Consumer demand on a large scale determines retail pricing, not the whims of individual consumers.
I can't go into a grocery store and say, "Hey, I think this Snickers bar is only worth 39, so that's all I'm going to pay." If the thing costs more than you want to pay, you have two options... buy it or don't. If something is priced beyond it's perceived value, people won't buy it forcing the manufacturer's hand to cut the price and probably jobs in the process or buy supllies from cheaper suppliers to reduce the cost of manufacturing overhead.
If you want to influence the price of a product, either buy it or don't and influence other people to do the same. With music, if you steal it, you will see artificial price increases because the RIAA will hammer on and on about how piracy affects their bottom line. Grocery stores, retail stores build in markups to cover theft. It's no different with music.
Re:Skip video and photo and add Vorbis and FLAC
on
The Future of the iPod
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
You're not alone, but in reality, you are part of a VERY small demographic as far as Apple is concerned. MP3, AIFF, AAC & WAV are what the bulk of the consumer public is used to... particularly MP3 & WAV. Say OGG Vorbis to a lay computer user and they will probably say Gesundheit or "I don't speak Finnish".
Here's an idea... let's all just assume that most everyone on/. would think the iPod or any other digital music device would be better with OGG support. Then, we can also assume that Apple probably won't support it because (much like the Mac) OGG isn't a widely supported format.
In making these assumptions we can cut down the noise to signal ratio here as well as thousands of redundant posts every day. Apple doesn't support OGG and Apple doesn't get viruses for the same reason that OGG doesn't get widespread attention or support. Small, very specific user base.
We will all go blind much more slowly now having to read less posts of this nature.
Jobs talked about the major transitions in the Mac's life -- starting from the Mac's Motorola 68000-series processor to PowerPC. "The PowerPC set Apple up fro the next decade. It was a good move," he said.
"The second transition was even better -- the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X that we just did," he continued. "This was a brain transplant. And even though these operating systems (9 and x) vary only by one in name, they are very different, and this has set Apple up for the next 20 years."
As the Intel logo lowered on the stage screen, Jobs said, "We are going to make the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors, and we are going to do it for you now, and for our customers next year. Why? Because we want to be making the best computer for our customers looking forward."
"I stood up here two years ago and promised you 3.0 GHz. I think a lot of you would like a G5 in your PowerBook, and we haven't been able to deliver that to you," said Jobs. "But as we look ahead, and though we've got great products now, and great PowerPC products still to come, we can envision great products we want to build, and we can't envision how to build them with the current PowerPC roadmap," said Jobs.
Intel processors provide more performance per watt than PowerPC processors do, said Jobs. "When we look at future roadmaps, mid-2006 and beyond, we see PoweRPC gives us 15 units of perfomance per watt, but Intel's roadmap gives us 70. And so this tells us what we have to do," he explained.
Transition to Intel by 2007, and yes, Marklar exists
"Starting next year, we will introduce Macs with Intel processors," said Jobs. "This time next year, we plan to ship Macs with Intel processors. In two years, our plan is that the transition will be mostly complete, and will be complete by end of 2007."
Jobs then confirmed a long-held belief that Apple was working on an Intel-compatible version of Mac OS X that some have termed "Marklar."
Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life" for the past five years, said Jobs. "So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years."
Jobs demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-processor equipped system, running a build of Mac OS X v10.4.1. He showed Dashboard widgets, Spotlight, iCal, Apple's Mail, Safari and iPhoto all working on the Intel-based system.
Apple needs developers' help to complete the transition
"We are very far along on this, but we're not done," said Jobs. "Which is why we're going to put it in your hands very soon, so you can help us finish it."
The future of Mac OS X development is moving to Xcode, said Jobs. Of Apple's top 100 developers, more than half -- 56 percent -- are already using Xcode, and 25 percent are in the process of switching to Xcode. "Less than 20 percent are not on board yet. Now is a good time to get on board," said Jobs.
Actually, Apple didn't copy XEROX PARC's research at all. They flat out used it as it and improved upon it. XEROX didn't see a use for either mouse or GUI technology, so they gave Apple permission to use it.
It's not denial. FireWire hasn't lost to USB 2.0. For Digital Video, FireWire is still far better at sustained transfers than USB 2.0. Some of my editing clients have provided me with USB 2.0 harddrives and I have a hard time playing back full resolution Final Cut Pro files from footage on the USB 2.0 drives, It simply hiccups far too often when confronted with a lot of full reoslution video. My FireWire 400 drives can play back for hours on end (literally) with no hiccups whatsoever. In this respect FireWrie is the better protocol. It's simply more stable.
