Did an Apple 2.0 story touch a nerve at Samsung HQ? | Hacker News Reader

Did an Apple 2.0 story touch a nerve at Samsung HQ?

tech.fortune.cnn.com

80 pointsMaysonL33 comments

I'm not a shill paid for by Samsung, but I still think this story is bullshit. (Disclaimer, I own and enjoy a macbook and an iphone and do not own any samsung products)

First off, journalistic integrity is dead. This post was nothing but hearsay; there were no sources inside.

All it is is complaining that there's a strong anti-apple sentiment on the internet. That's... about the least surprising thing in the world. All anti-apple posts being upvoted and others downvoted is "just another day on the internet".

Some investigative article with actual resources into the corporate background of Samsung before all this fingerpointing would be a better idea.

And if you were a shill, do you think you would come out and say it?

Because, if I was a shill, this is essentially the post I would write.

Well, there is a large number of anti-Microsoft and pro-Google posts all over the internet as well, do you think that everyone defending Google is a shill too?

Or anyone who is saying that there isn't a Google funded smear campaign against Microsoft?

The difference is that the reporter witnessed what appeared to be a coordinated effort to downvote the anti-Samsung posts.

Ever been to /r/technology lately? Try saying anything bad about Google and you will see the same number of downvotes coming your way.

My guess would be that it was linked to on one of the many, many Android websites (Android Police, for instance). That would cause the exact same effect (and you'd be able to tell by checking the referrers, but of course that kind of thing wasn't mentioned in the article.

It's a shame if Disqus can't provide statistics about traffic sources versus action. I'd like to see what the referer traffic looks like, as well as the country lookup for IP addresses.

"Coordinated effort" means very little when anything going organically viral would produce the same results. To draw conclusions of conspiracy when the only evidence is a large number of views/posts/downvotes is irresponsible.

And if I were a counter-shill, your accusations is exactly the sort I would be writing in a reply.

But more seriously, it's sad that this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.

No, but because accusations of being a shill is running pretty strong, it's always worth mentioning. I'm a pretty typical american university student who has developer experience with both android and iphones, and a pretty neutral experience with both, if you're actually wondering.

Also, accusing me of being a shill is pretty ad hominem. If possible, focus on what's being written.

For someone focusing on what is being written, you really didin't. I made no accusation, I asked if you would say you were a shill, were that to be the case. And I admitted that if I were a shill, I would preface my statements with "I am not a shill". And the issue being discussed is about shills in technology comments, so even if I were to accuse you of being a shill, ad hominem this is not.

I don't think you understand what you're even saying. Hearsay is information you've obtained from a third person i.e. not directly witnessed. The reporter directly witnessed a sudden spike in voting on the Disqus forum. He directly witnessed an articulate post being heavily downvoted.

He was not complaining that there was anti-Apple sentiment on the internet. He was complaining it was happening specifically on his site. And had the appearance of being coordinated.

It's generally not polite to lead comments with "you don't understand what you're saying", but I'll explain myself.

The main point here is that journalistic integrity is dead, which is still true. While seeing a spike of blog traffic isn't directly hearsay, it's still just drawing inferences, and pretty unprofessional. He's also acting like a redditor and complaining about downvotes for a volatile subject- which tends to be mass upvoted or downvoted depending on the crowd. A very reasonable explanation for thousands of downvotes would be if this post was found on a pro-apple forum or something; in fact, applying Occam's razor, a directed effort from Samsung HQ would more likely draw maybe 50 downvotes. To jump to conclusions and call conspiracy just from witnessing downvotes on his site is pretty silly.

I'd like to point out for the entire second half of the post the author literally reposts a blog comment, containing things like "Samsung is not well liked by Koreans". That's a pretty accurate description of hearsay.

This article is stupid. You don't have to be a Samsung-shill (paid or not) to hate what Apple does.

You just have to be a proper software-engineer to see that what Apple is doing to the industry is harmful to your profession. Directly, short term and long term. That Apple is using every chance it has to close and lock down what was once an open architecture.

