Simon Phillips? Didn't he drum with Mike Oldfields band in the 80s? terrific drummer, BTW, didn't know he was connected with the who, good to know. --------------------------------
the obvious joke would be that Apple is really thinking differant - contradicting Moore's law..
Steve can actually pull this off.. "are you sick of the technology rat race as we are? our chips are slower then the previous generation!". I can see the buzz on all the mac rumor sites about the next 68000 based iMac.. "hello again!"- for real!
oh well..
Apple has decided to rely on Mot for manufactioring these chips - big mistake - and yesturday Apple has basicly ecnolaged that and they are taking steps to rectify this situation - IBM will fab G4 chips as well starting to apear on Apple systems next year. hopefully that will stop that kind of stuff from happening in future.
Not that this matters much to us techies - we follow the news and know that motorola has had a erreta in the 500Mhz chips, and financial types understand that Apple has to do this to keep the gross margines intact. It's really sad, however, that apple rushed the introduction of these systems - without proper testing - which caused this issue in the first place. Hopfully they will learn that leson as well. Allmost all of apple's latest product introductions suffered from suply problems- the G3 thin laptop, the iBook and the G4's. This should be a strong wake up call for steve.
knowing the mac croud, this will not really affect apple. these guys will buy those G4 anyway. but that's fine. --------------------------------
thanks for that very interesting, insightfull remark (moderators, do your work..)
> Actually USB didn't take off because of the > Imac, it just happens that USB components > became widely available just > around the same time.
I agree that Apple benifited more from USB then vice-verca. (the decision to ditch ADB and put USB exclusivly on the iMac was pure genious, BTW - since it forced USB perif makers to write drivers for the mac, since it was clear that it was the one market that really needs USB periferals, since there was no other perif I/O port..)
However for some odd reason USB devices on the PC still havn't really taken off, proabably because, unlike Apple, X86 motherboard makers are too scared to kill the legacy serial ports (obviously becuase of backword compatability.. which is a very good reason). I wonder what is the ratio between USB periferal bought for Macs in ralation to USB devices that will get used by PC's.. My guess (And that's all that it is, A guess) that it is at least 50%+ are for Mac's. That's what I meant. USB makers benifited a lot from Apples USB decision.
The cost issue you rase definetly is an interesting issue. we will wait and see.
Well, if this is intended to kill Firewire then that would be ironic since it's basicly Apple fault that USB has some success anyway.. Untill the iMac USB was not really taking off.
Infact, AFAIK, in the PC landscape there is still a very low demand for USB perif's relative to serial and scsi devices.
The main question is if Motherboard makers in the PC arena will continue to exclude Firewire ports for PCs (likly since intel mostly has controll over the chip sets), when media machines are alwredy adopting it (digital video now, and music instruments within the next year).
I think the battle is still open, USB 2 does have a chance to overthrow firewire, but to do this intel has to move fast. And intel has to convice the periferal makers to adopt USB2 instead of firewire - which might be dificult since those makers were burned in the past with USB slow adoption rate.
which ever standard actualy wins is hard to know, but It's going to be interesting watching the war. get your beer and nacho's ready.. --------------------------------
I love cringelys writing (and various versions of Nurds)
But one thing I've noticed over the years is that Cringely was never good at analysing trends that hapen in real time, his strength is story telling and analysing things after they happen. Not that there is enything bad in that.
What annoyied me was percisly what you noticed.. he dissed Jane's useage of/. and gave no real reason - and that's lame in my book. --------------------------------
smart desicions in the product design stage - the true reason behind Apples revival (and I don't mean Flavors) I mean strokes of briliance like dropping the ADB bus from the original Imac and sticking on USB - that way USB makers had to make drivers for iMacs (since iMac was the only platform that addopted USB in high numbers). the same tactic Apple is appling to Wireless networking (with Airport - latching on to an emarging standard early, ensuring support from thirs party manufacturers)
The new design also highlights some interesting design desicions.
