

So Apple is 'flailing,' eh? (re: TechCrunch story) - gabrielroth
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/08/19/arrington

======
nsimpson
I know I'm going to get downmodded for this but I have to agree with
Captain-M.

The attitude that "we're doing better than our competitors so we don't need to
improve" is toxic, and usually fatal for a company in the long run (... the
others aren't going to be content with sitting in second place forever).

My earlier-gen MBP, iPhone, iPods etc are all rock solid (I'm delighted with
them all), but I could easily see a situation where quality could go south on
new products in the rush to cut costs and get to market faster.

I hope that's not the case. It would be little comfort to me as a new buyer if
my machine bricked for no reason, and some smug fanboy pointed out that other
people who bought Macs in the past had no problems (making me the problem?)

~~~
jacobolus
> _The attitude that "we're doing better than our competitors so we don't need
> to improve" is toxic_

Who exactly has this attitude?

~~~
Hexstream
Pretty much anyone or anything somewhere at the top of the food chain for an
extended period of time.

~~~
alaskamiller
So you know for a fact that Tony Fadell, Scott Forstall, Sina Tamaddon, Bob
Mansfield, and Ron Johnson have this problem?

~~~
william42
He said "most" not "all". It's the perfect out when a specific is pushed!

------
halo
What is with Hacker News' obsession with Apple minutiae?

~~~
gstar
Don't know if PG has released browser stats for HN - but my guess is that
Safari and Firefox on OS X would be fairly well represented.

Everyone likes news about their tools - ever seen a mechanics shop when the
snap-on van pulls in?

------
river_styx
I've found this to be quite common of bloggers. They tend to generalize their
own personal experiences to the entire population without really doing much
research into it.

~~~
briansmith
I see what you did there.

------
keyes
I love my MBP, but in my experience AppleCare support is horrible compared to
the competition. If something goes wrong with your Dell laptop, they will send
a technician out to you the next day and repair it on-site. If something goes
wrong with your Mac, you have to make an appointment to take it to an Apple
store, and you may have to leave it there for up to a week while it gets
repaired.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
> If something goes wrong with your Dell laptop, they will send a technician
> out to you the next day and repair it on-site.

Only if you paid _extra_ for that service option. The default phone-support
and ship-it-back-for-service warranties that you get with most Dell machines
by default is likely no better than Apple.

However, I must say that if you get the upgraded support from Dell, especially
the type that comes with their XPS line, they certainly have the best support
service in the consumer PC industry. And turnaround time is fantastic; they
paid to ship my XPS laptop to the service center and back, and I literally had
it fixed and back in my hands in less than a week.

~~~
keyes
Sorry if I was unclear. I was comparing Dell support with AppleCare, which you
also pay quite a bit for.

------
sown
I dunno...I've seen both sides of this issue.

I had an iBook 13" I got in 2002. Stayed with me for three years before the
logic board start to go out on me; freeze ups, bad video, etc. It seems like
it was either asleep or on, and always with me so I kind of expected it.

Another person I was acquainted with seemed to have this same problem but
every few months or so. He got a few free Ti and iBooks out of them. Better to
ask forgiveness, I guess.

------
captain-m
In this case doing better than the competition doesn't mean doing well. It
doesn't even mean acceptable. I don't use any apple products and I don't
really care either way, but saying that they're better than the competition
doesn't mean anything.

~~~
auston
"...saying that they're better than the competition doesn't mean anything."

How does that statement even have a basis? How else can you benchmark
anything? You need _SOMETHING_ to base your placement on.

Past performance even, which was considered in that article. How can we award
gold medals if there is no competition to base that award upon?

~~~
briansmith
Let's say company A sells laptops such that 1 out of 1,000 of them blow up due
to a defective battery. Company B sells laptops such that 1 out of 100 blow
up.

You can say that company A's product is 10x better. But, it doesn't mean that
company A's product is good. It just isn't the worst.

------
Maascamp
Why the hell is this linked?

------
greyman
>> But is Apple doing a far better job than any of its competitors? Yes. <<

No.

~~~
comatose_kid
You might be right, but it's a little hard to agree with a one word statement.

~~~
greyman
This is exactly the point I wanted to communicate to the blog author.

------
TweedHeads
TC is always full of animosity against Google, Yahoo and Apple.

Are they sponsored by microsoft?

~~~
jonknee
And Daring Fireball is always full of animosity against anyone against Apple.
Are they sponsored by Apple? Alas, fan boys need no corporate sponsorship to
throw dirt from the trenches.

~~~
nadim
I'm not sure about in general, but I think they presented good supporting
evidence in this case.

~~~
demallien
Not really, Arrington presented anecdotal evidence, and Gruber smacked him
down with a survey contradicting the anecdotal evidence. Unless some new
evidence comes to light, Gruber's point of view holds more weight.

~~~
nadim
When I said 'they' I was referring to Daring Fireball.

~~~
demallien
My bad :-) Being a Daring Fireball regular, I just think of it as being Gruber
- hence a use of 'they' indicates someone else for me. That'll teach me to pay
a bit more attention when reading!