In a future controlled by Apple, no kids will ever learn to code in a open and free environment. They will have to pay an Apple tax, to play in a locked down environment, to develop things which will need Apple's approval, which they will again have to pay Apple a tax on to get delivered. Apple wants to kill a future IT revolution, a IT revolution like the one which enabled Apple itself to exist in the first place.

And on top of that, Apple is using patent-trolling to make open technology less and less viable as an alternative.

Apple is one of the few companies I have listed to never, ever give any sorts of money or buy any sorts of products from, strictly from an ethical point of view.

As a software engineer slash hacker you should do that too. And you should let people around you know about your ethical code of software conduct, ensure they are informed about why you refuse to buy, use or support anything made by Apple.

You seem exactly like a shill.

Thank you for contributing so much to the discussion with your very enlightening points.

How about you provide some actual arguments if you think there's anything incorrect about my stance?

I'd rather not engage in political arguments especially on this site.

> That Apple is using every chance it has to close and lock down what was once an open architecture.

Open (although it's debatable if that is entirely accurate. As you very well know we've been living in a Microsoft world for the past 20 years), but accessible only to a few of us computer nerds. They're locking it down, but making it accessible to more people. People who previously despised computers and hated working with them and often couldn't use them very effectively. Now, they still despise them, but at least are less frustrated when using computers, and are able to do more with their devices.

I find your line of thinking a bit selfish. It's like arguing why car engines are nowadays sealed - we can't even tweak our own cars easily - cars that we have PAID MONEY! How will the next generation learn about car engines and be able to tweak stuff if he wants to? They have to bring the car in to an authorized repair shop that's been approved by GM and pay them lots of money while previously we used to do it ourselves at no cost.

Not everyone has to know how to repair a car engine, or a refrigerator, or how to compile a program from the source. What's wrong with that?

In other words, I don't give a fuck about my profession. My profession is to serve the humanity. If Apple is making the lives of millions of people easier by making my profession harder or obsolete, so be it. Now, if you are arguing that what Apple is doing is harmful to humanity in the long run, that could be a valid argument that's worth having. But arguing that Apple is an unethical company just because it makes our profession harder (regardless of whether it's good for the rest of the world), I think that's not a valid argument. I think it's selfish and disagree with it.

You state it like it's an empirical fact that Apple products are user-friendly, I personally find their UX to be confusing and even power user hostile. Multi tasking in iOS for example or the horrible notification system or even trying to find the options to change certain settings being in the hardest to find places.

In my experience it has been really better than "old" systems (source: my family and many friends). Of course, that's just one data point, but these things are hard to quantize and measure. Still, the trend to "post-PC devices" is a clear sign that people want things to be simpler.

> power user hostile

Exactly. If by being hostile to us, they're being more accessible to others, I'd say it's a good thing. Now, are they being more accessible to ordinary people? That, as you said, is not and empirical fact and is a discussion worth having. My point is that "we are not important. We're just a tiny fraction of the population. We should ask whether what Apple is doing better for the other %99 or not. Not being 'power-user friendly' is immaterial to this discussion".

----

And I agree about the notification center or Settings app. But I see them more as failures in implementation than a failure of vision.

For example of a horrible implementation, Windows (I have experience with Vista and older) gives you a million different options for wireless/wired networking. But setting a global SOCKS proxy is ridiculously difficult: Control Panel -> Internet Options -> Connection -> LAN settings -> Advanced. Or assigning an static IP to a wireless card: Control Panel -> Network and Sharing -> View status -> Properties -> Select IPV4 -> Properties.

Now, OS X's Network panel is just as feature-rich as Windows'. You can do almost everything you can do in Windows too, but the implementation is much better. Creating a VPN, assigning static IP, setting a global proxy, etc. are all easy to access: Click '+' and select VPN, then its type (PPTP, L2TP, Cisco) and you're good to go. Or select Wi-Fi and go to Advanced menu and instead of DHCP select an static IP. Or go to "Proxy" tab and assign a global proxy.

