You give no credit to Sony, and I don't know why. They really did push forward the console game system market.
I would agree, but now that you've said it, I have to ask: In what way do you think Sony pushed to console game system market forward?
I actually remember that time. The market was not lacking for attempts at creating a more mature console. Philips, Amiga, Atari, 3DO... Everyone was trying to enter this market. Sony was just one among many. They won not because the PS1 was so amazing, but because all other consoles had pretty big flaws.
Not everyone loves the Wii. I think the games are rather boring after you play them twice
Uh, what games are you talking about, specifically?
and it's networking abilities suck.
Why, what's missing, in your opinion?
The PS3 and the Xbox 360 are both a lot more "mature" of systems then the Wii was ever intended to be.
I agree with the quotes around "mature." If you equal "blood and wiggling tits" with mature, then the PS3 and the 360 are more mature than the Wii (at least so far, but games like Manhunt 2 seem to be turning the tables somewhat).
It was designed for children like everything else Nintendo makes.
Ah, but this is, of course, patently wrong. Nintendo does not target children with most of their products. They target wives. Or, more generic, they aim to make games that all players find fun. Would you say that something like "brain training" is less mature than "Resistance"?
And it works fine, but it is nowhere near perfect. The problem with a screen keyboard is that you can't miss the target. With keys your fingers are guided to the right key because you adjust in a split second if your finger is to the side of the key. Because there are no keys on a screen your finger can't adjust and you constantly hit the wrong key.
Yeah, this is going to be a problem. Apple has done some things to make it less of an issue, but only time will tell whether it's enough.
Additionally having an onscren keyboard sucks because it takes real estate away.
Well, if the keyboard were outside the screen, it would take away from the screen size, even if it was not in use, so this is hardly a fair criticism:-)
You know... I always thought IT was a service to the people doing the actual work. Now I realize the people doing the actual work are only there so IT has a bunch of victims to terrorize. Thanks for opening my eyes.
Awesome. Instead of answering my question, you're paraphrasing the Daring Fireball rant.
Well excuuuuse me, Princess. I did not realize I was paraphrasing Gruber's article. I thought I was simply telling the truth.
Let me rephrase my question (since you're obviously not in IT):
Actually, I am.
how does the iphone contribute to the company's bottom line?
It contributes the the company's bottom line by cutting down on support cost for crappy cell phones. Not that it matters, if the right people want an iPhone, IT will do it.
And let's try one more: what does the iPhone offer that the *insert phone/email/platform of choice* doesn't already do?
Again, it doesn't really matter, but what the iPhone does offer is an interface that seems to be easy to figure out.
Thank you for the spelling correction, but let me offer you a definition from wikipedia: "A de facto standard (...)
Right. See that? "de" and "facto" are two different words. I know what you meant, obviously, it's not too hard to figure out.
I'm not a Microsoft fanboy -- there's alot wrong with Exchange -- but it works for the most part, people know how to support it, and if my clients had to vote on having an iPhone and no Outlook synching vs. having a Blackberry with all-of-the-above, well, I think the choice is pretty obvious.
Which is, of course, perfectly true and an entirely different argument from "why should IT bend over backwards, completely gut their defacto standards, just so the corporate users can play with their shiny new baubles at work?"
Pardon me while I giggle maniacally thinking about how I.T. is going to win a fight against the CEO who wants his shiny new iPhone to work.
Seriously though, people will use the iPhone. Safari is one way to do it. Syncing addresses and dates is pretty simply since you're sitting in front of a computer which has them on it. Using the internal mail application is the interesting part, though.
The iPod does not work like the iPaq at all. You don't use a stylus to write or tap on the screen, you type with your thumbs. The difference is that you type on a keyboard shown on the screen instead of on actual little buttons. The people who have used it say it takes a bit of getting used to, but works pretty much like an actual small querty keyboard.
By the way, I've used a Palm and a P800 for a long time, and I enjoyed the text recognition very much. Not as good as an actual keyboard (which my P990i has), but way better than most other cell phone text entry systems.
why should IT bend over backwards, completely gut their defacto standards, just so the corporate users can play with their shiny new baubles at work?
You know... I always thought IT was a service to the people doing the actual work. Now I realize the people doing the actual work are only there so IT has a bunch of victims to terrorize. Thanks for opening my eyes.
