TechCrunch: The Death Of The Spec

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I kind of find it funny that whenever Apple is brought up - suddenly their customers are ignorant and refuse to see the light. That's hogwash. No man is an island living unto himself. It takes all types of people to make the world go around.

True. But speaking as someone who job is computer tech support... not all stupid people are Apple owners, however, Apple owners are more likely to be profoundly ignorant about everything about their computer and how it works, than a Windows user is. My personal theory is that the "it's so easy since it 'just works' without hassle"-marketing Apple is famous for is more likely to attract the kinds of people that either don't want to learn, or would not be able to learn if they tried.

And I know I am biased, but after speaking to 30-40 computer owners per day, five days a week, for nearly five years now... yes. Apple customers are on average more ignorant, more arrogant, and more likely to believe in the superiority of their chosen brand than HP owners, Gateway owners, Dell owners, or Lenovo owners. Apple sells an attitude and a lifestyle as much as they sell electronics. Actually, more than they sell electronics. That has always been their goal, and they are successful. That doesn't mean that everyone who buys an Apple product fits the description I gave above. Only that I'm never surprised when they do.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I kind of find it funny that whenever Apple is brought up - suddenly their customers are ignorant and refuse to see the light. That's hogwash. No man is an island living unto himself. It takes all types of people to make the world go around.

I am not an ignorant consumer and I have an iPhone.

Of course, not. But those that have no idea what the specs of their devices are, those are ignorant. No matter what the brand.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

True. But speaking as someone who job is computer tech support... not all stupid people are Apple owners, however, Apple owners are more likely to be profoundly ignorant about everything about their computer and how it works, than a Windows user is. My personal theory is that the "it's so easy since it 'just works' without hassle"-marketing Apple is famous for is more likely to attract the kinds of people that either don't want to learn, or would not be able to learn if they tried.

And I know I am biased, but after speaking to 30-40 computer owners per day, five days a week, for nearly five years now... yes. Apple customers are on average more ignorant, more arrogant, and more likely to believe in the superiority of their chosen brand than HP owners, Gateway owners, Dell owners, or Lenovo owners. Apple sells an attitude and a lifestyle as much as they sell electronics. Actually, more than they sell electronics. That has always been their goal, and they are successful. That doesn't mean that everyone who buys an Apple product fits the description I gave above. Only that I'm never surprised when they do.

While I might not be able to fix my computer I know damn well what specs it is running - especially because I paid for them - even though I can't rattle it off the top of my head. I don't care to learn to fix my computer cause that's not my thing and I happily pay someone to fix it for me. I have experience as an Apple owner (decent), a Gateway owner (crap), an HP owner (decent actually) and a Dell owner (crap) - as well as Toshiba (more crap). In my experience owners of any brand tout that brand as the best - so simply speaking to a happy Apple owner isn't too different than my experience in speaking with happy Linux owners.

I'm starting to feel like I need to hide I own Apple products at MR now. The way you guys rip Apple product owners to shred here is getting to be just as bad as Jon and Amazon. Jeez. It takes all types. Some things work for some people and other things work for others. I don't sit around and pass judgement on any user of any product based on the brand alone. You guys seem more focused on the Apple logo on my phone than I am. Apple isn't selling me a lifestyle, they are selling me a product. One that happens to work very well.

[HappyMartin]

What you are all forgetting is for most people computers, tech, tablets and so on occupy about 5% of their lives. Yes a lot are ignorant but so what. It's just a computer. Not a matter of life or death.

The story of Apple users is just based on anecdotal evidence and is more meaningless than than Apples specs. I will give you an example. I have used tech support for 15 years and I can tell you that support people eat badly, are overweight, get no exercise and many of them smoke. Is it true? I don't know but it seems that way to me but is most likely just a bias of access. That means it is what I remember, not what is true so I will ignore my bias and not post it as fact on a forum.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

While I might not be able to fix my computer I know damn well what specs it is running - especially because I paid for them - even though I can't rattle it off the top of my head. I don't care to learn to fix my computer cause that's not my thing and I happily pay someone to fix it for me. I have experience as an Apple owner (decent), a Gateway owner (crap), an HP owner (decent actually) and a Dell owner (crap) - as well as Toshiba (more crap).