As for the iPod, well, I can see the ubiquity of USB 2.0 being an advantage. Almost all Windows PC's have it. It's fast and it doesn't need to be sending high bandwidth data streams for exceedingly long spurts. In essence, it's perfectly suited to an iPod plus it lets Apple keep a little bit more of their profit margin.
FireWire rocks at what it was designed for. USB 2.0 is pretty good at what it was designed for. There is room for both protocols.
Part of the deal was that MS' shares were non-voting stock, so basically all they were able to do was make some money off their investment and renew their commitment to Office for the Mac.
Of course there will be a home for geeks who want to do more than play MP3's and surf the web. It's called Fry's Electronics (or insert favorite local computer store here). Don't true computer geeks like to build their own computers anyway?
A Mac Mini is much cheaper than even the most inexpensive iBook. It's size ins't the real selling point. It's the price and the fact that it will work with all Windows based USB peripeherals and SVGA monitors, etc.
Strangely, I might be part of the market they're going after. I've not purchased an iPod mostly because of the price and the fact that I spend most of my time in front of a computer with my entire CD collection ripped to iTunes. I take the bus to my office and my trip is a whopping 25 minutes to downtown Seattle and then a 15 minute walk. I don't need to pay $400 to carry around my entire 20GB library for that. A $99 player that could carry a reasonable amount of music to cover my various bus trips to and from work? Yes please!
Apple picked BSD as it's core because it simply doesn't crash! It's stable, secure and fast. Three things M$ cannot say about it's own operating system. OS 9 (and it's predecessors) while brilliant for it's time 15-20 years ago, simply wasn't good enough for the modern age. I've been using OS X for over four years now and have not looked back.
Until Apple releases a version of Final Cut Pro for Windows (which will NEVER happen), I can so no reason for me to ever purchase a Windows box.
OS X is not a marketing gimmick. It was something that the company simply HAD TO DO in order to create a modern operating system that allowed them to do what was necessary to meet the needs of it's customers. People don't buy Macs because they are antiM$ extremists. People buy Macs because they work well for what is needed of them and, to use their own marketing hype, They Simply Work. I've had my DP 1.8Ghz G5 for about 5 months now and it has never crashed, never received a virus and has basiaclly allowed me to get my work (editing video) done without ever having to worry about the computer itself. I'm enough of a geek to fix just about any problem that might come up, but luckily, I don't have to sweat it. My machine works, period.
Well, you're never going to get a stock 2-button mouse from Apple. The CTRL key does the same thing as a right click 99% of the time. If you absolutely need a multi-button mouse, simply buy one. Pretty much any multi-button mouse is going to work right off the bat.
I believe the downsampling occurs if you use iPhoto. If you simply mount the iPod as a FireWire drive and copy the photos to a folder on the drive, then everything should be just peachy.
Sorry, but saying Premiere beats FCP out on performance is sheer lunacy. I make my living off of Adobe products (PS, ILL, ID, Acrobat, AE, but Premiere is a bad NLE and it's "real time" performance is laughable.
If you're going to tout the Wintel party line in terms of video post-production, please at least mention the Avid options. Avid is both Win & Mac and they offer a range of products that far surpass Premiere in terms of quality and power.
Maybe I should have put tags in my last post. My intent was to use sarcasm to underscore the idiocy of the parent post that said Apple was being used less and less in the motion picture field. The truth is that Apple is actually making headway in the film and video fields and actually starting to take Avid on head to head.
Yeah, the motion picture industry is definitely moving away from Mac's. Sure. There are absolutely no post houses using FCP or Shake. Not one person is purchasing or using Logic. The Lord of the Rings didn't actually use Shake at all either.
Look, Apple is doing quite well in the motion picture and video fields. I don't know where you're looking, but Apple is actually starting to give Avid a run for their money. They definitely haven't overtaken Avid, but trailer houses are ditching their Avid rigs in favor of far cheaper FCP rigs like crazy. Motion will help with this adoption, but it won't be a replacement for AfterEffects by a long shot.
Keep the "People are moving away from Apple" rhetoric to yourself or move to another section of this site where such blather is more welcomed.
