Mom: "Ever since I dumped my Dell and got one of these things, I've gotten no viagra spam!"
Jr: "I get to take this thing to school in my backpack and still have room to fill the backpack with books!"
Bruce the interior designer: "I recommend this to all my clients, dear. It fits with any decor.
Samuel Buckbanks, Busy Business Executive: "The vMac is so durable that I can send it through checked luggage on plane trips, and be 100% certain that nothing will change when I get it back."
Grandma: "Now, at last, a computer I am not afraid to use!"
John Dvorak: "I'll do a review of this thing as soon as I can find it. I could have sworn I set it next to that Amiga 8000. I will say, however, that it is the quietest machine I have ever worked with."
Redefinitions properly defined.
on
Re-Imagining Apple
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"- The PC market is a business market and the command line serves it.
Redefinition (via Mac): The PC is a consumer market and the user interface matters.
Result: GUIs and usability all over the place."
Except there were still many things that were easier on the command line than the GUI. The command line serves the users, period. Apple crippled thier OS by not having it. No one else copied this mistake, and eventually Apple rectified it with OS-X (which is their first serious OS).
"Users want total control over their computers.
Redefinition (via Mac): "
Apple was way behind on this at the start. Jobs was openly hostile to "hackers" playing around in the guts of the machine and the OS to make it work better. The CLI went away only on the Mac. No one copied this mistake, and Apple was forced to bring it back. Besides, you never increase user control by getting rid of a feature. That only makes it harder to use.
"- Computers sit on a desk and run applications.
Redefinition (via Newton): Computers can portably support everyday tasks.
Result: PDAs"
Now it seems like you are making stuff up. The Newton was a false start, a failure. It was Palm who gave us the PDA for others to copy. Newton's only legacy is "flvvbr writte on nVVt0n!" handwriting recognition jokes.
" Computers are for computing.
Redefinition (via iMac, iLife, iTunes, iPod): Computers are for entertainment."
Again, you have it backwards. Look at Jobs again, often outright hostile to the idea computers being used for games. Computers were also making music and playing games long before, as well. Original Napster on PC was hugely popular long before iTMS. Yes, the iPod is hugely popular now.
" Computer companies make computing equipment.
Redefinition (via iMac, iPod): Computer companies make consumer electronics."
Do you think history began in 1984? Of course not. Commodore sold calculators before, during, and after its computer run. It took mere seconds to think of them. There are probably many other examples.
What we really have here is instances of Apple doing something so badly it never mattered (the Newton), Apple doing stuff others already did before (consumer electronics, computers as a way to listen to your personal music), Apple doing something the wrong way and eventually catching up to everyone else (sophisticated command line only in the 10th "X" version of the OS), or Apple just doing what everyone has done since the late 1970s (making computers for entertainment). On the network part alone, you are pretty close to the mark.
There is no redefinition going on here, except when it comes to colors. The iMac color scheme had a profound impact throughout industry, resulting in staplers and George Foreman grills.
Now for the good part:
You forgot to mention an actual Apple innovation that they DID start and was copied by others: firewire. Wifi (Airport) probably should have been mentioned: Apple was a true leader in this. You also under-emphasized the iPod. While not 100% a "computer" thing, it is having a huge influence.
You have some good points, but one I disagree with is where you said the user experience was improved by leaving off a feature, and there was no "explosion of USB devices caused by the iMac". The explosion in the number of PCs being sold with USB ports did this. They way outnumbered iMacs being sold. USB adoption and creation of devices in general would have grown the same if there never was an iMac.
"A 2X CD-R drive burns at 300kB/s. That's a full floppy disk worth in 4 seconds"
You have some good points. However, CD burning takes a lot longer. You put in the disk and the drive chugs along a while recognizing the CD. Chances are, you can insert the floppy, copy the file to it, and eject the floppy in the time it takes the machine to "figure out" the CD in this very first stage. Then it has to be formatted. More time.
Copying the file is, yes, pretty quick.
However, after you copy it, you have the lengthy finalization and ejection stage. It is what happens before and after you copy that makes copying a little 80k file a lot quicker on floppy than CD. It is not the copying itself. For the past several years, prior to the recent triumph of the thumb drive, a floppy was much quicker and more convenient for moving such small files around.
