In these types of discussions eventually, inevitably a mythical being gets invoked a.k.a. most users, the average customer, 90% of consumers etc. Followed by a litany of assertions and assumptions of the proclivities of said fabled folk (phantasms of the marketing dept. no doubt). This always strikes me as both lazy and as bad analysis - and what follows often isn’t even true for the assumed sector (the argument is typically an appeal to authority (the supposed weight of numbers), usually used to shut down troublesome minority viewpoints) - and the real problem with it is what should be driving development in new and advancing technology is in fact not the consciously articulated needs and desires of the majority.
Technological development needs to be driven by things the general public are not even aware of as necessarily possible. Repairability, modularity & interoperability are all part of this - the fact that a few scattered tinkerers and gear-heads around the world are able to fix and improve things helps everyone, even though most aren’t aware of it. This is true both in a direct sense, (if my thing breaks someone else already figured out the fix), and in the more ephemeral sense that long-term there exists a cultural knowledge of how things work that may prevent the general class of equipment from becoming obsoleted, and to prevent an NDA-cloaked corporate techno-priesthood class from developing and subjugating the world.
I agreed at the time, but Android was no better. Sadly, everything by almost everyone has been going that way. Corporations want more control over how we serve them, and how often we have to pay to do so.
I remember laughing at this screed 10 years ago. Still a classic!
I no longer have the Apple ][+ that got me into learning about computers but I do still have and use my 3rd gen iPad. I’ve been considering learning Swift so I can make an app to do a particular thing I want that currently doesn’t exist. Maybe I’ll get around to that this year.
The bad car analogy somewhere up above did address that, how modern cars are not nearly as easy to repair as the first models were, and how people griped in the 1970s about how it was no longer easy for the typical owner to perform maintenance. Or consider the media choices like radio or television, or the microwave oven. A device like the iPad meets the needs of certain people who treat data like paperbacks, or single cassettes: disposable, not meant for being kept.
I suspect that in raw numbers, there are still hobbyists who hack their general computers, the Mac and the PC are still there, it’s just that the mobile computer market has grown to dwarf these. And the iPad’s design had actually hurt it, as a strong initial push petered out when those that wanted one had it, and didn’t feel the need to upgrade so fast. These things have a crazy long lifespan compared to iPhones or Android devices.
I also don’t buy Corey’s anti-DRM statement, as the iPad now performs more and more like a general computer, allowing for storage of data on iCloud, Azure, Google Drive, Dropbox, and so on. He instead conflates DRM with gatekeeping, where Apple took an onerous condition that AT&T once dictated out of fear that iPhones would spread malware, and has continuously improved upon it. Now it’s also possible for small companies to sideload in-house apps onto devices or use progressive web apps.
As for the landfill argument, Apple does try to recycle as much as possible, and some countries like Germany mandate that e-waste must be taken back by retailers for recycling.
A little taking deprecated devices (Comcast Home Security, whatever deprecation GE bluetooth bulbs need over price incentives) to task with resilience would be cool too. Those connectors are awfully small, but it’s not harder to get…well, haven’t tried lowballing a machine shop on banggood yet, but The Kid Should Do This, as it were. Needed spares cobbling things like microscope/microtome rigs anyhow, eh?
Next screen, 4% more flex.
A little Tim Cook setting out to fix ticketing at DNA Lounge and not failing, plus showing what stable genius is supposed to rank at would be tolerable?
Also the USA chiefs executive and cabinet should take a personal fact-checking tour of the started sea border highway of Norway with very fine gloves. No guides, etc. Honest eyes to a long project.
I can’t remember the cost or when they stopped doing it.
Of course, a few years later the option became available when all that generic clone stuff arrived, blank boards and parts for all tge parts of the Apple II and endless peripheral boards, plus casing and keyboards and everything else. And at least here in Canada, often sold from small stores dedicated to the idea, all over the place.