The original iMac was about Industrial design and esthetics (as well as simplicity and access to the net) the new iMac is about sound quality and home digital videos.
It still remains to be seen if digital Video will become as big as Desk top publishing (which is one of the things Jobs said in his Keynote). Personaly I'm not convinced of this, the prices of Digital cam corders are still too high for it to become practicle in the consumer space, IMHO.
But the thing that Might actualy work to make the new iMac a best seller, is the sound speaker system cuppled with the DVD drive. I am kind of puzzled why they didn't debut a set of additional speakers for the full serround effect, But I'm sure some fast USB periferal maker will jump on the opertunity soon ennough.
The fact that the new machine has no fan, and is therfore persumably quite ennough to be concidered a consumer Hi-fi device is also a interesting point. now all thats missing for the collage student is a MP3 player that can get MP3 files from a remote computer using wireless networking.. --------------------------------
Yes that was the most bizzare moment of the keynote.. I was kind of hoping to see a IBM exec bite the head off a chicken.. that would definetly prove that IBM has changed from the old suit and tie days..:-) --------------------------------
What I ment was that Tron was a rather complex film full of jargon which at 1983 (or 82) when it came out, very few people could relate to. a lot of people who went to see it found it boring. --------------------------------
> If AOL treated ICQ with a heavy hand, they > would have destroyed the ICQ brand. This would > probably include combining AIM and ICQ. Destroy > the brand, you've destroyed user loyalty, and > you've lost your users. As it is, AOL has > played the ICQ card carefully to maintain > its value.
this is a very good point, but as the internet is shifting away from a techy-geek only medium and going main stream, I'm not sure if this strategy can hold up against the test of time.
>> You just answered your own >> question. AOL is everywhere, not as a single >> entity. >> >> Good or bad, irrelevent.
it's relevant to it's stock holders, I guess. and to people like me who would really like Microsoft to loose this perticular battle. having many diferant products that hardly interact, IMHO is a recipy for disasture.
As much as I hate saying this, I think AOL alwredy lost the war. I don't know if microsoft will end up dominating the massaging arena, but it seems like the likely scenario.
A year ago I though exactly the oposite of this. buying Mirabilis (ICQ) was probably the smartest thing AOL did, but I feal they missed the boat compleatly with ICQ. ICQ over the past year became Bloatware full of unnecacery features. Yet the most annoying glitch of the ICQ systems STILL hasn't been dealt with (it's security and privacy, obviously. The is NO help from ICQ when you account gets hijacked by some Script Kiddy (I know, I had my 102541 account hacked, and yes, that really WAS my number, I asked ICQ for support in retreaving my account and they opted to do nothing. It took a local reporter who wrote a story about this to make then delete my own account.. well thats better then nothing, I guess.
But even wierder still is the fact the AOL has left AIM and ICQ together side by side, and opted NOT TO put the two together. I really don't understand why one company should have two versions of the same type of aplication, really stupid. It looks like with them buying mp3spy, they will have three programs that have somewhat similar functions, whats that all about?!
AOL also didn't integrate ICQ into netscape (they stayed with AIM for that). why?!
Yahoo, for example, are smart. every function they get through aquisition is integrated into the main database so one user can control all of them (stocks, geocities, games, ets). AOL decided it would leave everything as it is, and are confusing thier own costemers. If they don't change this, they will loose the battle. Amazon also do this pretty well. But AOL is all over the place. I simply do not understand what they are doing over there.
wrong. AFAIK most musicians LOOSE money from record deals.
The useal deal is that the artists gets an advance to produce a recording, from the record company. He pays it back from the money he profits from the record sales - that is HIS CUT OF THE PROFITS! arround 10%.
I wrote this on a local mailing list sometime ago, I think it's relevant to this:
My guess is that the record companies are going to change. if they will not they will die. This will not take place in the immediate timeframe, but in a space of, five- ten years. definitely. The analogy I an thinking of is what happened with the music sheet printing industry..