Anyway - Motion looks cool but it's Mac only so.... The correct conclusion to this sentence is... so I'd better go buy a DP 2.5 Ghz G5 as soon as possible.
Live Type will continue to ship with FCP. Not everyone is going to buy Motion or the Production Suite, but will still want to make fancy titles. Live Type is here to stay mostly because it's a dedicated one trick pony that's ridiculously simple to use and generates pretty impressive effects.
All that said, Apple's going to have a hard time with Motion because AfterEffects has such a strong hold in the pro motion graphics market. Motion looks like a good app, but it's going to take a while for it to catch up with AfterEffects in terms of power and and robustness. I think it will catch on with mid level DVD authors before it really catches on with hard core, professional motion graphics artists. Apple won't push AfterEffect sout of the Mac market like they did with Premiere.... which is a horrible, stinky piece of non-linear crap.
Despite Motion's shortcoming in comparison to AfterEffects, Combusitons and Commotion, I'll still buy a copy using my Apple educational discount.
"I'm sorry, but when it comes down to it, I have a really hard time beleiving that the avrage Mac user knows more than your avarage Linux user...."
Knows more about what? Chances are the average Mac based graphic designer knows a lot more about art and art history than the average Linux user. Chances are the average Linux user knows more about computer science and the history of sci fi movies than the average Mac user.
Hell, Sir Isaac Newton probably knew a hell of a lot more than just about any average computer user today and that was long before the computer was even a concept!
Knowledge of how to use an OS is not a viable yardstick of anyone's intelligence!
If anything it is more telling about wehich hemisphere of the brain is mroe predominant in a person's thought processes than anything else. I would make the assumption that Mac users tend to be more right brained and *NIX users tend to be more left brained. But hell, even that is a huge assumption on my part.
Move on, stop reading this thread and go do something useful or fun rather than bicker about the relative intelligence of people based on theit preference of computing platforms.
Slashdot Mirror
Consumer demand on a large scale determines retail pricing, not the whims of individual consumers.
I can't go into a grocery store and say, "Hey, I think this Snickers bar is only worth 39, so that's all I'm going to pay." If the thing costs more than you want to pay, you have two options... buy it or don't. If something is priced beyond it's perceived value, people won't buy it forcing the manufacturer's hand to cut the price and probably jobs in the process or buy supllies from cheaper suppliers to reduce the cost of manufacturing overhead.
If you want to influence the price of a product, either buy it or don't and influence other people to do the same. With music, if you steal it, you will see artificial price increases because the RIAA will hammer on and on about how piracy affects their bottom line. Grocery stores, retail stores build in markups to cover theft. It's no different with music.
You're not alone, but in reality, you are part of a VERY small demographic as far as Apple is concerned. MP3, AIFF, AAC & WAV are what the bulk of the consumer public is used to... particularly MP3 & WAV. Say OGG Vorbis to a lay computer user and they will probably say Gesundheit or "I don't speak Finnish".
Here's an idea... let's all just assume that most everyone on /. would think the iPod or any other digital music device would be better with OGG support. Then, we can also assume that Apple probably won't support it because (much like the Mac) OGG isn't a widely supported format.
In making these assumptions we can cut down the noise to signal ratio here as well as thousands of redundant posts every day. Apple doesn't support OGG and Apple doesn't get viruses for the same reason that OGG doesn't get widespread attention or support. Small, very specific user base.
We will all go blind much more slowly now having to read less posts of this nature.
The rumors are true: Intel will be inside
Jobs talked about the major transitions in the Mac's life -- starting from the Mac's Motorola 68000-series processor to PowerPC. "The PowerPC set Apple up fro the next decade. It was a good move," he said.
"The second transition was even better -- the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X that we just did," he continued. "This was a brain transplant. And even though these operating systems (9 and x) vary only by one in name, they are very different, and this has set Apple up for the next 20 years."
As the Intel logo lowered on the stage screen, Jobs said, "We are going to make the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors, and we are going to do it for you now, and for our customers next year. Why? Because we want to be making the best computer for our customers looking forward."
"I stood up here two years ago and promised you 3.0 GHz. I think a lot of you would like a G5 in your PowerBook, and we haven't been able to deliver that to you," said Jobs. "But as we look ahead, and though we've got great products now, and great PowerPC products still to come, we can envision great products we want to build, and we can't envision how to build them with the current PowerPC roadmap," said Jobs.