While the original goat in the story may have been faultless, in both common parlance and dictionary definition, scapegoat means ‘one that bears the blame for others’. You’ve heaped every bit of blame on Apple, regardless of whether they’re actually the main problem here. Apple IS at fault for the legislation that they’re pushing, but that STILL does not explain the lack of devices that you’re talking about. Apple doesn’t have to make devices that you consider adequate for tinkering or repair.
Indeed, if we pretend that Apple fails at its attempt to block these right to repair laws, they still don’t have to make their devices particularly repairable, they just have to make the parts and documentation available. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. I’ve built enough servers in my life that I absolutely do not care; I’d rather have a device that’s thin and light.
Yes, I was mistaken. You’ve definitely been doing a lot of mentioning other companies.
Maybe if that’s not what you meant, you should actually write something else. Everything you’ve said makes it SEEM like this is Apple’s fault. Particularly ‘this does fall squarely at Apple’s feet’. C’mon, man.
Not everyone has to be in the market for an iPad, certainly nobody has to buy one. If you can’t find the product you want, that’s a market failure, not entirely the work of Apple trying to keep products you like out of your hands. Apple may lobby for bad legislation and work to avoid paying any taxes, both things that I’m highly opposed to, but those are legislative matters, and the results of a badly broken political system where money is valued more highly than the interests of the voting public. I won’t even defend Apple’s lobbying by saying ‘everyone does it’, but again, if Apple weren’t a factor, this system would still exist and right-to-repair laws would still be under lobbying threat. You’re focusing on the wrong things and the wrong actors.
But this was an article about the iPad, and how it’s a bad device because Cory seemingly doesn’t like things that are simple, outwardly uncomplicated devices for people to use, rather than the kind of thing he wants, which are devices that he can manipulate, disassemble and program on. It’s an elitist, classist view, and right-to-repair laws have nothing to do with that. Let people have the thing that they like, go find something else.
Sorry, this is basically just neoliberal brainwashing. We’ve been told that the little decisions we make all add up to a huge effect, but much like buying different lightbulbs won’t save us from the climate crisis, the little things we do mostly just add up to little things.
Only governments have the real capacity to effect the change that we need. We KNOW who the 100 biggest polluters in the world are. We KNOW where a vast majority of the plastic being dumped into the ocean comes from. You can use less plastic—and you should—but you won’t be able to move the needle on this. Too much plastic is being generated, and you can’t stop that. The demand is high, the cost of plastic is low. Only our governments can do things like ban plastic packaging en masse to make sure we really are creating less waste. (Unfortunately, plastic is very light, so there’s a tradeoff for CO2 emissions. But that’s another problem the government has to tackle at the large scale—better rail networks, more electrical charging and incentive for electric transport vehicles, etc.)
You certainly are responsible for your actions, but the lie you’ve been told is that it makes a difference. It doesn’t. Your vote and political participation are the biggest contributions you’ll ever make to these problems, so make sure to take them seriously.
Computers that encouraged repairing, modding and upgrading weren’t actually inherently better. I had those computers. I built them myself, ran my own servers and compiled my own kernels. The upgradability never mattered—as much as we like to remember the good old days of those machines, the best you could do was get them to work as well as the day you bought them, but that was it. Those sockets never supported CPUs for more than a year or two at best, the number of RAM slots was limited, and new form factors made them obsolete. If your motherboard couldn’t handle more than 256MB of RAM, it didn’t matter if the modules themselves got denser, you couldn’t address that memory anyway. I churned through those machines at a ferocious pace. Keep a computer for more than 2 years? Forget it! Weird Al even joked that he bought a computer that was obsolete before he even opened the box.
By comparison, I still have a 2012 Mac Mini as my home desktop machine. I kept my iPad 3 until it didn’t software updates anymore, and then I sold it as used—at least 5 years. I keep my phones for 4 years at a time. My hardware update cycle is slower than ever, and when I do get rid of a device, even if it goes to a landfill, it’s literally an order of magnitude less material than the dual Pentium-100 tower that I had to scrap because it was useless a few years after its release.
