Yeah...this sucks. I generally detest Apple but the man changed the computer world.
rock on, Mr. Jobs.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
I agree, he made a lot of things of significance, but they all happened before 1997 in my opinion (font development, compact computer refinement).
I respected Jobs' instinct and ability to organize his resources, but the viral "iTunes store" model may have created a dangerous precedent that will give the music and movie business dangerous leverage towards creative producers and end users for many years to come.
Also, I don't have to tell you what my friends in retail logistics think about Apple transforming their once-plastic desktops into 50-pound, razor-edged aluminium monoliths. It's Apple's universal ratio of form>function in a nutshell.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Nim: but the viral "iTunes store" model may have created a dangerous precedent that will give the music and movie business dangerous leverage towards creative producers and end users for many years to come.
Huh? The iTunes Store has weakened the grip of the music studios tremendously. They tried to dictate everything, until iTunes came along. Now we have DRM-free downloads and a la carte pricing for most stuff (a few annoying holdouts on the latter). And you can re-download your purchases if you ever lose the original files. All of that stuff was unheard of eight years ago.
As for movie studios, they've been refusing to license consistently for both rental and purchase options (many movies aren't HD, many can't be rented, or can't be purchased...). And they're still stuck with DRM. And you can't re-download purchased movies if you lose them. In other words, movie studios are defining what you CAN'T do, but the ecosystem of iTunes says you SHOULD be able to do.
What kind of leverage are you thinking of? And what do you mean by "viral"?
quote:Also, I don't have to tell you what my friends in retail logistics think about Apple transforming their once-plastic desktops into 50-pound, razor-edged aluminium monoliths. It's Apple's universal ratio of form>function in a nutshell.
But those towers are a much, much smaller percentage of overall numbers shipped. Since 2004, most people absolutely do not need a traditional tower unless you're in serious video or audio production. (And quite possibly not even then.) The majority of desktops are the iMac, which is all-in-one, or the Mac mini, which is ridiculously tiny.
Also, laptops are currently more than two-thirds of all computers the company sells. Tell me again about the size and weight of shipping these products?
Oh, and...
quote:I agree, he made a lot of things of significance, but they all happened before 1997 in my opinion (font development, compact computer refinement).
Seriously? Touch screen computing that weighs little more than a pound? Thousands of songs carried around without discs or tapes? Photo and movie editing that even your grandmother (with just a little help) could learn to do on her own? (And I know that last, because I've taught it. Well, not to YOUR grandmother.)
I know this makes me all sound like a rabid fanboy. That's why I waited until this evening to respond. Believe me, I could've been a lot more hair-triggered here.
The big trick is that technology has developed in ways that we now take for granted, when ten years ago they were only dreamt of, and five years ago was brand new. You have to connect the dots to see how far we've come. He may not have invented all this stuff singlehandedly, but he had the vision to see what was possible, the insight to see what was important (and what wasn't), and the tenacity to make it happen (and stick to his guns when the world told him he was wrong).
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Touchscreen computing in your hand with a funny-named device that starts with a lower-case I? I'll take the iPAQ, which predated the iPhone by a long while, and to this day is far more capable (excepting 3G).
Small touch-screen computing devices? I'd much rather have a current Acer Iconia W500 (10.1 inch, Win7, USB ports, card reading, and so on), though even some of the old HP or Motion Computing pen tablets were just fine.
No, Jobs was not an inventor in these last years. He was a copycat with a better marketing capability thanks to the Cult of Apple.
And throughout his professional life, he kept making the same mistakes, and I don't just mean screwing Wozniak over and over. Always it was form over function, leading to many Apple and Mac overheating issues, not to mention the infamous iPhone 4 "don't hold it that way" debacle.
As far as I was concerned, Steve Jobs resigned in disgrace.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Stephen Fry said it much better than I could: "Only dullards crippled into cretinism by a fear of being thought pretentious could be so dumb as to believe that there is a distinction between design and use, between form and function, between style and substance."
No, Apple did not invent every product wholesale out of the ether. Neither did Microsoft, IBM, HP, or anyone else. Apple (and Steve) had the sense to see what was important in the design and function of a product, and what was not important. Apple takes designs that are out there, and refines them to make a more functional, more pleasing, and more useful product.
If you prefer a different product, that's fine. I would never sell or recommend a product that didn't fit one's needs. That's why all these other companies make products in the first place. But most of them are copying Apple's products lately. I wonder why that is?
