Why I’m done with Apple | Hacker News Reader

Why I’m done with Apple

thememo.com

57 pointsmorehuman72 comments

What i don't get, is why technical people so passionately want to choose camps. Esp. given that most of them can easily use their knowledge to make things work in a heterogeneous environment. Apple makes for a phone that is imho the best compromise. MS makes a desktop that imho is the best compromise. Linux makes imho the best server platform. Fanboyism is neither "cute" nor responsible. Tech writers should actively discourage their readers from becoming anyone's fanboys. It helps competition, it helps the ecosystem and it promotes better technology.

I agree that we should choose the best in class wherever possible, but doesn't Apple assume that you're all-in? The reason I bought an Archos when the first iPods came out was because it let me treat the mp3 player as a portable harddrive i.e. I wasn't locked into iTunes.

Some Apple products are second to none but for reasons of pragmatism, I'm Windows + Linux VM + Android phone.

> but doesn't Apple assume that you're all-in?

Who cares? Isn't that a bad thing ? As an iPhone-only apple user, i had no problems making it work. OTOH, I find their "special" charging cable ridiculously unnecessary.

I might be a bad millenial, but I just use my phone for talking, text chat, and chrome. The apps are pretty much the same so every few years I can just pick the best looking phone at the time with no lockin.

Google lockin is a lot more significant because they offer actually useful services that I do want to centralize.

I am glad to see more things having moved to the web, and less app-preaching being pushed nowadays. I barely use any apps (except maybe for shazam?), mainly for battery-preservation. Maybe i 'm too spartan, but the slight inconvenience is worth it.

With you on Google lock in. I'm off all significant Google services except Gmail. Still waiting for a paid, web based mail provider with quality search.

I recommend FastMail, it's refreshingly fast after Gmail and the search works great. They have a free trial.

You're misremembering. The first iPods did mount as a disk for general file storage. They weren't locked into iTunes either... they supported MP3, AAC, and several other formats.

Yes and no.

Yes you could put files on there, no you could not access them from inside the iPod UI.

If you wanted to put music on a iPod it had to happen via iTunes. And only AAC (in an Apple wrapper) and MP3 was supported without transcoding.

With Archos there was no special software, just dump the files on there and go.

This. Thank you.

I'm done with reading articles from people being done with Apple every time Apple announces an update or launches a new product.

People feel the need to let us know of their feelings about products.

And even more people feel the need to let us know they are "done" with reading such articles. Each time.

I am done with reading comments about being done with reading articles about being done with specific manufacturers.

Lucky for you all I can't even

I'm, more and more, convinced that it's a kind of new marketing strategy from apple. Something like negative marketing for the masses (because it's more viral maybe?).

For example, we never talked so much about their phones, expect when they bent in the pockets...

The irony is that neither you, nor any of these people are really done.

Lucky for this guy Apple is the only company that has power, processing power, and 3rd party developer constraints to deal with when creating their products. The laws of physics don't apply to other companies. He should be very happy from now on because all other products are fully baked and have no quirks.

The one thing that does worry me is that he will buy the new galaxy 7 and the write an essay about how atrocious the Galaxy s3 was and write off Samsung forever.

<\sarchasm off>

Everyone can have their opinion but this sorta stuff is troll fodder. I don't care what you use or don't use and just because you have a platform doesn't make your opinion any more valuable than mine or other posters here. Had this been a clear, well thought out statement that didn't complain about 5 year old products I might be able to give it some credence. I would love to hear from anyone who read this article and it changed their life. I suspect this will quickly devolve into apple haters vs Apple fans. Tired. Apple isn't forcing you to spend money on their gear.

> I would love to hear from anyone who read this article and it changed their life.

Now apply what you wrote to your own text.

I was a long time Apple fan. I stayed on the iPhone track for 7 years, upgrading every 2 years. Even I thought this article was too much. As you say, his complaints are mostly for 5yr old products. I had other complaints. There's no clear winner. I have a Oneplus One and I love how flexible it is; it's not a walled garden in the way iOS would be but I'd be rather disingenuous if I said that its not without its issues. The latest CM update now causes my phone to completely drop off the network every 2 or 3 hours and then I have to remember to search for a network manually to get back on. Have missed so many important calls in the last few weeks.