Their "defacto standards" [sic] are crap if it means IT keeps their customers (the other employees) from doing their job. It's your job (and I'll just assume that you're working in IT) to make everyone else happy, not to push your "defacto standards".
they contribute back to a FOSS project they exploit in one of their many proprietary software projects
What's the problem with using open source software in closed source apps? As long as the license allows it, that's a good thing.
Furthermore, Apple actually openend quite a bit of their formerly closed source. They don't just use existing projects, they actually create their own, contribute back to existing projects, and they actively work with the community.
Not quite sure what your point is, other than spreading your strange prejudices about Apple.
Yeah. WebKit, the HTML backend, seems to be pretty stable. Nokia uses it in its phones, and it runs well on Mac OS X. The Windows frontend is 100% new and currently extremely unstable.
This whole freaking discussion is absolutly insane. Apple compared Safari to the browser most other Windows users are using. That doesn't mean they want to destroy Firefox. If anything, it's in Apple's best interest to have Firefox out there, taking away market share from IE, forcing web designers to stay away from Microsoft's proprietary technologies.
In fact, in the comparison chart, Apple lists Firefox as the second-best alternative to Internet Explorer.
I honestly don't understand this weird, paranoid complaint.
but it sure as hell doesn't beat a thumb pad if you spend any time at all writing emails or texts.
I would not go as far as claiming that this is "sure as hell" the case, but it's not unlikely that the screen keyboard will fall short of a "button keyboard"'s usability. And this is an issue for writing SMS and MMS (which the iPhone doesn't even support, an even bigger issue). But then, it's something I'm willing to trade in for better usability of the rest of the phone.
Arguably, a lot of phones are prettier than the iPhone (LG has some really nice designs). That is missing the point. GP is wrong, people don't buy the iPhone because of its beauty, but because of its usability.
You are probably trying to be ironic, but removing features is not exactly the worst idea a cell phone manufacturer might have, given the current state of smartphones. My P990i's feature list spans pages upon pages, yet most of these features are useless since they are so obtuse, confusing and complicated. The iPhone has a lot less features, but I trust that I will actually be able to use them without crashing the damn thing, reading the manual, or spending half an hour going through menu items.
Poorly-performing inner city public shools receive more money per head than well-performing private schools.
They probably also need a whole lot more, given that they can't choose their students, often have students from disfunctional families, and have to get teachers to teach under these conditions.
It's not as much the targetting changing, as it is simply gamers getting older. If Sony hadn't figured that out, Sega would have. Or maybe Philips, or somebody else.
Hmm, have you ever thought that perhaps the PS3 sales numbers are low because the PS2 numbers are high?
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If anything, Wii sales are so low because PS2 numbers are so high. The PS2 and the PS3 target different markets, interestingly. The PS2 was the casual, cheap console last generation. This generation, it's the Wii.
Personally, I think a lot of PS2 owners will switch to the Wii instead of the PS3. I own both a Wii and a PS3. By default, PS2 owners tend to be interested in the PS3, until they hear how much it costs, at which point the Wii suddenly becomes the "next-gen" console for them.
Over here in Europe, PS2 owners own these consolese to play stuff like Singstar and Buzz. For these people, the Wii is much more of a natural progression than the PS3.
I agree. It's not as much a single vendor, changing the industry, as it is simple gamers getting older. The NES was the first console that created a generation of children who viewed gaming as something normal. The VCS didn't really do that - even though it was tremendously popular, it never became "normal," as shown by the temporary demise of the gaming market. People viewed the VCS as a fad. The NES, on the other hand, was part of common culture.
The people who grew up on the NES are now adults, and the video gaming market has aged along with them. NES: Childhood. Genesis, SNES: Early teens. PS1, Dreamcast, PS2: Later teens to early twens. Wii: Adulthood. A natural progression, accompanying the "gaming generation" much more than defining them.
Had Sony not entered the market, somebody else would have provided the kind of console that we wanted, just like now that we're adults and Sony has missed the boat, Nintendo has stepped up and provided a console for us.
But that doesn't mean consumers shouldn't be told that Microsoft has a problem, and does not acknowledge it. That way, we can make an informed decision to avoid the 360.
"A competitive activity where participants try to achieve a goal, and prevent the opponent from achieving the goal"
Wouldn't that include things like war, or even doing the groceries, in some cases? I think it's a bit too broad.
