The Apple tax, as you call it, is what they charge for their hardware.
And the design is frankly worth it not to have something that looks cobbled together by an amateur. (By the way, I'm saying that you love the technology. That's what amateur means. I'm not casting aspersions on your hardware assembling capabilities.)
I know that its definitely not the cheapest but its is the best designed stuff out there.
Remember the patent issued for an Apple tablet a little while back?
I thought it was a BlueTooth GUI interface for a MacMini. But I was looking for a compelling reason to buy/own one. I mean, I can always SSH in from my desktops to control a MacMini.
It would be great if I didn't already own an iMac and a couple of other boxes though (Linux and Win2k) and I'm not alone, so that can't be it.
Now think about playing videos! A tablet could be used for just such a purpose.
Imagine a tablet with iTunes, a honking great hard drive (a 60+ gigger) and a control wheel or a touch sensitive screen to be a "pretend" wheel.
The audio can still be delivered via ear buds but video's something else. A tablet's the perfect thing. Its big enough and has enough resolution to handle the job (specially if it can synch to a MacMini [I don't think its necessary with their Laptops or desktops.])
that the handicapped guy (that ME, God damn it) needs a seat.
I put up with that "If I don't see you, you're not there" kind of sh*t all the time.
One day I'm just going to fall down in the subway car after a particularly energeticn stop (its happened already) and take someone down with me (that happened too already)and crush her friggin' grocery bag (I did.)
But I'd have to be doing it all the time and ripping people's iWhatever out of its orifice before they start behaving like they cared.
No wonder people DON'T call the police number all the time. They're purposefully avoiding paying attention to their surroundings.
Eyeball bandwidth is radically more demanding. You can listen to a song while doing something else. You can't watch a video and ride a bike at the same time. Humans aren't designed that way.
Steve Jobs is not trying to kill his customers.
This way they can work with Windows too. (I bet Gates will be plenty pissed at that.)
So viTunes (for music videos to start, and then for downloading full length movies) are designed for non-mobile playback.
the producer, and he can make some dough directly, you're stuck with what ever they can sell to the advertisers. At least, its not like TV shows where they increase their profits by cutting into the content.
The "third" movie that makes a profit on a iTunes like basis, with not too onerous DRM, will herald in the end of the distribution monopoly/oligopoly.
The day producers realize that they can recoup their expenses, and not have to beg to get a movie made, (and watch as accountants gut it while cringing at every dollar they have to spend on the abomination the accountants themselves have caused,) I expect that that the current mode of production will deflate at a disastrous rate.
More people will be using digital tools to produce more content (actors will be in even more demand,) but we won't be stuck paying for all the distribution salaries and other costs.
They want a whole alphabet soup of things that the consumer doesn't give a crap about and specifically they DON'T want their OS to move away from the desk top.
What would 'save' Microsoft and give it some future would also be what slits their throat.
I have seen OS/software companies reduced down to mere shadows and staffs cut to where they can all in a single car. PHBs don't need to spend money on maintenance nor do they want to. In the internet age, the customer base could even be global.
PHBs DON'T want Microsoft to be a success in the home because focus on their TLAs of stuff might get lost. Since they're paying the way, they KNOW they're right.
You're seeing what media is heading to: aggregation of meta information, (features about content,) instead of the content itself, which is disseminated asynchronously over the net, reconstituted, and presented when you want to see it.
I would like for creative producers who do something because they want to (like all technology geeks, I'm a big believer in 'push' rather than 'pull') not to have to water it down pandering to what the broadcasters (or even the theatre chains) will allow.
The censorship after the Fatty Arbucle (I think that's who it was) incident was started by a small grocery chain and they cowed the studios like the Taliban (and for the same purpose.)
ignores that once you've seen an ad, you can be reminded of that ad and the product in a tenth of a second to half a second.
Its pattern recognition and humans are endowed with a pattern recognition engine at the back of their skull that works at amazing speed. They aren't even conscious that its hapening which is why it takes up to half a second for them to register awareness of it.
All you need are a couple of key frames, not even audio, and don't need to watch the whole thing over and over and again.
Ads bore the crap out of us and become ineffective after that half a second when we're forced, by the broadcaters, to watch them repeatedly.
The whole advertising cycle is based on this boredom. If you could make an ad which wouldn't engage the conscious borable portion, you'd never have to shoot the ad again. You'd be able to set the few key frames, fire and forget.
That is the concept behind several recognizable pieces of media. The guy standing in front of the tank in Tienmin square can bring back the entire incident and everything that followed (fuzzily.)
