I understand your point. There is a point of diminishing returns where information ceases to be useful (any information above and beyond what is necessary to avoid hitting another car is useless, for example; but that same data provided before hand to avoid the unfortunate situation in the first place is information).
I used Expose as a specific example because it increases the amount of information, and not data, available to you on a fairly common example. Window overload. On my workstation, at work, I can have 15 to 20 Windows open, and there is no mechanism to filter that data into information. On my Mac, there is a built in tool (taking advantage of Quartz and 3d acceleration) called Expose that filters all that data into useful information.
In the same way the Explorer or Finder filters data into information; rather than giving you sector, platter, track, inode, and attribute information, these tools filter extraneous data and provide a limited, but highly structured, view that increases productivity: you see a file's name, it's type, it's location, a few dates, and it's size.
So I acknowledge that the working definition of 'information' is a gray area, and that too much information transforms it into data. However I still believe that providing more information (not too much, but more) increases productivity because information can be used where more data cannot.
In a GUI, information is such things as status, feedback, discrimination, and other things. GUIs can improve on all of those things using 3d techniques over 2d techniques.
There's a fairly clear distinction between data and information.
More information == more productivity More data == more work
You need to process data before it can become information. Raw video feeds is data. Filtered, highlighted, and selectively cut video is information (since the act of filtering, highlighting, and cutting tunes the data towards specific requirements).
So if more GPU power can be borne on raw data to provide real information, you get more productivity because you are actually reducing the data overload by increasing signal to noise.
For example, Expose on Mac OS X allows you to view all application windows, all windows for a specific application, and your desktop, and requires some extensive GPU power. Comparable programs for Windows (like Topdesk) requires an 800MHz CPU and 16mb of ram, while because OS X has more levels of GPU acceleration, I'm running Expose on a 400MHz CPU with 8mb of vram.
So yes, more information requires GPU (or CPU); without the use of either you just have more data.
DirectX isn't the end; especially since the two biggest game platforms out there don't support it: Gameboy Advance and Playstation2. Programming in DirectX limits him to PC games.
Once again Lian Li has managed to impress us with not only the quality of their case, but the innovation of their design. The PC V1200 Plus has the features, size, and attention to detail to make it a great choice for anyone's "dream machine". The price is steep but taking into consideration what you are getting the V1200 is tough to beat.
Or to put it another way:
Lian Li has managed to impress us with not only the quality of their reproduction, but the accuracy as well. The PC V1200 Plus has the features, size, and attention to detail to make it a great choice for anyone who wants a G5 case. The price is steep, but taking into consideration what you are getting, the V1200 is still cheaper than buying a PowerMac.
Okay so it is different; it's upside down. Instead of placing the drives and power supply on top of the case, they put them on the bottom. Woo!
I will have to respectfully disagree, because I own a Mac and I still wish to see Apple continue to make Macs for the foreseeable future. It is not improbably, in a crazy reality, that Macs become PCs (and vice versa) because Apple will have Intel's ear, and Intel will have Apple's manufacturing interests; in the same way that, after Apple bought NeXTStep, NeXTStep became Apple, Apple adopting Intel CPUs might make PCs directly descended from Macs.
As for being done with the computer market, as long as Apple can produce value, provide value, convince people of that value, and profit off that value, with computers then there is no reason to expect them to stop making computers.
I mean, in one sense, a real sense, an iPod is a computer; a specialized computer, but a computer none-the less. It has a display, input, output, disk storage, ram, two CPUs, and recently both audio and video output.
As long as Apple can make 'computers' like the iPod, and make computers with the same sense of style, usability, and functionality as an iPod, I think they are far from 'done' in the computer market.
So you're projecting into a future that doesn't yet exist because of companies that don't share the same business models that happened to fail?
