I admit it, I'm an addict

[Orestes Munn]

I have a high school friend who has a small tech company. He asks to be telephoned or written to on paper when I wish to communicate with him.

[BeauV]

I have a high school friend who has a small tech company. He asks to be telephoned or written to on paper when I wish to communicate with him.

Does he use a fountain pen? I do.

[Orestes Munn]

I have a high school friend who has a small tech company. He asks to be telephoned or written to on paper when I wish to communicate with him.

Does he use a fountain pen? I do.

No. He’s a slob who would never spend money on such an object.

[Ajax]

Ajax, for many many years I've bought Apple products because I'm willing to pay more for higher quality and security. They seem to be continuing to do that, we'll see.

I think that the tech industry is about where the auto industry was in about 1920. There are dozens of really terrible products, reliability isn't great, and only the absurdly expensive products (like a Packard) are reliable. I'm guessing that we'll be able to get to something like the 1980s in another decade and maybe the year 2000 a decade after that. Debugging complex things takes a long time.

In the meanwhile, there are WAY too many jobs for folks that sound like yours, Ajax. Fixing stuff that never should have been allowed to escape as a "product". BTW, I have noticed a big improvement in quality over the last 10 years in various areas. Keeping old tech is a lot like me keeping my old '65 Morgan and complaining about how unreliable it is.

I'm not quite sure I agree with your analogy. If you're implying that I cling to my old tech because I think it's superior to the new tech (in the same way that some guys love carburetors more than fuel injection) you would be incorrect.

It's all crap. My old tech is crap. I just keep my old tech because I see no point in paying more money new tech that is fundamentally the same. Minor improvements such as eliminating the screen bezel, eliminating the "home" button, and improved selfie cameras etc. are features that are of absolutely no value to me. My old tech continues to feign reliability simply because I barely ever use it.

Even a shitty car will drive grandma to Sunday Bingo 90% of the time if that's all she demands of it.

[BeauV]

Ajax, without doubt the newer technology is more reliable. With desktop and laptop computers I used to have the hard data from a 7,000 person organization at my fingertips. I remember one striking point. First, when we shifted from Lenovo PCs to Apple MacBooks support staffing went from 1 per 75 customers to 1 per 190 customers. Second, when we went from whichever MacOS it was to one which was about three years newer, support tickets dropped by 34%. This was in the early 2000s. At that time, we didn't include phones and pads in our tech support, we do now, but I believe you'd find similar data.

I know this stuff feels fragile, and it is compared to a modern car, but it is getting demonstrably more reliable. Thus, my crack about a '65 car compared to a modern one.

[Orestes Munn]

The MacOS has been garbage since OSX. It has to do a lot more, like be secure(!), but it used to be rock solid and even a total hack, such as I, could fix it. Still better than Windows, but it sucks. Sucks. Don’t get me started on Office365. That ought to be prosecutable.

[LarryHoward]

Woke up this morning to IOS 11.1. That's 5 software drops in 5 weeks. Love that Apple pre release testing program.

[Ajax]

Woke up this morning to IOS 11.1. That's 5 software drops in 5 weeks. Love that Apple pre release testing program.

We *are* the testing program. That's why I hate this shit. You don't make guinea pigs out of your customers. One IOS update broke my GPS puck bluetooth functionality. I had to wait for the next update before I got it back. The puck connected, but the iPad refused to pass the data to my navigation application.

Beau says that "the customer has spoken" and Apple is the best, most reliable product because they have the greatest market share. I don't necessarily agree with that statement because Apple is also a cult and a "fashion" or status product. People buy Apple for the status, not necessarily because it is the best product. Consumers get caught up in hype and marketing all the time, against their own best interests.

[BeauV]

...snip...

Consumers get caught up in hype and marketing all the time, against their own best interests.

I used to say things like this until a really good friend asked me one question: "Do you have some cosmic insight into what is 'their own best interests' that allows you to make statements like this about people you don't even know? If so, please let me know, because I'd like you to serve as a marketing consultant to our company."

Look, I get that a tech person doesn't think Apple is the "best" product for various technical reasons. But that's almost exactly the same as saying: "I don't have any idea why a poor person in West Virginia would vote for Donald Trump, he said that he'd take away their healthcare and cut taxes to the rich. Why are they voting against their own best interests." Indeed, I said almost exactly that here on Scantlings and Larry rightfully called me out for doing so.

We don't get to decide what is in other people's best interests without asking them or at least studying them. To do so is pretty arrogant, which is what Larry said to me (at least I think it was Larry). When people are doing things we don't understand, I'd humbly suggest we don't understand them, not that they are somehow making grave mistakes. To suggest that literally millions of people are simultaneously making this sort of error is a little hard to buy.

Being part of a cult, buying a product you want based on its status, believing the hype, are all perfectly good reasons for many people.

