Comment by _diyar
7 days ago
Your comment makes no sense to me. What in your opinion would be a strong threat? 'Tim Cook, open the suspicion package I sent you in the mail!'?
7 days ago
Your comment makes no sense to me. What in your opinion would be a strong threat? 'Tim Cook, open the suspicion package I sent you in the mail!'?
I mean, this random person added a countdown timer, and after that revealed that when it reaches the end, if Apple hasn’t met some arbitrary demand they’ll leave the platform but probably be back (just in time to spend more money on another device) and that the colour of a phone is enough to get them back.
This is one of the emptiest threats I’ve ever seen. This is about as effective as having a madman inside your house destroying your property with a baseball bat and saying “if you don’t stop smashing my stuff in the next 72 hours, I’ll consider writing mean things about you in my diary”.
No need to get specific. Write a blog post about how the keyboard is broken and say you’re leaving for another platform because of it. It’s not like Apple is going to check when you did it or for how long (or care). The theatrics are unnecessary and laughable, they undermine the whole message. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone inside Apple is sharing this with their colleagues and laughing.
Another random blog post about the broken iOS keyboard would not get any traction. This is getting traction.
I'm pretty sure the author realized that Tim Apple isn't shaking in his boots, looking at the numbers going down. That's not the point, the point is that it's funny and interesting and thus getting attention.
Is this getting traction? The front page of HN and some meta-debate is a pretty low bar for what I’d consider traction if I were a one of the richest companies on Earth.
> Another random blog post about the broken iOS keyboard would not get any traction.
Nonsense. Complaints about Apple’s declining software quality get a lot of traction on HN. Here’s another example from today:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46996575
This exact same submission! Which didn’t get any traction then. The traction this is getting has little to do with the quality of the post, it’s popular because it’s another thread where we can air our grievances.
10 replies →
That's the joke.
I also took it as a joke; I'm glad at least one person validated my sense of humour, I was getting a bit worried reading all the replies.
At this point, I assume 90% of complaints about the apple keyboard are either tongue in cheek, explicitly humorous, a detailed, qualitative study with new information, or written by someone who is very new to apple, the internet, and technology in general.
I don't see how else anybody could seriously think 'The apple keyboard is bad, and the world needs to know about it! I'll make my opinion known, and surely that will solve the issue', let alone following it with 'no more Mr Nice Guy: I'm going to threaten Apple, the company, with consequences that will force them to act. It's high time somebody held these mega-corps to account and I'm willing to put myself on the line!'
Like, even if the article was written by the United Nations or the EU, there are very few actual threats they could include that might realistically spur apple to finally sort out the keyboard.
'If Apple don't sort it out, I'm going to fine them 75% of their revenue,' might be logical but seems a little deluded: terrorism or personal violence would be... unadvisable... and 'I'll switch to android' is also comically unthreatening, while also being hugely overplayed and almost always played straight, empty, and uninspired.
Everyone knows the keyboard sucks. Everyone knows that's not going to stop people buying iOS devices. It's the equivalent of 'fast food isn't nutritious but companies pretend it is' - in the year of our lord 2026, a multi paragraph article to that effect can probably be assumed to be numerous, new, surprising, ironic, or insanely naive.
The fact that a realistic, honest assessment of one's probable future purchasing decisions reads as a joke is maybe a little dark, but hey. It's a dark world, and it won't be lightened by yet another 'I'm totally gonna boycott if they don't stop!'
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