For small files, CD-R's have always been a lot slower than floppies.
"Hey AtariAmarok, you're a funny guy.. I copied and saved one of your posts the other day about swedish pirates.. "I veell seenk yuoor sheep und ploonder yuoor buuty, hurty flurty schnipp schnipp!".. cracked me up..."
Don't thank me, thank the web site I found that converted entered text into Swedish Chef talk. I typed in a few pirate words, and pasted the result back to slashdot.
If you want to dare the lameness of my more original efforts, check out this one.
Followed by the sphere, he would sell the vMac, which would basically be invisible, intangible, and without mass. Basically, order one, and you get an empty box. Base price would be $700. He would roll it out with such popular upgrades as CPU, case, power supply, keyboard, memory, and motherboard made available for those who want to sully their sublime vMac experience with such crass legacy hardware.
Apple fanatics would flood Slashdot in praises of the incredibly simple design of the base vMac unit, its zero heat radiation, superb energy efficiency and environmental friendliness, and its perfect invulnerability to malware.
"Hey, I had a power adapter in the plug of my 65 LeSabre when we went on vacation to New Mexico. Had a laptop plugged into it and watched movies as we cruised down the Interstate at 90."
Did the customs agents attempt to confiscate your movies when you came back into the United States?
"The first touchpad for mouse control debuted on.. wait for it... a Powerbook"
One of those isn't something to be very proud of. The reason the IBM eraser tip is not a lot more common is that IBM charges a lot to license their patent. At times, Toshiba has chosen to bite the bullet and include it The eraser nipple thing is far easier to use than one of those mushy touchpads. Especially when so many touchpads have the horrendous "feature" where if you bump the surface, it acts as a mouse click. This makes absolutely no sense: how many real mice register a click when you touch the mouse without clicking it? I've seen some where you could not even turn it off, making "a Drag is often a Click and Drag even though you never clicked any button" a common situation.
That is amazing. Microsoft learned the same lesson
on
Re-Imagining Apple
·
· Score: 1
"Evidently Apple learned from their mistakes and went about selling more Macs based on the halo effect."
That is amazing. At the exact same time, Microsoft is selling X-Boxes based on the halo effect.
Seriously, though, I think there is a good chance that the iTMS/Pod stuff might swamp and entirely redefine Apple. They could evolve into a huge music company while the computer part fades away.
How many remember that the toy/game company Coleco started out as Connecticut Leather Company? Commodore started out importing typewriters. Is that what they are known for?
That is the philosophy I strongly disagree with. What is the real point of it? Perhaps it is just to sell new machines?. Shouldn't the new technology be driven forward instead by the needs of the users? Shipping a machine without a feature in order to "force" them to use another feature is an example of high-handed "morality" being handed down from on high.
"What Apple did spurred the creation of the USB device market; a market that was invented by intel, but was failing to catch on because it wasn't "better enough" compared to the legacy ports."
How is this good? It is not even true: at the time the iMac came out, many Intel PCs had USB ports built in, and more were adding them all the time. The PC adoption of USB was not affected by the Macintosh "forcing", and it ended up being easier on the users.
"Had they not done it, perhaps the parallel port would still be "needed".
And the problem is...?
"Apple also ditched the floppy drive with the iMac and replaced it with a recordable CD drive. You don't hear anybody complaining about that anymore"
You sure did hear howls at the beginning. For one thing, you are remembering the history differently from what occured. Those floppy-less iMacs first came with non-recordable CD drives, you forget. You had to log on, or buy extra hardware just to remove data from them. This was another bad idea, and a step backwards. This was another "Bad thing". Only later did iMacs add the CD-R. Floppy drives have only recently started to fade in the PC world because the PC makers, are, again, more responsive to the needs of the users.
A CD is a poor replacement for a floppy because of the slow speed of burning. Only in the past year or two has the floppy become obsolete due to the increase in cheap thumb drivers. The recordable CD dented the floppy, but only the thumb drive is killing it.
