What is a technology/gadget you refuse to use and why?

mayflower@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 180 points –
248

You are viewing a single comment

Apple anything

Patiently waiting on Asahi Linux to get more and more features done ā€“ the stuff theyā€™ve achieved to reverse-engineer so far already is frankly incredible.

The hardware is quite nice, after allā€¦

Wow I'm surprised you didn't get downvoted into oblivion. Personally I agree with you and I'm guessing most lemmy users are android users judging from this comment.

3 more...

I'm forced to use an iphone and ipad for work and I fucking hate it. I honestly don't understand how people find it "more intuitive". So y'all hate the ability to go back or easily exit out of things?? And the inconsistency in swiping functions between models and versions is maddening!

Swipe from up on the iPad brings up menu A but on the iphone SE it brings up menu B but on the iphone ## it brings up menu fucking C.

Aaaahhhhh so frustrating!!

Note: I am also ND so... probably something to do with it.

The only thing I like about apple is their apple pen for making illustrations on procreate. For me, nothing is comparable.

Everything else is a nightmare though. Even if the apple pen is awesome, I just can't recommend anyone to buy such an expensive device considering you can't really repair it and cannot do anything apple doesn't want you to.

And why?

Leaked emails indicate, they use iMessage to actively lock down users in their walled garden. This is area with literally zero innovation (or even regression) for past decade. At least.

Giving money to Apple basically equals to strangling innovation in exchange for getting (sometimes or even rarely) marginally better UX in boring, well explored areas.

Also once you are bought into their ecosystem you are stuck with some mediocre products like iPhone, because if you want alternative, you have to throw away watch, tv and speakers and then redo entire home automation due to lack of elementary interoperability.

Source?

OP is somewhat mistaken, it wasn't a leaked email since it was revealed in the Epic v. Apple case, but here's one of many sources you can find on the topic.

Thatā€™s interesting, but itā€™s hardly what I was imagining based on what the user I replied to was saying.

The source linked quoted an Apple exec explaining that the cost/benefit analysis of building a piece of free software on a platform that generates them no revenue doesnā€™t justify them spending the resources to build the software.

I get it, we all want corporations to be benevolent entities that give us free software out of the kindness of their hearts, but if weā€™re going to criticize one of them for not doing so, I think itā€™s more clear-minded to criticize the system as a whole.

Why in the world would anyone expect Apple to spend development resources building iMessage for Android (for free), especially if theyā€™ve determined that it will hurt user retention? Because we want them to? It sucks, but not like ā€œevil mega-corp manipulating usersā€ sucks, more like ā€œcorporation making decision that literally every other for-profit corporation would make in that situationā€ sucks.

Iā€™m not trying to morally justify it, Iā€™m strictly speaking in the context of ā€œuse products from x instead of y because y did bad thingā€. In that context, thatā€™s a bad argument if itā€™s true that x is just as anti-user as y is.

And if weā€™re specifically talking about using Apple products vs using Google products here, youā€™d have to be taking crazy pills to think that Apple is more anti-user than a company whoā€™s entire business model is the commoditization of vast amounts of personal data gathered for the purpose of more effectively manipulating literally everyone, including non-users of their products, into increasing their consumption.

Thatā€™s some real salt there buddy.

You are definitely entitled to your opinion, but ā€˜apple hardware and software is objectively inferiorā€™ isnā€™t much of one.

Itā€™s especially disingenuous to present those opinions like theyā€™re established fact, when they definitely arenā€™t. You may not think that Apple is particularly innovative or that their UX is particularly good, but I think youā€™d definitely be in the minority there, especially outside of niche online communities filled with people with an axe to grind.

Iā€™m pretty close to being as much of a power user as someone can be within the use case that I have for general purpose computing. I also feel like I probably know the mobile/desktop software space better than the average person on the street, Iā€™m a SWE by trade.

I honestly think that the gap between the UI/UX design on Apple software and the UI/UX design on windows in particular, but android to a lesser extent, is the most compelling reason to use apple. And I also think itā€™s ridiculously out of touch to claim that Appleā€™s innovationā€™s (especially in hardware) arenā€™t significantly better executed and consistent than the competition. Sure, they donā€™t throw every half-baked idea into every new product they release, only to abandon that idea in 18 months for a new batch of experiments. I think thatā€™s one of the reasons Apple users like Apple products. Personally, Iā€™m not buying a phone because I want to spend two weeks trying out a bunch of gimmicks and then never using them again unless Iā€™m showing my friends the cool thing my phone can do.