You use Sega, for example, but fail to note that the forces that killed Sega (commoditization) hasn't killed Nintendo (Gameboy Advance, Gameboy DS) and hasn't killed Sony (Playstation, Playstation 2). You bring up SGI, but then can't account for the fact that commoditization hasn't killed IBM (who has their own CPU and architecture, Power and PowerPC, used in supercomputers, GameCubes, the Revolution, Playstation 3s, and XBox 360s). You also bring up DEC Alpha, but don't account for the fact that AMD and IBM are still around (both also produce stellar 64bit CPUs).
If what you say is true, then IBM and AMD will be killed by Intel and commoditization, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony will become software only houses because their hardware became commoditized (which makes no sense because that isn't what happened to Sega).
Reality is much more complex. Apple has a niche due to specialization in the music market; the iPod and the iTMS gives them tremendous brand and marketing cachet. Apple also has a profitable computer division, selling solutions no one else does (the Mac mini is today what the iPod was in 2001, old technology in a new formfactor for a new market), they produce speciality software for their markets (Logic, Express, Final Cut, DVD Studio, etc), and they grow in value in the public eye every month (new iPods, new iTMSs, new Mac designs, new software, etc).
What we are seeing is Apple diversifying, and doing so profitably.
1) Modern video cards are 3d accelerated 2) 3d is a generic superset of 2d 3) GPUs are nearly more powerful (if not clearly) than CPUs 4) More graphics == more information 5) More information == more productivity
Assertion: 3d accelerated UIs reduce CPU usage (because more/all user feedback is handled by the GPU instead of the CPU, point 1, 2, 3, and 4), and provide improved usability (points 4 and 5).
The loss of this effort also has negative consequences: Driver development is stalled between 2d and 3d (points 1 and 2), rather than just developing one set of drivers, and UI improvements are stalled (because loss of point 3 limits, to the CPU, improvements in points 4 and 5).
Here are examples of how 3d acceleration can be used to "increase" productivity: Using 3d hardware to render fonts at high resolution and fidelity to the screen. Improved rendering reduces eyestrain by increasing readability. If it is easier to distinguish between an 'l', 'i', '1', and '|', that's an easier time during coding. The same for 'O' and '0', and 'g', '9', and other similar characters. Higher resolutions require more rendering horsepower, and assigning it to the GPU means less drain on the CPU.
Higher resolution displays will in general have more information; more information translates to higher graphical load, such as number of windows, number of characters, number of graphic elements, and the numerous interactions between all of them. If you can use z buffers and stencil buffers to manage all of these elements, that removes the load on the CPU to manage window, character, and graphic redraw. If you use shaders and vertex transforms to handle font rendering and drawing, you get improved fonts and displays without eating up CPU time. If you use blending modes and texturing hardware to handle window drawing, that's less CPU drain when determining what gets updated, how it gets updated, and when it gets updated.
Then there are the SFX that can only be done with GPUs (rather than wasting CPU power). Window scaling and window transformation, rather than relying on the CPU to handle window resizing, zooming and minimizing, and window movement.
Instead, you'd rather waste CPU cycles on all of those effects!
Don't blame Apple if they can't change they system; they are trying, and this is a first step. Apple is restricted by the contracts each specificy music organization requires for Apple to do business with.
IE, the US's RIAA won't let Apple sell their music in China/Japan/etc, and Japan's equivalent here.
It's stupid, yeah, but place the blame where it rightly belongs: On music cartels trying to limit music so they can maximize profit on the few channels they control.
That's almost the opposite of me. You don't really notice how noisy your life is until you go out and take a hike in the middle of a forest. No road noise, no freeways/expressways, no fans, no hum of lights or electronics, no buzz of compressors and no creaking of houses and water pipes.
It's like being totally comfortable, like being submerged in warm water with the lights off, and no external stressors. Only the occasional bird, the sound of the ground underfoot, and the rustle of the wind keeps you company.
After an experience like that, I am bugged by the hiss of the hard drive on my otherwise silent laptop, the sound of the freeway in the background, the buzz of fans in the kitchen. It's why I want my next computer to run fanless, and with enough ram to never spin up the harddrive.
