C
Chibibar
Well, there are some who make a living playing video game competitively. There are world competition for this stuff and people even make million of dollars on prizes.
This is why I hate Apple culture
- Thread starter Mathias
- Start date
- Status
fade
Staff member
An example of how NOT like SmarterChild Siri is: Dictation.
Siri can tell the difference between "The Jurassic Period" and "The Jurassic." based on the context of the the sentence.
Like I said, it ain't just voice control, which by the way was already built into every iPhone since the 2008 or so, and is actually fairly smart itself. Every Apple blogger who likes Siri should point that out I think to avoid "LOL u just got voice control LOL" from haters.
Siri can tell the difference between "The Jurassic Period" and "The Jurassic." based on the context of the the sentence.
Like I said, it ain't just voice control, which by the way was already built into every iPhone since the 2008 or so, and is actually fairly smart itself. Every Apple blogger who likes Siri should point that out I think to avoid "LOL u just got voice control LOL" from haters.
For some values of "technical" perhaps.
Gaming for most is a form of entertainment - similar to playing a game of neighborhood soccer.
Gaming for some is a profession - similar to playing for a FIFA soccer team, and in fact they themselves are the entertainment for others.
Movies for most are a form of entertainment.
Movies for some are a profession - either in the creation/distribution/display of or the evaluation of.
Whether any of the above are technical in nature is debatable, I suppose, but if you can accept that soccer players, or movie critics perform their tasks with technical ability, then you should be able to extend that same argument to gamers.
You must be drunk, I didn't post once that gaming was "serious technical work".
Friend was buying an iPhone yesterday and we went to an Apple store. There was a shrine to Steve Jobs in the front corner of the store that took up about 9 square feet. People had left applesauce and bags of apples and other RIDICULOUS shit. All I could do was walk out and wait in the car.
fade
Staff member
See, this is what I don't get. It's silly, yeah. But it doesn't describe most Apple users. Extrapolating out from some overzealous employees, a few nutcase fans, and probably more than a few people joking around (come on, applesauce?) gets dangerously close to some kind of ism.
The other thing I don't get is why it's okay to be a fan of other things, but not Apple products. I mean people were crying like babies on the news when Dale Earnhardt died, and all he did was drive a car really fast. People still enshrine him on the back windows of their cars. Yet no one accused them of being a cult. They just called them fans. I can guarantee that more people have participated in extreme behavior in their support of [insert sports figure here] than the ever did for Apple.
The other thing I don't get is why it's okay to be a fan of other things, but not Apple products. I mean people were crying like babies on the news when Dale Earnhardt died, and all he did was drive a car really fast. People still enshrine him on the back windows of their cars. Yet no one accused them of being a cult. They just called them fans. I can guarantee that more people have participated in extreme behavior in their support of [insert sports figure here] than the ever did for Apple.
as an American, you must realize that Ben was pretty much the iron man of his time(pardon the comparison, iron man does not do him justice) when he died the country partied hard, because that was the kind of guy he was. as I remember from his life story, he was a skirt chaser and a party animal into his old age. which to me as one of the founding fathers of the USA is awesome to the max.
C
Chibibar
Yea. I don't know why people are knocking Apple Fans (or maybe we don't read as much) but there are people who cry/enshrine fictional characters from TV shows and Soaps.
Necronic
Staff member
I don't have any particular beef with Apple users. I mean, I rate a product by the product, not by the people that use it.
I DO however have a LOT of beef with Apple. Most of it comes from the "it just works" attitude. Generally speaking, Apple products are less buggy than Microsoft/etc products. But Apple products have their fair share of bugs as well (see iTunes and the iPhone memory leaks.)
But that's not what bothers me (everything has bugs). What bothers me is how INCREDIBLY difficult it is to find support or recognition of bugs from Apple. They rarely officially recognize bugs in any way shape or form. Trying to find solutions to these problems is a mind numbing experience, that has actually gotten me to the point of shouting at an Apple store manager before.
So instead of "It just works" its "Dude its fine quit bothering me."
I DO however have a LOT of beef with Apple. Most of it comes from the "it just works" attitude. Generally speaking, Apple products are less buggy than Microsoft/etc products. But Apple products have their fair share of bugs as well (see iTunes and the iPhone memory leaks.)
But that's not what bothers me (everything has bugs). What bothers me is how INCREDIBLY difficult it is to find support or recognition of bugs from Apple. They rarely officially recognize bugs in any way shape or form. Trying to find solutions to these problems is a mind numbing experience, that has actually gotten me to the point of shouting at an Apple store manager before.
So instead of "It just works" its "Dude its fine quit bothering me."
fade
Staff member
I have to tell you, I've had exactly the opposite experience. Apple support has been not only willing to acknowledge bugs, they also talked to me on a highly technical level, unlike most customer service experiences I've had. More than one time, they've pleasantly skipped the scripted crap when it was clear I had already followed those steps. In this way, I uncovered a bug in the Mac version of Matlab that went as far as a conference call between Mathworks, Apple, and me when we determined it was a Leopard bug, not a Mathworks one.
Added at: 17:53
I'm not being purposely contradictory here, either. It's precisely experiences like this that have kept me a loyal, returning customer.
Added at: 17:53
I'm not being purposely contradictory here, either. It's precisely experiences like this that have kept me a loyal, returning customer.
Necronic
Staff member
At the higher end you are working on, that may be the case, but when I have tried to get answers about bugs with my iphones the response is, more often than not, "ATT did it", which should NEVER have been an acceptable answer, but is even far more ridiculous now that they are using other providers.
What bug was so bad that you were shouting at a manager but was unacknowledged by him as a bug?
No kidding. Now I gotta know.
