When I was a kid all these things were said about the Japanese then later the Koreans
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra Defends Against Copycat Accusations in New Interview
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
When I was a kid all these things were said about the Japanese then later the Koreans
Not dictating. Influencing. We've all seen it happen, to ourselves and others.
If someone goes into a store meaning to buy a specific model of phone, TV, laptop, stereo, whatever, and comes out with a different brand or model, it's often because a salesperson convinced them to choose something else.
Yes.
When I was a kid, Japanese products were seen as cheap knock-offs of American products.
Decades later, many US companies were bending over backwards to copy superior Japanese manufacturing.
yeah its 2015.
if you're not over 40 you know what device you're going to get, because you already did the homework.
You're talking about a dying breed. Retail stores are closing down, ecommerce (obviously) for the past 5 years has done nothing but grow.
Hell retail stores aren't even stocked with the latest products anymore.
Your statement stands true, if this was 15 years ago.
I congratulate on your inability to imply my statement in the real world.
If your 70 yr old father can look up on google and decide which iPad model is going to be a better long term investment by look at which processing chip they use, how much ram they have, and their bench marks.
Then Kudos. Most have a hard time using a flip phones.
He's not special these people were adults when computers became popular it's not like they're some new mystery magic thing to them. Most of them spent half their working career with computers and close to 20 years with the internet.
lol 1995? if you weren't messing with huge mainframes or msdos/fox pro like programs, your company probably didnt make use of a computer.
1995? my company was created in 1994, a majority of companies were not using computers, it was almost non existent back then.
everything was pen and paper. to say that its common is pretty far fetched.
not to mention all these "older" people that are still using computers still are oblivious to what a computer, a software, is capable of.
i don't know how many of "these" senior citizens that are miracusouly techies at their age. But i deal with 50+ up (as well as 18-30) all the time.
i sell software to the apparel industry, main systems, SIMPLE apps to take orders and go paperless, etc etc etc.
your father is a very, very small group of people. and even so its going to take him 'X' amount of time to figure out anything (and to analyze if its a fake post/ad) compared to me or a 10 year old kid.
Most of the companies I was working for in the mid '90's either had an internet presence or used the internet to shuffle data the internet was very commercial by '94-'95. Universities had the internet and the precursor to the internet for 20 years by the time the internet as we know it was around. I think people honestly forget how long computers and networked computers have actually been around.
Why the hell would he need to look that up?
Chip, Ram! Good grief?
The fun thing with Apple is you don't have too.
They're the best performing Tablets out there no matter what's inside (all that matters).
They're also still supporting Ipad 2's for god's sake until IOS 10 at least.
Buying something relatively recent from Apple, your certain that it will be supported for many years and will last even longer.
Considering Grandpa is not going to start rendering on his Ipad any time soon; that should cover it.
As for Grandpa's knowledge of computers...
Computers entered the workplace is great number by the 1980s (you know IBM PC), Internet was everywhere in the workplace by the end of the 1990s at the same time cell phone usage really took off.
In the 1980s to early 2000s (when Grandpa was 40-60, pretty sure he could learn something new then...), you needed to look at the specs for a PC because at that time it sort of mattered. So, did Grandpa forget all that knowledge? Have they changed the definition of Ram; can he no longer read a spreadsheet, or a review?
Do you live in some special place were seniors are brain damaged in their late 60s?
Someone of 70, who is a white collar worker, would have been in contact with a cell phone and the internet, more than 15 years ago. Considering that they'd be in their most senior position (with most money) by the time they retired, they would have been very llikely to be palm and blackberry users and had a laptop too by the early 2000s.
One thing you forgot, dealing with early windows and early PC's, takes a hell of a lot more skills than handling a smart phone.
My father's a blue collar worker of 86 and he handles IOS (on the Air 2) without problem despite having never used a cell phone or computer before. It will probably last till he's 90+ years old. By that time, he will have got his money's worth.... That"s all he needs to know; Apple give you this certainty.
WTH! No it wasnt pen in paper! Seriously! We had 30 Windows 3.11 machine, networked, in late 1994. We had the Internet brought in 1995 (when windows 95 came in); we had dial in ppp into ourc company from 1990 onward. We were a company with only 40 employees and 5 Unix Sys V servers and one Netware Server. We were providing AVR services for the enterprises. I knew tons of companies with tons of PCs in 1994-1995.
Last edited by a moderator:
You do know you're talking about a small portion of seniors.
My whole point was your "grandpa" is a special case. The rest of the millions of senior citizens have no idea.