You guys miss the forest for the trees. I won't go point by point over other arguments like overheating and antenna design (though in another time and place I easily would do so). The point is that Steve Jobs has had the vision and the tenacity to change the world for the better, both in his early career and in the last decade of his life. If you can't admit to seeing that, you're either ignorant or lying. I can't sugar-coat it any better than that.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Let me put it another way. You don't have to like his products or agree with his vision to agree that he's made a positive change on the world. I don't like Michael Jackson's music, and he kinda creeped me out, but I can't deny that he was an amazing artist and performer who changed music forever. And millions of people were sad that he died.
Calling Steve a "disgrace" is ignoring facts like the millions of people who love his products or the fact that he was CEO of the first or second most valuable public company in the world. Don't disrespect that.
(Okay, I'm done being trolled.) Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Stephen Fry decries the honest identification of opposing design forces while attempting to defend the object of a personality cult. In the process, he attempts to disparage the intellect of all those of us who reject that personality cult.
Sorry, Stephen, but we dullards have no cultist belief to cling to, as you do. That's why we are not forced into ridiculously desperate linguistic gamesmanship.
Now, I'll grant that if anyone is engaging in completely unfair attacks on Jobs, then they should be derided accordingly. I mean, if you said he basically stole from his friends like Wozniak . . . oh wait. Okay, so, if you said he was an ass who claimed infertility rather than live up to his paternal oblig . . . er . . . okay, bad example. Well maybe you'd say he was just tripping on acid so hard that . . . er, well, frak.
Anyway, my point is that it's rude to screw around with the reputations of the dead. But also rude is to screw around with facts in order to support ludicrous claims that Steve Jobs is somehow a Ford or Edison, and to go so far as to screw around with language while doing so just compounds the foolishness. Trying to escape the meaning of words is the classic last stand of ridiculous arguments, not to mention ridiculous people.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trolling. I just pity you instead.
If you're going to ignore what millions of people are saying, and try to dismiss the whole thing as a "cult," I can't argue this further with you. Apple is just as much of a "cult" as a sports team; it's just a different subject. We'll have to agree to disagree. You're entitled to your opinion.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
I'm sorry that you feel that honest disagreement with your honest disagreement is (potential) trolling, but . . . if it makes you feel better (as I suspect it will), you can take comfort and pride in the fact that's a rather Jobsian point of view. :-)
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Ok, this thread needs to get Fonzier quickly (Guardian2000: remember the gospel of Tarkin). No need to rush towards a Godwin thread-implosion, when there is a galaxy-load of things open for discussion regarding Jobs/Apple. Be little Fonzies.
EDIT: That was a lucid and frank Gawker-article.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$ Chapter One, wherein I dish out a bunch of dirt longform, not shortform $$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Now, I refuse to feel shame for going into product detail, I paid my respects to the extent I felt Jobs deserved, and there's nothing to talk about re: Jobs and Apple if you take away their product. Sure, their corporate ethics and marketing policy is rife with material too, but I wasn't going for the whole "evil empire" package when I started in this thread and I want to stay with the points I mentioned.
MinutiaeMan: I appreciate your striving to keep a civil tone, and I want to reciprocate as much as possible.
Regarding iTunes: By "viral" I mean an easily imitable concept, will get back to that. By "leverage" I mean you watch your movie on one computer, with one media player (want to go frame-by-frame and use screengrab? Pay up, JUNIOR!), and you don't own a copy of the movie, you only own access to it (I won't go into the pros/cons of "Ze Cloud" here, promise). If Universal, Virgin and all others were to create their own distinct e-Outlets, whose merchandise was only usable with proprietary software (VirginTime?), and sabotage eachothers' file compatibilities to ensure user loyalty, and gave backdoor access to user info for highest-bidding marketing firms, the customer would, more than ever, be turned into the bitch in the equation.
quote:Touch screen computing that weighs little more than a pound? Thousands of songs carried around without discs or tapes? Photo and movie editing that even your grandmother (with just a little help) could learn to do on her own?
Palmtops existed before the iPhone, as did MP3-players. And most of the competition now is better, IMO. Especially the units whose drive space can be used as, you know, drive space.
I wholeheartedly agree about the editing software, though, I enjoyed using QuarkXpress and other apple-products on a Macintosh when I studied graphic design and journalism, before 1997, when Apple stuck to their strengths, which was my original point.
About Stephen Fry: I approve of most of what Stephen Fry has done and said in his career, but he's wrong in that there is no such thing as the concept "form over function", objectively wrong. That they are one and the same is a contradiction in terms, the expression absolutely has merit. Fry is of course famous for using dramatic flair in his rhetoric, and I see where he's coming from, but his dismissal is his view, not stating a fact.
quote:But those towers are a much, much smaller percentage of overall numbers shipped. Since 2004, most people absolutely do not need a traditional tower unless you're in serious video or audio production.