And that puts you head and shoulders and most of the torso above the Apple customers I was describing earlier.

I think you're reading too much into my previous post. I'm not saying that all Apple owners are stupid, or that I will assume you're stupid if you prefer to buy Apple products. I'm saying that stupid people are more likely to buy Apple. Big difference.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I'm starting to feel like I need to hide I own Apple products at MR now. The way you guys rip Apple product owners to shred here is getting to be just as bad as Jon and Amazon. Jeez. It takes all types. Some things work for some people and other things work for others. I don't sit around and pass judgement on any user of any product based on the brand alone.

You don't need to hide a thing. It is just a small group here who seem to take inordinate joy in it mocking companies & their users.

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

You guys seem more focused on the Apple logo on my phone than I am.

lol! They are! They just can't seem to stop bringing them up, regardless of topic

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

What you are all forgetting is for most people computers, tech, tablets and so on occupy about 5% of their lives. Yes a lot are ignorant but so what. It's just a computer. Not a matter of life or death.

Most people that live and work where?

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I kind of find it funny that whenever Apple is brought up - suddenly their customers are ignorant and refuse to see the light. That's hogwash. No man is an island living unto himself. It takes all types of people to make the world go around.

I am not an ignorant consumer and I have an iPhone.

I don't hear people saying Apple customers are ignorant. I don't even hear people saying Apple fanboys are ignorant. Price/spec insensitive isn't the same thing as ignorant. If you are willing to pay the premium and have no needs outside the Apple universe, it makes sense to buy products that are designed to work together.

Apple disciples are defensive and dismissive...and the guy who published that article is, without a doubt, an Apple disciple. These guys have been blogging and threadcrapping Samsung, HP, RIM, and, now, Amazon. The Fire hate started before anyone except Jeff Bezos had even held one.

The fact is that price, size, speed, and battery life matter to most people. If Apple pretends these things do not matter, someone will eat their lunch.

[DustyDisks]

No tech-spec's = For me = No sale!

I need more than pretty pictures and somewhat dubious reviews. I try to buy the best I can afford and without tech-spec's to compare against other like items. I just will do without, if the item is new on the market.

Older products, they get a reputation that can be used in making my choice, but I will always want to review a tech sheet.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by wizwor

The fact is that price, size, speed, and battery life matter to most people. If Apple pretends these things do not matter, someone will eat their lunch.

And yet the Fire looks likely to be the most successful Android tablet, largely by following Apple's lead and focusing on user experience and not specs. The Nook Color 2 is, by the specs, a better tablet.

The Fire hate started before anyone except Jeff Bezos had even held one.

Much of the 'fire hate' seems to be coming from Android supporters rather than Apple ones

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Much of the 'fire hate' seems to be coming from Android supporters rather than Apple ones

People need to draw a distinction between Fire hate and Fire dissatisfaction. Haters are irrational. The dissatisfied have actual reasons.

I'm very happy about the IPS panel; not so the processor and not so the electric fence around much of Amazon's apps and content (their music store being a notable exception). And I know these things before actually using a Fire because I know what I need my tablet to be able to do.

About so-called lovers and haters: We all might want to think in less Boolean terms.

I've actually been referred to as an Apple-hater a few times on MR, but the interesting thing is that I've been a professional Apple user for most of my life. The music sessions, projects and performances that were my sole source of income for decades would have been impossible in the United States without the Mac (other computers were accepted in the industry elsewhere). I use Apple computers despite having a personal preference for non-Apple flexibility, which is why I also own a PC laptop at any given time and own fewer Apple smart devices than non-. Yet this doesn't stop Apple-lovers from assuming I must be a hater.

Nor is the Boolean Switch pulled exclusively by Apple users.

In another thread about Jobs, I was actually called an Apple fanboy, and in this superficially polite post by RalphSirEdwards, he implied that my having said that the Atari ST wasn't common enough in the late 80s for me to use to make a living with music professionally in the States (meaning I couldn't have gotten booked to do recording sessions with it for the U.S. market 95% of the time) meant that no one ever used it for music in the States. My point -- that the survival of a musician depends on conformity of software and hardware with that of their clients or clients' producers and engineers -- was completely dismissed by RSE and the conext erased, all to imply I hadn't been paying attention to my own life.