The design should serve the users. Not some department head who somehow thinks it is immoral to use a floppy drive or a Centronic printer port. Or perhaps someone who has a motive of forcing people to buy new printers and peripherals when their old ones work fine. Either way, these design decisions are not in the interests of the users.
Shouldn't the decision to replace a printer be made because the old one is broken, or the new one has a nice photo feature you want? Not because some design-nazi in Cupertino determined that the port of the old printer was immoral and had to be stamped out?
" Touch-sensitive panels don't usually work well because there's no tactile feedback."
There is definitely tactile feedback on touch sensitive panels. you have to touch them in order for them to register anything. This fits in with the definition of tactile: "Perceptible to the sense of touch; tangible". Perhaps what you are really missing is the bounce of a keyclick. Not sure what that is called: kinetic feedback?
If you want an example of a user interface that has no tactile interface, look at the virtual reality helmet-based GUI that the Keanu Reeve character used in (I think) "Jonny Mnemonic". While it looked like he was pressing buttons when he saw it through the goggles, outside his fingers were just whooshing through the air.
"If they make a million computers and have to pay a buck a port... It's unlikely that many users would ever use the port. New printers use the port they included."
This is true now, but not when the iMac came out. Back then, it was missing something that was needed.
"Plus, I think you'd be surprised how many PCs are legacy port free these days."
I know. I use one, and have a Belkin dongle for it. It is not so bad now, as these ports are starting to fade away. At the time that other ports were removed from the iMac, they were in common usage. Taking the ports away a few years down the road when few miss them is not a bad idea. Shipping computers without ports or devices that most users need (and have had up to that point) and somehow saying that this loss is a good thing is a bad idea.
"People routinely choose inferior products do to ignorance and the cultural pressure to own things."
The real tendency is for people to choose products that serve their needs. This also goes for SUVs. Just because you do not need one does not mean that someone else does not. The "my product is unpopular because everyone is brainwashed" idea never pans out.
"Do you think that computer makers should continue to support every port they ever had on their machines? After a few decades we would end up with hundreds of ports on the back."
Not every port: just the popular ones that are still used. Most PCs still have 9 pin serial and Centronics printer port, along with a bunch of USB ports. Most PC companies tend to be more responsive to the customers. No way would Dell or Gateway get away with Apple's "We are forcing you to use only USB for your own good"... like Apple was on some sort of moral crusade, rather than trying to make it easier for iMac users to use their machines. With Apple sometimes, and especially with the iMac, Apple's attitude was "we crippled it. So go ahead and buy extra drives and dongles. Tough.". Also, based on the prices of the units, you end up paying a lot less to have more.
"The fact of the matter is that your complaint that you had to buy a USB to parallel adapter to use an old printer on your iMac is a stupid complaint."
The guy appeared to be complaining that the iMac was a step backwards in that you had to buy a dongle to do what the previous Macs did without extra hardware and hassle. If anything is stupid, it is insisting that this dongle situation was a good thing.
"Since Apple branded printers never used that interface, why should they coutinue to support it?"
Because most of the printers that the users want are non-Apple brand printers.
"Plus, so what if you have to buy a $10 adapter. Better to make the few users that need it pay the extra $10"
It probably costs a tiny fraction of that to just build in the port. Typical PC makers still build in these ports. It serve the needs of the users. Are you actually arguing that it is a good thing that Apple makes it harder for users to use other printers?
I have to admit, this one had me scratching my head too. I bet if he can find workers to do half the pay at 80 hours a week, it won't take him long to find the worker that works for 1/4 the pay at 160 hours a week.
"Seriously. Do it. If you can make a reliable $20 car adapter which uses the cigarette lighter for power and FM for radio connectivity"
Yeah, I can even do it for $10 if you don't mind haywires and big globs of duct tape. There is a piece of uncooked maceroni that got into the tape somehow, so you will have to accept that. The cigarette lighter plug smells like Uncle Leonard's cigars, but hey, I saved money by swiping it from his 1973 LeMans.
Google is going to have to clear a lot of images in order to get rid of French material in its news listings. Not only are they going to remove Jerry Lewis fan material, they are going to remove pictures such as this one. Leave nothing French online, google!