I'm perfectly willing to buy that Apple is NOT the best product for some of us here who have expressed perfectly good reasons for their dislike. But it is just silly to claim that we're somehow representative of the market (and those millions of customers are not representative) or that we have some superior insight that over rides the decisions of adult people spending their own money.

[Ajax]

So... you don't believe that several people who have been working in tech industries for decades don't have a special insight that millions of consumers who do NOT work in tech industries might lack?

Ok, I concede that it's arrogant to assume that I know what someone else's "best interests" are, and I shouldn't be telling someone what those best interests are, but I do believe that as people who work in the industry, that we just *might* know something about these products that the burger-flipper who has spent her precious money on the iPhone X with the rhinestone-studded case might not know.

[Orestes Munn]

So... you don't believe that several people who have been working in tech industries for decades don't have a special insight that millions of consumers who do NOT work in tech industries might lack?

Ok, I concede that it's arrogant to assume that I know what someone else's "best interests" are, and I shouldn't be telling someone what those best interests are, but I do believe that as people who work in the industry, that we just *might* know something about these products that the burger-flipper who has spent her precious money on the iPhone X with the rhinestone-studded case might not know.

The guy making 150 K/yr who leverages a 80,000 SUV is a bigger sucker in my book

[Ajax]

So... you don't believe that several people who have been working in tech industries for decades don't have a special insight that millions of consumers who do NOT work in tech industries might lack?

Ok, I concede that it's arrogant to assume that I know what someone else's "best interests" are, and I shouldn't be telling someone what those best interests are, but I do believe that as people who work in the industry, that we just *might* know something about these products that the burger-flipper who has spent her precious money on the iPhone X with the rhinestone-studded case might not know.

The guy making 150 K/yr who leverages a 80,000 SUV is a bigger sucker in my book

It's just a matter of scale- $9.75/hr and an iPhone X or $150k/year and an $80k SUV. Both are equal suckers. The min-wage working buying the iPhone X isn't buying it outright, they're leveraging a payment plan, too.

I caught myself eyeing Samsung tablets at the Navy Exchange yesterday, as a replacement for my old iPad. I feel dirty now.

[BeauV]

So... you don't believe that several people who have been working in tech industries for decades don't have a special insight that millions of consumers who do NOT work in tech industries might lack?

Happy to concede that point. I violently agree: There are CERTAINLY folks in the tech industry who have built things based on insight that folks outside of tech didn't know they needed.

Example: Steve Jobs when he took the keyboard off the phone, made a giant screen and sold millions of them. (one of many examples)

Example: Dan Bricklin when he put an account's paper spreadsheet up on an Apple II and immediately allowed millions of folks to do something with a computer they never dreamed was possible.

Example: Charles Simoyni when he helped Buttler Lampson build the first personal computer at Xerox PARC and then went on to build the idea of macros in cells in MSFT Excel and MSFT Word.

Example: Marc Andreessen when he wrote the really useful web browsers, Mosaic and Netscape.

But, having known those examples, I never heard them tell folks what they ought to buy (other than that their ideas/products were great, which is only natural). They talked about their products and how they could help, showed folks what they could do with them, and then supported the heck out of folks.

(WARNING: Rant coming)

I really think there's something broken when we in tech tell other folks what to buy, what to think, what to feel, what they ought to do, what they ought not to do..... etc..... etc....... Sure, there are folks who look pretty silly buying an iPhoneX for a grand and living on minimum wage (I'd hazard a guess there are very few of them in the real world but there could be some). But it's their money, it's their time, it's what they want. What if that iPhoneX is the only tech product they need and replaces the TV, radio, laptop Computer, music player, land line phone, camera, video game console..... Is it still crazy to spend a grand on the the device if it allows one to not buy that list of stuff? (I realize this is a pretty artificial example, but so is a minimum wager person buying an iPhoneX.)

My most painful example of this is when a tech team listens to what a customer is trying to do with their product and then says: "Why would anyone ever want to do that?" When they ask this question, they're tone and demeanor is more along the lines of: "Only an idiot would want to do that with my wonderful product. They just don't understand the product."

I suppose I'm a bit more of a libertarian than most folks realize. I don't want anyone telling me what I ought to do (unless I asked for it.) I try really hard not to tell others what they ought to do. (and often fail, see references earlier)

(Sorry to be an ass about this, I get riled up about this particular issue in my industry. We need to view customers as those we serve, not those we instruct. Our tech industry is one of only two that I'm aware of which calls it's customers "Users", the other one being drug dealers. It says a lot about what we think of the skill level and value of those customers.)

[Ajax]

Like I said earlier, I conceded your point that it's arrogant to tell people what their best interests are. I don't know how much clearer or in agreement with you I can be, but rant away.

