The Apple thread

There are 12 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 3,809 times. The latest Post () was by Rice.

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    • Official Post

    I have a love-hate relation ship with Apple, which swings in a more hate direction than the other most of the time. Due respect to any Apple users here, of course.

    I've owned two iPhones and couldn't get rid of them fast enough when the opportunities presented themselves and I doubt I'll ever own another Apple device again, ever.

    The first was an iPhone 3g, a phone so dull that moving to a Galaxy S3 was a huge relief. And let's not even talk about getting an iPhone to connect to another non-Apple Bluetooth device.

    Then I acquired an iPhone 6s which was a big improvement over the 3G, but I went back to the S3 because of iTunes and iOS, both of which I loathe.

    I've also had experience in trying to fix iPads and numerous Macs, where reinstalling the OS is nothing short of a nightmare. I prefer not to touch them any more.

    So now we have Apple launching the new Apple Mac Pro with an XDR display at around US$5000 and here's the kicker - they want US$999 for the monitor stand.

    Now, Apple products are beautiful; there's no doubt about it. But they sure make you pay through the nose as if it's some kind of religious ritual to the devoted.

    I certainly agree with the sentiments expressed in this article.

    A $999 monitor stand is everything wrong with Apple today

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    • Official Post

    I was ‘forced’ to switch to Apple by my husband, about seven years ago.
    When the first iPhone came out, it was revolutionary. Yet, nobody had ever spent that kind of money on a mass produced phone, so I looked at it like an alien gadget.


    iPhone 3GS was very popular in Italy and more and more people (especially young adults and adults males) were showcasing it as a status symbol.


    When a friend of my husband bought one, my husband got caught in the apple sect. Of course the guy praised his phone at every chance, but given the high price I never dared to buy one as a gift to my husband. I bought him a HTC with Android, instead. He kept comparing it to his friend iPhone. Everything was worse on android, he said. The HTC touchscreen was not even close to the sensitivity of the apple screen, the icon weren’t as well designed, the software wasn’t as fast, etc.


    At that time, I was a blackberry user. I loved the full physical keyboard and I still have fond memories of my blackberry times. However, BB used a proprietary OS and apps for BB OS were limited.


    A colleague of mine bought a Nexus phone for short of €300 and the screen was impressive, the OS was smooth, Android had tons of apps... so I bought one; but the transition from a physical BB keyboard to all touch screen phone was terrible, despite SwiftKey. It seemed to me a great phone to watch videos and play around, but not that great to work with (type email fast to reply quickly).


    I sold it after two months and went back to BB, just a better model.


    I was tired to hear praises of the iphone, and complains about my husband’s old computer, so I gave him a iMac for his 32th bday. He loved it and was like a teenager in front of the first Nintendo back in the ‘90s!


    At the same time, my husband and his friend decided to make a serious attempt at music and bought a refurbished Mac Pro (professional desktop computer, not the iMac) because the 27” iMac was not easy to bring around.


    His friend also had an iPad and when a bank had this promotion where they gave you an iPad if you opened a bank account with them, we took up on the offer and got the iPad, too.


    From there, it all went downhill (so to speak). My husband took the courage to get a iPhone 5 through a phone carrier. He never stopped praising his iMac, the iPad, the iPhone etc.


    I was using a nice Sony Vaio which I paid about €800 back then, because it was 17” and had a nice screen. I loved it and it was working fine, but every time that my husband touched it he bugged me how I should have gotten myself a MacBook, etc. but for €1500, it was not an option!


    One of my colleagues was selling a great MacBook Pro for €850 so I bought it and took the leap. For the first months I keep using the Vaio because the apple computer was ‘too complicated’. Truth is, it was just different.
    I was doing fine with my Vaio with windows 7 and I wasn’t mind blown by apple.
    Eventually we moved to Argentina and had to get rid of the Vaio, since I was able to do everything with the MacBook.


    I used that MacBook for 5 years almost (I got it that it was about 3 years old already), then the graphic card was giving issues with some apps, such as whatsapp, some FB plugins etc. and it kept crashing.


    I had to buy a new computer because of said issues with my MacBook (notebook) so I decided to try a desktop and bought a used iMac here in Argentina. This helped with my back issues.


    Last year I brought my old MacBook (notebook) with me at Chinatown in Milan where I exchanged it for a newer model for €350. Now I want a Retina IMac but they are super expensive here!




    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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    When I had the Nexus Android phone I installed flashed ROMs which were supposedly 'better' than the official releases. Apart the time spent to install those, having to manually tweak the phone to try to anticipate/unlock features is time consuming, as well. You need to research on the available ROMs, compatibility, user reviews, potential bug with apps you use, do a backup, flash the ROM and hope for the best etc.