We now know that, after 4 days, Japan has downloaded 1 million tracks (it took the US market a week), blowing past Sony's online store, which only sold 450,000 tracks in a month.
The Light in the Piazza has 20 tracks for £7.99, or 40p per track How much does the CD cost? In the US it's about $16, or $10.99 online. Townsend records lists it for £13.99
So the appeal is that, at least comparing sources I have access to, that albums cost a little more than half as much online vs offline.
If you only like one track, it costs 79p. How much does it cost to buy one song on CD? Oh, right, £13.99 or $16, which is ridiculously expensive.
Do you see the value proposition yet? It's called 'price'. For some subset of the population the iTMS is cheaper than real CDs.
The problem is that you are using bad logic and then poorly defending it.
You act as if personal belief is good logic.
You believe this: Steve Jobs is wrong, and cannot gracefully concede that multiple button mice are better than single button mice.
My proof that this belief is wrong: Mac OS X has had built in multiple button support for the last four years since 2001. His previous company, NeXTStep, shipped an operating system that supported multiple buttons since 1986. His previous computer, the NeXT Cube and Slab, shipped with a two button mouse in 1986.
My belief is that Steve Jobs is a perfectionist, and will not sell multiple button mice on Macs until one can be designed that acts like a single button mouse to those who expect single button mice, and acts like a multiple button mouse to those who expect multiple button mice.
My proof is in the review and the documentation: As shipped, by default, with default software, all the extra buttons are deactivated; furthermore the right mouse button, which is not deactivated, acts as the left mouse button. This means no matter how you click, it acts like a single button mouse until you turn on the multiple button features.
Another belief I have is that Apple wants to 'adopt' conventions that will help sell them into traditionally Windows/x86 customers.
My proof is that they are adopting x86, multiple button mice, built in Windows SMB sharing, selling iPods for Windows, and have partnered with HP to sell iPods and bundle iTunes on their PCs.
Your assumptions about the mouse betray your ignorance. Have you read the review or product description or used the mouse? I've only read the review and read the product description, so that's where I base my beliefs. What is your basis?
1) The buttons on the sides don't look like buttons. The casual users also can't activate the buttons without knowing they are buttons because they require the user to squeeze the mouse (unlike dragging or clicking, this is a new behavior). Squeezing doesn't work without installing the drivers first.
2) Lack of visual cues means this looks like a one button mouse; it also means, because of the way the preferences are set, it acts like a 1 button mouse; if you don't install drivers, yes, it will act like a two button mouse, but the squeezy button doesn't work either. It would take a strange casual user to right click and not expect a right click; and if they left click, it still acts like a 1 button mouse out of the box. If you do install the software, the mouse will act by default like a one button mouse.
So the state of affairs: Casual user: No squeezy action, scroll ball acts like a scroll wheel (fairly obvious), right click acts like a right click, left click acts like a left click.
Casual user with software installed: No squeezy action, scroll ball acts like a scroll wheel, and both right and left clicks activate the primary action
Noncasual user without software: Same as casual user, but they KNOW to use the right click
Noncasual user with software: 4 button mouse
As I said before, the 'state' of the mouse doesn't detract from the one button argument; for those who need two buttons, three buttons, or four, it is a multi-button mouse. For those who need one button, it is a one button mouse.
Neither argument detracts from the design choice/need of the other.
My question still holds: Why is this an argument that he was wrong? If it acts like/looks like a one button mouse to the casual user, it IS a one button mouse. If it acts like/looks like a 4 button mouse to a power user, it IS a four button mouse.
How does this argue against the 'One button is better' argument?
If presented to a casual user, it will look and act like a one button mouse with a scroll ball.
If the user goes to preferences and takes a closer look, they will see it actually has three buttons and the scroll button is a fourth.
One button design is better: It's like designing a program to one one monitor, rather than two, even though clearly two screens are better. However, if you HAVE to have two monitors to make a program work, and it's possible to design it using one monitor, then a one screen design is better: Design for one screen, leave the flexibility of adding a second for more power users.