[Olaf Hart]

I am more interested in intuitive interfaces and reliability than the latest tech.

I gave up driving fast cars some time ago as well.

Still enjoy fast boats though...

But on my cruise boat, every piece of electronics is stand alone, i would rather sail than fix stuff.

[Ajax]

Interfaces are extremely important but for me, the priorities are security and reliability.

The slickest GUI isn't worth squat if it lets people steal your data or finances.

[kdh]

The Starbucks app totally sucks, though I love the pre-order ability so I suffer through it every day.

[Panope]

I use a shitty little $29.99 Google phone. Slow and glitchy but it fits in my pocket and is indestructible.

The slow, non fuctionality is actually a good thing as it deters me from using it!

I wish it had a better camera.

Whatever tech savviness I now possess will certainly evaporate as I advance in years. Destiny.

Steve

[BeauV]

Interfaces are extremely important but for me, the priorities are security and reliability.

The slickest GUI isn't worth squat if it lets people steal your data or finances.

I'm completely with you on these priorities. I don't work in that area, but aren't most of the attacks now coming from people falling for phishing attacks and not changing passwords? I was appalled at my last company that the routers were all still set to the default password. Nuts!!

[floating dutchman]

I use a shitty little $29.99 Google phone. Slow and glitchy but it fits in my pocket and is indestructible.

The slow, non fuctionality is actually a good thing as it deters me from using it!

I wish it had a better camera.

Whatever tech savviness I now possess will certainly evaporate as I advance in years. Destiny.

Steve

"I wish I had a better camera."
Careful that's how it all starts. Next it will be "one screen size up would be nice" and "just a slightly faster processor would make it better to use"
Before you know it you'll be in the queue beside Beau when a new phone comes out.

I started out with the $30 phones too, I'm up to the $200 phone now. And if the darn things weren't bigger and still fitted in my pocket, I have that real nice $350 phone now.

[BeauV]

Dutchman, you need larger pockets!! B-)

[Ish]

If you want a better camera, get a better camera. I have lots of cameras, I have one phone. I frequently forget my phone, but I almost always have a camera with me.
I know, I'm a luddite.

[kdh]

I'm with Ish. All the cameras on phones suck.

Ann has a flip phone and a tablet. The phone is a phone with great battery life and the tablet is for google maps traffic or email or all the stuff for which a big screen is nice. A phone doesn't need a screen at all.

[BeauV]

I'm with Ish. All the cameras on phones suck.

Ann has a flip phone and a tablet. The phone is a phone with great battery life and the tablet is for google maps traffic or email or all the stuff for which a big screen is nice. A phone doesn't need a screen at all.

I'm pretty sure a phone won't have a screen at all in the near future; indeed I don't think it will exist as an object, only as an application running on something else. I currently do telephone calls from my laptop, iPhone7, Apple Watch, and iPad. A "telephone call" is just one of many applications for these devices and is really not the most important one. Here's some data I dug up while thinking about all this. It's pretty clear that a "telephone" as a freestanding device is fading away from my life. There were periods in the logs of more than three days where I made and received zero telephone calls. There were zero days when I sent less than 20 emails and zero days when I received less than 80 emails.

Daily Rate for:
Telephone calls - 3
Text messages - 16
Facebook messenger - 0 (I'm weird most folks use this)
Twitter messages - 4
Apple iMessenger messages - 42 (includes the 16 which are text sent through iMessenger)
Email messages - 52 (sent across accounts at Apple, Google, and Yahoo

(Funny footnote: Upon examining the Apple Watch tech specs I discovered that while the screen size is smaller, the pixel count of the Watch is almost exactly the same as the pixel count on the original iPhone. Also, the CPU speed in the Watch is about 3x the CPU speed of the original iPhone and the wireless networks the Watch runs on are over 10x the speeds of the wireless networks the original iPhone used. Fun to put things into perspective.)

[BeauV]

Probably one of the better and better balanced reviews of the iPhoneX is HERE

[kdh]

I should point out that Ann spends a lot of time telling people to call her, and that she doesn't respond to texts.

[Chris Chesley]

I'm with Ish. All the cameras on phones suck.

Ann has a flip phone and a tablet. The phone is a phone with great battery life and the tablet is for google maps traffic or email or all the stuff for which a big screen is nice. A phone doesn't need a screen at all.

I'm pretty sure a phone won't have a screen at all in the near future; indeed I don't think it will exist as an object, only as an application running on something else. I currently do telephone calls from my laptop, iPhone7, Apple Watch, and iPad. A "telephone call" is just one of many applications for these devices and is really not the most important one. Here's some data I dug up while thinking about all this. It's pretty clear that a "telephone" as a freestanding device is fading away from my life. There were periods in the logs of more than three days where I made and received zero telephone calls. There were zero days when I sent less than 20 emails and zero days when I received less than 80 emails.

