All USB 2.0 devices work with USB 1.1, and NOT with USB 1.0. If I am looking at a USB 2.0 camera, but my PC is only USB 1.1, it looks to me that the camera will not work with the PC. This is inaccurate...it'll work, I just won't get a speedup. It won't work at all with my USB 1.0 machine.
Which is easier to remember...1.1 vs 1.0, or 1 vs 2?
When a "version" makes something incompatible with a previous version, you're supposed to bump up the major release. 1.1 should have been 2 from the start for marketting purposes -- sort of like the jump from Java JDK 1.1x (Java 1) to 1.2x (Java 2).
This is probably why they changed it...the only difference between USB 1.1 and 2.0 is speed. USB 1.0 is a different, deprecated format.
I'm not saying they didn't make it even more complex -- especially since it seems to me the easiest thing to do would be to put "COMPATIBLE with USB 1.1+" on the side of a box. I'm not saying it isn't partially sleazy. I'm just saying that until companies like Apple see fit to put TWO expensive high speed device connections in their PCs, it's better to let consumers know that their devices will AT LEAST work -- even if they're 1/40 the speed.
Actually, when I look at the software I find most satisfying, nearly all of it is software I paid for. My top three favorites are: iTunes,.NET studio and Safari.
Of course, what's interesting is that they're all three of them TINY PARTS of a larger system. Meaning that somewhere in MS and Apple, there's a group whose developments are considered important enough to the final product to exist, but not essential enough to sell and market on their own (possible exception being the new iTunes, but I don't like the newest release as much as 3). This probably means that, in order to justify their existance, these divisions have had to constantly reinvent themselves to come up with new ways to make their software brilliant. They can't really be fired because they're supporting a core product. New development is therefore limited to stuff that's cool enough and stable enough to release.
I've noticed in the past that when a developer becomes a "fixture" of a company -- that is, his work is so deeply entwined in the company's success and is so poorly understood by others -- that he basically works on what pleases him in between fixing time critical bugs that could bring the company crashing to its knees. I expect this is what's going on with these.
I felt the same way about WinAmp as well, but AOL's soul crushing corporate environment did away with all the good innovation coming out of Nullsoft.
Watch a History channel program on the Guns of the Old West sometime and look at the INSANE weapons people made. Then tell me that the gadgets "never came out of the shack."
The problem you have, and the author has as well, is with the realization that industrial history is written by the successful. The steam engine was pretty awesome. But the gattling gun -- arguably a gadget -- was pretty important, too. And if your grandfather was mowed down at Ludlow, which would you have more to say about?
Re:Things ARE getting a little scary...
on
Robots Without a Cause
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I think you're fucking paranoid. Dude, do you know how much TIME it will take to create a perfect world? The amount of human interaction it will require to get a "feel" for everything? Right now, with great tools, a game like Unreal Tournament takes 5 years to create. Can you imagine the time it will take to build a reliable, interesting, intuitive, varied life simulator? Can you imagine the expense?
Science Fiction's just fiction, kid. In the real world, we've got a free market economy, no clean cut force of good or evil, time that only moves forward, laws of cause and effect and the letter c. So don't let it bug you and worry about real things like the Patriot Act and Dumb and Dumber 2 instead.
Re:This may be true for some, but it's not for me
on
Robots Without a Cause
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Agreed. Do you ever think about the intelligence which controls the emissions in your car, turns on your Mr Coffee in the morning and keeps the fillament from overheating? Do you ever think about the complex switching system that brought these words from my copy of Opera to your eyeballs, or the network of computers and fuzzy systems that put your letter to the gas company on the right truck?
Of course you didn't. Because that's where the real world changing technology is: under the hood, unnoticable, seamless.
You might have noticed, if each of these intelligent systems had given you sass and proclaimed its greatness and autonomy a la the Jetson's world this article's author thinks he lives in. Not everything technological is a shiny new DVD player with a sticker listing its best features on it. And while most gadgetry isn't very satisfying, technology is no more devoid of artful interaction then a poorly utilized paint brush.
