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Comment by andreyf | Hacker News Reader

> One system for everything else and one system for Apple.

This seems to have worked out pretty well for innovation in the mobile OS market, no?

Yes, for Apple... For the consumer? I don't think so.

As a consumer, the mobile device market is a walled garden. Are apps compatible between platforms? Do you have control over your hardware? Can you choose what software you run on your own device?

> Are apps compatible between platforms

That would be an awful experience for the consumers, UI/UX-wise.

And yet somehow web apps, each with their very own shirty UI and UX, that looks and works completely different than the platform you use them from, are doing just fine.

And the vast majority of webapps are shitty UI/UX from a consumer perspective. Doing just fine with shitty UI/EX, because the platform is crippled does not equal the best solution for the user.

I completely agree!

Web is convenient in the sense that its easy to get access to a lot of applications and you don't have to install them etc, but the UX often leaves a lot to be desired...

Web apps just have lower standards.

It wouldn't need to be. The application could have different UI/UX models based on the expectations of the user.

As a developer I see this as a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" issue. Professionally I develop an application with Linux and Windows support, it is a pain and requires a great investment in time. Of course one could use a web technology such as Electron but then you get insulted because of memory hogging, non optimization and disrespect for UX. Developing an iOS and Android application the right way practically takes twice as much time.

As I value user experience and performance above all, for personal projects I prefer to focus on a single platform. And so far, I was also always more happy when using applications from developers that do the same.

Consumers don't appear to be bothered by any of those missing freedoms.

Consumers are bothered by games that get released much later (or not at all) on iOS instead of Android, or the other way around. They're not directly bothered by the cause, but they sure as hell hate the symptoms.

I don't like it, but I think consumers are pretty accepting of platform exclusives.

Not really. Gamers don't like exclusives, when they are excluded especially. Why would they like to be excluded?

If you're a gamer, then you're quite used to this going back all the way to the old Sega vs Nintendo days. It may be annoying but it's something we by and large accept.

Common usage of crooked practices doesn't mean anyone likes them. Let alone encourage any of such trash.

I didn't say people liked it, I said they were used to it. It's the status-quo so it doesn't get questioned the way it would if it was a completely new concept.

Yes, I agree that it's not questioned enough, which is a problem in itself.

When the hardware was so specialized it made a lot more sense. Now that everyone has nearly identical hardware it's even stupider.

On the plus side platform exclusives almost totally gone outside of the game is manufactured by the console makers themselves.

it's hard to be consciously bothered by the lack of something that you've never experienced?

That's a faulty generalisation. I am a "consumer" and I'm bothered by it.

There are definitely consumers who care. There are a lot of them here on hacker news.

But that number doesn't seem to be high enough to cause serious sales dips on iOS devices.

I'm not saying the number is 100% of consumers don't care. But it's also pretty clear it's not 70% who do care.

So, if you know that, don't say "Consumers don't appear to be bothered by any of those missing freedoms."

Say something like "Apple is still successful despite the lack of freedom" :)

Men in America also don't appear to be bothered by having been circumcised, but that is only due to their lack of knowledge and should not be used as evidence that "routine infant circumcision has worked out pretty well for health outcomes in America".

That was an interesting non sequitur...

It is not a non sequitur: it is the same argument applied to another situation where people fall into the same trap of lack of knowledge leading to a lack of understanding of their own plight (we might even call it a "blissful ignorance"). The other person who responded to the same parent comment saying "it's hard to be consciously bothered by the lack of something that you've never experienced?" could have been leaving that exact same comment with respect to having an intact foreskin in response to someone claiming the point about circumcision.

Do you really not see the parallels? It seemed like a really great way to point out the fallacy here and demonstrate that "just because people aren't complaining, and even if when asked they are adamant they don't have a problem (an even stronger position than simply that they aren't going out of their way to complain), it clearly doesn't imply they don't have a problem if they haven't been given the necessary knowledge to understand or appreciate the problem" without having to directly engage with the broken logic (which is, of course, impossible).

OT, but I'm an uncircumcised gay guy who has had a fair amount of experience with both types of penis. I suspect that anyone who's all beat up about being circumcised (except a small minority of people who have had botched circumcisions) is projecting some other problem with their sex life onto that. Both types of penis work perfectly fine.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Circumcision

>However, in a meta-study spanning 40,473 males, the studies rated most accurate found that "circumcision had no overall adverse effect on penile sensitivity, sexual arousal, sexual sensation, erectile function, premature ejaculation, ejaculatory latency, orgasm difficulties, sexual satisfaction, pleasure, or pain during penetration."

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