Daily Rate for:
Telephone calls - 3
Text messages - 16
Facebook messenger - 0 (I'm weird most folks use this)
Twitter messages - 4
Apple iMessenger messages - 42 (includes the 16 which are text sent through iMessenger)
Email messages - 52 (sent across accounts at Apple, Google, and Yahoo

(Funny footnote: Upon examining the Apple Watch tech specs I discovered that while the screen size is smaller, the pixel count of the Watch is almost exactly the same as the pixel count on the original iPhone. Also, the CPU speed in the Watch is about 3x the CPU speed of the original iPhone and the wireless networks the Watch runs on are over 10x the speeds of the wireless networks the original iPhone used. Fun to put things into perspective.)

I haven't kept records but I daresay that my communications distribution is not much different than Beau's...

Many days with 0 phone calls, preponderance is text messages, followed by most internal corporate communications via Slack and Slack calls. A not insignificant number of calls and txt are now taken over my computer--more all the time but then, that mostly means I'm on my computer too much....

Funny thing about the watch, a couple years ago a millennial guy said to me, "Who needs a watch when you always have your phone?" (I haven't worn a watch since....)

As I understand it, the Apple Watch still needs to be near a phone or on wifi, yes??

[kdh]

Everyone who knows me knows that I don't carry my phone reliably or respond to anything until I get around to it.

What is so important that it requires an immediate response? We obsess about technology ruining life in our Waldorf community. The technology has nothing to do with it, it's being tied to a device when an immediate response is expected. Texting is the worst for this.

[LarryHoward]

I'm with Ish. All the cameras on phones suck.

Ann has a flip phone and a tablet. The phone is a phone with great battery life and the tablet is for google maps traffic or email or all the stuff for which a big screen is nice. A phone doesn't need a screen at all.

I'm pretty sure a phone won't have a screen at all in the near future; indeed I don't think it will exist as an object, only as an application running on something else. I currently do telephone calls from my laptop, iPhone7, Apple Watch, and iPad. A "telephone call" is just one of many applications for these devices and is really not the most important one. Here's some data I dug up while thinking about all this. It's pretty clear that a "telephone" as a freestanding device is fading away from my life. There were periods in the logs of more than three days where I made and received zero telephone calls. There were zero days when I sent less than 20 emails and zero days when I received less than 80 emails.

Daily Rate for:
Telephone calls - 3
Text messages - 16
Facebook messenger - 0 (I'm weird most folks use this)
Twitter messages - 4
Apple iMessenger messages - 42 (includes the 16 which are text sent through iMessenger)
Email messages - 52 (sent across accounts at Apple, Google, and Yahoo

(Funny footnote: Upon examining the Apple Watch tech specs I discovered that while the screen size is smaller, the pixel count of the Watch is almost exactly the same as the pixel count on the original iPhone. Also, the CPU speed in the Watch is about 3x the CPU speed of the original iPhone and the wireless networks the Watch runs on are over 10x the speeds of the wireless networks the original iPhone used. Fun to put things into perspective.)

I haven't kept records but I daresay that my communications distribution is not much different than Beau's...

Many days with 0 phone calls, preponderance is text messages, followed by most internal corporate communications via Slack and Slack calls. A not insignificant number of calls and txt are now taken over my computer--more all the time but then, that mostly means I'm on my computer too much....

Funny thing about the watch, a couple years ago a millennial guy said to me, "Who needs a watch when you always have your phone?" (I haven't worn a watch since....)

As I understand it, the Apple Watch still needs to be near a phone or on wifi, yes??

As I understand if from my niece (marketing for the Apple Watch), the recent release has a wireless capability and does not need to be tethered to a phone.

[BeauV]

Larry is right, the Apple Watch 3 (on my wrist) doesn't require an iPhone except for set-up and management. It has a cell phone built in, does txt, can stream music over the cell phone network. Call quality is amazingly good. If you have a bluetooth headset (as an Addict I naturally have the Apple AirBuds) you can listen to music etc.... as if you had a phone. Pulling a phone out of your pocket or foul weather gear just to tell what time it is.... rather tough. My phone lives in my backpack or an inner pocket when I'm hiking, walking, biking, sailing, etc.... The Watch does everything for me except boat navigation.

Two ways to find out what time it is:
1) look at watch face
2) Say: "Hey, Siri, what time is it?"

The Hey Siri command works for all sorts of things:
- What's the weather going to be like tomorrow?
- Navigate me to the nearest Starbuck's (She guesses if you're driving or walking based on past speeds)
- Set a timer for 22 minutes.
- Send a message to Stacey that I'll be home in 10 minutes.
- How far is it to St. Louis from here?
- etc....

You can have real fun trying to figure out what Siri knows or can find out and what she doesn't.