It's the same with mice; design for one mouse button, but leave the flexibility/power of using two.
Apple sells a Mac, on average, for $1k Apple has something like a 27% profit margin, or $270 per Mac
If Apple were to sell a boxed copy of OS X, at $129, and get a 40% margin of $52, they'd need to sell 6 times as many copies to 'break even', every year. Or put succintly, if they have 4% market share now, they'd have to have 25% marketshare overnight to make any money on OS X (over selling Macs).
Now compare to Dell. Take the same $270 per Mac. Let's assume Dell sells an average PC of $1k as well; but according to Motley Fool, they have a profit margin of 6%, or $60 per machine. If Apple wanted to match Dell, guess what?
They'd need 5x as much marketshare again, or about 25%... and guess what marketshare Dell has? Yeah, something like 20% to 25%. Apple doesn't exactly have some magic button to get overnight marketshare. They have to work their way, gradually, and they have to make a profit doing it.
What would you call the space shuttle or space station, then, if not a "low gravity" environment, where everything is falling towards the earth at the same speed?
The only difference is that they are moving so fast sideways that then always "miss", so they keep falling. It's call "orbit".
There are SO many ways for Apple to keep selling iPods.
Simple things: Improve battery life Introduce color screens to the mini Introduce colors to the shuffle and iPod Make them even smaller Introduce screens to the shuffle Reduce cost
Not-simple things: iPod video (like a PSP, but with a clickwheel) iPod watch (with a clickwheel instead of a dial) iPod flip (like a RAZR) iPod car stereo (with an additional dock for regular iPods and shuffles) iPod boombox (boombox with wifi, clickwheel, and harddrive and additional docks) iPod phone (maybe soon!)
Slashdot Mirror
I understand your point. There is a point of diminishing returns where information ceases to be useful (any information above and beyond what is necessary to avoid hitting another car is useless, for example; but that same data provided before hand to avoid the unfortunate situation in the first place is information).
I used Expose as a specific example because it increases the amount of information, and not data, available to you on a fairly common example. Window overload. On my workstation, at work, I can have 15 to 20 Windows open, and there is no mechanism to filter that data into information. On my Mac, there is a built in tool (taking advantage of Quartz and 3d acceleration) called Expose that filters all that data into useful information.
In the same way the Explorer or Finder filters data into information; rather than giving you sector, platter, track, inode, and attribute information, these tools filter extraneous data and provide a limited, but highly structured, view that increases productivity: you see a file's name, it's type, it's location, a few dates, and it's size.
So I acknowledge that the working definition of 'information' is a gray area, and that too much information transforms it into data. However I still believe that providing more information (not too much, but more) increases productivity because information can be used where more data cannot.
In a GUI, information is such things as status, feedback, discrimination, and other things. GUIs can improve on all of those things using 3d techniques over 2d techniques.
There's a fairly clear distinction between data and information.
More information == more productivity
More data == more work
You need to process data before it can become information. Raw video feeds is data. Filtered, highlighted, and selectively cut video is information (since the act of filtering, highlighting, and cutting tunes the data towards specific requirements).
So if more GPU power can be borne on raw data to provide real information, you get more productivity because you are actually reducing the data overload by increasing signal to noise.
For example, Expose on Mac OS X allows you to view all application windows, all windows for a specific application, and your desktop, and requires some extensive GPU power. Comparable programs for Windows (like Topdesk) requires an 800MHz CPU and 16mb of ram, while because OS X has more levels of GPU acceleration, I'm running Expose on a 400MHz CPU with 8mb of vram.
So yes, more information requires GPU (or CPU); without the use of either you just have more data.
Why is OpenGL legacy; just because you say so?
DirectX isn't the end; especially since the two biggest game platforms out there don't support it: Gameboy Advance and Playstation2. Programming in DirectX limits him to PC games.