So your defense of the product is "hopefully you won't need one"? That's not a viable argument anywhere, and it's irrelevant to what I was saying: the design is bad. Workstations should be heavy because of the amount of internal components or a built-in emergency battery, not because of the arbitrary, vain decision to make the outer shell half-inch aluminium for coolness factor, and making all angles and lines so sharp you get cut if you slip, just to keep with the industrial theme. Needless weight and sharp lines for mimicking laser-cut metal is form over function.
quote:Also, laptops are currently more than two-thirds of all computers the company sells. Tell me again about the size and weight of shipping these products?
Ok, if you want to go there, fine. Apple laptops have their own shapely bungles. The Macbook Air, for instance, has tapering lids which prevent leverage for opening it, you have to hold and wait for gravity to kind of "wish" it open. They didn't need to keep the last 5% of the lid thinning out to save weight, but again the "needless sculpting"-team won out. The same people who glue power-button extenders to iPhones should glue separation-forks to powerbook front halves.
Lastly, the iMac. Apple decided the monitor front should be completely empty of things, for no other conceivable reason than "it looks nice and clean". My office purchased a 27" iMac, and everyone that tried it out took a long time figuring out how to switch it on because the power button is hidden on the back-left-bottom hand side, smoothed out and invisible, even to fingers. You have to walk around and look. Even the iPad-owners among the testers felt it was an overly decadent and impractical design. Saying "you won't need to use the power button often because you can just use sleep-mode" is irrelevant, the customer should not be punished for wanting to cold-start their comp every time.
The apparent lack of negative feedback or constructive criticism in the Apple design process makes me think of George Lucas and his silent yes-men, afraid to make a peep and get replaced.
The number one defense I hear for Apple's oft-mentioned hardware/software inflexibility is "You get used to it after a while". The second most common is "you don't HAVE to buy it", neither approach adressing the issue at hand, which in many cases (like the antenna thing) is often indefensible.
The third most common defense I hear (cross my heart) is "Well, you have to agree it looks damn good!". Pretty things that are user-unfriendly are exactly what Paul Verhoeven wanted to describe with ED-209: overwrought exterior, frail interior, and potential billions in spare parts. Though I think OCP would've at least let the customer buy parts and switch them out at their discretion, not have to send the robot into a Genius-Lab for evaluation. And RoboCop? He could unscrew his own helmet with a regular Philips bit, the nerve of him! OCP could've learned a lot from Apple. (Ok, so I'm playing around a little, sue me).
I'll say this in Apple's defense, and this has been echoed by my IT colleagues from fifteen years of support work: When Apple/Macintosh-things work, they work for a looong time. There's hardly ever a problem, but if there is, it's a BIIIG problem". :.)
Now, Apple could've made iPod/iPhone-batteries ejectable, they didn't. They could've made iPod user files open, they didn't. They could've made ergonomical earphones but they didn't. Why? User input is consistently secondary or tertiary to aesthetics, cost-cutting or time-saving (for them).
I agree that this can be said about a lot of corporate entities, but nowhere have I seen it as consistently, as to become a trademark, than with Apple.
I agree Apple has brought about cool stuff. But it could've been executed so much better. Sometimes I wonder if Steve Jobs was a Berlinghoff Rasmussen, having piggybacked to the future and then invented designs earlier than they would've been, but this time with his built-in guarantees and failsafes promising revenue at every turn.
Bless this mess.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
"I fully admit that with the death of Steve Jobs we have lost a talented genius whose trick was to make computers desirable for people who hated computers."
After an overview of various facets of computer history (not all of which are entirely accurate, mind you), the author concludes:
"Finally we have the iPad, a machine, which in my view had no right to succeed, yet which has probably surpassed its makers' wildest dreams.
Like all the greatest innovators Jobs did not respond to what people wanted; he made things that they didn’t even know they wanted and then made them want them."
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
thus is why Mr Jobs in the future will be placed with Edison, Ford and others as Inovators. You can hate him all you want, but you gotta give the man Street Creed for all the 'bullshit' he (and Apple in following his vision) created...
*grins* i own a iPod, originally just for me but since i've been blessed with dating a wonderful woman with annoyingly intelligent kids, pretty much it's their iPod since most of the songs is stuff THEY like... and i just like the ease of using it.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)