Friends Kingdom: Re: [iPad] Re: Miffed at Siri

I complain about Windows in Windows groups. People sympathize and offer advice and help and commensurate often. Those are the groups I like and enjoy getting help from. I complain about Android in Android groups. I complain about Chromebooks in Chromebook groups.

In almost all those Windows and Android groups the suggestions are greeted with "I wish that too" or "Yeah that would be nice" and "How would that help you I do not understand" and "Yeah good idea but in meantime do ____ which is closest you will get". Those groups also are managed to the extent that if anyone is condescending, user shaming or responding as product/vendor defenders/apologists/"Stockholme syndrome" types or rude when answering, the moderators swoop in and remind that member to "be nice". When those members are consistently rude even when they have good answers after a few warnings they may even get removed from group so people feel better presenting their problems and ideas there. With the exception of Linux support groups which so far all seem to be super rude to users of all types.

Unless they are MS Fanatics then they get defensive and start to whine about how bad Apple, Google are as a company and how bad other vendors are and how hard Microsoft tries. When I can, I avoid lists with MS Fanatics, and don't stay Facebook friends with them because the defensiveness and thin skin and "MS does such a good job since I never encountered this, nor wanted this feature you should not and no one else does" and of course my favorite where they talk about how low market share is in Desktop and Corporate world with Macs, as if the fact they dominate the market by number of desktop and laptops sold (a true fact) means by definition they are best.

This group has a few members that are basically "Apple fanatics" and display all the behaviors I dislike in MS groups. Since we do have some smart people here (many of whom behave like "Apple Fanatics" and are not very sympathetic to anyone who criticizes Apple. Like many fanatics, they do criticize Apple from time to time to I guess prove they have some gripes. But as Admiral Akbar would say "Its a trap" because when other criticize Apple products their answers become:

1) I never experienced that (if it is a bug type question or product complaint)

This is a very not useful unsympathetic response and irrelevant, you are not the person who complained of course it is not something you experienced.

It does have a chilling and gaslighting and intimidating effect on the person complaining -- they may then shy from saying more because the experts have never heard of it so they assume they screwed up. Rarely the case.

The better response would be
1) detail your hardware and OS version and software version
2) can you replicate it with specific steps?
3) I never had the need for that, perhaps it can be solved another way, can you tell me why you need that feature, or what goal you want to achieve to use those steps to do that?

2) (if it is a feature or product suggestion) the answer "I would never want that" or "Apple did not include that and their products are the most profitable and better than competitors so the decision not to have that is wise and the reason for their success" or "The feature appears on less secure OSes so Apple won't include it till it can be secure" (often bogus, because the feature does not include security risks) or "Apple will never include it and/or I will never use it".

Then usually there is an indictment of how bad Android or Windows or Linux is and why that feature would ruin Apple products. Later of course that feature appears in Apple products frequently because their engineers are not as fanatical as a few members of this group.

The better response would be:
1) How does the lack of that feature slow you down or make your work harder? Since I don't need it, I am curious why you and others do.

2) How do people use that on Windows and Android and Linux and how would it save time or steps in certain situations if we had it in Apple products and software?

3) Is that widely used in AndroidWindows/Linux and considered attractive to most users? If not appealing to all users what cross section really uses and needs that feature or product?

4) If feature ____ or product ______ was put out by Apple how would it affect me and others who would never use it? Would they remove related features and products we use now to achieve that goal?

There also is a lot of "tone policing" which is basically which is done by a lot of people who don't get emotional when hardware or software failures happen. Or when the people who don't use Windows or Android "that way" or at all and dislike those platforms treat the person making the suggestions like they have no right to say it here, and should say it on the official Apple suggestion boards or not at all.

The better response would be:
1) If you really want that feature, ____ is the official place to post it after we discuss it here.

2) I prefer to accomplish that goal ____ way is there some reason that does not work for you.

3) I would consider it a minus if they added that, but they have added other things I consider a minus for users who don't work like me and I just ignore them.