Or to put it another way:
Lian Li has managed to impress us with not only the quality of their reproduction, but the accuracy as well. The PC V1200 Plus has the features, size, and attention to detail to make it a great choice for anyone who wants a G5 case. The price is steep, but taking into consideration what you are getting, the V1200 is still cheaper than buying a PowerMac.
Okay so it is different; it's upside down. Instead of placing the drives and power supply on top of the case, they put them on the bottom. Woo!
Ah, I get you now.
I will have to respectfully disagree, because I own a Mac and I still wish to see Apple continue to make Macs for the foreseeable future. It is not improbably, in a crazy reality, that Macs become PCs (and vice versa) because Apple will have Intel's ear, and Intel will have Apple's manufacturing interests; in the same way that, after Apple bought NeXTStep, NeXTStep became Apple, Apple adopting Intel CPUs might make PCs directly descended from Macs.
As for being done with the computer market, as long as Apple can produce value, provide value, convince people of that value, and profit off that value, with computers then there is no reason to expect them to stop making computers.
I mean, in one sense, a real sense, an iPod is a computer; a specialized computer, but a computer none-the less. It has a display, input, output, disk storage, ram, two CPUs, and recently both audio and video output.
As long as Apple can make 'computers' like the iPod, and make computers with the same sense of style, usability, and functionality as an iPod, I think they are far from 'done' in the computer market.
So you're projecting into a future that doesn't yet exist because of companies that don't share the same business models that happened to fail?
You use Sega, for example, but fail to note that the forces that killed Sega (commoditization) hasn't killed Nintendo (Gameboy Advance, Gameboy DS) and hasn't killed Sony (Playstation, Playstation 2). You bring up SGI, but then can't account for the fact that commoditization hasn't killed IBM (who has their own CPU and architecture, Power and PowerPC, used in supercomputers, GameCubes, the Revolution, Playstation 3s, and XBox 360s). You also bring up DEC Alpha, but don't account for the fact that AMD and IBM are still around (both also produce stellar 64bit CPUs).
If what you say is true, then IBM and AMD will be killed by Intel and commoditization, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony will become software only houses because their hardware became commoditized (which makes no sense because that isn't what happened to Sega).
Reality is much more complex. Apple has a niche due to specialization in the music market; the iPod and the iTMS gives them tremendous brand and marketing cachet. Apple also has a profitable computer division, selling solutions no one else does (the Mac mini is today what the iPod was in 2001, old technology in a new formfactor for a new market), they produce speciality software for their markets (Logic, Express, Final Cut, DVD Studio, etc), and they grow in value in the public eye every month (new iPods, new iTMSs, new Mac designs, new software, etc).
What we are seeing is Apple diversifying, and doing so profitably.
That's still the developer's loss, because both Apple and Microsoft are using "proprietary" drivers from NVIDIA and ATI
You don't know anything do you?
1) Modern video cards are 3d accelerated
2) 3d is a generic superset of 2d
3) GPUs are nearly more powerful (if not clearly) than CPUs
4) More graphics == more information
5) More information == more productivity
Assertion: 3d accelerated UIs reduce CPU usage (because more/all user feedback is handled by the GPU instead of the CPU, point 1, 2, 3, and 4), and provide improved usability (points 4 and 5).
The loss of this effort also has negative consequences: Driver development is stalled between 2d and 3d (points 1 and 2), rather than just developing one set of drivers, and UI improvements are stalled (because loss of point 3 limits, to the CPU, improvements in points 4 and 5).
Here are examples of how 3d acceleration can be used to "increase" productivity:
Using 3d hardware to render fonts at high resolution and fidelity to the screen. Improved rendering reduces eyestrain by increasing readability. If it is easier to distinguish between an 'l', 'i', '1', and '|', that's an easier time during coding. The same for 'O' and '0', and 'g', '9', and other similar characters. Higher resolutions require more rendering horsepower, and assigning it to the GPU means less drain on the CPU.
