[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

Worse by which standard?

I'm a Windows user through and through. I'm a PC gamer, and I am a hardware geek who likes to open the system and replace/repair part for part when I need to. I don't own a single apple product.

And with linux it becomes even more important.

in addition to being so locked into one specific ecosystem, just adds to it's many shortcomings.

But all of the above is one of the reasons that specs matter and will continue to matter. Because everything else is subjective.

because it's so dumbed down and lacking in what it allows me to do beyond opening and using programs that I feel like I'm a passenger in the computer experience instead of the driver. As if Apple has deliberately done their best to keep me as powerless and ignorant as possible. Yeah, I know that it works. So what?

very nice sum up Scaly

now I'm gonna add some Linux experience sauce to that:
In order to know if and how a specific piece of hardware will perform we have to know the hardware all that marketing hot-air is from a linuxers POV absolutely zero information.

I don't need to read marketing phrases about "last generation GPU" or "doubled WiFi range" just tell me exactly which chip is in and I'll find out wether it works - if it does I can be fairly sure that the OSS coders in charge 'll do their best to squeeze the last possible feature out of the hardware (no artificially feature locks via drivers - wasn't that an issue with soundblaster cards and their windows drivers where a free coder released alternative ones unleashing full hardware power?

So if a company chooses to shut up about specs I regularely ask myself what they are trying to hide. The logic is simple: If the stuff is good you don't bother with hand-waving exercises but show off why it IS so f*ng good. Everything else just means something is rotten in the state of Denmark. they went cheap on some important components and keep it quiet hoping people don't notice being ripped off for 2nd choice hardware built in (or left out completely).

Originally Posted by stonetools

What's dead is the techie idea that specs are ALL that matters, and that ease of use and ecosystem either doesn't matter , or is peripheral. That way of comparing devices is now deader than fried chicken

Apparently not or all the posts before would be non-existent. Or are you still consequently ignoring postings of others?

What matters is total user experience, which includes ease of use, ecosystem, and specs , which are weighted based on the user. For the techie user, specs reign supreme, whereas for the newbie, ease of use is primary.

As a newbie one begins young padawan - but I still have the hope that the human species hasn't degenerated so much that all individual users remain in that state and wish to do so.
Just in case you use a bike - do you still have the training wheels on you had on your 1st ones?

Originally Posted by stonetools

Apple has led this way of thinking.

And I wouldn't wonder if the 1st computer trying something like:

Originally Posted by HAL

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

might have an red-glowing apple-shaped eye

Or as Scaly pointed out - "passenger not driver"
There's a load of people out there who prefer not to be treated like a mushroom. Even among Apple users - If you want a proof here it is: http://missingmanuals.com/
But it isn't an Apple only phenomenon - I still remember having helped people with their Win 9x machines by use of DOS related knowledge, which whey lacked not due to their lazyness, but simply because it was no longer made available to the new users; and still desperately needed.

Originally Posted by stonetools

because this is how most consumers think.

or refuse to think. And even if you were right I see no proof here, just a claim - I don't mind about opinions of people who refuse to learn, and think, regardless if they are a majority or not.
Why? since actually once upon a time most people tought the earth is flat, and we don't need waggons without horses, etc. ad nauseam.