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History Repeats Itself — Mac & the iPad
Keith found an interesting story telling a bit about how Steve Jobs operates. It involves small teams of young engineers willing to work 90-hour weeks in total secrecy, and a complete willingness to throw away bad ideas without flowery language. The iPad is surprisingly similar to the Mac."
You mean like a cult?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
From TFA: "It was Steve's vision that if you made every single computer with the same exact OS and the same amount of memory, developers would always have a fixed platform for which to develop, making their jobs easier."
I've always been of the opinion that this is one the 'advantages' of the dominance of Windows. If you're a small development house cranking out applications, you only need to make a Windows version and you've got a big chunk of the market - The dominance of windows makes "the job easier."
Let's conveniently leave out any mention of OS 9, NeXT Step, and the fact that for a while it looked like Apple was going the way of the Dodo.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Oh please, Apple has come out with some Spiffy stuff.
The I-Pad is a Vanilla offering undeserving of the apple moniker..
And no, I'm no Mac Fan.
If you are no mac fan, why do you use the phrase "undeserving of the apple moniker"?
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
So which chapter is this in the Apple book of marketing?
The "How To Use Quasi-Geek Fanboi Discussion Forum Websites To Keep The Focus On Me" chapter. And naturally CmdrTaco takes the bait once again.
The iPad has everything that any other computer has...so who is to say that it is not a computer? Apple can market it as a "media device" all they want, but if people want to use their iPads in other ways, they should be allowed to do so. Nobody, not Apple, and certainly not Steve Jobs, should be dictating what people are allowed to use their iPads for (except perhaps as a deadly weapon).
The iPad does not need to "mute" anyone, as the Time article puts it. Apple is dictating that it should, because of their desire to do business with book publishers.
Palm trees and 8
The fact that Company X makes a closed system is nothing new, nor is it noteworthy. Closed systems are a dime a dozen.
What the blogs are on fire about, and what we ALL should be worried about, is a closed developer ecosystem. It's Apple's new focus, and if it's allowed to propagate to the open platform we're all screwed.
RobotBox - Robot projects from around the world
Why can't it be both. Why can't the 90hr work week be common knowledge while the details of what they're actually working on be a tightly help secret?
Anything created by Microsoft also sounds like it's from a line of hygiene products - hasn't stopped them so far..
which is totally what she said
This is not surprising. Most geeks are an intensely romantic lot (yes, some even have sex, but that's not what I mean). The type of people drawn to the profession are always those who want to change the world to be what they think it should be, rather than living in what is. This is great, it's called progress, and despite some fits and starts, more people are living longer, healthier, self-actualized lives than at any time in history. The reason Mr. Jobs and Google and others seem to have the cult-like crowd, is that they give all these young men and women a vision, purpose and feeling of belonging to a greater purpose that is missing in so many parts of our culture. Great things can be accomplished this way - irrigation canals, pyramids, cathedrals, etc. Just so long as the intent is good ...
FTA:
Few will remember, but, when the Mac debuted in 1984, there were no arrow keys on the keyboard. That was a big deal. Almost every application then in existence depended on the arrow keys (then called cursor keys) for navigation. With that one stroke, Steve reduced the number of apps that could be easily ported to the Mac from tens of thousands to zero, ensuring that this new computer would have a long and painful childhood.
[snip]
I was responsible for putting the arrow keys on the Mac some 18 months after first release. I didn’t do it because I thought Steve’s original decision was wrong. On the contrary, I believed then and I believe now that decision was critically important. Without it, the new machine with its rodentiometer* and unproven interface would have been overrun with great hordes of horrific software, likely preventing the new interface from taking hold.
Rather, I added the cursor keys a year and a half later because the interface had taken hold and was growing vigorously. The Mac’s childhood was over. Not only had the value of the Mac interface been proven, but those few developers that had tried a straight port had been publicly humiliated by the press and had faced immediate financial failure. It was time to open the system up more, particularly to people who are visually impaired, by overlaying a complete keyboard-driven interface onto the primary, mouse-driven interface.
Is it me or does this sound like illogical revisionist nonsense?
So he sees what people want - better than just about anyone, and he's not a visionary?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The same could be said of televisions. Does Grossman own a TV?
Or radios. Does Grossman own a radio?
Why are you disappointed with the iPad due to its difficulty with creating content? What were you expecting, exactly? If it doesn't suit your needs, don't buy one. They aren't replacing computers, you know....
If you're a small development house cranking out applications, you only need to make a Windows version and you've got a big chunk of the market
Until you run into hardware issues. Hardware issues for Windows and Linux applications fall into at least two categories:
Apple hardware tends to have fewer driver issues because the hardware is fairly consistent even across the Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook lines. You also know what minimum level of CPU, GPU, and RAM to expect from a "2007 Mac" and an end user can understand this.
Marginally successful in a niche market for the coming 20 years ?
it's pretty close to what Apple's selling right now with only slightly less battery life
A LOT less battery life! THREE HOURS in Tablet mode!
Here's what I recently said about the Touchbook (an idea I thought I'd love, but not in THIS incarnation!) to a friend of mine, recently:
"Touch Book: Oh yeah. I love the idea; but that thing that holds the display/tablet looks REAL sturdy (NOT!)... Failure prone. Also, isn't that the thing that runs some completely different OS when the screen is detached? 600MHz ARM (OMAP) microcontroller. That means it will be about as fast as an iPhone (maybe). iPad is not only a 1GHz MCU, but the iPad's A4 MCU uses an ARM Cortex A8 core (which is as badass as it gets in ARM town). BIG difference. Oh, and have you seen that touchscreen? It is EXTREMELY unresponsive. And not multitouch. THREE hour battery life in Tablet mode. How much? Next."
You DO note that not only is the TouchBook vaporware, but that it doesn't even have a price yet. How can that be compared in any reasonable manner to a device that:
1. Exists
2. Has a defined price point and specs?
So he sees what people want
Jobs doesn't see what people want, he tells them what they want.
None but a handful of people have actually wanted a tablet PC in the last 10 years. Jobs simply seems to know how to convince people they want something even if they don't really have any use for it.
WoW! People only see what Steve jobs wants them to see? And you're immune to Steve Jobs telling you what you want! Amazing! I wonder how many others out there are as good as you in resisting Steve Jobs? If Steve Jobs is *that* good at hypnotizing people, he's more than a visionary - He's a God of Mass Hypnosis! Either that or you simply think the majority of the population are idiots (which to some degree I tend to agree with, but that's beside the point).
More BS. I've been using my iPhone to make short notes and tasks. Those are both creative. There may be more creative software available on a desktop computer, but that doesn't make the iPad some completely passive consumer device. That depends upon the user. Even if it was true, why is that such a bad thing? Many people have both a TV and a computer.