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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."
Google'c Chrome pads will wipe the floor with the Ipad.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Steve is a rapidly dying, mentally, emotionally and physically deteriorated ruin of a human being, bent on control fueled by his narcissism trying to slap together a legacy pyramid for himself. I sat across the table from the man and he is freaking nuts and everyone who works for him knows it. Pitiful.
Steve has gone Howard Hughes on us. He has gone recursive on his own reality distortion field. I'd always thought he didn't believe half the shit he spews. Now I see he actually believes in it and feeds on himself, his own reality distortion field.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
A bad analogy but ...
The problem is you don't see how much better that would actually make the world. Just like in computers, most people can't drive for shit, they don't give a flying fuck about paying enough attention to be safe and would much rather be doing something else during that time ... which they'll do anyway like rambling on the phone or texting.
The end result is a shitty experience for everyone. Those driving, those getting hit by shitty drivers, and those of us that do no how to drive but have to find our way around the ignorant fucks on their cell phones texting.
I hate to break it to you because you likely fall into this group since you can't recognize it, but most people don't have the mental capacity to drive OR operate a computer safely. Not letting them do so is far more intelligent than giving them the choice and killing people in the process.
Whats worse is that now people are doing both ... poorly, and deadly.
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Dear Anonymous Dumbtard,
The iPad isn't meant as a 100% replacement for a desktop or laptop.
Until you get that through your geek/nerd addled cowardly brain, you won't grok the iPad.
- me
Some people care about things. He obviously cares about spreading his message of hate, censorship, and spreading the disease called apple corporation. I care about spreading the inverse, and always debate topics I care about. I may be one of the busiest people I know, but I still spend maybe a dozen or two hours a week debating on the internet. Even if I were leader of a major company, gov't, or something else I would persist.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
See, the problem with that is that only Adobe can "make sure" that their flash player can be well optimized for any device. They have failed to do so for Macs (and linux damn it!). If say, Flash was on the iphone and it was pretty bad or just not good enough, problems with battery life, CPU being hammered by the flash player, crashes, etc would be pointed at Apple by the majority of the public. Apple doesn't want to be blamed for that. They want to control their own system. On top of that, if the flash player worked better on the Android or RIM, then apple would look pretty bad in the eyes of the public. Also, if say, Apple adds new features and the flash player takes 1-2 years to take advantage of that, then those features cannot be used to differentiate their device with other devices. Apple doesn't want that either. They want to control their devices.
I guess Jobs wont be needing intel cpus and intel motherboards. You know the PC hardware that his company moved to after their own hardware was found to be terribly poor performing and far behind intel.
Yeah. Steve. Stop selling Macs. Go right ahead please.
Steve Jobs is a fucking asshole, and has always been one.
You really think grannies are going to buy this thing? It's not aimed at grannies. It's aimed at artfag hipsters in coffee shops.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Oh come on. Every email he sends out probably goes through 10 publicists before it goes out the door.
Where did he get the design for the original imac, the ipod and ipad? Maybe he didn't invent a lot of that stuff, but the world of computers and consumer electronics would be considerably different (and arguably, not nearly as interesting) without his involvement.
Only if your time is worth nothing. Having used Mac's for 8 years now, they've paid for themselves many times over in the time I've saved not having to deal with virus issues. Hell, when I used to go home to visit my Dad, it was always 3 - 4 hours of sitting in front of his PC fixing crap. Usually that involved a format and reinstall of Windows. Three years ago I bought him an iMac. I've spent about 2 hours in those three years and that was last christmas upgrading his system to OS 10.6. I went from doing roughly 15 - 20 hours a year to less than an hour a year.
Same thing at the office. We make money producing software and selling it to clients. We run a Mac shop. If we need to test in Windows, most of the machines have Parallels and either XP Pro or Windows 7 Professional. Yes they cost more up front, but guess how many lost day's we've had because someone downloaded a virus in the past 2 years? Nil. Computers are tools that should stay in the background and do their jobs not getting in the way.
If the macs save us just 1 day of downtime vs a PC over the course of the 3 years we keep them, they've paid for themselves twice over.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Right, I've had enough of this. Why do people simply allow this fallacy to continue? Apple's UIs are terrible!
The iPod is far more complex than it needs to be, the single good thing about the iPhone's interface is just a huge patent troll, the iPad I have never used so I will avoid comment, and the OS! Oh, the OS! A recording studio I practically lived in for a few months used a Mac, and on several occasions we spent hours just trying to move data onto an external drive - I believe the hardware on the year old box was failing, and when it wasn't we had to inexplicably use iTunes to move data files. Ok, so that was probably set up by some "security conscious" moron.
In general, though, the OS is terrible. One button mice were ok, they were a novelty. Fifteen years ago. Now I feel constrained by a 3 button, plus the extra four for scrolling. The only reason they've stuck with them is stubbornness - not because it makes sense, or because of the simplicity of it, but simply because The Mighty Steve refuses to admit that he might have been wrong. And dragging a drive to the trash - does that eject it or format it? I keep forgetting, since it is apparently random.
WTF is it that allows some of the most argumentative assholes on the web just overlook the one simple fact that Apple is really shitty at putting together a UI?
Be smart, help people!
