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Steve Jobs Says PC Folks' World Is Slipping Away
theodp writes "Provoked by an iPad ad promising a 'revolution,' Valleywag's Ryan Tate fired off a late-night missive to Steve Jobs. Jobs responded, and the two engaged in an after-midnight e-mail debate over lockdown, Cocoa vs. Flash, battery life, and whether 'freedom from porn' is a bug or a feature. 'The times they are a changin',' quipped Jobs, 'and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.' Tate was unswayed by the Apple CEO's reality distortion field, but did come away impressed by Jobs' willingness to spar one-on-one over his beliefs — at two in the morning on a weekend."
Sounds to me like Jobs just got trolled hard. 10/10 for Ryan Tate.
Hehe, I will say that in the last image of the email exchange, Steve Jobs really zinged Tate.
Julie Moult is an idiot.
What Jobs is saying, is that he's finally found a way to reach the masses of computer noobs that Mac has been aiming for all along. The problem with the original Macs is that they required someone to actually use a computer.
Now that he's turned computers into toys, he can finally get "Grandma." But this doesn't really change anything in the computer world.
It's something to brag about for sure, on a marketing level. On a features level, he succeeds only by not having them. Kind of like how McDonald's succeeds by not having a steak dinner.
This guy just wrapped up all the common complaints that Adobe and the non-Apple customers want you to believe what's wrong with iPad, and sends off a profanity laced alcohol induced email exchange to see if he can out wit Steve Jobs.
I'd say that Steve stayed pretty much on message with what he's been always saying, even without his PR department to filter out his intent. And the blogger just looks like, well, a troll.
What Jobs is saying, is that he's finally found a way to reach the masses of computer noobs that Mac has been aiming for all along. The problem with the original Macs is that they required someone to actually use a computer.
Now that he's turned computers into toys, he can finally get "Grandma." But this doesn't really change anything in the computer world.
It's something to brag about for sure, on a marketing level. On a features level, he succeeds only by not having them. Kind of like how McDonald's succeeds by not having a steak dinner.
I agree.. and yet you can't even boot, for the first time, a 3G iPad without connecting it to a computer with iTunes. WTH were they thinking with that?
Nobody would ever spend $100 on a fancy chef's knife when they could spend $40 and get a pocket knife that's not only got a blade to cut things, but also a screwdriver, a bottle opener, a tiny saw, and some tweezers.
Except that many people are plenty happy to spend their money on something that is designed to do particular tasks well, even if it can't do everything that a similar product can do.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
And an openable hood.
The problem is that "something different" may not be good.
Obligatory car analogy: It would be like trading in your 10 year old car for a new one that looks cool and is comfortable, but is completely autopiloted, and only lets you out at certain stops. Businesses have to apply to the car maker so the car would stop at their brick and mortar store. And without warning, this can be taken away, so if someone used to stop at a Target, they wouldn't have that option tomorrow and only get Wal-Marts. Continuing the analogy, someone patches the ECM with a steering wheel to allow manual control, but the next year's cars always come with protection against that.
People trading their computers in for what are effectively game consoles means that they are trading their freedom to run what they want, when they want for an environment locked down and managed by someone else who can do anything they please.
My question is: Do we want to go this route of sacrificing openness for ease of use? Yes, viruses and Trojans are a nuisance, but do we want to trade our relatively open computers for what would essentially be terminals, locked to some for-profit corporation's motives and future? For me, it is a no-brainer. I will keep my computer, and my phone will be on an open platform. If Android phones become unrootable or impossible to put custom ROMs on, I'll move to the Nokia N900 and encourage others to follow.
Do we want all our computers to be like PS3s where at any time, functionality can disappear at a moment's notice like the "other OS", and there would not be a single thing we can do about it? I'm sure the usual antagonists of open computing would love a wholesale move to a locked down platform, but is that where we want to take computing as we know it? Do we want to move to a computing model where what we buy, we are only permitted access to whatever the company allows on a whim? Yes, PS3s have no virus or spyware problems, but we are trading freedom for security here, and in the end, we will end up with neither.
I think that O'Brien's reversal of the motto is more appropriate for Apple: SLAVERY IS FREEDOM. By giving up the right to make "grander" or "higher-level" choices, the user gains the perception that his device will be taken care of for him as far as its software is concerned. By voluntarily becoming a slave to Apple's App Store-iPhone OS ecosystem, the user gains peace of mind, and he gets to say he uses an iDevice to boot.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
Not only do I have the right to not buy iPads or iAnything, I also have the right to tell others why they should not buy them.
This whole "if you don't like them, don't buy them, but for God's sake, don't tell anyone about your opinion" is pure BS. After all, if Apple and their supporters take the right to tell me why the iPad is superior to other products (that they presumably haven't bought), I should be able to do the same. I don't buy Microsoft Office, and I also tell people why using native Office formats is bad. I won't buy an iPad, and I'll tell people why.