The short video clip of 9/11 when the second airliner crashed into the tower brings back everything that incident caused and everything that followed (fuzzily.)
I bet you saw these examples with your mind's eyes as you read that WITHOUT needing to see it (over and over again.)
If the advertisers would exploit that,I bet that their sales would stay level while annoying us far less.
But broadcasters are paid by the second in 15 second increments. If ALL their clients ads worked according to the half-second rule, they'd lose their shirts.
Or they would try to fill the air time with lots of revenue producing ads and run into the limits of our cognitive capacity to remember things. (Do you remember what ad you saw at 11:07 PM last night? Nobody does. Nobody CAN.)
The first time full length and the rest of the time a half-second tweak is the way to go.
But how does a broadcaster know that its not your first time? They can't. Ergo, your shows get shorter and shorter while the broadcasters get richer and richer filling in the schedule with their customer's content.
It will fail because nobody can make enough profit from it unless they improve content (kick out the advertisers) while making it time shift and media shift.
The average home has three TVs, two of which are used as door-stops because there's nothing worth watching whenever you'd want to watch it.
The remaining set is drowning in ads. Who want's to watch ads?
Wouldn't you rather watch a show? One shown in its entirety, however short or long that might be?
But the economics of broadcasting are such that you don't matter and the show doesn't matter. What matters is a race to deliber as many eyeballs for fewer capital and content costs.
I'd rather buy a show, and get the whole show and nothing but the show, iTunes like, and be able to watch what I want, when I want.
Let the current advertisers put up web sites.
When I go there, its because I want their stuff. I'll google to find them.
When I want entertainment, I want entertainment, not somebody interrupting an action sequence with an ad for a hemmorhoid ointment.
That's DRM'ed but not so restictively that consumenr can object to it.
I guess M$ won't be the only game in town when the theatre chains reap what they sowed in the multiplexes. And they'll be followed by the studios, who are paying for care and feeding of the **AA's (No they don't make any money from the consumer! Would YOU pay for somebody to tell you "No you can't watch that. We couldn't make enough money off of you. We wanna get paid.")
The first store that carries video in an iTunes like (720i or 1080i) downloadable, DRMed video wil wipe out the traditional distribution channels with their time and media shifting capabilities.
Right now, the studios are waiting and shaking in their boots over the first release of content without any involvement from them.
Independent lenses will be truly independent when they can produce their content and sell it directly to the comsumer.
No more begging for some media exec.s judgement.
No more canceled TV shows unless they are devoid of socially redeeming content and don't find an audience capable of supporting them on their own merit.
No more crap being foisted on us because they can get the same number of eyeballs for cheaper. (The real audience for that crap shifts from the advertisers to the consumers.)
Imagine being able to watch what you want, when you want, as much as you want, without incongruous interruptions.
Imagine being able to produce what you want, sell as much of it as you can, without having to be beholding to a bunch of exec.s who don't know, and don't want to know, about it but only care how much money they can make of of it.
"The exec.s are getting nervous," "you'll never be able to convince some soulless schmuck that a particular show needs to be made" and "Can you do it cheaper?" will no longer a justification for editing content out of production.
Given the shrinking of the display side combined with shrunked hard drives, audio in and out and CPUs, how long until somebody comes up with a networked DynaBook?
The only missing component is how do you interact with the thing. Can it be made touch sensitive?
Slashdot Mirror
Fact is that people who have children aren't in the least bit rational when the time comes to do it.
Its not a 'decision' for most of the creatures living on this over-populated planet.
You talk like somebody who's never had a child (who would quickly teach you the breadth and scope of irrationality [and frustration {and sillyness.}])
There's nothing Scottish about it.
will now stand for iToonMovieStore.
:-)
(Sorry, its been a long day
But would I want to pay you anything for it.
The Apple tax, as you call it, is what they charge for their hardware.
And the design is frankly worth it not to have something that looks cobbled together by an amateur. (By the way, I'm saying that you love the technology. That's what amateur means. I'm not casting aspersions on your hardware assembling capabilities.)
I know that its definitely not the cheapest but its is the best designed stuff out there.
It sounds to friggin' ghastly and ghoulish.
Ew!
The rates on Fox are about to go up.
The audience for this site may sound like an idea demographic, but not for paying for a site.
Remember the patent issued for an Apple tablet a little while back?
:-)
I thought it was a BlueTooth GUI interface for a MacMini. But I was looking for a compelling reason to buy/own one. I mean, I can always SSH in from my desktops to control a MacMini.