In fact, I have been a studio musician for decades and all I did was to pay attention. If any of my major clients had moved to a different OS, I'd have moved right with them. And if other musicians' clients had moved, I'd have known about it. New York, LA and, to a lesser extent, Nashville were centers of the industry back then, and every professional I knew in those places used ProTools and a Mac tower.

RSE did this because he was trying to say that anyone who acknowledged Jobs's contribution in any way was an Apple fanboy. His same post, which seems so reasonable in tone, closed with the idea that he must stop posting or be "burned by the mob" of Apple users (including me) for not confessing that "Steve Jobs is God."

He had already declared his view of Jobs to be superior to mine and everyone else's (including other programmers!) through reasoning generally classified as argument by authority: He claimed he was right because he was a "tool builder" and I must surely be a mere "tool user." When I mentioned that I had not only done but been hired to do programming myself, he insisted his view was the correct one because he was a more legitimate tool builder than I.

This toward me, someone who respects Jobs's accomplishments and feels compelled morally to give him his due but doesn't actually like his personality or his business ethics. Like so many other threads on Mobileread, that one got more and more derailed by ad hominem and was closed before I could respond.

Here's what would be nice on this and future threads:

If, instead of talking about Apple haters and lovers, instead of talking about how Linux, PC and pure Android users are hateful elitists and Amazon and Apple users are morons, we could instead talk about the importance of specs without dismissing one another as either too intolerant or too oblivious.

The argument that, because Apple products "just work," specs are unimportant is Orwellian in its implications -- not because it is advanced by Apple users but because it is substituting marketing masquerading as instinct for rational analysis.

By all means, buy an Apple product if it proves to work the best for you, but think very clearly about your reasons for buying it as opposed to some other company's product. Otherwise, on the day an Apple product doesn't work for you, you'll have had no prior warning and no idea what to do about it.

Certain (by no means all) Apple users on this thread might want to think about this:

If specs are unimportant to you but very important to others, then why is it necessary to make some dismissive fashion designer decision that specs are now unnecessary instead of respecting other users who want that information? Your experience as a reader isn't harmed by the specs section of a review. You can skip that part, but other readers can't insert it. You talk of discrimination against Apple users -- what about your discrimination against people who want technical information? You can't simply say ego ergo sic and declare that, because Apple's slogans and your instincts seem to have merged into a single pre-rational preference for "not wanting to know" (as someone above put it), reviewers should then build your personal habits into their reviews because simplicity is best. In the purely democratic sense, optional diversity beats imposed simplicity.

[wizwor]

You're right, of course, 'tweeze. In fact, I had a very similar conversation with my oldest (Business Major) in an Apple store last night. He doubted he'd ever own a Mac. He's probably right, but I suggested that, if his interest turns to marketing, the Mac might be better suited to his needs.

On the matter of hate, I still see this as mostly coming from the Apple fanbase. Google the author of a negative review and, most of the time, you will find the author has an Apple bias. Amazon never positioned the Fire as an Apple corer. The media did.

The nook has slightly better specs, but price and infrastructure are also specs and Amazon has made it VERY easy for me to make my Fire amazing. I have bonded with it in ways I never have -- and never will -- bond with my Storm 2. They put lots of free and cheal stuff right at my fingertips.

Right now, we are netflix people, but I could see us switching to prime in time. Nooks lacks all of that.

But the conversation strays a bit from the 'death of specs' position taken by the blogger. Ironically, I think one of the specs that a Mac buyer might be concerned with is whether the laptop is fast enough to run Windows apps!

[kjk]

Originally Posted by wizwor

On the matter of hate, I still see this as mostly coming from the Apple fanbase.

Here on MobileRead?

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

... not all stupid people are Apple owners, ...)

Wow. I thought that was an axiom or something.

Wait. I forgot about poor people. You could be stupid but not own an Apple because you are poor.

Ok. I will broaden that statement. Some intelligent people own several devices including Apples. The ones that are really dumb are the ones who would never buy anything but an Apple because Apple is God. (Like my brother in law!)

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

I'm not saying that all Apple owners are stupid, or that I will assume you're stupid if you prefer to buy Apple products. I'm saying that stupid people are more likely to buy Apple. Big difference.

Do you really think that this completely invented fact makes the conversation more productive?