Before recorded media was common place (phonographs) the biggest music industry players ware printing companies who made sheet music for musicians. a lot of people had pianos and other musical instruments so they used to by the latest music as sheets of paper with the staff notes.. (singles..) and books of their favorite composers work (albums..) with recorded media it took some time, but eventually the printed music industry has become irrelevant in relation to the recorded media industry. The interesting thing is that the music did become more accessible as a result: you didn't have to know how to read notes and play the piano/violin/whatever to enjoy music, you could just by the new record stick it in your phonograph and enjoy.
The MP3 revolution (basicly electronic distribution revolution of which the MP3 is the killer application) is doing the same in a roundabout way. it's not making music more accesible to consumers. It's making the CHOICE of music more accessible to consumers : more musicians can release music then ever before since it's cheaper and more convenient to do so via the traditional routes (via record company). Artist are free to do the kind of music they want to do with out pressure of record companies to make music which is "easy to sell". everyone wins. especially the consumer: again: in a free market the key is choice!
Slashdot Mirror
Simon Phillips? Didn't he drum with Mike Oldfields band in the 80s? terrific drummer, BTW, didn't know he was connected with the who, good to know.
--------------------------------
Time is an illusion,
Lunch Time, doubly so.
(Slartibartfast, THHGTTG)
--------------------------------
If this is true then their might be hope yet..
Sounds like a good call by Apple managment, and another true sign of how this company changed from the bonehead Scully-Spindler-Amilleo days of old.
Making fast smart decisions is what revived apple, glad to see that they realise and rectify the mistakes they make fast too.
--------------------------------
I live in a land without dictionaries. A far away place, a fairy tail land. Also devoid of pedants.. :-)
--------------------------------
the obvious joke would be that Apple is really thinking differant - contradicting Moore's law..
Steve can actually pull this off.. "are you sick of the technology rat race as we are? our chips are slower then the previous generation!". I can see the buzz on all the mac rumor sites about the next 68000 based iMac.. "hello again!"- for real!
oh well..
Apple has decided to rely on Mot for manufactioring these chips - big mistake - and yesturday Apple has basicly ecnolaged that and they are taking steps to rectify this situation - IBM will fab G4 chips as well starting to apear on Apple systems next year. hopefully that will stop that kind of stuff from happening in future.
Not that this matters much to us techies - we follow the news and know that motorola has had a erreta in the 500Mhz chips, and financial types understand that Apple has to do this to keep the gross margines intact. It's really sad, however, that apple rushed the introduction of these systems - without proper testing - which caused this issue in the first place. Hopfully they will learn that leson as well. Allmost all of apple's latest product introductions suffered from suply problems- the G3 thin laptop, the iBook and the G4's. This should be a strong wake up call for steve.
knowing the mac croud, this will not really affect apple. these guys will buy those G4 anyway. but that's fine.
--------------------------------
hmmmm...
thanks for that very interesting, insightfull remark (moderators, do your work..)
> Actually USB didn't take off because of the
> Imac, it just happens that USB components
> became widely available just
> around the same time.
I agree that Apple benifited more from USB then vice-verca. (the decision to ditch ADB and put USB exclusivly on the iMac was pure genious, BTW - since it forced USB perif makers to write drivers for the mac, since it was clear that it was the one market that really needs USB periferals, since there was no other perif I/O port..)
However for some odd reason USB devices on the PC still havn't really taken off, proabably because, unlike Apple, X86 motherboard makers are too scared to kill the legacy serial ports (obviously becuase of backword compatability.. which is a very good reason). I wonder what is the ratio between USB periferal bought for Macs in ralation to USB devices that will get used by PC's.. My guess (And that's all that it is, A guess) that it is at least 50%+ are for Mac's. That's what I meant. USB makers benifited a lot from Apples USB decision.
The cost issue you rase definetly is an interesting issue. we will wait and see.
--------------------------------
Well, if this is intended to kill Firewire then that would be ironic since it's basicly Apple fault that USB has some success anyway.. Untill the iMac USB was not really taking off.