My digital camera was a gadget up until I took my first real high contrast shot and felt the urge to print it out. Now it's a tool. Now it's a satisfying part of my personality. And yeah, there are meager innovations in digital photography, and yeah maybe each one is crap. But as long as there are people willing to use these things as tools, and not as simple, flash inna pan gadgets, then all the innovation is socially viable. Ever see Picasso's light pen drawings?
And as for the A8: Have you ever been to the Met, seen the ornate sedan chairs? Nobody ever asks, "what good is this carved wood scrolling, this delicate laced cushion? it doesn't enhance our lives." Technology has always been a form of adornment. My car has a feature that dims the lights instead of turning them off. That's part of its charm -- and since I chose to bust my ass to buy the fool thing, it's a part of my life, same as the colour of my socks, my taste in music, and my thoughts on god and the universe. When new friends get in my car and the lights dim, they say "cool." It's trivial, even stupid. But it's part of our shared experience and therefore important.
Anyway, I'd like to say that my car is slower and more expensive that the Acura RSX. I guess I should have bought one, huh...because i guess the things I thought were important (comfortable seating and controls, good gas economy, nice sound system, high crash survivability, ability to seat five adults comfortable with geat) are fucking INCONSEQUENTIAL compared to speed and price!
Guess I'm also stupid for buying a mac laptop for its nicely polished UNIX based OS that does everyting i want, because it's not as _FAST_ as an x86 laptop. Shit, I wish I would have seen it that way...why would anybody want anything other than a P4 5 GHz machine running Windows for Workgroups at 640x480? Because damn, that's fast!
That's part of the point though. Since Apple insists on doing everything the way they consider "right," with no faltering, they have created a product that is inherently zealous. If you don't like it, you're not going to get one, so they have no reason to waste money marketing it to you. Apple's very proud of their differences.
The current OS certainly *IS* all GUI. Even the terminal program utilizes OpenGL, and you absolutely NEVER have to use it. I do, but I know plenty of OSX users who wouldn't even know how to find it. In fact, OSX stands in my mind as the only truly GUI UNIX...even Next and Solaris required you to use the terminal for some common things (or at least, common for me).
Mac's changing idiom is very much the result of the world around it. One button makes sense when you're trying to create this new, simple paradigm while keeping with tradition. Many button mice (which have pretty much ALWAYS worked on macs, though not always great) make sense when you're trying to tighten control of things and improve workflow speeds. When everybody's got bland grey PCs, it makes sense to to make a coloured one to stand out. When everybody's chinese grandma starts making shitty coloured pcs, it's not as special...so make really high quality case in one colour. Let the design and the OS drive sales.
And the mac classic rocked, it was precision and efficiency over blocks and colours(you should point out that the Classic turned mac's own machines, including the Apple II GS, on their ears).
PC == Personal Computer. That page is a list of Personal Computers. Only one of them is made by IBM.
The market has kind of loosened up their terms so as not to confuse each others terms, but make no mistake -- "Personal Computers" have nothing to do with hardware or the company that designed their microinstructions, and everything to do with the fact that they are Computers which are Personal (e.g., not timesharing machines or mainframes or terminals). They are self enclosed machines which require no external mechanism to execute software and programs.
Just because IBM called its machine Personal Computer does not mean anything else is suddenly some different class of machine. I call my cat "Cat," doesn't mean he's the only one.
Yeah, but you're missing the point. At the time of the Apple II, they had 30% of under 100,000 units. Now they have 3.5% of 100,000,000 or so.
BMW is a poor example for this one. Let's look at Ford. 100% of the market share in the 1900s. Much less than that now. Are they in danger of going out of business? No, no less than BMW, they have found their niche of a much larger market and will probably stay like that until the collapse of humanity, barring revolutions, stupid business decisions, et al.
Apple's not dying. Apple's staying the same (or making short strides) while Micro/tel PCs EXPLODED due to low price point and availability of software. Same as Commodore.
I don't seem to remember the iMac being a marginalized piece of hardware nobody bought. I remember it being a top seller for three years. I remember seeing it EVERYWHERE. I remember it single handedly saving Apple's hardware market and spawning more innovation than anything since, well, the Apple II.
People who didn't buy it because they needed a floppy drive would probably have found another reason not to buy it. A month of using the iMac was enough to sever your ties to the 3.5 forever.