It would be great if I didn't already own an iMac and a couple of other boxes though (Linux and Win2k) and I'm not alone, so that can't be it.
Now think about playing videos! A tablet could be used for just such a purpose.
Imagine a tablet with iTunes, a honking great hard drive (a 60+ gigger) and a control wheel or a touch sensitive screen to be a "pretend" wheel.
The audio can still be delivered via ear buds but video's something else. A tablet's the perfect thing. Its big enough and has enough resolution to handle the job (specially if it can synch to a MacMini [I don't think its necessary with their Laptops or desktops.])
Think different indeed.
that the handicapped guy (that ME, God damn it) needs a seat.
I put up with that "If I don't see you, you're not there" kind of sh*t all the time.
One day I'm just going to fall down in the subway car after a particularly energeticn stop (its happened already) and take someone down with me (that happened too already)and crush her friggin' grocery bag (I did.)
But I'd have to be doing it all the time and ripping people's iWhatever out of its orifice before they start behaving like they cared.
No wonder people DON'T call the police number all the time. They're purposefully avoiding paying attention to their surroundings.
She'd watch any show with a doctor on it and she'd develop whatever illness they were describing.
:-)
She blew her credibility and any sympathy factor right out of the water when she called her mother in a twist and wailed about having prostate cancer.
Hypochondria is a hoot sometimes.
What makes anybody think its for an iPod?
Eyeball bandwidth is radically more demanding. You can listen to a song while doing something else. You can't watch a video and ride a bike at the same time. Humans aren't designed that way.
Steve Jobs is not trying to kill his customers.
This way they can work with Windows too. (I bet Gates will be plenty pissed at that.)
So viTunes (for music videos to start, and then for downloading full length movies) are designed for non-mobile playback.
for this guy.
And after he's got in, his missions statement will morph into using our machines to spread spam as well as to attack his competition.
This is such an obvious scam I'm surprised he's still alive.
They can all burn CDs and some burn DVDs. :-)
Microsoft is a business desktop operating system. Its sold to companies that way by the Dells of the world.
Watching video indeed it, uh, monopolizes your full attention.
There IS NO WAY IN HELL that the PHBs of the world are going to let that into the company.
It looks unobstrusive. It run QuickTime in 1080i and iTunes. Its absolutely brilliant.
Option 1.) You can 'Tivo' your TV shows, strip out the ads, burn 'em to DVD and then watch at your leisure.
Option 2.) You can just buy he content on iTunes. And no friggin' lead-in ads either.
Case closed...
the producer, and he can make some dough directly, you're stuck with what ever they can sell to the advertisers. At least, its not like TV shows where they increase their profits by cutting into the content.
The "third" movie that makes a profit on a iTunes like basis, with not too onerous DRM, will herald in the end of the distribution monopoly/oligopoly.
The day producers realize that they can recoup their expenses, and not have to beg to get a movie made, (and watch as accountants gut it while cringing at every dollar they have to spend on the abomination the accountants themselves have caused,) I expect that that the current mode of production will deflate at a disastrous rate.
More people will be using digital tools to produce more content (actors will be in even more demand,) but we won't be stuck paying for all the distribution salaries and other costs.
PHB have no loyalty, no imagination and no heart.
They want a whole alphabet soup of things that the consumer doesn't give a crap about and specifically they DON'T want their OS to move away from the desk top.
What would 'save' Microsoft and give it some future would also be what slits their throat.
I have seen OS/software companies reduced down to mere shadows and staffs cut to where they can all in a single car. PHBs don't need to spend money on maintenance nor do they want to. In the internet age, the customer base could even be global.
PHBs DON'T want Microsoft to be a success in the home because focus on their TLAs of stuff might get lost. Since they're paying the way, they KNOW they're right.
of also being a monitor?
They you can sit in your living room with your friends and watch what evenr you want.
(I have a cousin with a 65" TV and it get used for that purpose.)
We'll work on getting time and media shifting and save getting rid of the interruptions (with demonstrations) for hemmorhoid creams for later.
Actually, I couldn't.
But your attitude has got to get spread.
You're seeing what media is heading to: aggregation of meta information, (features about content,) instead of the content itself, which is disseminated asynchronously over the net, reconstituted, and presented when you want to see it.
I would like for creative producers who do something because they want to (like all technology geeks, I'm a big believer in 'push' rather than 'pull') not to have to water it down pandering to what the broadcasters (or even the theatre chains) will allow.