I miss the days of polished products that just work. Apple had that down to a tee, so even when they had less features, I was still happy because at least it was dependable. It's just not like that on their mobile devices anymore.

> Remember the iPhone 4? I even believed your bullshit about the antenna, but yes, it really didn’t work. I spent a year of my life with dropped calls, thanks for that.

translation: I was too stubborn to buy a case / bumper to prevent this and suffered and bitched for a year instead

> iPhone: I can’t even get a day’s charge out of it

possibly valid, possibly using some rogue app that's killing the battery life, possibly bad unit

> apple TV: Whenever I turn my unit on, without fail I have to rip the plug out of the back and start again.

Obviously defective unit. too dumb to replace it.

> appleWatch: Never has a piece of technology made me more miserable.

never actually mentions any QA related problems.

> So why do I have to tell my Watch not to disturb me in a meeting?

because it's a device designed to give you notifications and most people want them even in meetings. I would.

> Or worse still shake my wrist like crazy when I’m on a live TV set?

that's just your own personal brand of crazy.

possibly using some rogue app that's killing the battery life

AKA, "...has Facebook installed."

Weird downvotes - I'm guessing the author is alluding to Facebook running audio processes in the background to keep their app alive. Which is pretty relevant.

"translation: I was too stubborn to buy a case / bumper to prevent this and suffered and bitched for a year instead"

Or, the product is faulty as he rightfully stated. The fact that a fault like this can be remedied by purchasing another product, which you shouldn't have to, is besides the point.

It's a cellphone, if there's anything it should do properly, it's make calls.

>> "Or, the product is faulty as he rightfully stated. The fact that a fault like this can be remedied by purchasing another product, which you shouldn't have to, is besides the point."

You didn't have to buy anything. They offered the cases for free. If you don't like the workaround return the product.

Once again, doesn't take away from the fact that the product is faulty. Cellphone that doesn't cellphone.

I tried really hard to find this problem. I never could. (Might have been GSM-specific, though).

Not OP and don't care much about this, TBH, but:

>> Remember the iPhone 4?[...] > translation: I was too stubborn to buy a case / bumper to prevent this and suffered and bitched for a year instead

It might be just me, but a phone that doesn't work as a phone should mean refunds. It's a design problem (industrial design) and the case is a temporary workaround at best. Are we going to start blaming the clients for the mistakes of a company?

>> apple TV[...] > Obviously defective unit. too dumb to replace it.

Funny, I have the same issue now, a few years after I got it (as a company gift, I wouldn't have bought it), I wonder how many apple TVs that are 4-5 year old are still working. But again you are blaming the client for mistakes that are solely in the hands of apple.

I agree with you on the other points and personally, the only apple thing I have (apart from the apple TV, as I said, not my idea) is a rMBP that is 4 years old and still works flawlessly. I stand with you on things that are his/her opinion. But faults in manufacturing being passed as client's stupidity?

For those with AppleTV problems, try a new HDMI cable. A cheap cable caused all sorts of problems with mine - easily resolved with a $15 replacement.

> > apple TV: Whenever I turn my unit on, without fail I have to rip the plug out of the back and start again.

> Obviously defective unit. too dumb to replace it.

I have the same problem. Unplugging/replugging it always fixes it, even though logically it sounds like it shouldn't.

"My Friday night was a disaster because Apple tricked me into renting an HD movie. I willingly wrote a watch that made me completely miserable. Why should you have to tell your watch when you're on a live TV set? Apple has a lot to learn from this random Indiegogo campaign that might ship a year from now. Here's a completely breathless article I wrote about it."

WTF am I reading?

Oh yes, Apple is doomed as always.

It reminds me of this quote about programming languages, which could be fitted to almost any product/market:

> There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses. -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Not to mention that author's arguments are rather subjective, thus rather weak.

I do not use Apple's iPad, watch or TV (or any other brand's equivalents) and do not moan about that, because I have no use for those products and I guess that author does not have as well.