Learn to argue. They have classes in forensics at most community colleges and learning annexes, but here's a quick synopsis: You pick a side and defend it. You don't prove the other side right with your examples.
Apple's already been the biggest company in PERSONAL computers. Once they were the biggest company in PORTABLE computers. After that, they were the biggest company in HANDHELD computers. Now they're on their way to becoming the biggest company in PERSONAL MEDIA PLAYERS and ONLINE MUSIC SERVICES.
To get any of their old markets back, they'd have to cut costs to the point of reducing the appeal of their products. They'd have to reduce their legendary service and support, and ask their friendly, low pressure sales people to pick up the pace. They'd have to cut theire new markets as well. Apple realizes this. To become the prize fighter, they'd have to beat themselves up.
Sure, Apple would love to be first in sales. But then they'd have become second in quality, and there's no way that elitist prick Jobs would ever allow that. Asshole.
Which is the best fucking idea ever. Floppys suck...they're fragile, they're too small, they're insecure, they're unreliable. They got stuck in drives or forgotten on tables or removed before the machine was done accessing them, corrupting the data and causing the machne to lock up in reading loops. Apple's method of ejecting them never "clicked" with some people. I was working as a consultant in a university lab when Apple first dumped discs. The number one question was an irate "How Do I Save My Paper." At which point we introduced people to their email account, their networked drives, the wonders of FTP and HTTP, all of which they could have used before. All methods which accessed the big, "unbreakable," frequently backed up SUN servers. None of which could become infested with cookie crumbs at the bottom of a purse.
Also, the time I spent educating users rather than desperately "disc doctoring" floppies easily tripled. And that's a Good Thing.
Seeing as how I am the only apple user, and one of three programmers, for a company that writes software for use under.NET, I'd have to say that everything you said in your conceit is absolutely untrue. I am able to access everything on the networks and use every program I need to use. My PC is not twice as fast as the laptop nor is it twice as expensive...the laptop is slower, but only when you don't take into account my workflow, which is significantly faster on the laptop. And because my mac apps don't crash, I never lose time RETYPING things like that hottie Ellen Feiss.
And your conceit fails to account for the fact that the auto world DOES exactly what you said it does. The Ford F-150 is twice the price and slower than the Focus ZX. "But you can't compare the two...they're used for different things!" Aha. Now you're getting it, my little troll.
What percent of the US marketshare does BMW have? And would you call BMW a shitty company for selling so few cars?
I think it's quite telling despite having 3.5% of the market, Apple has billions in the bank and amazing pull in the industry.
Apple doesn't NEED to sell a lot of machines as long as they sellquality ones at a decent margin. There will always be a demand for it. The only time you need to sell a lot of machines is when you're in cutthroat competetion, like Dell/Micron/Gateway/HPCOMPAQ. That 3.5% market share doesn't look so small when you make 3x as much per machine -- and you don't even sell a PC under ~$800.
Not really. IBM's chipmaking prowess has akways been good and Motorola is kind of thrusting itself into DSP/cell phone jazz. Apple asked the industry for a new chip and IBM had the best on the table. I don't call that "bailing out" -- I call it taking products over relationships. The kind of thing I wish more industries would do...might see fewer MS tendrils...
Au contraire. This is the mistake that everybody made in 1999.
Investors pay you to use your knowledge to make them richer. But what you're talking about -- keeping investors in the loop at all times -- is being their employee, their lackey. They should recognize that your ideas are different from theirs and treat you as an autonomous agent. You know something about what you're doing, you're the expert in your field. If they don't like what you're doing, they should say, but in the end, they should expect you to follow your instincts before theirs.
That's what this is about. Dean Kamen knows about transportation, he knows about production. What he didn't know was how to market something of universal appeal. Bezos and Jobs do that very well. Jobs also has some strong opinions on design (as do i...that's why i have a sticker over the apple logo on my iPod;)). It makes sense he'd announce them, but if Kamen jumped immediately when he said that, well you'd have an iScooter and not a Segway.