The censorship after the Fatty Arbucle (I think that's who it was) incident was started by a small grocery chain and they cowed the studios like the Taliban (and for the same purpose.)
ignores that once you've seen an ad, you can be reminded of that ad and the product in a tenth of a second to half a second.
Its pattern recognition and humans are endowed with a pattern recognition engine at the back of their skull that works at amazing speed. They aren't even conscious that its hapening which is why it takes up to half a second for them to register awareness of it.
All you need are a couple of key frames, not even audio, and don't need to watch the whole thing over and over and again.
Ads bore the crap out of us and become ineffective after that half a second when we're forced, by the broadcaters, to watch them repeatedly.
The whole advertising cycle is based on this boredom. If you could make an ad which wouldn't engage the conscious borable portion, you'd never have to shoot the ad again. You'd be able to set the few key frames, fire and forget.
That is the concept behind several recognizable pieces of media. The guy standing in front of the tank in Tienmin square can bring back the entire incident and everything that followed (fuzzily.)
The short video clip of 9/11 when the second airliner crashed into the tower brings back everything that incident caused and everything that followed (fuzzily.)
I bet you saw these examples with your mind's eyes as you read that WITHOUT needing to see it (over and over again.)
If the advertisers would exploit that,I bet that their sales would stay level while annoying us far less.
But broadcasters are paid by the second in 15 second increments. If ALL their clients ads worked according to the half-second rule, they'd lose their shirts.
Or they would try to fill the air time with lots of revenue producing ads and run into the limits of our cognitive capacity to remember things. (Do you remember what ad you saw at 11:07 PM last night? Nobody does. Nobody CAN.)
The first time full length and the rest of the time a half-second tweak is the way to go.
But how does a broadcaster know that its not your first time? They can't. Ergo, your shows get shorter and shorter while the broadcasters get richer and richer filling in the schedule with their customer's content.
because that not what the net is about.
It will fail because nobody can make enough profit from it unless they improve content (kick out the advertisers) while making it time shift and media shift.
The average home has three TVs, two of which are used as door-stops because there's nothing worth watching whenever you'd want to watch it.
The remaining set is drowning in ads. Who want's to watch ads?
Wouldn't you rather watch a show? One shown in its entirety, however short or long that might be?
But the economics of broadcasting are such that you don't matter and the show doesn't matter. What matters is a race to deliber as many eyeballs for fewer capital and content costs.
I'd rather buy a show, and get the whole show and nothing but the show, iTunes like, and be able to watch what I want, when I want.
Let the current advertisers put up web sites.
When I go there, its because I want their stuff. I'll google to find them.
When I want entertainment, I want entertainment, not somebody interrupting an action sequence with an ad for a hemmorhoid ointment.
That's DRM'ed but not so restictively that consumenr can object to it.
I guess M$ won't be the only game in town when the theatre chains reap what they sowed in the multiplexes. And they'll be followed by the studios, who are paying for care and feeding of the **AA's (No they don't make any money from the consumer! Would YOU pay for somebody to tell you "No you can't watch that. We couldn't make enough money off of you. We wanna get paid.")
The first store that carries video in an iTunes like (720i or 1080i) downloadable, DRMed video wil wipe out the traditional distribution channels with their time and media shifting capabilities.
Right now, the studios are waiting and shaking in their boots over the first release of content without any involvement from them.
Independent lenses will be truly independent when they can produce their content and sell it directly to the comsumer.
No more begging for some media exec.s judgement.
No more canceled TV shows unless they are devoid of socially redeeming content and don't find an audience capable of supporting them on their own merit.
No more crap being foisted on us because they can get the same number of eyeballs for cheaper. (The real audience for that crap shifts from the advertisers to the consumers.)
Imagine being able to watch what you want, when you want, as much as you want, without incongruous interruptions.
Imagine being able to produce what you want, sell as much of it as you can, without having to be beholding to a bunch of exec.s who don't know, and don't want to know, about it but only care how much money they can make of of it.
"The exec.s are getting nervous," "you'll never be able to convince some soulless schmuck that a particular show needs to be made" and "Can you do it cheaper?" will no longer a justification for editing content out of production.
Given the shrinking of the display side combined with shrunked hard drives, audio in and out and CPUs, how long until somebody comes up with a networked DynaBook?
The only missing component is how do you interact with the thing. Can it be made touch sensitive?
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Lucky Ray, and then he got leprosy and AIDS.
Some people might prefer the taste of donkey piss over Pepsi.
Specially if the Pepsi rep has diabetes (the usine will taste sweeter.)