C
Chibibar
Sadly some store manager (not sure on Apple) sometimes know less than their employee. They just manage and put out fire, but not very technical (again this is just a blanket statement) There are some manager I encounter who are very knowledgeable. I personally have no issue with Apple support team (personal and business level) but when you have thousands of store, you are bound to get that one "bad apple"
Necronic
Staff member
That wasn't exactly a bug, it had to do with some hardware defects and the outrageous prices they were asking for replacement.
That's another thing. I get the "full package" pricing, I really do, I'm not gonna be one of those dudes that's all "hey I could have built that cheaper" because I appreciate that it's a "full package" deal. But the repair/replacement costs they ask for certain things are downright offensive to me, and I had no problem telling the manager that.
He was really pissing me off because he kept saying "no one will do it for cheaper, this is a fair price" and I finally went and got on one of their in store computers and showed that no other computer company would charge that much. Then he got all huffy about "well we use special parts" and I went and showed him 3rd party people that would do the work with the same parts for 1/2 the price. At that point he told me that if I went to a third party it would void the warranty. I almost slugged him.
The combination of having to pay to replace something that I thought was defective on purchase, which wasn't covered by the very expensive warranty, and then being told that 2x normal price is "fair" sent me off the handle.
The good news is I ruined his day.
That's another thing. I get the "full package" pricing, I really do, I'm not gonna be one of those dudes that's all "hey I could have built that cheaper" because I appreciate that it's a "full package" deal. But the repair/replacement costs they ask for certain things are downright offensive to me, and I had no problem telling the manager that.
He was really pissing me off because he kept saying "no one will do it for cheaper, this is a fair price" and I finally went and got on one of their in store computers and showed that no other computer company would charge that much. Then he got all huffy about "well we use special parts" and I went and showed him 3rd party people that would do the work with the same parts for 1/2 the price. At that point he told me that if I went to a third party it would void the warranty. I almost slugged him.
The combination of having to pay to replace something that I thought was defective on purchase, which wasn't covered by the very expensive warranty, and then being told that 2x normal price is "fair" sent me off the handle.
The good news is I ruined his day.
C
Chibibar
Yea. I learn that iPhone are not covered under normal cellphone insurance (which I usually get) you have to buy apple protection plan (which usually cost another 150$ and you pay 50$ replacement fee if it is replace at least that is the current price)
Necronic
Staff member
Well, this wasn't for an iPhone, was for something else.
Anyways it's probably just a fluke experience I have had. But the other thing that has always bothered me is trying to find solutions for Apple problems on the internet, it is remarkable how difficult it can be to find stuff sometimes. There may be 100 threads out there about a specific problem with no official statement from apple about what the issue is or if its being looked at.
Then there was that whole thing with the monitors and the threads getting deleted/the censorship scandal. That was remarkably damning and as far as I know there was no response from apple about this or anything. As far as I know there's a bit of an ongoing history of Apple censoring certain defect reports.
Edit: Heh, didn't know this but they did the SAME thing with the iPhone 4 antenna problem, trying to scrub all notices about it from their boards.
Anyways it's probably just a fluke experience I have had. But the other thing that has always bothered me is trying to find solutions for Apple problems on the internet, it is remarkable how difficult it can be to find stuff sometimes. There may be 100 threads out there about a specific problem with no official statement from apple about what the issue is or if its being looked at.
Then there was that whole thing with the monitors and the threads getting deleted/the censorship scandal. That was remarkably damning and as far as I know there was no response from apple about this or anything. As far as I know there's a bit of an ongoing history of Apple censoring certain defect reports.
Edit: Heh, didn't know this but they did the SAME thing with the iPhone 4 antenna problem, trying to scrub all notices about it from their boards.
fade
Staff member
The moderators have definitely done that. Whether it happens with Apple's sanctions, I'm not sure. I had experienced the "Mac Pro magically rebooting after wake from sleep" bug that disappeared magically from the discussion forum. It's clear they heard though, because after all the mac pro owners raised a fuss, the 10.5.1 release came within a day or two. Apple has definitely done some questionable things morally speaking, no doubt. One Apple practice I hate is taking the work of 3rd party devs, either as a low buyout, or buy simply replicating the work on their own and incorporating it into their stuff as something new.
Necronic
Staff member
But see to me that shows a serious QC problem, something I am more and more inclined to think that Apple has. And it's not a QC problem in the sense that more of their products are defective, I actually firmly believe that Apple puts out a higher quality product than their competitiors.
However their lack of communication and complete unwillingness to "own up" to flaws is a severe failure of their QC philosophy, one that almost bothers me more than a lower quality product with good communication. At least with the latter you know where you stand. With apple they do such a good job of obfuscating the quality problems that you have no idea how bad their product actually is.
That to me is pretty much inexcusable when you are a company that prides itself on quality.
Edit: Another historical example of this, and a pretty severe one, was the thermal paste incident, where the technicians handbook (which was, I believe, leaked somewhere) had them globbing on thermal paste which was causing laptops to overheat. Apple never acknowledged this (to my knowledge), instead stating that the overheating was due to a piece of plastic on the exhaust, which (to my knowledge) no one has ever reported seeing.
However their lack of communication and complete unwillingness to "own up" to flaws is a severe failure of their QC philosophy, one that almost bothers me more than a lower quality product with good communication. At least with the latter you know where you stand. With apple they do such a good job of obfuscating the quality problems that you have no idea how bad their product actually is.
That to me is pretty much inexcusable when you are a company that prides itself on quality.
Edit: Another historical example of this, and a pretty severe one, was the thermal paste incident, where the technicians handbook (which was, I believe, leaked somewhere) had them globbing on thermal paste which was causing laptops to overheat. Apple never acknowledged this (to my knowledge), instead stating that the overheating was due to a piece of plastic on the exhaust, which (to my knowledge) no one has ever reported seeing.
Just a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
- Status