    I understand the fun of it (I had fun, too, back then), but when you are interested in just having a phone to use, it becomes a waste of time.


    Bottom line - I could have done okay with my Vaio and my blackberry, but now I am hooked on Apple. Though I don't think it is this alternate-better-world, I am now used to my current set up, and I have bought softwares for Mac which I would need to buy again if I were to go back to windows. The Apple design is also very pleasant to the eye, which is a nice plus. All these factors make it hard to change system, but I am not sure that technically speaking one is better than the other. If I had to suggest somebody if to go Android or Windows or Apple, I would say that it boils down on what you need this technology for and how much you want to play around with tech stuff (or to your budget!).

    I'm a hybrid: accustomed to my iphone, but haven't made the transition to Macs. My first two laptops were IBM notebooks in the mid '90's. Then a Vaio, which I really loved. After that, a custom-built Neo laptop which was perfect in every way, and lasted an amazing 11 years, until I reluctantly replaced it with a Microsoft Surface some months ago. It is terrific, but I'm still not used to some major features. Still, as you both say, because it is more familiar to me than any Apple computer, I'm sticking with the PC.


    As for cell phones in general, it is nothing short of genius, the way we were all sucked into, first, thinking that we had to have a cell and be available 24 hrs a day, and second, accepting that it was normal to pay constantly doubling prices for those phones. Yet here we are. Someone earning $20k/year now thinks nothing of forking out $1k for a phone every 2-3 years, not to mention another $1k/year for cell service.

    • Official Post

    The iPhone 11 is here and it completely passed me by.

    But what the heck? It's nearly 2020, it's a $1000 phone and they still only give you 64Gb with no SD card expansion, bearing in mind that you can now shoot video in 4k, which uses quite a lot of space.

    My Galaxy Note 8 comes with 64Gb and you can use an SD card up to 256Gb. Sometimes Apple amazes me with it's stingy attitude quite frankly.

    And that rear camera layout is f**ing ghastly.

    See for yourself.

    It may be the most underwhelming iPhone since the iPhone 2 or maybe the iPhone 4.


    I agree completely about the storage, my Galaxy S10 has 128GB out of the box. However, it is clear by now that Apple wants users completely tied to its ecosystem, which in this case means limiting storage to shepard users towards the cloud. Problem is, Apple could previously get away with this stuff, but recently the veil is slipping a bit and the hold the company had on the general consumer is declining.


    That said, I think my Galaxy S10 is aesthetically better than my wife's iPhone X. However, despite the Apple being around 18 months older, the build quality remains on another level. There's just something different about the iPhone in terms of look and feel. Whether the frankly ugly iPhone 11 can deliver that same combination I will have to wait until I have it in hand. Certainly, the horrid camera module arrangement is doing it no favours.

    • Official Post

    Apart from the three camera placement in the 11, the main reason for me preferring Android and in particular Galaxy phones, is the innate flexibility.

    SD card expansion is one of the top selling points as far as I'm concerned, especially since I don't pay for cloud storage, but simply take advantage of what's available for free. For example, when I acquired the S8, Microsoft gave me 130Gb free OneDrive space for two years, through a deal they had with Samsung.

    Customisation is another major factor and being locked into Apple's ecosystem, not to mention the frankly diabolical iTunes, is a complete turn off for me.

    • Official Post

    I agree with Semigoodlooking that the iPhone look and feel is always light years forward compared to android, even if the tech specs of android phones are superior. Recently, I translated a survey on a new Galaxy phone and many questions were about its features and how much appealing they are. I had to look for those on the internet as my iPhone X doesn’t have those.


    It bugs me that here most government apps are only for android. It makes me feel even farther from the first world. I know most people have an android phone, but nobody would make an android app only unless they are looking for a commercial fiasco.



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    • Helpful

    ON JULY 2019, IN ARGENTINA [link]:

    Quote

    En números absolutos, eso equivale a decir que de los 34 millones de celulares en uso que hay en el país, 2.100.000 son iPhone y 31.620.000 tienen sistema operativo Android.

    2019-07-18-Smartphone-OS.png

    Quote from COMPUTER HOY

    Apple solo domina los mercados anglosajones, Japón, y algunos paises nórdicos europeos. El resto es territorio Android:


    En Estados Unidos, el dominio de Apple es abrumador: 9 de los 10 móviles más vendidos en 2018 son iPhone. Pero curiosamente, los más vendidos son los modelos de hace uno o dos años, que han bajado de precio:

    ios-vs-android.jpg?itok=iqDokEgC