Slashdot Mirror
That Awkward Moment When 'Apple Mocked Good Hardware and Poor People' (dailydot.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a DailyDot article: Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, took the stage in Cupertino, California, earlier this week to explain some of the new features and specs on the new iPad Pro. Between showing off a new display and camera, Schiller also took some digs at Windows and PC users, specifically calling out those users who are on computers more than five years old. Schiller said that 600 million people are using PCs that are over five years old. 'This is really sad,' he said.
C. Custer, reporter for Tech in Asia also didn't like Schiller's remarks. He writes: If Apple's really targeting those 600 million old PC users, it seems to have done a pretty poor job. It's been more than five years since I saw the need to upgrade my primary computer, and nothing about the iPad Pro presentation made me rethink my position at all. But of course, Apple isn't really targeting those people. That was mostly just a cheap shot, a jibe at all of us poor fools who haven't yet seen the light. That's why the audience laughed knowingly, and even applauded. "Using the same machine for five years? How barbaric! Thank god we live in civilized society, where everyone throws their gadgets out and buys new ones every two years."
C. Custer, reporter for Tech in Asia also didn't like Schiller's remarks. He writes: If Apple's really targeting those 600 million old PC users, it seems to have done a pretty poor job. It's been more than five years since I saw the need to upgrade my primary computer, and nothing about the iPad Pro presentation made me rethink my position at all. But of course, Apple isn't really targeting those people. That was mostly just a cheap shot, a jibe at all of us poor fools who haven't yet seen the light. That's why the audience laughed knowingly, and even applauded. "Using the same machine for five years? How barbaric! Thank god we live in civilized society, where everyone throws their gadgets out and buys new ones every two years."
...The coworker sitting next to me us using a 5.5 year old macbook pro and defending it as "still as good as anything new."
What a barbarian.
Modern app appers know that only apps can app apps, and if 600 million LUDDITES are still using LUDDITE software, that ruins it for the rest of us app appers! Apple wants to destroy LUDDITE software and replace it with good wholesome appy app apps!
Apps!
The Apple Marketing really are targeting the shallow and vacuous assholes who want to feel smug about the latest shiny?
My last PC was over 6 years old before it keeled over, and I hope this one lasts about the same.
Know what I still don't have? My first gen iPad that Apple updated until they made it useless. Know what I do have? A 3.5 year old Android tablet.
Huge amounts of people are running older machines ... and, once again, people in marketing are shallow idiots.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No way!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It was a dumb comment for sure, but turning this into a matter of class warfare or social justice is orders of magnitude dumber.
apple (and all non generic hardware pushers) needs consumers to continuously discard their old and buy its newest overpriced products with their much hyped latest features ( however unsubstantial ) in order to make profit.
this can only be achieved by social conditioning. a herd mentality is created where members of the herd feel fulfilled and happy, and be in a satisfactory social status, only when they have the latest.
so of course, they must laugh and mock at those outside the herd, make members of the herd join in laughing and mocking, more publicly the better.
>> 600 million people are using PCs that are over five years old. 'This is really sad,' he said.
No it really isn't. Most people just use PCs to write emails and surf the net. Heck even 5 year old hardware is overpowered just for that.
Interesting coming from a company that will sell you a 3y9m old machine today (http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MD101LL/A&step=config#). Reports are that they still sell rather a lot of them, because they're upgradable, repairable, and work just fine.
As for me, my 2010 MBP literally came out of a garbage skip. Found it with a bulging/burst lithium battery (far from an Apple-only issue). $50 worth of eBay grey market battery later, and I have a pretty solid machine for XCode and Mac testing. If it weren't for that, I just wouldn't test or dev anything for Macs. Couldn't afford to.
The rich boys and their expensive toys, about which they understand a fraction.
It's tough to show off your new Porsche to the Marketing chippies around the watercooler, so your new Apple-thing will have to suffice...
Apple doesn't have anything to be smug about, period. Phil Schiller is a jerk trying to sell unneeded junk to stupid people. I say "junk" because that's what all machinery eventually becomes.If it does the job you need it to do, you're an idiot for replacing it!
That said, I may buy an iPad. My daughter had hers with her last visit, and it takes REALLY sharp photos.
Free Martian Whores!
Way back when, Apple was claiming that its computers lasted longer, and retained their usefulness longer, than other computers. Suddenly, this is supposed to be a problem?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That said, I may buy an iPad. My daughter had hers with her last visit, and it takes REALLY sharp photos.
If you're only after really sharp photos, you'd be better off with a recent model compact camera. They're a lot cheaper, and will take much better photos.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The idea, I think, is to buy things in a way that doesn't cause social harm, such as by using minerals mined by child slave labor in unsafe conditions. I think we can all agree that enslaving children and forcing them to work in mines under conditions that are likely to kill them is undesirable, and as this does happen in some places, we don't want to encourage the slavers by giving them more money.
The big problem I have with it in practice is that there's no good way to see what effects your purchase has. The "socially responsible" purchaser will be told various things about what bad things go into X, which may be true, may be random unfounded rumor, or may be spread by people hostile to those who sell X. It's possible to misinterpret things, such as assuming things are produced by coercion and exploitation when the jobs doing it may be considered good to have by the people doing it. It often comes down to someone getting a bee in their bonnet about one cause and ignoring others, or assuming that, instead of buying that new MacBook Air, you would donate that money to some charitable cause.
I'd like to see things like the mining mentioned above policed by the international community, meaning that I'd have some assurance I wasn't contributing to the child slave trade (nothing's going to be perfect), and could get stuff made by people in generally humane conditions.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes