The first step of this is always to take those same 100 checkboxes, and spread them out through 5 menus, each with 15 sub-menus, but that only creates 75 pages, and we wouldn't want an odd number of checkboxes on each page, so we'll take out the remaining 25 checkboxes altogether. Never mind that they represented critical functionality that people needed, they no longer fit with the new design.
Then we'll make the checkboxes prettier, and by prettier we mean removing anything that might make them look like checkboxes or accidentally indicate whether they are checked or unchecked.
This may be news to you, but not all change is good, and not all change is bad. This isn't a case of people rallying against something simply because it's "new", people are against it because it's not as good as what it replaced.
The two biggest things I hate when people talk about change: - People who do something a certain way only because they've always done it that way - People who insist that just because something is new it must be better Every new idea needs to be evaluated on it's merits. If you find a better way of doing something, great! If however your new way is worse in any measurable way, then I don't want anything to do with it.
This was a case of something that provides no benefit, but has many drawbacks, as such it should never have spread. Unfortunately the marketplace is a combination of very few very large players with minimal differentiation between their products which both limits the ability for customers to vote with their wallets by moving to a better option, and causes those large risk-adverse players to mindlessly copy the trends of each other for fear of missing out if the new change really does turn out to be better in some way they can't figure out.
That's where Steve Jobs made all the money. He understood that he had to make it usable first, and worry about function and feature completeness later (or never.)
You had me right up until here. The thing is though, Steve Jobs had no such ability to make things usable. Apple UI in the Steve Jobs days was way behind all the competition in usability, AND features. It has changed a lot since his death, but not in a favourable direction.
Example: first generation iPod had a circle on the front of it labelled with play/pause/stop/ff/rew, nowhere on it did it indicate in any way that it was a scroll wheel that could adjust things. it also didn't indicate in any way that the part in the middle was actually a button (despite being the same colour and material as the rest of the case) the iPhone has completely unlabelled buttons and a toggle switch, you're supposed to just know what each one is for, and simple things like a back or menu button in apps was completely inconsistent in it's very existence, location, and function.
Really? have you actually given any of them the choice? I doubt it. People are willing to buy "new" vs "old" but just because "new" happens to include the flat design doesn't mean they prefer it to something "new" that also happens to be usable, it's just that we give them the choice between "new" and "usable" and idiots chose new. If you gave them the choice of "new and usable" vs "new and flat" I think the answer would be different.
Their hardware design has been an unmitigated UI disaster since the first iPod too, so it's not a matter of a guy who's good at designing hardware being bad at designing graphical UIs, he wasn't good at hardware UI either. Why do apple products insist on leaving all their buttons completely unlabelled? and in some cases with no indication that it even IS a button!
Every flat design I've ever seen has also included vast wastelands of empty space and usually icons that no longer provide feedback. So I haven't seen what it looks like to put more information in a smaller space, only the exact opposite of that.
Most UI designers have taken the opportunity of moving to a flat UI to also remove information and put less data in to a larger space, not the reverse. A common example is icons that served double duty as showing the status of something usually no longer do (simple example is a volume slider that has become two flat buttons instead), also much of the time icon sizes are larger with more empty space around them.
As for if you can see all of the data, there's nowhere to navigate to, that's one of my biggest pet-peaves, where UI designers had a simple page that showed you everything you needed, but changed it to show 1 button plus a menu that links to 32 other pages each with a single setting on them. This is to make the new flat UI "uncluttered" (also known as useless)
Here's a hint, if a UI designer talks about making their design "minimal" or "flat" or "context aware", fire them now! what they really mean is "harder to use, and showing less data".
You can also still buy flip phones, but most people choose to buy phones with all the extra features instead. You could stay off the internet, you could pay cash for everything, you could avoid using any modern convenience.
The point is that these companies provide features that are not available without what they are offering. You can choose to value your privacy over your productivity and convenience. You could go live in a cave in a third world country cut off from all technology. But in the real world, most people, myself included, will choose to have the extra functionality.
I will always choose the product that's the best compromise for my situation. That means being more practical, and less "stick it to the man". If everyone stopped buying things the economy would collapse, but I doubt any businesses would actually learn their lesson.