Actually, sounds to me like Ryan Tate got owned, and ended the discussion with his tail between his legs.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Steve Jobs is a smug, prick, coward. Rather than argue based on the merits of your idea, or defend your ideas based on the fallacies or demerits of your opponent, he just tries to discredit the person. And what a smug way to do it: "What have you done that's so great?". Anyone who regresses into that has lost the argument. You see, it really doesn't matter what the hell someone else has done when you're defending your ideas Steve. And that makes you a intellectual coward. The turtleneck isn't doing anything to dispel the rumor that you're a smug prick either.
I could do fine without Apple's influence on UI design (mostly raising the bar on how much eye candy is "acceptable.") It's certainly not worth the extremely negative influence they've had on software freedom on mobile devices (WebOS, Windows Phone 7, Android to some extent).
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The interfaces were different yes, but the fact is that GUI was invented at Xerox PARC
See my sig. Then see the comment that you just replied to. Then see "the mother of all demos". Then stop posting to slashdot until you unfuck yourself.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Apple ships a 'simple' mouse for one main reason... they want new and less technically sophisticated users to have an easier time picking up the computer without being worried about 'what do all these buttons on my mouse do?'
A more sophisticated user is perfectly capable of wandering down to the computer store or ordering a new mouse that meets their needs.
Do you really keep the shitty $5 mouse that comes with the average Windows PC or do you replace it? If you do replace it, then why is it a problem if you replace it on a Mac too?
Shitty UI? Every UI is shitty to someone who doesn't use it on a regular basis. I recently picked up a Windows 7 machine as I'm now doing a lot of visual effects/3D work and much of the Autodesk software I use is PC only.
I've used Windows from time to time, but not on a regular basis and I've been on computers in general since 1981 so I'm definitely an experienced user.
However... when I sat down in front of Windows on a full time basis, I was aggravated. It does some things different than the Mac. Its control panels are named slightly different, some settings locations are in obtuse locations compared to what I'm used to on the Mac.
Does that make it a shitty UI? Well yes... but all UI's are shitty because you have to do things the way the programmers who set up that particular platform want you to.
I personally think Linux is a shitty experience (oh! the Blasphemy!) Why? Part of it is because I don't use it on any sort of regular basis other than the occasional install out of curiosity. Also because I personally don't like having to search out drivers and futz with code to get things running. Some people on the other hand like that for that exact reason though
Fine... you don't like the MacOS UI... so don't use it! As a professional film/TV editor in Los Angeles, London, Brussels, and Vancouver, Final Cut Pro under the Mac OS has been a pleasant experience. The Mac UI works just fine for me. Now that I'm getting used to the Windows 7 experience, the MS UI works just fine for me.
No one is strapping you down and forcing you to use the Mac OS. (or are they?? I guess I don't really know what your lifestyle is... maybe you're in that exact position, but I digress.)
In conclusion...
You think the Mac OS UI is shitty.... so don't use it
You think the Windows UI is shitty... so don't use it
You think the KDE/Gnome UI is shitty... so don't use it
Just use the tool that works best for you
(honestly, these platform wars are ridiculous. After all, everyone knows the CoCo is better than the C64)
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He didn't say it was perfect - ideally you would be able to change the default behaviour for window sizing if you want, just as you should be able to change the organisation in column view by more than one variable (eg, alphabetical and by type, or by type and modification date etc), but I would hardly call them "years behind". You should also be able to move the Finder's icon to any position in the Dock by default, although I understand why it is fixed on the far left.
Maybe *your* productivity is lower on an unfamiliar UI, but you are perhaps not most people. I find the Menu-docked-to-window approach of Windows very annoying - on Mac OS I know exactly where it is at all times, even on multi-windowed apps. A quick flick of the mouse upwards and the cursor will stop on the menu. It's not necessarily "better" than a per-window system - you need to have the app you want the menu for as the foreground app (which you likely want anyway if you're issuing a command to it), so you need an extra step if it's not the active app, which is only one click on Windows if you can see part of the menubar you want.
So, you wanted improvements in UI design:
Stacks - arguments that these are very similar to an older concept, but in OS X they are very handy.
The GUI - not all PARC's work.
Multitouch - not just on the phone (and hey, if it was "so obvious and done before" where are the slew of multitouch phones before the iPhone - while they clearly did not invent multitouch itself, they paired it with an interface that has spawned a ton of imitators. Touch control on portable devices was *woeful* before the iPhone. Apple are very good at looking at what's out there and saying "we can make that better".
Exposé and Dashboard are also a couple of those things you just use without thinking about - again, I am not claiming they invented the concept of displaying your open windows in a grid, or by app name etc, but they created an implementation that is dead simple and intuitive to use.
I know I can list several things, like the few I have above and your counter will be "they did not invent those things, multitouch was described in a journal in 1947, they just stole it!" or some such similar things, so in that we are never likely to agree. Where Apple really excels is in taking concepts that are long established, like the terrible state of touch control and the UI on mobile devices and saying "why does it have to be that way" and changing it, combining the best of lots of ideas, and unexpectedly combining others in a way that later looks obvious.
This is patently false. Virtually every product released over the past 20 years (rather from the company's founding) have all come from someone else. Jobs has been responsible for one notable thing, and one alone, nothing else whatsoever. He recognizes and shepherds the bright ideas of others.
And in case you didn't know Jobs was not once but twice dumped by Apple relegating him to non-functional roles because he was such a problem he almost killed Apple. He's on a roll now but personalities like him never change. His current language and actions are not endearing him to the masses. That spells trouble.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.