Intel processors provide more performance per watt than PowerPC processors do, said Jobs. "When we look at future roadmaps, mid-2006 and beyond, we see PoweRPC gives us 15 units of perfomance per watt, but Intel's roadmap gives us 70. And so this tells us what we have to do," he explained.
Transition to Intel by 2007, and yes, Marklar exists
"Starting next year, we will introduce Macs with Intel processors," said Jobs. "This time next year, we plan to ship Macs with Intel processors. In two years, our plan is that the transition will be mostly complete, and will be complete by end of 2007."
Jobs then confirmed a long-held belief that Apple was working on an Intel-compatible version of Mac OS X that some have termed "Marklar."
Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life" for the past five years, said Jobs. "So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years."
Jobs demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-processor equipped system, running a build of Mac OS X v10.4.1. He showed Dashboard widgets, Spotlight, iCal, Apple's Mail, Safari and iPhoto all working on the Intel-based system.
Apple needs developers' help to complete the transition
"We are very far along on this, but we're not done," said Jobs. "Which is why we're going to put it in your hands very soon, so you can help us finish it."
The future of Mac OS X development is moving to Xcode, said Jobs. Of Apple's top 100 developers, more than half -- 56 percent -- are already using Xcode, and 25 percent are in the process of switching to Xcode. "Less than 20 percent are not on board yet. Now is a good time to get on board," said Jobs.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/227238_appl e06.html
This one almost sounds like a press release confirming the rumor.
Actually, Apple didn't copy XEROX PARC's research at all. They flat out used it as it and improved upon it. XEROX didn't see a use for either mouse or GUI technology, so they gave Apple permission to use it.
It's not denial. FireWire hasn't lost to USB 2.0. For Digital Video, FireWire is still far better at sustained transfers than USB 2.0. Some of my editing clients have provided me with USB 2.0 harddrives and I have a hard time playing back full resolution Final Cut Pro files from footage on the USB 2.0 drives, It simply hiccups far too often when confronted with a lot of full reoslution video. My FireWire 400 drives can play back for hours on end (literally) with no hiccups whatsoever. In this respect FireWrie is the better protocol. It's simply more stable.
As for the iPod, well, I can see the ubiquity of USB 2.0 being an advantage. Almost all Windows PC's have it. It's fast and it doesn't need to be sending high bandwidth data streams for exceedingly long spurts. In essence, it's perfectly suited to an iPod plus it lets Apple keep a little bit more of their profit margin.
FireWire rocks at what it was designed for. USB 2.0 is pretty good at what it was designed for. There is room for both protocols.
Part of the deal was that MS' shares were non-voting stock, so basically all they were able to do was make some money off their investment and renew their commitment to Office for the Mac.
Of course there will be a home for geeks who want to do more than play MP3's and surf the web. It's called Fry's Electronics (or insert favorite local computer store here). Don't true computer geeks like to build their own computers anyway?
A Mac Mini is much cheaper than even the most inexpensive iBook. It's size ins't the real selling point. It's the price and the fact that it will work with all Windows based USB peripeherals and SVGA monitors, etc.
I have a friend who works for Avenue A and he informed me that it is simply a typo.
Enough already - it's just a friggin portable music player
Really, you could have just said this and saved everyone a small amount of valuable time.
1) purchase an MP3 from your favorite music download site.
2) import said MP3 into your iTunes library
3) create a playlist that includes said MP3
4) export the playlist to the iPod
It's really quite simple, folks. The iPod doesn't ONLY work with ITMS.
Strangely, I might be part of the market they're going after. I've not purchased an iPod mostly because of the price and the fact that I spend most of my time in front of a computer with my entire CD collection ripped to iTunes. I take the bus to my office and my trip is a whopping 25 minutes to downtown Seattle and then a 15 minute walk. I don't need to pay $400 to carry around my entire 20GB library for that. A $99 player that could carry a reasonable amount of music to cover my various bus trips to and from work? Yes please!
Apple picked BSD as it's core because it simply doesn't crash! It's stable, secure and fast. Three things M$ cannot say about it's own operating system. OS 9 (and it's predecessors) while brilliant for it's time 15-20 years ago, simply wasn't good enough for the modern age. I've been using OS X for over four years now and have not looked back.
Until Apple releases a version of Final Cut Pro for Windows (which will NEVER happen), I can so no reason for me to ever purchase a Windows box.