Same thing really. You can't say what the absolute resolution is that you can see unless you also say how much of your field of view it occupies. Size and distance together give you that information and are easier for people to calculate than degrees of field of vision.
I said average, not what you personally have. I don't know what you have, I just know what is average.
I work for a telco that provides TV service, I've spent years in people's houses hooking up HD, and now 4K TV service, the average TV is 40-50" and located 10-15' away from the viewer. Sure that's not everyone, but it is definitely the majority.
I will stand up to any company that abuses it. But if I try to stand up to every single company that does it, it's just impossible and would kill your whole life trying.
Your phone company can track your every move, every text message, and every phone conversation Your internet provider knows every website you visit, and every email you send or receive The company that made your internet router can probably do the same Your cable company can track every TV show you watch Your alarm company knows when you're home or away, knows when you're awake or asleep Half the apps on your smartphone phone home Windows spies on you, as do many other desktop applications If you have any IOT devices, they can do so too There are thousands of ad networks tracking every website you visit and eveything you click on while you're there your credit card company and bank know every item you buy your grocery store's loyalty program knows your favourite foods, and how fast you go through them, they also know the demographics of everyone you live with, and when the last time you had a headache was. The airline knows where you vacationed every year My insurance company knows how far I drive, whether I get any tickets, what my house is made of, how much cash I keep at home, etc My health care coverage company knows every medical condition I've ever had, every medicine I take, and which doctors I see when
And that doesn't even get in to the government stuff.
I'd love to fight it all, but I just don't have the time or energy. If I boycotted all the places that track you, I'd have to move to a cave in a 3rd world country and give up all technology, if I simply tried to fight them all I'd have to spend my whole life doing it, and I'd still likely not succeed.
The only thing that a rational person can still do though is fight the abuses. If these companies do something to make my life worse because of the access they have, then I'll fight back. But if everything they use the data for makes my life slightly better, even if it also enriches them more, I might as well just enjoy the extra service that they're providing, it's not worth the effort to fight it.
This is a very different application from TV though, those monitors are sitting much closer to you than your TV tends to.
Keep in mind that most homes have a TV in the 40-50" range at a viewing distance of 10-20', at those distances, and with those set sizes, you just can't see 4K vs HD, especially if you add the poor lighting, the glare, and the sub-optimal viewing angles often employed. Now people with an actual home theatre type setup may benefit from 4K, but even they're unlikely to see any difference going to 8K
But PPI is an irrelevant metric when you don't count viewing distance. Computers and smartphones need high PPI because they tend to be used within a foot or two of your eyes. TVs tend to sit 10-20 feet away from you. That 70" screen at 68 PPI is probably more pixels than you can possibly see at the viewing distance you're actually watching it from.
You can't actually see the difference between even HD and 4K in the vast majority of home TV setups. The average setup is a 40-50" TV sitting 10-15 feet away from the viewer, at those distances and that size screen, you just can't see it. (I won't even discuss the poor lighting, glare, and viewing angles of your average home TV setup) Now if you actually have a more theatrical type setup where you have a screen that fills most of your field of view, that's a completely different matter, but that's actually somewhat rare in home setups, in those cases the difference from HD to 4K is noticeable (though not as major as you might think) but even there you're unlikely to notice a difference from 4K to 8K.
Now there is one place that 4K really does shine though, and that's computer monitors, a good 4K monitor is great, but that's because you sit so close to it in that application.
Keep in mind that one of the reasons you don't see a difference between 720p and 1080p is likely the content source. I work for a telco that also does IPTV, I talked to our engineers and learned that the streams feeding in to our network from the content providers are all 1080i with the exception of sports that are sent to us in 720p (on fast movement the effective faster refresh of the progressive scan is more important than the extra lines of resolution that you get on 1080) So even though most of our STBs are set to 1080p, you're still just getting one of those 2 resolutions, just upscaled. (VOD content is different, much of that is in actual 1080p, but only the newer stuff)
That said, I agree that the jump to 4K is basically pure marketing hype with 2 exceptions: 1) theatrical setups where the screen fills a fairly large portion of your field of view (quite rare in home setups, but some people do manage) and 2) computer monitors where you're sitting very close to the screen. I always get a big laugh when I see 4K TVs in the 40" range, the odds of you using that as a TV, and being able to tell the difference between 1080p and 4K is about zero.
To be perfectly honest, there's only one reason 4K TVs even exist. Manufacturers loved the switchover from SD to HD. it was a once in a generation opportunity where everyone rushed out to replace their otherwise perfectly good TVs because there really was a visible improvement. That's basically over now as the market penetration of HD TVs is now extremely high and people have no reason to replace them. Manufacturers are willing to do anything to re-capture those glorious years. They have tried smart TVs, and 3D TVs, and nobody cared about either, so now they're trying 4K TVs, and some people are buying it. But once those reach saturation, what are they to do? well, apparently Sharp thinks that if resolution has worked for them twice, why not try a third time? But as others have pointed out, at some point you're not buying a better experience, you're just buying marketing buzz. No different than spending several hundred dollars on an HDMI cable, it won't improve your experience any, but you can try to convince people that you have the best one out there because you spent too much on it.
Unless there was also a distance calculation involved, I can tell you that you were not correct.
The amount you can see depends on the pixel count, but also the distance from the source.
For most average TVs being watched at an average viewing distance, someone with 20/20 (or even much better) vision is unlikely to even be able to see the difference between HD and 4K, That said, 4K also incorporates things like HDR which are independent of the number of pixels, but improve the image quality and can be seen. If however you're set up with a more theatrical viewing experience (where the screen fills a much larger percentage of your field of view than the average TV setup in most homes) you might be able to see an improvement from HD to 4K, though it'll honestly likely be minor. Where 4K really shines though is in large monitor applications where you're sitting only a foot or two away from it. There you can see the extra resolution and take advantage of it. even there though I find it unlikely that 8K would actually provide any noticeable improvement.
If you have an old 15" TV in the corner of your kitchen, you probably wouldn't be able to notice the difference between SD and HD if you don't have the black bars on the side of the screen from the different aspect ratio.
No, I'm hoping they won't break the law any more than they already have.
Them repairing it under warranty isn't because they're being nice, it's because they have a legal obligation to do so. Denying me warranty coverage would be illegal unless they can prove that my specific modifications have caused the specific problem that they are being asked to fix under warranty. The legal burden of proof for this is on them too, not me.
If they start illegally refusing warranty coverage, I'll lawyer up real fast.
I should also add that if Tesla was a reputable company, I never would have gone this far to block them. For example I see no reason to block GM's OnStar service. Tesla has just pulled too many dirty tricks to be allowed any control over my vehicle.
Since I started modifying the car they've repaired it under warranty about 7 or 8 times, 2 of those since I completely blocked their access to the software on the vehicle, and they definitely know about it as I discuss it with them every time I visit the service centre.
That's the thing about warranty laws. Despite all the scare tactics companies use to scare you in to compliance. They can only legally deny a warranty claim if they can prove that the specific modification that you made caused the specific problem that you're claiming under warranty.
What hassle? the credit card is exactly the same as debit for ease of use, and significantly more convenient than cash, but the credit card both gives you rewards, and defers your payment by about a month (so you can earn interest on the money in the mean time). There are literally no downsides and only upsides.
If you use debit instead of credit you're passing up on easy money.
If stores ever start giving a discount for using a different payment method, I'll re-evaluate what the best payment method is, but until then you'd be a fool not to use a credit card for every single transaction every single time.
Then don't buy those cars. Personally I want all the features that you can only have with a connected car. That said, I've locked Tesla out of my car, and replaced their servers with my own, but that won't be an option for the average person.
1. Do you want to go direct and pay less. 2. Do you want to go through a middle man and pay for it in fees.
Except that number one isn't even an option anywhere. There isn't a single shop that exists in my city that will give me any form of discount for using cash or other low-cost payment methods. As a result I would be a positive idiot not to take advantage of the credit card and at least get the cash back. Yes I agree that they are driving up the prices of everything but as long as the price is the same regardless of which payment method I use I shoyld at least get the benefit from it.
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Except that's not how it works.
The first step of this is always to take those same 100 checkboxes, and spread them out through 5 menus, each with 15 sub-menus, but that only creates 75 pages, and we wouldn't want an odd number of checkboxes on each page, so we'll take out the remaining 25 checkboxes altogether. Never mind that they represented critical functionality that people needed, they no longer fit with the new design.