Despite the weird claims of fragility, my devices last longer than ever before. What do I need to tinker with my phone for? I put a case on it on day 1 and keep it for 4 years, and maybe I get the battery replaced once—by Apple, to be sure (and never, in the case of my iPad)—for a minimal cost, all things considered.
This IS better. I do less work, pay less, keep things for longer and get more functionality than ever before in a highly mobile package at least 20x (50x? 100x?) smaller than the desktop computers I was forced to sit at 20 years ago. What part isn’t better?
I think it’s worthwhile to remember the context of the article: everyone was talking about the iPad like it was the second coming and Steve Jobs was a turtlenecked Einstein.
If you remove the article from that context and look back at it, he just sounds angry. But, at the same time, what he predicted was actually true. Walled Gardens, and so on.
Now, we look back with the benefit of healthy competition from other OS’s and being able to sideload across an army of devices. But back then it was NEW and that NEWNESS was untinkerable in any way.
I’ll let you in to a little secret. It’s the same for the entire PC market. CPUs haven’t had rapid obsolescence for at least 10 years now. If you are a high end gamer then the GPU might, but you can stretch out the upgrade cycle to five years if you don’t care that much about having the latest tech. My everyday thinkpad is 8 years old too and showing no signs of struggling.
Macs aren’t special. They have just been glorified PCs ever since they stopped using the PowerPC architecture in 2006
You’ve heaped every bit of blame on Apple…Yes, I was mistaken. You’ve definitely been doing a lot of mentioning other companies.
Well the article is about iPad and Apple. Injecting the faults of Google, Microsoft, et al here would get very verbose…and sidetrack from my point that Apple IS the primary villain when it comes to anti-right to repair legislation. No other tech company fights so hard to keep people from fixing their own stuff.
… if Apple weren’t a factor, this system would still exist and right-to-repair laws would still be under lobbying threat. You’re focusing on the wrong things and the wrong actors.
When it comes to right to repair, Apple is the correct focus and the worst actor.
But this was an article about the iPad, and how it’s a bad device because Cory seemingly doesn’t like things that are simple, outwardly uncomplicated devices for people to use, rather than the kind of thing he wants, which are devices that he can manipulate, disassemble and program on. It’s an elitist, classist view, and right-to-repair laws have nothing to do with that. Let people have the thing that they like, go find something else.
There’s a bit more to it than that. I’m not saying I agree with Cory on everything, but I agree with much of it.
Clearly we remember this differently. I recall the iPad being universally mocked as a giant and less functional iPhone with a name reminiscent of a feminine hygiene product. It wasn’t until several product generations passed and Apple developed a clearer vision for what they wanted the product to be that the iPad became more respected.
You are taking two different snap shots in time. Early touch screen cellphones didn’t hold up to the evolutional pressures of technology. I have an Intel Core 2 Duo system that runs XP. It does 95% of what I ask it to do. It was cobbled together out of used parts +7 years ago. Sure current software has obsoleted it, but thats no different than Apple dropping products from iOS updates. Eventually your apps stop working and you move on. At least in terms of older PC stuff most of your software wasn’t in a state of constant net connectivity and at risk of being bricked by the developer.
I don’t even care if you view Apple products as a tool, this entire thread is missing a deeper issue. You don’t really have access to your data. I’m not saying this in some abstract way about software or iOS updates, but literally your files. People wax romantically about iCloud…a nebulous computer system on the net you don’t own. I’ve seen people rant about image hosting sites shutting down and that they are going to loose all their photos. Excuse me, WUT?
Sure I use Android, but the wife has Apple. All of our pictures, videos, audio, memories are backed up to local physical media (and offsite as well to physical media I have access to). The simplied interface of iOS coupled with the sandboxing yields a device that doesn’t let you see files. This is what the old tech gave you, access to your data. Imagine how different modern computing would look if that Apple ][ had the same restrictions as iOS does today.
In my ideal tech world iPads, Android, and all other systems would have the ability to be factory rootable. It wouldn’t have to be preinstalled or easy. Hell it could void your warranty for all I care. But the option to use the hardware you purchased as you choose should be your right.