Interestingly enough, despite all the good ideas Jobs has had, despite Apple's good revenue streaks under him, he receives one of the lowest approval ratings of any CEO. Because he won't pander to investors. Because he does his own thing and expects them to be cool with it. I'm sure he can't be pissed at Kamen for doing the same thing.
Uh no. It's "news for nerds" PERIOD "stuff that matters." Those are the two things slashdot purports to offer.
To many of us, who love Apple and consider it an artistic extension of our geek culture into the mainstream world, what Steve Jobs thinks about radical or aspirational new technologies is important. This guy took boring devices that crunched numbers and put them in front of hobbyists, artists and the ordinary joe. His private conversations are INTERESTING to us. It's "stuff that matters."
Jobs seems to be doing pretty well as an insistant prick. Why should he go all Ghandi just to appease a few Apple fans?
Dude, it's Apple's "insistant prick" features that have made such good: "We're going all GUI." "We're going PowerPC." "No clones." "We're making colorful PCs." "If you want to add a peripheral, you're going to have to plug it in. No opening the case!" "Now we're making ONE color of PCs. And we're making it damn pretty." "People can rip CDs. They can burn their own." "No new development for OS 9." "$.99 per song."
Apple alone has the courage to combine market research with the newest technology and announce with pride that their way is the best way. And they're right a lot more than they're wrong. If Jobs was a wishy washy guy, Apple would just be Micron, or worse, IBM.
Of course not. The laws of supply and demand rely on there not being a monopoly on the supply. Demand will not decrease prices unless there's competition. There's no competition for PRODUCERS of media. Ergo, there's no reduction in prices.
Dude, FYI...you do NOT want to run cable if you intend to serve web pages. It is fucking expensive and unburstable. The convenience is nice, but in the end you'll find colocation for web serving to be about 70% more cost effective...especially when you look at things like the uptime of cable, cost of clean, generator driven power in your house, and of course the NOISE.
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I don't know if I should be shocked that I was defended or apalled that the guy used the word "knigget."
All USB 2.0 devices work with USB 1.1, and NOT with USB 1.0. If I am looking at a USB 2.0 camera, but my PC is only USB 1.1, it looks to me that the camera will not work with the PC. This is inaccurate...it'll work, I just won't get a speedup. It won't work at all with my USB 1.0 machine.
Which is easier to remember...1.1 vs 1.0, or 1 vs 2?
When a "version" makes something incompatible with a previous version, you're supposed to bump up the major release. 1.1 should have been 2 from the start for marketting purposes -- sort of like the jump from Java JDK 1.1x (Java 1) to 1.2x (Java 2).
This is probably why they changed it...the only difference between USB 1.1 and 2.0 is speed. USB 1.0 is a different, deprecated format.
I'm not saying they didn't make it even more complex -- especially since it seems to me the easiest thing to do would be to put "COMPATIBLE with USB 1.1+" on the side of a box. I'm not saying it isn't partially sleazy. I'm just saying that until companies like Apple see fit to put TWO expensive high speed device connections in their PCs, it's better to let consumers know that their devices will AT LEAST work -- even if they're 1/40 the speed.
Actually, when I look at the software I find most satisfying, nearly all of it is software I paid for. My top three favorites are: iTunes, .NET studio and Safari.
Of course, what's interesting is that they're all three of them TINY PARTS of a larger system. Meaning that somewhere in MS and Apple, there's a group whose developments are considered important enough to the final product to exist, but not essential enough to sell and market on their own (possible exception being the new iTunes, but I don't like the newest release as much as 3). This probably means that, in order to justify their existance, these divisions have had to constantly reinvent themselves to come up with new ways to make their software brilliant. They can't really be fired because they're supporting a core product. New development is therefore limited to stuff that's cool enough and stable enough to release.
I've noticed in the past that when a developer becomes a "fixture" of a company -- that is, his work is so deeply entwined in the company's success and is so poorly understood by others -- that he basically works on what pleases him in between fixing time critical bugs that could bring the company crashing to its knees. I expect this is what's going on with these.
I felt the same way about WinAmp as well, but AOL's soul crushing corporate environment did away with all the good innovation coming out of Nullsoft.
