No, they didn't *stop using* the Radeon, they just didn't give ATI a chance to publicly demo the card.
It's not available until September, so it won't be in OEM Apple systems until then. This hurt ATI's ability to 'hype' the card in a public setting, that's all.
I'm a designer and a 'brand guy', and from what I've experienced, all this branding is just a natural human impulse taken to the nth degree.
People don't want to have to re-evaluate every aspect of everything they acquire every time they need it. If 'Frank Smith' earned a reputation for making excellent tools, naturally people would look for tools with his signature on them, knowing they were of quality. Fast-forward to today, where people know that IBM big iron is rock-solid. Or Nordstrom shirts have excellent stitching, flattering cut and last forever... brand still signifies something.
It starts getting sticky when people's natural competitiveness comes out, and brand=quality=status=personal worth. (I am wearing DKNY = I am cool = I will be loved.) THAT's why the brand gurus have us... just typical human ego, frailty, and all the other vices that have existed since the beginning of mankind. So, for us to transcend brand means literally an evolution of the perception of self and value. Not an easy task, and not something that riots or legislation can solve alone.
I have faith we'll eventually get it, though... sicko events like drawing and quartering was once commonplace everywhere, and now it's actually rare. Who knows, in a few hundred years brand will be meaningless.
I live in a new townhome development that has high-speed Ethernet in every room. Ooooooh, cool.
EXCEPT, the nearest DSL station is over 19,000 feet away, so we have to pay $80/mo. for a 202k bridge connection. Double that for a router connection.
So, if me *and* my roommate want to share the DSL, we have to have a separate box to route to our two other computers. Or, one of us gets cable (yeah, like my Mac can spare the PCI slots for the separate NIC).
Yes, the ads are in there for a good reason, actually.
Back when Apple invented Sherlock, all the search engines (i.e. Yahoo, Excite) threatened to shut Mac users out. Sherlock bypasses full page views, so the sites would lose revenue due to lost banner click-throughs and viewings.
So, the banner was basically to mollify those sites and keep Sherlock functional with the biggies.
Apple's online services are NOT 'embracing and extending' an existing standard... they're OS-specific 'extras', but exist outside standards and do not interfere in the implementation of any of them... unlike MSKerberos.
Calling Apple's iTools a balkanization of the web is like calling GameSpy a balkanization of the gaming community because it's WinTel only... when Mac gamers have an equal alternative with the same functionality in GameRanger.
> With the average consumer, Adobe's prices are far beyond reasonable.
I'll assume you mean Photoshop... dude, I have a clue for you. Photoshop isn't for the average consumer. It's for pros who do what they do for a living.
Photoshop replaces a) a darkroom, b) vats full of chemicals, c) an airbrush and all the BS that goes with one and d) many lenses and filters. All this for $500-600? It's cheap.
PhotoDeluxe or Photoshop LE is for consumers. Those are cheap.
> Clock for clock An Athlon is 15-30%+ faster then a pIII as well.
And consumes 5x the power, and requires a die 4x the size. And the 15-30% premium of a G4 doesn't count AltiVec. Checked RC5 lately for processor benchmarks?
>Of course, a Mac with a 500mhz g4 costs $3,499 on the apple store, whereas pricewatch lists the cheapest 500mhz Athlon at $599. that's $2900 less. (800mhz costs $1300).
Compare equal boxes, dude: 128Mb vs. 32Mb RAM 27Gb vs. 4.2Gb HD 16Mb ATI Rage PRO vs. 4Mb no-name card A better case than a PC can dream of (check out the door)! The components overall are of higher quality. Checked the DOA rate of those dirt-cheap PCs lately?
Throw in economies of scale, Apple's R&D cost, plus the 'fastest of the fastest' premium (checked the price/Mhz of the most EXPENSIVE Athlon?) and of COURSE it's triple the price.
Don't get me wrong - Athlons are great processors - IMO they are the x86 equals to G4s, and when I buy a PC it will be an Athlon. Just don't let all the other considerations skew your opinions.
Color choice has a lot to do with the emotions associated with them, i.e. green evokes nature, dark blue evokes conservative authority (look at most banks) and bright colors evoke excitement. You want the site to 'feel' right.
Second, good color choices enhance readability and UI. Good contrast of text against the background, using color breaks to indicate significantly different content, consistent coloring of UI elements, etc. all combine to make a site more useful and intuitive.
Thirdly, the Web Safe Palette - a technical limitation of 8-bit video and Netscape. Many.gif graphics dither unless the pixel falls into a certain (EXTREMELY limited) palette of colors, defined by the intersection of the 8-bit system palettes of Windows and Mac computers. The full drift -- and the fascinating color theory behind it -- can be found at http://www.lynda.com.
Have fun. It's a royal pain in the ass. Lucky for us designers, 32-bit color is getting fairly common.