Then we'll make the checkboxes prettier, and by prettier we mean removing anything that might make them look like checkboxes or accidentally indicate whether they are checked or unchecked.
This may be news to you, but not all change is good, and not all change is bad. This isn't a case of people rallying against something simply because it's "new", people are against it because it's not as good as what it replaced.
The two biggest things I hate when people talk about change:
- People who do something a certain way only because they've always done it that way
- People who insist that just because something is new it must be better
Every new idea needs to be evaluated on it's merits. If you find a better way of doing something, great! If however your new way is worse in any measurable way, then I don't want anything to do with it.
This was a case of something that provides no benefit, but has many drawbacks, as such it should never have spread. Unfortunately the marketplace is a combination of very few very large players with minimal differentiation between their products which both limits the ability for customers to vote with their wallets by moving to a better option, and causes those large risk-adverse players to mindlessly copy the trends of each other for fear of missing out if the new change really does turn out to be better in some way they can't figure out.
That's where Steve Jobs made all the money. He understood that he had to make it usable first, and worry about function and feature completeness later (or never.)
You had me right up until here. The thing is though, Steve Jobs had no such ability to make things usable. Apple UI in the Steve Jobs days was way behind all the competition in usability, AND features. It has changed a lot since his death, but not in a favourable direction.
Example: first generation iPod had a circle on the front of it labelled with play/pause/stop/ff/rew, nowhere on it did it indicate in any way that it was a scroll wheel that could adjust things. it also didn't indicate in any way that the part in the middle was actually a button (despite being the same colour and material as the rest of the case)
the iPhone has completely unlabelled buttons and a toggle switch, you're supposed to just know what each one is for, and simple things like a back or menu button in apps was completely inconsistent in it's very existence, location, and function.
Apple products have been a UI nightmare for ages.
Really? have you actually given any of them the choice? I doubt it. People are willing to buy "new" vs "old" but just because "new" happens to include the flat design doesn't mean they prefer it to something "new" that also happens to be usable, it's just that we give them the choice between "new" and "usable" and idiots chose new. If you gave them the choice of "new and usable" vs "new and flat" I think the answer would be different.
Their hardware design has been an unmitigated UI disaster since the first iPod too, so it's not a matter of a guy who's good at designing hardware being bad at designing graphical UIs, he wasn't good at hardware UI either. Why do apple products insist on leaving all their buttons completely unlabelled? and in some cases with no indication that it even IS a button!
Every flat design I've ever seen has also included vast wastelands of empty space and usually icons that no longer provide feedback. So I haven't seen what it looks like to put more information in a smaller space, only the exact opposite of that.
Most UI designers have taken the opportunity of moving to a flat UI to also remove information and put less data in to a larger space, not the reverse. A common example is icons that served double duty as showing the status of something usually no longer do (simple example is a volume slider that has become two flat buttons instead), also much of the time icon sizes are larger with more empty space around them.
As for if you can see all of the data, there's nowhere to navigate to, that's one of my biggest pet-peaves, where UI designers had a simple page that showed you everything you needed, but changed it to show 1 button plus a menu that links to 32 other pages each with a single setting on them. This is to make the new flat UI "uncluttered" (also known as useless)
Here's a hint, if a UI designer talks about making their design "minimal" or "flat" or "context aware", fire them now! what they really mean is "harder to use, and showing less data".
Flat design has many benefits,
citation needed because all the evidence to date says otherwise.
You can also still buy flip phones, but most people choose to buy phones with all the extra features instead.
You could stay off the internet, you could pay cash for everything, you could avoid using any modern convenience.
The point is that these companies provide features that are not available without what they are offering. You can choose to value your privacy over your productivity and convenience. You could go live in a cave in a third world country cut off from all technology. But in the real world, most people, myself included, will choose to have the extra functionality.
I will always choose the product that's the best compromise for my situation. That means being more practical, and less "stick it to the man". If everyone stopped buying things the economy would collapse, but I doubt any businesses would actually learn their lesson.
Same thing really. You can't say what the absolute resolution is that you can see unless you also say how much of your field of view it occupies. Size and distance together give you that information and are easier for people to calculate than degrees of field of vision.