Watch a History channel program on the Guns of the Old West sometime and look at the INSANE weapons people made. Then tell me that the gadgets "never came out of the shack."
The problem you have, and the author has as well, is with the realization that industrial history is written by the successful. The steam engine was pretty awesome. But the gattling gun -- arguably a gadget -- was pretty important, too. And if your grandfather was mowed down at Ludlow, which would you have more to say about?
I think you're fucking paranoid. Dude, do you know how much TIME it will take to create a perfect world? The amount of human interaction it will require to get a "feel" for everything? Right now, with great tools, a game like Unreal Tournament takes 5 years to create. Can you imagine the time it will take to build a reliable, interesting, intuitive, varied life simulator? Can you imagine the expense?
Science Fiction's just fiction, kid. In the real world, we've got a free market economy, no clean cut force of good or evil, time that only moves forward, laws of cause and effect and the letter c. So don't let it bug you and worry about real things like the Patriot Act and Dumb and Dumber 2 instead.
Agreed. Do you ever think about the intelligence which controls the emissions in your car, turns on your Mr Coffee in the morning and keeps the fillament from overheating? Do you ever think about the complex switching system that brought these words from my copy of Opera to your eyeballs, or the network of computers and fuzzy systems that put your letter to the gas company on the right truck?
Of course you didn't. Because that's where the real world changing technology is: under the hood, unnoticable, seamless.
You might have noticed, if each of these intelligent systems had given you sass and proclaimed its greatness and autonomy a la the Jetson's world this article's author thinks he lives in. Not everything technological is a shiny new DVD player with a sticker listing its best features on it. And while most gadgetry isn't very satisfying, technology is no more devoid of artful interaction then a poorly utilized paint brush.
My digital camera was a gadget up until I took my first real high contrast shot and felt the urge to print it out. Now it's a tool. Now it's a satisfying part of my personality. And yeah, there are meager innovations in digital photography, and yeah maybe each one is crap. But as long as there are people willing to use these things as tools, and not as simple, flash inna pan gadgets, then all the innovation is socially viable. Ever see Picasso's light pen drawings?
And as for the A8: Have you ever been to the Met, seen the ornate sedan chairs? Nobody ever asks, "what good is this carved wood scrolling, this delicate laced cushion? it doesn't enhance our lives." Technology has always been a form of adornment. My car has a feature that dims the lights instead of turning them off. That's part of its charm -- and since I chose to bust my ass to buy the fool thing, it's a part of my life, same as the colour of my socks, my taste in music, and my thoughts on god and the universe. When new friends get in my car and the lights dim, they say "cool." It's trivial, even stupid. But it's part of our shared experience and therefore important.
Sorry man. But you did sound like a nihilistic hedonist.
Not that you're necessarily wrong.
Hey autopr0n. Hate your website.
Anyway, I'd like to say that my car is slower and more expensive that the Acura RSX. I guess I should have bought one, huh...because i guess the things I thought were important (comfortable seating and controls, good gas economy, nice sound system, high crash survivability, ability to seat five adults comfortable with geat) are fucking INCONSEQUENTIAL compared to speed and price!
Guess I'm also stupid for buying a mac laptop for its nicely polished UNIX based OS that does everyting i want, because it's not as _FAST_ as an x86 laptop. Shit, I wish I would have seen it that way...why would anybody want anything other than a P4 5 GHz machine running Windows for Workgroups at 640x480? Because damn, that's fast!
That's part of the point though. Since Apple insists on doing everything the way they consider "right," with no faltering, they have created a product that is inherently zealous. If you don't like it, you're not going to get one, so they have no reason to waste money marketing it to you. Apple's very proud of their differences.
The current OS certainly *IS* all GUI. Even the terminal program utilizes OpenGL, and you absolutely NEVER have to use it. I do, but I know plenty of OSX users who wouldn't even know how to find it. In fact, OSX stands in my mind as the only truly GUI UNIX...even Next and Solaris required you to use the terminal for some common things (or at least, common for me).