Slashdot Mirror
No, they didn't *stop using* the Radeon, they just didn't give ATI a chance to publicly demo the card.
It's not available until September, so it won't be in OEM Apple systems until then. This hurt ATI's ability to 'hype' the card in a public setting, that's all.
I'm a designer and a 'brand guy', and from what I've experienced, all this branding is just a natural human impulse taken to the nth degree.
People don't want to have to re-evaluate every aspect of everything they acquire every time they need it. If 'Frank Smith' earned a reputation for making excellent tools, naturally people would look for tools with his signature on them, knowing they were of quality. Fast-forward to today, where people know that IBM big iron is rock-solid. Or Nordstrom shirts have excellent stitching, flattering cut and last forever... brand still signifies something.
It starts getting sticky when people's natural competitiveness comes out, and brand=quality=status=personal worth. (I am wearing DKNY = I am cool = I will be loved.) THAT's why the brand gurus have us... just typical human ego, frailty, and all the other vices that have existed since the beginning of mankind. So, for us to transcend brand means literally an evolution of the perception of self and value. Not an easy task, and not something that riots or legislation can solve alone.
I have faith we'll eventually get it, though... sicko events like drawing and quartering was once commonplace everywhere, and now it's actually rare. Who knows, in a few hundred years brand will be meaningless.
akaSnowman
I live in a new townhome development that has high-speed Ethernet in every room. Ooooooh, cool.
EXCEPT, the nearest DSL station is over 19,000 feet away, so we have to pay $80/mo. for a 202k bridge connection. Double that for a router connection.
So, if me *and* my roommate want to share the DSL, we have to have a separate box to route to our two other computers. Or, one of us gets cable (yeah, like my Mac can spare the PCI slots for the separate NIC).
Wonderful. Great cart, crappy horse?
Yes, the ads are in there for a good reason, actually.
Back when Apple invented Sherlock, all the search engines (i.e. Yahoo, Excite) threatened to shut Mac users out. Sherlock bypasses full page views, so the sites would lose revenue due to lost banner click-throughs and viewings.
So, the banner was basically to mollify those sites and keep Sherlock functional with the biggies.
It's not a conspiracy... it's a compromise.
Your analogy is flawed.
Apple's online services are NOT 'embracing and extending' an existing standard... they're OS-specific 'extras', but exist outside standards and do not interfere in the implementation of any of them... unlike MSKerberos.
Calling Apple's iTools a balkanization of the web is like calling GameSpy a balkanization of the gaming community because it's WinTel only... when Mac gamers have an equal alternative with the same functionality in GameRanger.
akaSnowman
> With the average consumer, Adobe's prices are far beyond reasonable.
I'll assume you mean Photoshop... dude, I have a clue for you. Photoshop isn't for the average consumer. It's for pros who do what they do for a living.
Photoshop replaces a) a darkroom, b) vats full of chemicals, c) an airbrush and all the BS that goes with one and d) many lenses and filters. All this for $500-600? It's cheap.
PhotoDeluxe or Photoshop LE is for consumers. Those are cheap.
- snowman
> Clock for clock An Athlon is 15-30%+ faster then a pIII as well.
And consumes 5x the power, and requires a die 4x the size. And the 15-30% premium of a G4 doesn't count AltiVec. Checked RC5 lately for processor benchmarks?
>Of course, a Mac with a 500mhz g4 costs $3,499 on the apple store, whereas pricewatch lists the cheapest 500mhz Athlon at $599. that's $2900 less. (800mhz costs $1300).
Compare equal boxes, dude:
128Mb vs. 32Mb RAM
27Gb vs. 4.2Gb HD
16Mb ATI Rage PRO vs. 4Mb no-name card
A better case than a PC can dream of (check out the door)!
The components overall are of higher quality. Checked the DOA rate of those dirt-cheap PCs lately?
Throw in economies of scale, Apple's R&D cost, plus the 'fastest of the fastest' premium (checked the price/Mhz of the most EXPENSIVE Athlon?) and of COURSE it's triple the price.
Don't get me wrong - Athlons are great processors - IMO they are the x86 equals to G4s, and when I buy a PC it will be an Athlon. Just don't let all the other considerations skew your opinions.
Color choice has a lot to do with the emotions associated with them, i.e. green evokes nature, dark blue evokes conservative authority (look at most banks) and bright colors evoke excitement. You want the site to 'feel' right.
Second, good color choices enhance readability and UI. Good contrast of text against the background, using color breaks to indicate significantly different content, consistent coloring of UI elements, etc. all combine to make a site more useful and intuitive.
Thirdly, the Web Safe Palette - a technical limitation of 8-bit video and Netscape. Many
Have fun. It's a royal pain in the ass. Lucky for us designers, 32-bit color is getting fairly common.
- aka Snowman