I said average, not what you personally have. I don't know what you have, I just know what is average.
I work for a telco that provides TV service, I've spent years in people's houses hooking up HD, and now 4K TV service, the average TV is 40-50" and located 10-15' away from the viewer. Sure that's not everyone, but it is definitely the majority.
I will stand up to any company that abuses it. But if I try to stand up to every single company that does it, it's just impossible and would kill your whole life trying.
Your phone company can track your every move, every text message, and every phone conversation
Your internet provider knows every website you visit, and every email you send or receive
The company that made your internet router can probably do the same
Your cable company can track every TV show you watch
Your alarm company knows when you're home or away, knows when you're awake or asleep
Half the apps on your smartphone phone home
Windows spies on you, as do many other desktop applications
If you have any IOT devices, they can do so too
There are thousands of ad networks tracking every website you visit and eveything you click on while you're there
your credit card company and bank know every item you buy
your grocery store's loyalty program knows your favourite foods, and how fast you go through them, they also know the demographics of everyone you live with, and when the last time you had a headache was.
The airline knows where you vacationed every year
My insurance company knows how far I drive, whether I get any tickets, what my house is made of, how much cash I keep at home, etc
My health care coverage company knows every medical condition I've ever had, every medicine I take, and which doctors I see when
And that doesn't even get in to the government stuff.
I'd love to fight it all, but I just don't have the time or energy. If I boycotted all the places that track you, I'd have to move to a cave in a 3rd world country and give up all technology, if I simply tried to fight them all I'd have to spend my whole life doing it, and I'd still likely not succeed.
The only thing that a rational person can still do though is fight the abuses. If these companies do something to make my life worse because of the access they have, then I'll fight back. But if everything they use the data for makes my life slightly better, even if it also enriches them more, I might as well just enjoy the extra service that they're providing, it's not worth the effort to fight it.
This is a very different application from TV though, those monitors are sitting much closer to you than your TV tends to.
Keep in mind that most homes have a TV in the 40-50" range at a viewing distance of 10-20', at those distances, and with those set sizes, you just can't see 4K vs HD, especially if you add the poor lighting, the glare, and the sub-optimal viewing angles often employed. Now people with an actual home theatre type setup may benefit from 4K, but even they're unlikely to see any difference going to 8K
But PPI is an irrelevant metric when you don't count viewing distance. Computers and smartphones need high PPI because they tend to be used within a foot or two of your eyes. TVs tend to sit 10-20 feet away from you. That 70" screen at 68 PPI is probably more pixels than you can possibly see at the viewing distance you're actually watching it from.
You can't actually see the difference between even HD and 4K in the vast majority of home TV setups. The average setup is a 40-50" TV sitting 10-15 feet away from the viewer, at those distances and that size screen, you just can't see it. (I won't even discuss the poor lighting, glare, and viewing angles of your average home TV setup) Now if you actually have a more theatrical type setup where you have a screen that fills most of your field of view, that's a completely different matter, but that's actually somewhat rare in home setups, in those cases the difference from HD to 4K is noticeable (though not as major as you might think) but even there you're unlikely to notice a difference from 4K to 8K.
Now there is one place that 4K really does shine though, and that's computer monitors, a good 4K monitor is great, but that's because you sit so close to it in that application.
Keep in mind that one of the reasons you don't see a difference between 720p and 1080p is likely the content source. I work for a telco that also does IPTV, I talked to our engineers and learned that the streams feeding in to our network from the content providers are all 1080i with the exception of sports that are sent to us in 720p (on fast movement the effective faster refresh of the progressive scan is more important than the extra lines of resolution that you get on 1080) So even though most of our STBs are set to 1080p, you're still just getting one of those 2 resolutions, just upscaled. (VOD content is different, much of that is in actual 1080p, but only the newer stuff)
That said, I agree that the jump to 4K is basically pure marketing hype with 2 exceptions: 1) theatrical setups where the screen fills a fairly large portion of your field of view (quite rare in home setups, but some people do manage) and 2) computer monitors where you're sitting very close to the screen.
I always get a big laugh when I see 4K TVs in the 40" range, the odds of you using that as a TV, and being able to tell the difference between 1080p and 4K is about zero.