OS X is not a marketing gimmick. It was something that the company simply HAD TO DO in order to create a modern operating system that allowed them to do what was necessary to meet the needs of it's customers. People don't buy Macs because they are antiM$ extremists. People buy Macs because they work well for what is needed of them and, to use their own marketing hype, They Simply Work. I've had my DP 1.8Ghz G5 for about 5 months now and it has never crashed, never received a virus and has basiaclly allowed me to get my work (editing video) done without ever having to worry about the computer itself. I'm enough of a geek to fix just about any problem that might come up, but luckily, I don't have to sweat it. My machine works, period.
If having about $600 total in the bank and a DP 1.8GHz on my desk count as rich, well then the economy is in worse shape then I thought!
Well, you're never going to get a stock 2-button mouse from Apple. The CTRL key does the same thing as a right click 99% of the time. If you absolutely need a multi-button mouse, simply buy one. Pretty much any multi-button mouse is going to work right off the bat.
I believe the downsampling occurs if you use iPhoto. If you simply mount the iPod as a FireWire drive and copy the photos to a folder on the drive, then everything should be just peachy.
Sorry, but saying Premiere beats FCP out on performance is sheer lunacy. I make my living off of Adobe products (PS, ILL, ID, Acrobat, AE, but Premiere is a bad NLE and it's "real time" performance is laughable.
If you're going to tout the Wintel party line in terms of video post-production, please at least mention the Avid options. Avid is both Win & Mac and they offer a range of products that far surpass Premiere in terms of quality and power.
Maybe I should have put tags in my last post. My intent was to use sarcasm to underscore the idiocy of the parent post that said Apple was being used less and less in the motion picture field. The truth is that Apple is actually making headway in the film and video fields and actually starting to take Avid on head to head.
Yeah, the motion picture industry is definitely moving away from Mac's. Sure. There are absolutely no post houses using FCP or Shake. Not one person is purchasing or using Logic. The Lord of the Rings didn't actually use Shake at all either.
Look, Apple is doing quite well in the motion picture and video fields. I don't know where you're looking, but Apple is actually starting to give Avid a run for their money. They definitely haven't overtaken Avid, but trailer houses are ditching their Avid rigs in favor of far cheaper FCP rigs like crazy. Motion will help with this adoption, but it won't be a replacement for AfterEffects by a long shot.
Keep the "People are moving away from Apple" rhetoric to yourself or move to another section of this site where such blather is more welcomed.
Yeah, it's SOOOOO inappropriate to write something positive about Apple software in the APPLE section of /.
Anyway - Motion looks cool but it's Mac only so....
The correct conclusion to this sentence is... so I'd better go buy a DP 2.5 Ghz G5 as soon as possible.
Live Type will continue to ship with FCP. Not everyone is going to buy Motion or the Production Suite, but will still want to make fancy titles. Live Type is here to stay mostly because it's a dedicated one trick pony that's ridiculously simple to use and generates pretty impressive effects.
All that said, Apple's going to have a hard time with Motion because AfterEffects has such a strong hold in the pro motion graphics market. Motion looks like a good app, but it's going to take a while for it to catch up with AfterEffects in terms of power and and robustness. I think it will catch on with mid level DVD authors before it really catches on with hard core, professional motion graphics artists. Apple won't push AfterEffect sout of the Mac market like they did with Premiere.... which is a horrible, stinky piece of non-linear crap.
Despite Motion's shortcoming in comparison to AfterEffects, Combusitons and Commotion, I'll still buy a copy using my Apple educational discount.
Pardon my horrendous spelling! I'm typing this on a crappy Dell keyboard unfortunately.
"I'm sorry, but when it comes down to it, I have a really hard time beleiving that the avrage Mac user knows more than your avarage Linux user...."
Knows more about what? Chances are the average Mac based graphic designer knows a lot more about art and art history than the average Linux user. Chances are the average Linux user knows more about computer science and the history of sci fi movies than the average Mac user.
Hell, Sir Isaac Newton probably knew a hell of a lot more than just about any average computer user today and that was long before the computer was even a concept!
Knowledge of how to use an OS is not a viable yardstick of anyone's intelligence!
If anything it is more telling about wehich hemisphere of the brain is mroe predominant in a person's thought processes than anything else. I would make the assumption that Mac users tend to be more right brained and *NIX users tend to be more left brained. But hell, even that is a huge assumption on my part.
Move on, stop reading this thread and go do something useful or fun rather than bicker about the relative intelligence of people based on theit preference of computing platforms.