I only have a rMBP and I am not happy with every Apple's decision and/or product, but the fact remains - Apple is _consumer_ electronics company and most of their products are the best sold in the market and are produced in such quantities, that factories are barely keeping up to 'bake' them.

Well the title of the article is "Why I’m done with Apple" not "Why apple is dead". It's why Alex Wood is done with apple ant therefore the subjective arguments are very relevant.

I'm just impressed that someone still manages to be upset about a cellphone they had an antenna issue with 6 years ago. Dedication!

I just find it hard to understand how someone with such a long history of deep and personally felt gripes with Apple products talked themselves into buying a 1st gen Apple Watch. I mean I'm a very happy and satisfied Apple customer, but decided not to touch AW for the first gen because it's pretty obviously a marginal utility device and since it's a brand new interaction model sure to have some jankeyness. But no, this guy jumps in with both feet even though he has a long history of bad Apple product experiences. Now that's fearlessness for you!

Yeah the ironic thing is that I've chosen to not purchase apple products more than the author, and still have less animosity towards them. You have to really want to like something to be that upset not to like it.

Maybe it's Apple Marketing's fault. They make the products look so good, if you don't like them you feel like the flaw is in yourself not the product.

I own an old iMac 27 and an iPad Pro I bought for drawing for which it is perfect. I use Windows 10 and Linux, so I am not too attached to any one of them (maybe Minix 4.0 next?). I did enjoy the article. It was a surprising and very funny read even though the title just seemed to be another 'done with' or 'why I left' articles.

A few comments:

I'm still happy with my iPhone 5. I still easily get more than a day's charge. (Full disclosure: I did actually have a battery issue a long time ago. They replaced the whole phone.)

I'm very happy with my Pebble Time. FWIW you can long-press the left button to enable "quiet mode" (without looking at the watch, I'll add. You get different vibrations to indicate enabling or disabling of quiet mode).

Why does he keep buying immature Apple products in every market?

The "Apple junk" folder will be going away soon, yet he's complaining about it now after Apple announces its demise (finally).

Personally, my biggest complaint with Apple right now is that they don't make any reasonable desktop hardware. I want to replace my old MBP that hasn't moved from my desk in a long time, and if I want to continue using a Mac my best option seems to be to make a hackintosh.

If he thinks battery life is bad, wait until he checks out the alternatives. I don't have an iPhone, but many of my colleagues do, and every single one of them gets more time out of their charge than I have with any of my last ~5 android devices.

Using the CEO's first name repeatedly like he actually cares about what this guy has to say makes him sound like a huge asshole. It pretty much reads like angry hatemail.

After half a year on Android I want to move back to iOS. Good luck with switching :) Also whatever the camera specs, I still have impression that iPhone makes better pictures. On my Sony Z7 "normal" pictures are almost unusable (poor dynamic range) and I don't really use 23Mp (files are slow to handle, etc.). So I shoot in 8Mp and HDR which doesn't obliterate half the image into highlights but gives me crazy unnatural, "alien" colors (especially on a cloudy day).

iOS mail can't search? Well there's no usable mail or calendar or weather app on Android whatsoever. Book readers are a joke, too.

Apple may be wrong much of the time but it at least tries to focus on essentials. Google seems to always build geeky three-storey-configurable apps which most people don't probably need.

Also the file system. Why in 2016 I have to tell the machine where to save a file? (Other app cannot see it anyway after I download it. I have to open a "File manager" to locate the file and open it with the respective viewer. I can imagine, reading this makes an iOS user smile.)

Good luck with other "ecosystems" out there :)

When people write articles like this I always assume they are going to say something like "I used to have an iPhone and I've found that the x is the same but better, and I used to have the iPad and I've found y is the same but cheaper". But instead it's a list of complaints with no solution.

I'm done with Toyota cars because they always run out of petrol!

Jeez, what a jerk. You'd almost think he's writing clickbait headlines on top of a stupid rant just to get attention.

"the plethora of stagnant apps you force onto my device"

While I agree, any stock Android phone from a carrier has quite a few itself.

