directly at restricting their customers, no one else. This is not done for the customer's own good, but Apple's own good. >they're the only hardware vendor with plenty of branded retail outlets that dispense plenty of free tech support? There's supposed to be nowhere else to get an iDevice serviced, so without them, who?
- vacri 12y ago
  I'm not defending their practices, and generally find them awful and elitist - they make a nice product, but at what cost? Nevertheless, the general message from Apple is "give yourself wholly over to us, and we will take care of you" - something that doesn't agree with 'they don't even care about their customers'.
- bjelkeman-again 12y ago
  I find that significant use of an Apple iPhone or iPad fore most people I meet is web browsing, email, SMS and phone usage. All which is outside the Apple ecosystem. I can not figure out how we are going to achieve a healthy open ecosystem of apps with significant applications without a major malware problem. I'd be interested to see how that would work.
- simonh 12y ago
  Sure, but you know about that going in. It's part of the deal. You pay a premium and get a premium product with pretty well defined limits on it's features. It's a fair deal. The problem with Google is so many of the product they put out are utterly unfit for purpose, showing a blatant disregard for and contempt of their customer's right to a reasonable product in return for their money. First near-unusable first gen Google TV, Nexus phones with fuzzy cameras, The first gen Nexus 7 tablet with not TRIM on the flash storage for a whole year leading to rapidly degrading device performance, Chromebooks sold with 2 years of free mobile service that suddenly stops after a year, encouraging the growth of a whole ecosystem around Google Reader that suddenly goes away. I don't think Google intentionally set out to do any of those things, but equally they didn't put any significant effort into stopping them happening either. They really just don't care. Move fast, break things, iterate. That's fine for them, but it's leaving a long wide trail of broken promises and damaged users and customers in it's bull-rush into the future and it's taking that approach for entirely selfish reasons. Google may be giving you free things, I'm a happy Gmail and Google Docs user myself, but they're not doing it because they're your friend.

zmmmmm 12y ago

> Everybody knows Apple is a shark, but Google really hustled us. I find this (rather pervasive) attitude quite curious. If Google had actually committed grave ethical breaches and caused gross harm to its users I would understand it. Google actually puts "don't be evil" into their code of conduct - it's part of their employment agreement with their employees and they spell out in detail what it means. That is actually a real concrete difference to these other companies. So I am curious how you think they have they "hustled" everybody? They are surely not perfect, but the way people talk like this I can't help wondering, where's the gigantic breach of faith you are talking about?

pling 12y ago

Apple actually seems to care about not selling lemons where possible (unlike other large brands I can mention). That at least gives them slightly more credibility in my eyes. They seem focussed on that over all the other supposed corporate responsibilities.