Mac's changing idiom is very much the result of the world around it. One button makes sense when you're trying to create this new, simple paradigm while keeping with tradition. Many button mice (which have pretty much ALWAYS worked on macs, though not always great) make sense when you're trying to tighten control of things and improve workflow speeds. When everybody's got bland grey PCs, it makes sense to to make a coloured one to stand out. When everybody's chinese grandma starts making shitty coloured pcs, it's not as special...so make really high quality case in one colour. Let the design and the OS drive sales.
And the mac classic rocked, it was precision and efficiency over blocks and colours(you should point out that the Classic turned mac's own machines, including the Apple II GS, on their ears).
PC == Personal Computer. That page is a list of Personal Computers. Only one of them is made by IBM.
The market has kind of loosened up their terms so as not to confuse each others terms, but make no mistake -- "Personal Computers" have nothing to do with hardware or the company that designed their microinstructions, and everything to do with the fact that they are Computers which are Personal (e.g., not timesharing machines or mainframes or terminals). They are self enclosed machines which require no external mechanism to execute software and programs.
Just because IBM called its machine Personal Computer does not mean anything else is suddenly some different class of machine. I call my cat "Cat," doesn't mean he's the only one.
The first PC to have ANY success in the market was the Apple II. It crushed the competition.
http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml
Dumbass coward.
Yeah, but you're missing the point. At the time of the Apple II, they had 30% of under 100,000 units. Now they have 3.5% of 100,000,000 or so.
BMW is a poor example for this one. Let's look at Ford. 100% of the market share in the 1900s. Much less than that now. Are they in danger of going out of business? No, no less than BMW, they have found their niche of a much larger market and will probably stay like that until the collapse of humanity, barring revolutions, stupid business decisions, et al.
Apple's not dying. Apple's staying the same (or making short strides) while Micro/tel PCs EXPLODED due to low price point and availability of software. Same as Commodore.
Apple survived the first, it'll survive this too.
I don't seem to remember the iMac being a marginalized piece of hardware nobody bought. I remember it being a top seller for three years. I remember seeing it EVERYWHERE. I remember it single handedly saving Apple's hardware market and spawning more innovation than anything since, well, the Apple II.
People who didn't buy it because they needed a floppy drive would probably have found another reason not to buy it. A month of using the iMac was enough to sever your ties to the 3.5 forever.
Learn to argue. They have classes in forensics at most community colleges and learning annexes, but here's a quick synopsis: You pick a side and defend it. You don't prove the other side right with your examples.
But thanks.
Apple's already been the biggest company in PERSONAL computers. Once they were the biggest company in PORTABLE computers. After that, they were the biggest company in HANDHELD computers. Now they're on their way to becoming the biggest company in PERSONAL MEDIA PLAYERS and ONLINE MUSIC SERVICES.
To get any of their old markets back, they'd have to cut costs to the point of reducing the appeal of their products. They'd have to reduce their legendary service and support, and ask their friendly, low pressure sales people to pick up the pace. They'd have to cut theire new markets as well. Apple realizes this. To become the prize fighter, they'd have to beat themselves up.
Sure, Apple would love to be first in sales. But then they'd have become second in quality, and there's no way that elitist prick Jobs would ever allow that. Asshole.
Which is the best fucking idea ever. Floppys suck...they're fragile, they're too small, they're insecure, they're unreliable. They got stuck in drives or forgotten on tables or removed before the machine was done accessing them, corrupting the data and causing the machne to lock up in reading loops. Apple's method of ejecting them never "clicked" with some people. I was working as a consultant in a university lab when Apple first dumped discs. The number one question was an irate "How Do I Save My Paper." At which point we introduced people to their email account, their networked drives, the wonders of FTP and HTTP, all of which they could have used before. All methods which accessed the big, "unbreakable," frequently backed up SUN servers. None of which could become infested with cookie crumbs at the bottom of a purse.
Also, the time I spent educating users rather than desperately "disc doctoring" floppies easily tripled. And that's a Good Thing.
Seeing as how I am the only apple user, and one of three programmers, for a company that writes software for use under .NET, I'd have to say that everything you said in your conceit is absolutely untrue. I am able to access everything on the networks and use every program I need to use. My PC is not twice as fast as the laptop nor is it twice as expensive...the laptop is slower, but only when you don't take into account my workflow, which is significantly faster on the laptop. And because my mac apps don't crash, I never lose time RETYPING things like that hottie Ellen Feiss.
