• cygon@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    If you were alive (and online) during the 90s, you may remember the banter between Microsoft and General Motors:

    From https://crysa.fzu.cz/ondra/documents/cars_like_windows.html (the only online copy I could find)

    Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five-dollar cars that get 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

    In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

    […]

    1. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car error” warning light.

    2. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

    3. The airbag system would ask “Are You Sure?” before going off.

    4. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed a hold of the radio antenna.

    30 years later, some of those jokes are finally becoming reality, thanks to Tesla.

    • Another3quenc@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The Macintosh one is wild

      “6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on 5 percent of the roads."

      • kandoh@reddthat.com
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        7 months ago

        Love the scene from the Steve Jobs movie where Woz asks Steve if in order to send an email on the NEXT computer the recipient would also need to have an NEXT computer.

        Of course!

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          7 months ago

          Basically iMessaging and FaceTime.

          Blows my mind that literally every other brand of phone has settled on a standard for rich messaging and video calls, but Apple had to make a big stink about it and pinky-promise it’ll be out this year.

          And all the Apple users act like everybody else is inferior…while they’re the only ones that are incompatible.

          I bought an iPhone 12 specifically because I was tired of potato-grams between my wife and I. I switched back to Android a couple weeks ago on that pinky-promise.

          Among several other Apple-isms, this one blows my mind then most.

          • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            Every other brand is running the same base OS which is Android. There are basically only two platforms for modern smartphones. Yes I know there are a few other options (mobian for example), but they aren’t nearly as popular or functional.

            • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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              7 months ago

              RCS itself is a protocol, and it’s defined and developed by GSMA, not Google. Googles biggest involvement is setting up their own RCS network but that wasn’t even necessarily required. It was done in response to inconsistent implementations among other carriers, and Google essentially said “if nobody is going to do something about it, we will”.

              Android was not the only OS to adopt it. MS adopted it as well. Though they didn’t get much sticking power, WP10 had white a few decent models running it.

              If Samsung’s default messaging app sent high quality images and photos, but only to Samsung phones, I’d be equally pissed.

              Really the only reason Apple is going to support RCS is because their feared EU regulations coming up to force their hand. They are the only smartphone OEM to not support it.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        My experience with Macs was not anything like that. Not super intuitive to figure out, which was made more frustrating by how slow it was, which was made more frustrating by the crashes and having to start all over again.

        • Gestrid@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          My experience with Macs has only made me hate them more. I once had to crop a photo on a Mac. Simple, right? Wrong. I opened the photo in whatever the default photo viewer is called (Preview?), but I didn’t see an edit button. So I figured, “Maybe there’s a different photo application I’m supposed to use?” So, I keep trying to find either a different application in that list (Quick Launch? Launchpad? shrug) or an “Open with…” feature like Windows has. Then I complained to my friend next to me, and he showed me how to do it. It was the same exact way I’d done it the first time, except now an edit button appeared.

          There have also been several time’s I’ve needed to upload something (usually a video) from a Mac, and, despite having just saved it, I couldn’t find it because (as far as I could tell) it wasn’t in a folder I could get to on the upload dialog box despite having just saved it using a similar dialog box that could access the folder I saved the item in.

            • tetris11
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              7 months ago

              they also described the UI bingo that disorients users every release as software devs enact the latest fashion trend in UX paradigms.

              read: over the last 20 years, UI’s have not converged towards anything, but cycled through design vogues in a manner reminiscent of the fashion industry. Keeping up is exhausting if you’re not paying attention.

            • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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              7 months ago

              Which is fine until you’re selling your interface on the basis it “just works”. You don’t get to advertise your interface is super intuitive and then defend yourself with “oh you’re just not used to it”.

    • nxdefiant@startrek.website
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      7 months ago

      Ironically the errors a Tesla throws are very detailed, and tell you exactly what’s wrong. GM’s error messages are literally an incomprehensible glyph that, when backlit, might mean there’s a problem.

    • Artyom@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      I’ve heard of Tesla owners being unable to get into their car because their wireless-only key fob was to close to a radio dish and was being effectively jammed. The owner had to go under the car and hide the remote from the radar dish to get it to unlock

      • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Yikes. Wouldn’t that effect all fob style entries though? A lot of cars do that.

        • Artyom@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Yes it will kill any brand’s wireless capability, but almost every wireless key fob also has a valet key that can open the door without any wireless connection. Tesla’s mistake was to require you to use the wireless fob.