Infact, AFAIK, in the PC landscape there is still a very low demand for USB perif's relative to serial and scsi devices.
The main question is if Motherboard makers in the PC arena will continue to exclude Firewire ports for PCs (likly since intel mostly has controll over the chip sets), when media machines are alwredy adopting it (digital video now, and music instruments within the next year).
I think the battle is still open, USB 2 does have a chance to overthrow firewire, but to do this intel has to move fast. And intel has to convice the periferal makers to adopt USB2 instead of firewire - which might be dificult since those makers were burned in the past with USB slow adoption rate.
which ever standard actualy wins is hard to know, but It's going to be interesting watching the war. get your beer and nacho's ready..
--------------------------------
is that like.. a porn version of Tron? ;-)
:o)
best $19.95 I'll ever spend..
--------------------------------
Ok:
/. and gave no real reason - and that's lame in my book.
eser, tesha, shmone, sheva, shesh, hamesh, arba, shalosh, shtaiem, achat..
I love cringelys writing (and various versions of Nurds)
But one thing I've noticed over the years is that Cringely was never good at analysing trends that hapen in real time, his strength is story telling and analysing things after they happen. Not that there is enything bad in that.
What annoyied me was percisly what you noticed.. he dissed Jane's useage of
--------------------------------
smart desicions in the product design stage - the true reason behind Apples revival (and I don't mean Flavors) I mean strokes of briliance like dropping the ADB bus from the original Imac and sticking on USB - that way USB makers had to make drivers for iMacs (since iMac was the only platform that addopted USB in high numbers). the same tactic Apple is appling to Wireless networking (with Airport - latching on to an emarging standard early, ensuring support from thirs party manufacturers)
The new design also highlights some interesting design desicions.
The original iMac was about Industrial design and esthetics (as well as simplicity and access to the net) the new iMac is about sound quality and home digital videos.
It still remains to be seen if digital Video will become as big as Desk top publishing (which is one of the things Jobs said in his Keynote). Personaly I'm not convinced of this, the prices of Digital cam corders are still too high for it to become practicle in the consumer space, IMHO.
But the thing that Might actualy work to make the new iMac a best seller, is the sound speaker system cuppled with the DVD drive. I am kind of puzzled why they didn't debut a set of additional speakers for the full serround effect, But I'm sure some fast USB periferal maker will jump on the opertunity soon ennough.
The fact that the new machine has no fan, and is therfore persumably quite ennough to be concidered a consumer Hi-fi device is also a interesting point. now all thats missing for the collage student is a MP3 player that can get MP3 files from a remote computer using wireless networking..
--------------------------------
hmmm..
it here:
www.av-el.co.il/starwars-tpm.mp3
--------------------------------
this might be a dance track that might fit in well at the /. shindig:
dual of the fates - sliced up and ready to go
what dya think?
--------------------------------
Yes that was the most bizzare moment of the keynote.. I was kind of hoping to see a IBM exec bite the head off a chicken.. that would definetly prove that IBM has changed from the old suit and tie days.. :-)
--------------------------------
clarification: I liked tron.
This didn't come accross in my message, oh well..
What I ment was that Tron was a rather complex film full of jargon which at 1983 (or 82) when it came out, very few people could relate to. a lot of people who went to see it found it boring.
--------------------------------
Though I know if ayone should do something like this it's Pixar, I doubt very much if it's true.
Pixar has alwredy announced their next project, monsters inc, and I find it unlikely that they will work on two big features at the same time.
The original; was one of the worst flops for disney, btw, very few people went to see it..
even less actually liked it..
--------------------------------
> If AOL treated ICQ with a heavy hand, they > would have destroyed the ICQ brand. This would > probably include combining AIM and ICQ. Destroy
> the brand, you've destroyed user loyalty, and
> you've lost your users. As it is, AOL has
> played the ICQ card carefully to maintain
> its value.
this is a very good point, but as the internet is shifting away from a techy-geek only medium and going main stream, I'm not sure if this strategy can hold up against the test of time.