Higher resolution displays will in general have more information; more information translates to higher graphical load, such as number of windows, number of characters, number of graphic elements, and the numerous interactions between all of them. If you can use z buffers and stencil buffers to manage all of these elements, that removes the load on the CPU to manage window, character, and graphic redraw. If you use shaders and vertex transforms to handle font rendering and drawing, you get improved fonts and displays without eating up CPU time. If you use blending modes and texturing hardware to handle window drawing, that's less CPU drain when determining what gets updated, how it gets updated, and when it gets updated.
Then there are the SFX that can only be done with GPUs (rather than wasting CPU power). Window scaling and window transformation, rather than relying on the CPU to handle window resizing, zooming and minimizing, and window movement.
Instead, you'd rather waste CPU cycles on all of those effects!
Don't blame Apple if they can't change they system; they are trying, and this is a first step. Apple is restricted by the contracts each specificy music organization requires for Apple to do business with.
IE, the US's RIAA won't let Apple sell their music in China/Japan/etc, and Japan's equivalent here.
It's stupid, yeah, but place the blame where it rightly belongs: On music cartels trying to limit music so they can maximize profit on the few channels they control.
There aren't many silent rooms in the suburbs
Yeah, it does, but not everyone likes yodeling.
That's almost the opposite of me. You don't really notice how noisy your life is until you go out and take a hike in the middle of a forest. No road noise, no freeways/expressways, no fans, no hum of lights or electronics, no buzz of compressors and no creaking of houses and water pipes.
It's like being totally comfortable, like being submerged in warm water with the lights off, and no external stressors. Only the occasional bird, the sound of the ground underfoot, and the rustle of the wind keeps you company.
After an experience like that, I am bugged by the hiss of the hard drive on my otherwise silent laptop, the sound of the freeway in the background, the buzz of fans in the kitchen. It's why I want my next computer to run fanless, and with enough ram to never spin up the harddrive.
We now know that, after 4 days, Japan has downloaded 1 million tracks (it took the US market a week), blowing past Sony's online store, which only sold 450,000 tracks in a month.
I'd call it a success.
The Light in the Piazza has 20 tracks for £7.99, or 40p per track
How much does the CD cost? In the US it's about $16, or $10.99 online. Townsend records lists it for £13.99
So the appeal is that, at least comparing sources I have access to, that albums cost a little more than half as much online vs offline.
If you only like one track, it costs 79p. How much does it cost to buy one song on CD? Oh, right, £13.99 or $16, which is ridiculously expensive.
Do you see the value proposition yet? It's called 'price'. For some subset of the population the iTMS is cheaper than real CDs.
Isn't that like Linux/OS development?
You need the experimentation to find out what is promising in the first place!
The problem is that you are using bad logic and then poorly defending it.
You act as if personal belief is good logic.
You believe this: Steve Jobs is wrong, and cannot gracefully concede that multiple button mice are better than single button mice.
My proof that this belief is wrong: Mac OS X has had built in multiple button support for the last four years since 2001. His previous company, NeXTStep, shipped an operating system that supported multiple buttons since 1986. His previous computer, the NeXT Cube and Slab, shipped with a two button mouse in 1986.
My belief is that Steve Jobs is a perfectionist, and will not sell multiple button mice on Macs until one can be designed that acts like a single button mouse to those who expect single button mice, and acts like a multiple button mouse to those who expect multiple button mice.
My proof is in the review and the documentation: As shipped, by default, with default software, all the extra buttons are deactivated; furthermore the right mouse button, which is not deactivated, acts as the left mouse button. This means no matter how you click, it acts like a single button mouse until you turn on the multiple button features.
Another belief I have is that Apple wants to 'adopt' conventions that will help sell them into traditionally Windows/x86 customers.
My proof is that they are adopting x86, multiple button mice, built in Windows SMB sharing, selling iPods for Windows, and have partnered with HP to sell iPods and bundle iTunes on their PCs.
Your assumptions about the mouse betray your ignorance. Have you read the review or product description or used the mouse? I've only read the review and read the product description, so that's where I base my beliefs. What is your basis?