The "tone policing" reminds me of people who think that if you criticize priests that molest kids you are anti-Catholic when in fact you may be a devout Catholic and a big fan of honest reasonable priests you just want justice for victims of bad priests and don't want upper management to hide the problem and blame victims. "Tone policing" is a form of shaming people for having strong reactions and the implication is they have no right to want that change and want it strongly, the exact kind of thing passionate product teams have that give us better radically improved products ironically. "Tone Policing" also is brought into play when you say "Well I left Windows and Android and Linux because Apple was better and anything from that camp can't be good, so why don't you just do that task in that camp" as to imply that "Apple love it or leave it" the same kind of nonsense when Americans were against the Vietnam war and were told "love America or leave it'. One can love America and disagree with some of it's policy that is the point of a democratic government and not a tyranny.

Ironically when someone insists a feature or product is a great step forward and are told "Apple will decide that and will probably never do that and I hope not" are stating their own strong opinion against it, and citing the logical fallacy "The Authority Figure has not done it yet and never has to profits are so high" which presumes Apple management is perfect and always decides right, and the most profitable company is best. Something Apple could not claim till the last few years and people like Walmart (arguable a very bad company at many levels and certainly about very low quality at a cheap price) and Micrt previously held the crown on.

Apple does not have large segments of the corporate market for a few key reasons that changes and additions could bring many over to Apple without destroying the product line or software stack. One can love Apple products and see a big hole that needs to be filled or fixed and still be loyal Apple fans. One wants to do that task on their favorite platform in fact -- Apple -- and/or knows people they can't convince to switch until a product release or software release fixes that issue. So it is loyal and wanting to see some people who could benefit from Apple switch if that issue is addressed.

We got the iPhone 6+ despite the quite adamant "we hate and would never use a phone that big, Phablets are too big for pockets and hands look at how high the profits are at Apple on smaller phones, and ____ phablet by Android sucks" comments here.

We got the 3rd party keyboards in iOS and upper/lowercase display (stolen from Android and several other places) I had asked for that made my daily use way easier.... But I was told here they were not important and a great security risk since Android has them and is insecure.

There are nicer ways to treat people with ideas, suggestions and criticisms of Apple. They are asking here because they are Apple users and they want Apple to be a great experience. They legitimately may want some task they have to do with Windows, Linux or Android, etc they would much rather do with Apple and want to discuss why and how Apple could add this feature and hurt Android or Windows market share by providing a way to do this task on Apple. They legitimately may notice some task they do with Windows, Linux or Android and in Apple is way klunkier or way too many steps and know they can't switch their friend or co-workers to Apple unless Apple adds that without getting a lot of grief so they want the Apple people to know how the other platforms simplified that task.

There is also "User Shaming" here when some of the veterans take several precautions and pro-active steps to avoid disasters or upgrade snafus and some less veteran people. The shaming usually takes the form of "If you did not backup and do several things to ensure you could back out of upgrade and assume a new major upgrade could destroy all your data you deserve all you get". When in fact, a great majority of users do not do that and hold Apple to task when their upgrades cause a software disaster and Apple does have a responsibility to test upgrades for the AVERAGE user not the savvy IT expert especially considering how proud they are they "just work without glitches" for average everyday users.

Such shaming is not as useful as helping them figure out how to fix whatever problem they have regardless without the added "I am more cautious and experienced than you and you deserve any disasters for not being so and it's not Apple's fault its yours" kind of attitude,

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 10:10 AM, Carol Corley floridabouvs@gmail.com [iPad] <iPad@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

No, this is strictly an Apple fan group. Any criticisms or opportunities for improvement of anything Apple will bring an immediate attack on the writer, by certain known members of this group, although there are a few who have open minds.
Knowing that, it is absurd do anything more than read others' comments and/or verbally drool over how amazing Apple products are.
And I say this as an owner of 2 Apple computers, 2 iPads, an iPhone 6+, a stainless watch, and many AppleCares. So don't even suggest I am biased at the other side.
Is Apple perfect? Clearly no, although some on this group would argue. Am I perfect? Clearly no. Is Jim perfect? Hmmm, I'll have to think about that one a little while, lol
Carol

Jim wrote:
This is an iPad group, not a fan group or an Apple group.
And I would like to point out that there has been a HUGE amount more *discussion* in this thread than in any recent ones on real iPad questions or issues.