--------------------------------
>But AOL is all over the place
>> You just answered your own
>> question. AOL is everywhere, not as a single
>> entity.
>>
>> Good or bad, irrelevent.
it's relevant to it's stock holders, I guess. and to people like me who would really like Microsoft to loose this perticular battle. having many diferant products that hardly interact, IMHO is a recipy for disasture.
--------------------------------
As much as I hate saying this, I think AOL alwredy lost the war. I don't know if microsoft will end up dominating the massaging arena, but it seems like the likely scenario.
A year ago I though exactly the oposite of this. buying Mirabilis (ICQ) was probably the smartest thing AOL did, but I feal they missed the boat compleatly with ICQ. ICQ over the past year became Bloatware full of unnecacery features. Yet the most annoying glitch of the ICQ systems STILL hasn't been dealt with (it's security and privacy, obviously. The is NO help from ICQ when you account gets hijacked by some Script Kiddy (I know, I had my 102541 account hacked, and yes, that really WAS my number, I asked ICQ for support in retreaving my account and they opted to do nothing. It took a local reporter who wrote a story about this to make then delete my own account.. well thats better then nothing, I guess.
But even wierder still is the fact the AOL has left AIM and ICQ together side by side, and opted NOT TO put the two together. I really don't understand why one company should have two versions of the same type of aplication, really stupid. It looks like with them buying mp3spy, they will have three programs that have somewhat similar functions, whats that all about?!
AOL also didn't integrate ICQ into netscape (they stayed with AIM for that). why?!
Yahoo, for example, are smart. every function they get through aquisition is integrated into the main database so one user can control all of them (stocks, geocities, games, ets). AOL decided it would leave everything as it is, and are confusing thier own costemers. If they don't change this, they will loose the battle. Amazon also do this pretty well. But AOL is all over the place. I simply do not understand what they are doing over there.
--------------------------------
very cool:
http://www.apple.com (well duh!)
--------------------------------
The slimmer power book was introduced in may..
They are likly to announce something ELSE today... infact, I'm watching the keynote now..
--------------------------------
wrong. AFAIK most musicians LOOSE money from record deals.
The useal deal is that the artists gets an advance to produce a recording, from the record company. He pays it back from the money he profits from the record sales - that is HIS CUT OF THE PROFITS! arround 10%.
care to do the math again?
--------------------------------
I wrote this on a local mailing list sometime ago, I think it's relevant to this:
My guess is that the record companies are going to change. if they will not they will die. This will not take place in the immediate timeframe, but in a space of, five- ten years. definitely. The analogy I an thinking of is what happened with the music sheet printing industry..
Before recorded media was common place (phonographs) the biggest music industry players ware printing companies who made sheet music for musicians. a lot of people had pianos and other musical instruments so they used to by the latest music as sheets of paper with the staff notes.. (singles..) and books of their favorite composers work (albums..) with recorded media it took some time, but eventually the printed music industry has become irrelevant in relation to the recorded
media industry. The interesting thing is that the music did become more accessible as a result: you didn't have to know how to read notes and play the piano/violin/whatever to enjoy music, you could just by the new record stick it in your phonograph and enjoy.
The MP3 revolution (basicly electronic distribution revolution of which the MP3 is the killer application) is doing the same in a roundabout way. it's not making music more accesible to consumers. It's making the CHOICE of music more accessible to consumers : more musicians can release music then ever before since it's cheaper and more convenient to do so via the traditional routes (via record company).
Artist are free to do the kind of music they want to do with out pressure of record companies to make music which is "easy to sell". everyone wins. especially the consumer: again: in a free market the key is choice!
--------------------------------
nope:
:-)
SMDI = DIVX
(I use Pascal, ok?!
--------------------------------
there is a interesting story from upside here that also makes the connection that SMDI might face the same fate as DIVX.
--------------------------------
agreed.
--------------------------------
( my music)