I think it should include something like "it's self-dependant," e.g. there is no other goal involved in the act itself (obviously, if you look at most sports nowadays, making money plays a big part, but is not part of the actual game itself). Also, there are usually set rules.
"A competitive activity where participants try to achieve a goal within set rules, and prevent the opponent from achieving the goal. The goal is set within the game itself."
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, beause kids just love Brain Training and Yoga Lectures.
"Mature" games like Manhunt aren't targeted at adults. They are targeted at teenagers.
I haven't yet played Super Paper Mario (I'm in Europe, the Ass of the videogaming world), but nothing can beat the ending of Link's Awakening!
I would agree, but now that you've said it, I have to ask: In what way do you think Sony pushed to console game system market forward?
I actually remember that time. The market was not lacking for attempts at creating a more mature console. Philips, Amiga, Atari, 3DO... Everyone was trying to enter this market. Sony was just one among many. They won not because the PS1 was so amazing, but because all other consoles had pretty big flaws.
Not everyone loves the Wii. I think the games are rather boring after you play them twiceUh, what games are you talking about, specifically?
and it's networking abilities suck.Why, what's missing, in your opinion?
The PS3 and the Xbox 360 are both a lot more "mature" of systems then the Wii was ever intended to be.I agree with the quotes around "mature." If you equal "blood and wiggling tits" with mature, then the PS3 and the 360 are more mature than the Wii (at least so far, but games like Manhunt 2 seem to be turning the tables somewhat).
It was designed for children like everything else Nintendo makes.Ah, but this is, of course, patently wrong. Nintendo does not target children with most of their products. They target wives. Or, more generic, they aim to make games that all players find fun. Would you say that something like "brain training" is less mature than "Resistance"?
I'd call that self-defense.
Yes, because they can hire more teachers and make the classes smaller, which improves the situation tremendously.
Yeah, this is going to be a problem. Apple has done some things to make it less of an issue, but only time will tell whether it's enough.
Additionally having an onscren keyboard sucks because it takes real estate away.Well, if the keyboard were outside the screen, it would take away from the screen size, even if it was not in use, so this is hardly a fair criticism :-)
Awesome. Instead of answering my question, you're paraphrasing the Daring Fireball rant.
Well excuuuuse me, Princess. I did not realize I was paraphrasing Gruber's article. I thought I was simply telling the truth.
Let me rephrase my question (since you're obviously not in IT):
Actually, I am.
how does the iphone contribute to the company's bottom line?It contributes the the company's bottom line by cutting down on support cost for crappy cell phones. Not that it matters, if the right people want an iPhone, IT will do it.
And let's try one more: what does the iPhone offer that the *insert phone/email/platform of choice* doesn't already do?
Again, it doesn't really matter, but what the iPhone does offer is an interface that seems to be easy to figure out.
Thank you for the spelling correction, but let me offer you a definition from wikipedia: "A de facto standard (...)Right. See that? "de" and "facto" are two different words. I know what you meant, obviously, it's not too hard to figure out.
I'm not a Microsoft fanboy -- there's alot wrong with Exchange -- but it works for the most part, people know how to support it, and if my clients had to vote on having an iPhone and no Outlook synching vs. having a Blackberry with all-of-the-above, well, I think the choice is pretty obvious.Which is, of course, perfectly true and an entirely different argument from "why should IT bend over backwards, completely gut their defacto standards, just so the corporate users can play with their shiny new baubles at work?"
Pardon me while I giggle maniacally thinking about how I.T. is going to win a fight against the CEO who wants his shiny new iPhone to work.
Seriously though, people will use the iPhone. Safari is one way to do it. Syncing addresses and dates is pretty simply since you're sitting in front of a computer which has them on it. Using the internal mail application is the interesting part, though.
The iPod does not work like the iPaq at all. You don't use a stylus to write or tap on the screen, you type with your thumbs. The difference is that you type on a keyboard shown on the screen instead of on actual little buttons. The people who have used it say it takes a bit of getting used to, but works pretty much like an actual small querty keyboard.
By the way, I've used a Palm and a P800 for a long time, and I enjoyed the text recognition very much. Not as good as an actual keyboard (which my P990i has), but way better than most other cell phone text entry systems.
You, apparently.
You know... I always thought IT was a service to the people doing the actual work. Now I realize the people doing the actual work are only there so IT has a bunch of victims to terrorize. Thanks for opening my eyes.