That was just an example that I think OS X's implementation is far better, but the vision (= intention) is the same: Give user the ability to change everything he wants about the wireless connection. Just because Microsoft failed to give a decent UI (at least in Vista) does not mean it's not possible. Just like because Notification center is horrible doesn't mean it can't be done better (look at Android).

I'm not a software engineer and I do not know how to code but I do know Apple's business practices and I agree with you, they're not great (but I also think it makes sense for them). But where did you come up with stuff like "In a future controlled by Apple, no kids will ever learn to code in an open and free environment". What? I really feel like I misread your comment, because that's such a stupid thing to say.

Just because Apple is immensely successful, why does the open and free software has to die? If Apple is as evil as you claim them to be, wouldn't you say that it's actually better in the end because people would finally understand the importance of open and free software? Because right now, the average consumer don't give a shit about whether the software they use is open or free.

The original story where these comments appeared on does not look very impartial and appears to have been constructed to generate pageviews from the Apple fanbase, so I am not shocked that the other camp chimed in to "protect theirs". So it was a win-win-win for the author: Pageviews from both camps and a follow-up article.

1) Samsung invested heavily in marketing - this is standard when you want to sell your products. How is this a "dirty trick" as stated in the headline? And attacking the customers of your direct competitor in a funny way is also not dirty.

2) Paying bonuses to salespeople so they sell Samsung over Apple - if you know the whole story you are also aware that the iPhone heavily benefited from carrier subsidies during the years of its great success. iPhones were heavily subsidized to the detriment of Android/Blackberry devices and affected the carrier's profits greatly. See e.g. here:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/08/technology/iphone_carrier_su...

3) Short position on Apple - The author even discounts this as likely false, and something like this would have to be disclosed in the books. Samsung is much smaller than Apple, especially when Apple had twice the market cap, so it is beyond me how they could have pulled this off without any proof.

That said, having read some things about Samsung's operations in general they are no saints, and probably employ "more dirty" tactics than Apple. But I do not feel good about Apple either, and the issue described in the original article (paid shills on the Internet touting their company like there is no tomorrow) is one of the major factors why I dislike them.

And attacking the customers of your direct competitor in a funny way is also not dirty.

The Apple-camp calling this "dirty" is especially funny when you look back to Apple's rather famous "I'm a Mac"-commercials.

And the "Switch" ads that came before them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2-UuIEOcss

Even after reading this, I'm still not sure what an "Apple 2.0 story" is.

Apple 2.0 is a blog about Apple: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/category/apple-2-0/

Without that knowledge, the headline is very confusing.

Here's the story this headline is referring to: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/20/apple-samsung-dirty-t...

Having moved outside of Europe recently I have noticed that anti-Apple sentiment actually does run high in certain places, especially in countries where Apple doesn't market or sell to customers directly. The retail prices through distributors are high and customers don't see the value in it, especially when the cost of an Apple product is much higher relative to their income than for people in Europe. In other words they see Apple as some kind of irrational status symbol for people who spend too much money on a product after having been fooled by Apple's marketing. The irony here is that Apple doesn't market their products in these countries while Samsung does so aggressively.

Well, I, for one, was surprised that CNN uses Disqus.

Nowadays well-managed comments are a real part of the asset, outsourcing them for a site like CNN is outsourcing a part of core competency.

This happens on Yahoo!'s messages boards as well. Any article that has Apple in it, you will see it get bombarded with hundreds of comments in favor of Samsung or dissing Apple.

Personally I don't post such comments, but having used iPhone and then switched to Galaxy II I see why some compare Apple to Samsung. For many people Android phone is Samsung Galaxy/Note/etc.

And if you post an article here or say on Slashdot about Microsoft you'll see a bunch of comments dissing Microsoft. It's like Sega vs Nintendo or PlayStation vs Xbox, people often pick a side and then emotionally argue for and defend their choice and often attack the competing brand.

About 6-8 years ago, every Microsoft story was bombarded with pro-Apple comments. This is just (for me) Apple becoming the new big bad, and Samsung the plucky underdog (at least in people's narratives).

Oooh a good new excuse and/or future scapegoat.

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