Didn't Apple just announce that they'll be allowing users to delete pre-installed apps come iOS 10?

They did. I'm running the iOS 10 beta and while there are still a few core apps you can't delete I was able to remove everything I don't use (tips, stocks etc.).

I suppose deleting the phone app, App Store and settings doesn't make much sense.

Oh that's hilarious. Not only is Android many times worse than iOS in this respect already, now iOS has got rid of the problem completely, but still ragequit.

Does the Macalope still do those pundit takedowns? This week's should be a hoot.

That may be true but it is a smaller problem for Android.

You don't need a folder called "Junk" because they are not cluttering the home screen, they are buried in the app drawer.

Off-topic, but you have duplicated 'is' in the paragraph: "I couldn’t care less that the latest iPhone doesn’t have the best camera on the market. What does grate is is that I can’t even get a day’s charge out of it".

I have worked with someone who spoke like this, the double-"is". It is not a totally uncommon thing. Steven Pinker could probably bend your/my ear about it!

Ah, nice write-up here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2013/09/17/double_...

Switching to other vendors might not help, in my experience all products and platforms have their issues, unfortunately. Most of the stuff out there has bugs and missing features, deal with it.

AGREED 100%. They forget the people who are MAKING the apps for all of these nice mobile devices they are selling hundreds of millions of.

What happened to Apple being for those who want to create things.

Err, no they didn't? See the developer-friendly App Store changes, the Siri and Maps public APIs, etc.

While you're right, 15-20 years ago Apple was actually building hardware for creative professionals as well. A lot of people felt betrayed by the consumer shift because the creative industry was all that really kept Apple afloat for a while until the iPod came about. None of the single-port glossy nonsense.

How dare apple decide to make products that appeal to a mass market. I remember how they used to fill my niche and now they fill everyone else's except mine and it's not fair.

they don't even target creative professionals anymore; why don't they bring out a pro version of their tablet that is more accurate, powerful and fun to use than a wacom.

I think there's no question that it's been a successful strategy. A lot of people just don't like change.

>What does grate is is that I can’t even get a day’s charge out of it

Then you are doing something seriously wrong. My iPhone's batter lasts 3-4 days on a single charge. I use it for GPS and podcast/spotify consumption through out the day.

I don't know why everyone keeps yelling about smartphones and smartwatches not lasting even for a day. All I can think of is that they are playing games or using some constantly connecting social media app(s) through out the day.

There are many reasons for PROS to be done with Apple, such as: lack of any serious upgrades to their top of the line Mac Pros in years, no decent GPU's for VR work, dumbing down of their professional suite of applications: Final Cut Pro, Logic. But, for someone to complain about the Apple Watch or lack of new hardware introductions at an event that's historically been aimed at software developers?? Pffft this guys is just trolling.

I'm not a 15 year old die-hard Apple product user, I just got on their mobile bandwagon four years ago but even I already knew that the Apple Watch wasn't ready when they introduced it. One glance at the developers docs told me enough.

With iOS 10 it's ready to use, probably the next hardware generation addresses the other issues. They should call it the Apple Watch 3GS just to make the naming consistent with their other products.

Where developers go, it seems the mass market ends up later on. So you saw a lot of MacBooks at dev conferences from the mid 2000s on, but now.. you're seeing them start to get replaced with Surfaces and other avant garde PCs. MSFT is doing a better job of understanding what developers want lately, and I'm bullish on what this will mean long term if Apple's going to drop the ball on us.

What avant garde PCs have you seen?

I'm a Mac guy so I can't give brands but I've been seeing those tablet/computer hybrid things (not necessarily Surfaces) at conferences where I'd have seen 99% Macs before.

I just thought if i said same for linux, im done with linux! - that sounds like im back to the primitive and nolonger interested in hitech

I feel locked into the Apple ecosystem, until you can develop efficiently for iOS from Linux I don't see that changing

Who is Alex Wood, what is The Memo, and why should I care?

Click-bait, surely!

Good luck w/ the alternatives.

Apple seems like the new Sony.

My Apple products have reams of bugs.

WWDC is so boring, didn't even get my interests to look at their announcement.

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