Your description of how apple is on a noble quest to bring the personal computer to the poor of the world through the '$50 computer' that is an ipod shuffle is so far from reality in so many different ways that you are verging on a parody of yourself.
I can't believe you seriously typed all that out and then submitted it.
It's a shame that you chose to ignore the point I was making, and instead post this snide, narrow minded response. Alas, this is typical of the anti-intellectualism that pervades hacker news these days.
Of course the reason you did this is that you know what I say is true. You just are an apple hater and can't even admit that this is what they're doing.
Also typical of hacker news: Burying comments that point out that others have got nothing but personal attacks, while upvoting personal attacks. Everyone who engages in this is, by definition, anti-intellectual.
So, go ahead and downvote me, it just proves to me that you are not worth wasting time on, and that this site is full of narrow minded anti-intllectual bigots.
Make a counter argument, and I can respect that. But you don't. Probably because you can't, right?
You are (thankfully!) not the sole decider of what is intellectual or not.
I attacked the frankly deluded points you made, addressing them directly, so i'm not sure what point you thought you were making. I made no counter argument because i thought it was too obvious to bother wasting my (and others') time when this submission wasn't even about apple anyway!, but since you insist;
Apple are a business (and a very good one, that makes great products and lots of money) not a charity or an NGO. They do not make literally unheard of profits and margins because they are 'struggling to find a way to address the low end' or 'bring computing to the other 6 billion'. Sorry, that is pure 'reality distortion field' delusion on your part. They have a valuable brand that does indeed intentionally place itself in the high end. Moreover, the ipod shuffle isn't even close to being the first DAP of it's kind, most of which (specifically this product) have a similar UX and are much cheaper. We haven't even got to the fact that this '$50 computer', that not only can't run any custom code, but actually requires another (real) computer to be able to do anything at all! Do i really have to go on any further?!? The first device that could be called a computer with any sanity at all would be the iPod touch.. which coincidentally is (from) the same 'not affordable' $300 you quoted for the actual PC. You might bring up that they sell the previous generation from $199, but care to mention acer's $199 chromebook? Or the ipad mini.. that pioneer.. ignoring the earlier, cheaper and equally capable nexus 7, or (much more relevantly for the 'next 6bn') the Chinese android tablets (and phones) that sell for much less still and achieve the same.
You are (thankfully!) not the sole decider of what is intellectual or not.
I attacked the frankly deluded points you made, addressing them directly, so i'm not sure what point you thought you were making. I made no counter argument because i thought it was too obvious to bother wasting my (and others') time when this submission wasn't even about apple anyway!, but since you insist;
Apple are a business (and a very good one, that makes great products and lots of money) not a charity or an NGO. They do not make literally unheard of profits and margins because they are 'struggling to find a way to address the low end' or 'bring computing to the other 6 billion'. Sorry, that is pure 'reality distortion field' delusion on your part. They have a valuable brand that does indeed intentionally place itself in the high end. Moreover, the ipod shuffle isn't even close to being the first DAP of it's kind, most of which (specifically this product) have a similar UX and are much cheaper. We haven't even got to the fact that this '$50 computer', that not only can't run any custom code, but actually requires another (real) computer to be able to do anything at all! Do i really have to go on any further?!? The first device that could be called a computer with any sanity at all would be the iPod touch.. which coincidentally is (from) the same 'not affordable' $300 you quoted for the actual PC. You might bring up that they sell the previous generation from $199, but care to mention acer's $199 chromebook? Or the ipad mini.. that pioneer.. ignoring the earlier, cheaper and equally capable nexus 7, or (much more relevantly for the 'next 6bn') the Chinese android tablets (and phones) that sell for much less still and achieve the same.
EDIT: I see further down you say you meant apple gained 'experience in low cost manufacturing' from the shuffle.. this isn't really true either as; there were many mass-market ipods before the shuffle (or even the macs themselves), they are not designed for lowest cost (eg. they are made of aluminium, not plastic), apple don't actually do any of the manufacturing anyway, and low cost manufacture does not infer a low cost product (nor does an expensive product exclude low cost manufacturing) and it is not really close in manufacturing terms to a full computing device. Apple have had the capacity to bring a masssss-market low cost computing device (in terms of 'low cost manufacturing experience', in whatever form factor) since at least the 2/3 gen iPod. You could argue the iPhone was relevant because it was their first post-PC device, but in no way the shuffle IMO.
I can't believe you seriously typed all that out and then submitted it.