Their "defacto standards" [sic] are crap if it means IT keeps their customers (the other employees) from doing their job. It's your job (and I'll just assume that you're working in IT) to make everyone else happy, not to push your "defacto standards".
What's the problem with using open source software in closed source apps? As long as the license allows it, that's a good thing.
Furthermore, Apple actually openend quite a bit of their formerly closed source. They don't just use existing projects, they actually create their own, contribute back to existing projects, and they actively work with the community.
Not quite sure what your point is, other than spreading your strange prejudices about Apple.
They, as well as other parties using WebKit, such as Nokia, seem to be pretty happy.
Yeah. WebKit, the HTML backend, seems to be pretty stable. Nokia uses it in its phones, and it runs well on Mac OS X. The Windows frontend is 100% new and currently extremely unstable.
This whole freaking discussion is absolutly insane. Apple compared Safari to the browser most other Windows users are using. That doesn't mean they want to destroy Firefox. If anything, it's in Apple's best interest to have Firefox out there, taking away market share from IE, forcing web designers to stay away from Microsoft's proprietary technologies.
In fact, in the comparison chart, Apple lists Firefox as the second-best alternative to Internet Explorer.
I honestly don't understand this weird, paranoid complaint.
I would not go as far as claiming that this is "sure as hell" the case, but it's not unlikely that the screen keyboard will fall short of a "button keyboard"'s usability. And this is an issue for writing SMS and MMS (which the iPhone doesn't even support, an even bigger issue). But then, it's something I'm willing to trade in for better usability of the rest of the phone.
John Gruber has an article about this, for those interested.
Arguably, a lot of phones are prettier than the iPhone (LG has some really nice designs). That is missing the point. GP is wrong, people don't buy the iPhone because of its beauty, but because of its usability.
You are probably trying to be ironic, but removing features is not exactly the worst idea a cell phone manufacturer might have, given the current state of smartphones. My P990i's feature list spans pages upon pages, yet most of these features are useless since they are so obtuse, confusing and complicated. The iPhone has a lot less features, but I trust that I will actually be able to use them without crashing the damn thing, reading the manual, or spending half an hour going through menu items.
Usability, in a way, is functionality. In fact, functionality without usability is nothing.
They probably also need a whole lot more, given that they can't choose their students, often have students from disfunctional families, and have to get teachers to teach under these conditions.
It's not as much the targetting changing, as it is simply gamers getting older. If Sony hadn't figured that out, Sega would have. Or maybe Philips, or somebody else.
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If anything, Wii sales are so low because PS2 numbers are so high. The PS2 and the PS3 target different markets, interestingly. The PS2 was the casual, cheap console last generation. This generation, it's the Wii.
Personally, I think a lot of PS2 owners will switch to the Wii instead of the PS3. I own both a Wii and a PS3. By default, PS2 owners tend to be interested in the PS3, until they hear how much it costs, at which point the Wii suddenly becomes the "next-gen" console for them.
Over here in Europe, PS2 owners own these consolese to play stuff like Singstar and Buzz. For these people, the Wii is much more of a natural progression than the PS3.
I agree. It's not as much a single vendor, changing the industry, as it is simple gamers getting older. The NES was the first console that created a generation of children who viewed gaming as something normal. The VCS didn't really do that - even though it was tremendously popular, it never became "normal," as shown by the temporary demise of the gaming market. People viewed the VCS as a fad. The NES, on the other hand, was part of common culture.
The people who grew up on the NES are now adults, and the video gaming market has aged along with them. NES: Childhood. Genesis, SNES: Early teens. PS1, Dreamcast, PS2: Later teens to early twens. Wii: Adulthood. A natural progression, accompanying the "gaming generation" much more than defining them.
Had Sony not entered the market, somebody else would have provided the kind of console that we wanted, just like now that we're adults and Sony has missed the boat, Nintendo has stepped up and provided a console for us.
But that doesn't mean consumers shouldn't be told that Microsoft has a problem, and does not acknowledge it. That way, we can make an informed decision to avoid the 360.
Wouldn't that include things like war, or even doing the groceries, in some cases? I think it's a bit too broad.
I think it should include something like "it's self-dependant," e.g. there is no other goal involved in the act itself (obviously, if you look at most sports nowadays, making money plays a big part, but is not part of the actual game itself). Also, there are usually set rules.
"A competitive activity where participants try to achieve a goal within set rules, and prevent the opponent from achieving the goal. The goal is set within the game itself."