And your conceit fails to account for the fact that the auto world DOES exactly what you said it does. The Ford F-150 is twice the price and slower than the Focus ZX. "But you can't compare the two...they're used for different things!" Aha. Now you're getting it, my little troll.
Hey cos. Like my wife ways: if we're arguing about it, then it fucking matters. And suddenly we no longer have to.
Just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean he didn't matter. One of my favorite biographies ever was of Roy Cohn, and that guy was a total ass.
What percent of the US marketshare does BMW have? And would you call BMW a shitty company for selling so few cars?
I think it's quite telling despite having 3.5% of the market, Apple has billions in the bank and amazing pull in the industry.
Apple doesn't NEED to sell a lot of machines as long as they sellquality ones at a decent margin. There will always be a demand for it. The only time you need to sell a lot of machines is when you're in cutthroat competetion, like Dell/Micron/Gateway/HPCOMPAQ. That 3.5% market share doesn't look so small when you make 3x as much per machine -- and you don't even sell a PC under ~$800.
Not really. IBM's chipmaking prowess has akways been good and Motorola is kind of thrusting itself into DSP/cell phone jazz. Apple asked the industry for a new chip and IBM had the best on the table. I don't call that "bailing out" -- I call it taking products over relationships. The kind of thing I wish more industries would do...might see fewer MS tendrils...
Au contraire. This is the mistake that everybody made in 1999.
;)). It makes sense he'd announce them, but if Kamen jumped immediately when he said that, well you'd have an iScooter and not a Segway.
Investors pay you to use your knowledge to make them richer. But what you're talking about -- keeping investors in the loop at all times -- is being their employee, their lackey. They should recognize that your ideas are different from theirs and treat you as an autonomous agent. You know something about what you're doing, you're the expert in your field. If they don't like what you're doing, they should say, but in the end, they should expect you to follow your instincts before theirs.
That's what this is about. Dean Kamen knows about transportation, he knows about production. What he didn't know was how to market something of universal appeal. Bezos and Jobs do that very well. Jobs also has some strong opinions on design (as do i...that's why i have a sticker over the apple logo on my iPod
Interestingly enough, despite all the good ideas Jobs has had, despite Apple's good revenue streaks under him, he receives one of the lowest approval ratings of any CEO. Because he won't pander to investors. Because he does his own thing and expects them to be cool with it. I'm sure he can't be pissed at Kamen for doing the same thing.
Uh no. It's "news for nerds" PERIOD "stuff that matters." Those are the two things slashdot purports to offer.
To many of us, who love Apple and consider it an artistic extension of our geek culture into the mainstream world, what Steve Jobs thinks about radical or aspirational new technologies is important. This guy took boring devices that crunched numbers and put them in front of hobbyists, artists and the ordinary joe. His private conversations are INTERESTING to us. It's "stuff that matters."
Jobs seems to be doing pretty well as an insistant prick. Why should he go all Ghandi just to appease a few Apple fans?
Dude, it's Apple's "insistant prick" features that have made such good:
"We're going all GUI."
"We're going PowerPC."
"No clones."
"We're making colorful PCs."
"If you want to add a peripheral, you're going to have to plug it in. No opening the case!"
"Now we're making ONE color of PCs. And we're making it damn pretty."
"People can rip CDs. They can burn their own."
"No new development for OS 9."
"$.99 per song."
Apple alone has the courage to combine market research with the newest technology and announce with pride that their way is the best way. And they're right a lot more than they're wrong. If Jobs was a wishy washy guy, Apple would just be Micron, or worse, IBM.
Of course not. The laws of supply and demand rely on there not being a monopoly on the supply. Demand will not decrease prices unless there's competition. There's no competition for PRODUCERS of media. Ergo, there's no reduction in prices.
Dude, FYI...you do NOT want to run cable if you intend to serve web pages. It is fucking expensive and unburstable. The convenience is nice, but in the end you'll find colocation for web serving to be about 70% more cost effective...especially when you look at things like the uptime of cable, cost of clean, generator driven power in your house, and of course the NOISE.