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The End of the PC Era and Apple's Plan To Survive
Hugh Pickens writes "Charlie Stross has written a very interesting essay, ostensibly about the 'real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash,' but really about how Jobs is betting Apple's future on an all-or-nothing push into a new market as Moore's law tapers off and the personal computer industry craters and turns into a profitability wasteland. Stross says that Apple is trying desperately to force the growth of a new ecosystem — one that rivals the 26-year-old Macintosh environment — to maturity in five years flat — the time scale in which they expect the cloud computing revolution to flatten the existing PC industry and turn PC manufacturers into suppliers of commodity equipment assembled on a shoestring budget with negligible profit. 'Any threat to the growth of the app store software platform is going to be resisted, vigorously, at this stage,' writes Stross. 'And he really does not want cross-platform apps that might divert attention and energy away from his application ecosystem.' The long-term goal is to support the long-term migration of Apple from being a hardware company with a software arm into being a cloud computing company with a hardware subsidiary. 'This is why there's a stench of panic hanging over Silicon Valley. This is why Apple have turned into paranoid security Nazis, why HP have just ditched Microsoft from a forthcoming major platform and splurged a billion-plus on buying up a near-failure; it's why everyone is terrified of Google,' writes Stross. 'The PC revolution is almost coming to an end, and everyone's trying to work out a strategy for surviving the aftermath.'"
You can keep your overpriced toys to yourself. Apple hasn't had any real innovation since Woz^H^H^H the Apple II. The only thing that keeps Apple alive is marketing.
no, every article you linked is dribble that is TLDR before I even glance at the article. It doesn't matter if they're well written beyond my understanding.
So don't click on them. No one is forcing you to.
also b: by article title alone, you are wrong. Consoles hardware and console businesses are not catching up to PC's, and never have and never will. Consoles start out 6 months ahead and end up 2 years behind. Console business is not pc business. They are diametrically opposed, as console gaming is drm while pc gaming is not.
My apologies, I used the wrong phrase. It's not that they are catching up, it's that the pc/console gap has been reduced significantly. Complex computations such as advanced AI and physics are now possible on consoles, not just PCs. That's one example of what I mean.
If PC gaming is dying, then what is steam? what is blizzard? what is activision? What is EA? What is CCP? What is Mythic (beyond being kinda shitty lately)? Do I need to keep listing major companies that are doing strongly?
All points that I address in the articles I linked to. One article focused on the things that have turned for the worse in PC gaming, one article focused on the things that have turned for the better, and one focused on the future.
Living With a Nerd
"I never liked the Macs and their frilly user interface. Being a Unix geek, I just wanted a set of Unix-like (or better) tools."
"Why is 'Fairplay(TM)' so superior, other then the fact that it lives within the safe confines of the Apple reality distortion field, guarded by a phalanx of Apple fanbois?"
"Perhaps if you weren't a fag using a fag computer this wouldn't be a problem. Studies show that Mac users are fucking retards who should be beaten and laughed at, and sent to live in Mac ghettoes where they get to pound their nobby, worthless, Apple hands on a single button mouse."
Well, here's the problem. The Mac OS, and in fact the entire Apple experience, is intuitive for a certain kind of person. Artists, fashion mavens, scientists, and other creative personalities can sit down with a 13-inch MacBook running Snow Leopard and comprehend its sensitive, tasteful aesthetic. It's a rare instinct, this appreciation for beauty and truth; unimaginative, dogma-bound drones haven't a prayer.
In summary, unattractive squares should stick to Linux and Windows.
Macs are for different thinkers.
Most Mac owners I know are poor uni students, or were poor uni students. Most of them simply went without things that other people take for granted - cars, nice apartments, holidays, etc, and often made a small income from their machine - dj's, print designers, sound designers, etc.
I'm sure a lot of them just pretend to be poor uni students.