But, of course those are my subjective opinions and Iā€™m not faulting you for disagreeing. There are people out there who thing Outlook is good UX, and theyā€™re entitled to that opinion lol. But I do think itā€™s a little silly to disagree in a way that makes it obvious that you think that anyone who disagrees with you has no idea what theyā€™re talking about.

I never wrote they are objectively inferior. I even admitted they can be marginally better in some areas. My point is they'll vendor lock the hell out of you and the trade off isn't worth it.

Meanwhile you wrote two walls of text to defend company that uses your children and technology worse than ICQ (released in 1996) to make you buy their products. You're free to do so, but I'm not sure which one of us is salty :-)

Probably my fault you didnā€™t see this because it was buried deep in the wall of text, but I clarified that Iā€™m definitely not trying to morally exculpate Apple.

In the context of which of two companies you choose to do business with, you shouldnā€™t criticize one while ignoring the immoral actions of the other. If weā€™re just talking about the things apple does wrong, Iā€™m right there with you. But if weā€™re talking about which mobile phone ecosystem is less predatory than the otherā€¦ at least my relationship with apple is a voluntary business arrangement with exactly two parties. Thatā€™s actually the reason I moved all of my stuff out of the android ecosystem in ā€˜21 after >10 years. Seeing ads across a dozen websites related to a private medical diagnosis made me realize Google just knows too much about me, and I do care about my privacy after all.

Thatā€™s obviously just my personal opinion but my point is that if youā€™re looking for an ethical tech company, Iā€™ve got a bridge to sell you.

I don't believe in ethical companies. Microsoft was cool once, then Google was cool, now some people seem to think that Apple is cool.

Best way to not get burnt is not to get vendor locked with one of them. Android allows me to install Firefox(real one, not Safari re-skin), replace launcher or even entire OS with Graphene. Google sucks in many ways, but if I'm not happy with them I just install software from another vendor. With ios I have to throw away half of the hardware I own.

I donā€™t believe in ethical for-profit companies either.

The open nature of Android was the single biggest reason I used it for the decade that I did. If I were to switch back, Iā€™d buy a pixel.

But android isnā€™t as open as it used to be. Yes, you can still unlock your bootloader, root, and install custom roms, but Google is now actively fighting against users who want to do so. On my pixel 3, it became a never-ending battle to keep apps like my banking portal working while rooted, and to keep rooting working through updates. At least once a month, Iā€™d be out of the house and have my phone fundamentally break in some way.

Eventually, I reached the point where I needed a smartphone as a tool more than I needed one as a toy to tinker with, so I left it stock. But stock android sucks from a privacy perspective. I realized that I wasnā€™t using 3rd party App Stores and I wasnā€™t rooting my phone, so the largest benefits of avoiding an iPhone werenā€™t really a factor to me anymore.

I was also extremely disappointed in the hardware, quality control and longevity of new android phones, especially compared to the iPhones being released. So I switched. And was amazed at how glad I was.

No police showed up to my door to force me to trade my Sony headphones in for AirPods or my Dell laptop for a MacBook. I already had an iPad because at the time, it was the only serious tablet of you care about using a stylus, but that had been working beautifully for me without any other apple products.

I think itā€™s silly to list the fact that an OEM has a ton of products that work well together as a reason not to buy any of that companyā€™s products. If you donā€™t want to get locked in, donā€™t buy an Apple Watch. As far as I know, nothing else requires an iPad. And anyway, the resale value on apple products is so solid that if you did totally buy in, selling all your apple hardware would get you more than enough to buy matching hardware of a similar age from other manufacturers. Sell your two year old iPad and you can probably get 3 two year old Samsung tablets, assuming you can find any that still work.

The web browser thing also hardly locks you in. If you really donā€™t want to use safari, thatā€™s a decent reason not to want to use iOS. For me at least, safari is the browser I would choose to use, so I donā€™t really care that I canā€™t use Firefox.

I want to use my things how I want to use them. Apple does not let me do that. They actually get in the way of how I want to use my things.

3 more...