1) The buttons on the sides don't look like buttons. The casual users also can't activate the buttons without knowing they are buttons because they require the user to squeeze the mouse (unlike dragging or clicking, this is a new behavior). Squeezing doesn't work without installing the drivers first.
2) Lack of visual cues means this looks like a one button mouse; it also means, because of the way the preferences are set, it acts like a 1 button mouse; if you don't install drivers, yes, it will act like a two button mouse, but the squeezy button doesn't work either. It would take a strange casual user to right click and not expect a right click; and if they left click, it still acts like a 1 button mouse out of the box. If you do install the software, the mouse will act by default like a one button mouse.
So the state of affairs:
Casual user: No squeezy action, scroll ball acts like a scroll wheel (fairly obvious), right click acts like a right click, left click acts like a left click.
Casual user with software installed: No squeezy action, scroll ball acts like a scroll wheel, and both right and left clicks activate the primary action
Noncasual user without software: Same as casual user, but they KNOW to use the right click
Noncasual user with software: 4 button mouse
As I said before, the 'state' of the mouse doesn't detract from the one button argument; for those who need two buttons, three buttons, or four, it is a multi-button mouse. For those who need one button, it is a one button mouse.
Neither argument detracts from the design choice/need of the other.
My question still holds: Why is this an argument that he was wrong? If it acts like/looks like a one button mouse to the casual user, it IS a one button mouse. If it acts like/looks like a 4 button mouse to a power user, it IS a four button mouse.
Neither detract for the use case of the other.
How does this argue against the 'One button is better' argument?
If presented to a casual user, it will look and act like a one button mouse with a scroll ball.
If the user goes to preferences and takes a closer look, they will see it actually has three buttons and the scroll button is a fourth.
One button design is better: It's like designing a program to one one monitor, rather than two, even though clearly two screens are better. However, if you HAVE to have two monitors to make a program work, and it's possible to design it using one monitor, then a one screen design is better: Design for one screen, leave the flexibility of adding a second for more power users.
It's the same with mice; design for one mouse button, but leave the flexibility/power of using two.
Try this analogy:
Apple sells a Mac, on average, for $1k
Apple has something like a 27% profit margin, or $270 per Mac
If Apple were to sell a boxed copy of OS X, at $129, and get a 40% margin of $52, they'd need to sell 6 times as many copies to 'break even', every year. Or put succintly, if they have 4% market share now, they'd have to have 25% marketshare overnight to make any money on OS X (over selling Macs).
Now compare to Dell. Take the same $270 per Mac. Let's assume Dell sells an average PC of $1k as well; but according to Motley Fool, they have a profit margin of 6%, or $60 per machine. If Apple wanted to match Dell, guess what?
They'd need 5x as much marketshare again, or about 25%... and guess what marketshare Dell has? Yeah, something like 20% to 25%. Apple doesn't exactly have some magic button to get overnight marketshare. They have to work their way, gradually, and they have to make a profit doing it.
Really? There's at least four: The subject of this article, and at least three posters halfway down, if you sort by highest rated and ignore -1.
What would you call the space shuttle or space station, then, if not a "low gravity" environment, where everything is falling towards the earth at the same speed?
The only difference is that they are moving so fast sideways that then always "miss", so they keep falling. It's call "orbit".
Read the book, and you'll find out!
Probably a single Firewire cable with digital audio (compressed of course), video, and power all together?
There are SO many ways for Apple to keep selling iPods.
Simple things:
Improve battery life
Introduce color screens to the mini
Introduce colors to the shuffle and iPod
Make them even smaller
Introduce screens to the shuffle
Reduce cost
Not-simple things:
iPod video (like a PSP, but with a clickwheel)
iPod watch (with a clickwheel instead of a dial)
iPod flip (like a RAZR)
iPod car stereo (with an additional dock for regular iPods and shuffles)
iPod boombox (boombox with wifi, clickwheel, and harddrive and additional docks)
iPod phone (maybe soon!)