Comment by Nrsolis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nrsolis | Hacker News Reader

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Wow. This captures my feelings almost to a "T".

I have an iPhone4 (replacing a 3GS), an iPad3 (replacing an original iPad), and a Macbook Air (replacing a MacBookPro15) and I'm starting to get very nervous about AAPL.

I'm concerned that they are loving towards locking down OS X in a similar fashion to iOS. I wasn't particularly fond of the walled-garden but it was such an improvement that I put up with it. No other products really matched the level of integration that I was craving. A faustian bargain, really.

My wife just got me a Nexus 7 tablet. I find myself really enjoying it. It's thin and light and very, very fast.

And more importantly, it's open. I run Linux on my home servers and I really enjoy Linux as an operating environment. It's just that as a "daily-driver" OS, it's just too rough around the edges to really be at the same level as something like OS X. Android is probably the first example of a truly user-friendly UI for Linux. (note: I know that Android isn't really Linux; I'm making a point about openness and fit/finish/integration)

Anyhow, I'm really conflicted about upgrading to the iPhone5. On one hand, my relationship with AAPL has been pretty good from a customer-relations standpoint. On the other hand, I'm frustrated by the design compromises that seem to be made largely for the convenience/profit of AAPL than their users.

I'm having similar concerns, and I think both your post and the parent post are indicative of a trend that, in hindsight, will have begun just around 2011/12.

And as someone who remembers (and was part of) the first phase of migration to Apple/OS X, around 2001/02, it seems to me that it had less momentum and was harder to envision than the migration from Apple that may be in its infancy now.

(Note: "migration from" doesn't imply losing market share, or even a lower growth rate. It rather means that a specific, tiny but crucial slice of mind share may have begun to erode.)

> indicative of a trend that, in hindsight, will have begun just around 2011/12

I think the very beginnings of it were earlier. The moment Apple jumped the shark was when they banned apps not originally written in C/ObjC from the app store. In that moment they made it virtually impossible to be a geek with any credibility and not be at least a little embarrassed to be an Apple fan. They reversed their decision but it was too late - geeks flooded into Android and the Android market increased its app count by about 400% in the ensuing months. Ever since then I've noticed that my geek friends who carry iPhones have been defensive about it - they say things to rationalize why they aren't carrying a real geek phone.

That was exactly the turning point for me too. I was uneasy about handing them so much control but was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt given their history and their roots in BSD.

But this decision showed they were willing to make heavy-handed and capricious decisions at users' and developers' expense and revealed the dark side of Apple's policy of total control of their platform.

After reading this comment I am really glad I am not some "geek". I am a programmer, developer, whatever, but I hope I will never turn into geek like one described here.

So you prefer to have some corporation dictating what tools you can use, even if other tools are equally or even more productive for your work? Even if this policy has as much to do with their business agenda as it does with any technical concerns?

I can understand that you like Apple products and will stick by them, but I don't understand the kind of disgust you express about being the kind of person that doesn't like Apple products.

Is it a product, or a tribe?

As a geek, believe me, the feeling is mutual.

Sorry, but your comment did nothing to convince the person above. In fact, you may have just turned a middle-of-the-roader into a lifelong enemy of your cause. I'm sorry if I'm beating up on you but this problem is huge in our circles.

Can we get off our snark and get people on our side instead? Comments should elevate others instead of showing off our sarcasm.

My comment wasn't sarcastic and I'm not interested in evangelizing.

I think the migration from Apple just hit my wife.

I've been an iPhone user since day 1, made some money on the app store, and my wife followed with the iPhone 3G, then my cast-off iPhone 4 when the 4S came out.

Now though, after I bought her a Nexus 7, she mentioned that she'd happily get an Android phone now. That's quite an indicator, and probably occurring all over the US. Google really hit it out of the park with the N7.

It's interesting how I am in the same exact boat as you and everyone up the thread to the original commenter as far being basically fed up with Apple's shit. I am also quite glad indeed that there are now alternatives for those of us who do care about the UX, and my favourite of them is Gnome 3.

It's received a lot of bad press, but I feel like the majority of it is by the more hardcore Linux users who are understandably not used to the carpet being yanked from underneath them. I am still amazed, after an entire summer of using it, about just how much Gnome 3 has re-thought in terms of its UI. The experience is not without bumps and is definitely buggy in places, but I feel like it's the first open-source shell which places user experience at the top of its priority list.

EDIT: there are rumours Ubuntu 12.10 will come in a vanilla Gnome 3 flavour, as opposed to Unity. A "pure" Gnome 3 Debian is all I personally ever need to stay happy, particularly on my Apple hardware that (for now?) supports loading non-OSX operating systems.

If someone out there made a decent laptop with upgradable components and a retina-quality display, I'd probably switch in a moment.

What do you mean by "upgradable components"? Apple aren't looking too good in this regard of late.

I believe that was the point -- Apple has "decent" and "Retina-quality display" covered, and that may be somewhat lacking (in the GP's opinion) elsewhere, while the lack of upgradability on the Apple side is an incentive to switch. Get all three requirements covered in a single machine, though...

Right. That was my point. I'm not happy with the path that Apple is taking here. The non-configurability/repairability of the newer laptops along with the ever-increasing closing of the platform gives me pause.

I was looking at the Lenovo Carbon X1 as a possible candidate to replace the Macbook Air I'm currently using but it's not all-the-way-there yet. At least, not for me.

I'm hoping that the other manufacturers catch up soon.

I really want to want to buy a X1 Carbon, but it seems they aren't selling one with an i7 and 8GB. It seems to be a "choose one" situation, which is incredibly annoying.

The X1 isn't all that upgradeable either. Fundamentally I don't think anyone has figured out how to make the Ultrabook form factor very friendly to user modification.

Android isn't really Linux

Huh? It's Linux. It's just not GNU/Linux.

Yeah. I think that's what I meant to say. I'm still a bit hazy on all the components of the Android platform but AFAIK, the Linux kernel is only the most basic part of the whole thing with the VM and associated parts a larger percentage of the whole package.

The "whole package" is called GNU/Linux, because only the kernel is Linux proper. You'll never hear rms calling for people to call Android GNU/Linux, because it uses different software for that part.

RMS definitely was right to insist on "GNU/Linux" for GNU systems, though: we have proof now that some people who can tell a kernel from an OS can't express themselves clearly when they do need to communicate that distinction.

Exactly. For years I did not see the point in "GNU/Linux" as a term. I understood why he wanted it called that, and sympathised with him, but I lacked a reason to actually care.

Now though the distraction is useful. I use GNU/Linux on my servers, desktops, and laptops, and I use Android/Linux on my phone. The terminology now makes conversation easier, instead of more cumbersome.

What has changed is that you have discovered a use for the term. RMS already had one.

Exactly. It is no longer just about ideology or giving proper credit anymore.

Maybe it would have made more sense to try and just call it "GNU", "Gunoo-slash-linucks" is just too big of a mouthful.

Then how would we refer to the Hurd?

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