To be perfectly honest, there's only one reason 4K TVs even exist. Manufacturers loved the switchover from SD to HD. it was a once in a generation opportunity where everyone rushed out to replace their otherwise perfectly good TVs because there really was a visible improvement. That's basically over now as the market penetration of HD TVs is now extremely high and people have no reason to replace them. Manufacturers are willing to do anything to re-capture those glorious years. They have tried smart TVs, and 3D TVs, and nobody cared about either, so now they're trying 4K TVs, and some people are buying it. But once those reach saturation, what are they to do? well, apparently Sharp thinks that if resolution has worked for them twice, why not try a third time? But as others have pointed out, at some point you're not buying a better experience, you're just buying marketing buzz. No different than spending several hundred dollars on an HDMI cable, it won't improve your experience any, but you can try to convince people that you have the best one out there because you spent too much on it.
Unless there was also a distance calculation involved, I can tell you that you were not correct.
The amount you can see depends on the pixel count, but also the distance from the source.
For most average TVs being watched at an average viewing distance, someone with 20/20 (or even much better) vision is unlikely to even be able to see the difference between HD and 4K, That said, 4K also incorporates things like HDR which are independent of the number of pixels, but improve the image quality and can be seen. If however you're set up with a more theatrical viewing experience (where the screen fills a much larger percentage of your field of view than the average TV setup in most homes) you might be able to see an improvement from HD to 4K, though it'll honestly likely be minor.
Where 4K really shines though is in large monitor applications where you're sitting only a foot or two away from it. There you can see the extra resolution and take advantage of it. even there though I find it unlikely that 8K would actually provide any noticeable improvement.
If you have an old 15" TV in the corner of your kitchen, you probably wouldn't be able to notice the difference between SD and HD if you don't have the black bars on the side of the screen from the different aspect ratio.
HDMI sends a lot more data about what you are watching, and it can incorporate full ethernet connectivity.
Every other company, and several governments already do, what's one more?
Is there something particularly nefarious that I should be expecting them to do?
No, I'm hoping they won't break the law any more than they already have.
Them repairing it under warranty isn't because they're being nice, it's because they have a legal obligation to do so. Denying me warranty coverage would be illegal unless they can prove that my specific modifications have caused the specific problem that they are being asked to fix under warranty. The legal burden of proof for this is on them too, not me.
If they start illegally refusing warranty coverage, I'll lawyer up real fast.
I should also add that if Tesla was a reputable company, I never would have gone this far to block them. For example I see no reason to block GM's OnStar service. Tesla has just pulled too many dirty tricks to be allowed any control over my vehicle.
Since I started modifying the car they've repaired it under warranty about 7 or 8 times, 2 of those since I completely blocked their access to the software on the vehicle, and they definitely know about it as I discuss it with them every time I visit the service centre.
That's the thing about warranty laws. Despite all the scare tactics companies use to scare you in to compliance. They can only legally deny a warranty claim if they can prove that the specific modification that you made caused the specific problem that you're claiming under warranty.
Set up automatic payments. Mine Congress out of my bank account automatically every month.
What hassle? the credit card is exactly the same as debit for ease of use, and significantly more convenient than cash, but the credit card both gives you rewards, and defers your payment by about a month (so you can earn interest on the money in the mean time). There are literally no downsides and only upsides.
If you use debit instead of credit you're passing up on easy money.
If stores ever start giving a discount for using a different payment method, I'll re-evaluate what the best payment method is, but until then you'd be a fool not to use a credit card for every single transaction every single time.
Then don't buy those cars. Personally I want all the features that you can only have with a connected car. That said, I've locked Tesla out of my car, and replaced their servers with my own, but that won't be an option for the average person.
1. Do you want to go direct and pay less.
2. Do you want to go through a middle man and pay for it in fees.
Except that number one isn't even an option anywhere. There isn't a single shop that exists in my city that will give me any form of discount for using cash or other low-cost payment methods. As a result I would be a positive idiot not to take advantage of the credit card and at least get the cash back. Yes I agree that they are driving up the prices of everything but as long as the price is the same regardless of which payment method I use I shoyld at least get the benefit from it.