Please tell me what "everywhere" is. LOL, so the average business, not a huge corporation that has a research team that can implement computers and internet, which was pretty new technology and can afford the costs; can afford computers for all?
Yeah right, Systems came into major play in the 90s, yes the 90s i don't know why you brought up the 90s. That wasn't the case and point.
the mans 70 years old, when companies were beginning to shift to systems in the 90s he was 50.
I literally have and on going on the field experience with implementation, training, sales, the whole 9.
if they're over 40. Generally its going to be difficult.
We have staff that are over 40 obviously in our company, some over 50. They can use tablets at ease, Why? because they're techies. Do most their age know what they're doing? Are they going to know how the 'nature' of how the iPads work (what its capable of, when it crashes, limitations, etc etc) No. How do I know? over 10 years of experience dealing with thousands of employees and hundreds of companies.
The fact is i give younger kids (employees), interns, and employees my age and its no problem.
You give it to some one older, they can't even do basic functions, they say forget it and want to use pen and paper. Most don't know how to use an iPad or a tablet.
You don't know how mind boggling it is when they want to make changes which changes the whole structure of the app and ask why we can't do it or why its so expensive for the modifications. I explain, they have no idea or they think I'm some type of crook because they have no idea how programming works.
I don't know how you can refute that topic, that MOST/MAJORITY of senior citizens aren't too adaptable to technology. Not YOUR Grandparents, but most.
My father would've been 92 this year, and he had a home computer, all decked out, by 1984, when he was 61.
By the end of 1991, over 100 million personal computers had been sold.
So anyone alive now could very well have owned or used a computer in the early 1980s. Many people even spent hours punching in program code listed in a magazine. Let me tell you, people were very aware of limited RAM back then!
At work, PCs were popping up everywhere by the 1990s. Companies began to create websites back then, too. (I remember using the Lynx text-based browser back around 1993, about the time we did our first web site.)
At the same time, I agree that not everyone was into computers, same as now. So there'll always be a subgroup that never learned, nor perhaps even cared to learn. But that group gets smaller each year, as more and more stuff is done online. Even my technophobe wife has now learned (slowly) how to use an iPad at age 59.
Last edited:
Brilliant. Post of the day, 2 words. Xerox parc.. Now go away and stop re writing history..
I can refute it because it is not really reflect the current state of affair; maybe it was true in 1995, but it's not the case now around here and has not been the case for some time. Many have been involved with tech for quite some time already.
People of 65 now were only 45 when Windows 95 hit the market, the C64, which sold in the tens of millions entered homes when they were in their 30s and they're the ones who bought them. The C64 was not marketed as a tool for techheads at all. My mother, 36 at the time, bought us a C64 which was put in our home office.
Both my parents and all her sisters and even aunts, all in their 60s to 90s! Have a computer and or tablet. Most use various version of windows, while a few use Ipads, Iphones and Android Phones. That's a hell of a lot of people, many dozens. In fact, I don't I know any of them without a personal computer!
Most need a bit of help to set things up (especially if not using a new PC) and a half hour of basic instructions, but once they're up and running, they're quite independent. The key is to prod them into exploration without fear; like with children.
Most issue I have is them complaining of slowdown... Which is most time caused by a slow network or them running 30 apps at the same time and not rebooting for months, even a year, so there is not much of an issue. Windows XP and before PC's were a bigger hassle to support, no matter who the users were : seniors or young adults.
Making it all seem hard and mysterious is a good way to make a living for traveling boogeymen who sell "services" to those seniors. The same way consultants do so in the enterprises.
My mother's been using a IBM PC since 1989 at 41 at home (she was using mine initially), had her own in 1995. From 1984 to 1989 she used the family C64. At work, she started to using a PC 1986. She was working on mainframes terminals doing data entry starting in 1975.
She's only got a high school education and my father, born in 1929; he also has an high school diploma and was an electrician.
It must depend on what kind of environment you're in because come on, people in their 40s now were in their early 20s when Windows 95 hit the enterprise. If they were at all White Collar workers, and most people have been for quite a while, they'd have dealt with tech in the enterprise since then or be fired. Secretaries and data entry clerks in 1980s were already dealing with tech in their daily lives.
My college in 1988 had a VAX system in on it it had a live chat program that showed the other end see letters pushed! The reason I remember that program/tine because I was talking to an Airman who was based in Turkey! I thought that was so cool at the time and remember other students gathering around me while I was chatting with him! Ah the Arapanet was cool at the time!