"If anyone you know doesn't work an 80 hour week to pay the rent and feed themselves, you probably have a union to thank that they needn't do that to themselves."
They have themselves to thank, for their own hard work, not the dwindling unions that control 10% of the workforce.
Slashdot Mirror
Mom: "Ever since I dumped my Dell and got one of these things, I've gotten no viagra spam!"
Jr: "I get to take this thing to school in my backpack and still have room to fill the backpack with books!"
Bruce the interior designer: "I recommend this to all my clients, dear. It fits with any decor.
Samuel Buckbanks, Busy Business Executive: "The vMac is so durable that I can send it through checked luggage on plane trips, and be 100% certain that nothing will change when I get it back."
Grandma: "Now, at last, a computer I am not afraid to use!"
John Dvorak: "I'll do a review of this thing as soon as I can find it. I could have sworn I set it next to that Amiga 8000. I will say, however, that it is the quietest machine I have ever worked with."
Except there were still many things that were easier on the command line than the GUI. The command line serves the users, period. Apple crippled thier OS by not having it. No one else copied this mistake, and eventually Apple rectified it with OS-X (which is their first serious OS).
"Users want total control over their computers. Redefinition (via Mac): "
Apple was way behind on this at the start. Jobs was openly hostile to "hackers" playing around in the guts of the machine and the OS to make it work better. The CLI went away only on the Mac. No one copied this mistake, and Apple was forced to bring it back. Besides, you never increase user control by getting rid of a feature. That only makes it harder to use.
"- Computers sit on a desk and run applications. Redefinition (via Newton): Computers can portably support everyday tasks. Result: PDAs"
Now it seems like you are making stuff up. The Newton was a false start, a failure. It was Palm who gave us the PDA for others to copy. Newton's only legacy is "flvvbr writte on nVVt0n!" handwriting recognition jokes.
" Computers are for computing. Redefinition (via iMac, iLife, iTunes, iPod): Computers are for entertainment."
Again, you have it backwards. Look at Jobs again, often outright hostile to the idea computers being used for games. Computers were also making music and playing games long before, as well. Original Napster on PC was hugely popular long before iTMS. Yes, the iPod is hugely popular now.
" Computer companies make computing equipment. Redefinition (via iMac, iPod): Computer companies make consumer electronics."
Do you think history began in 1984? Of course not. Commodore sold calculators before, during, and after its computer run. It took mere seconds to think of them. There are probably many other examples.
What we really have here is instances of Apple doing something so badly it never mattered (the Newton), Apple doing stuff others already did before (consumer electronics, computers as a way to listen to your personal music), Apple doing something the wrong way and eventually catching up to everyone else (sophisticated command line only in the 10th "X" version of the OS), or Apple just doing what everyone has done since the late 1970s (making computers for entertainment). On the network part alone, you are pretty close to the mark.
There is no redefinition going on here, except when it comes to colors. The iMac color scheme had a profound impact throughout industry, resulting in staplers and George Foreman grills.
Now for the good part:
You forgot to mention an actual Apple innovation that they DID start and was copied by others: firewire. Wifi (Airport) probably should have been mentioned: Apple was a true leader in this. You also under-emphasized the iPod. While not 100% a "computer" thing, it is having a huge influence.
"A 2X CD-R drive burns at 300kB/s. That's a full floppy disk worth in 4 seconds"
You have some good points. However, CD burning takes a lot longer. You put in the disk and the drive chugs along a while recognizing the CD. Chances are, you can insert the floppy, copy the file to it, and eject the floppy in the time it takes the machine to "figure out" the CD in this very first stage. Then it has to be formatted. More time.
Copying the file is, yes, pretty quick.
However, after you copy it, you have the lengthy finalization and ejection stage. It is what happens before and after you copy that makes copying a little 80k file a lot quicker on floppy than CD. It is not the copying itself. For the past several years, prior to the recent triumph of the thumb drive, a floppy was much quicker and more convenient for moving such small files around.
For small files, CD-R's have always been a lot slower than floppies.
Don't thank me, thank the web site I found that converted entered text into Swedish Chef talk. I typed in a few pirate words, and pasted the result back to slashdot.
If you want to dare the lameness of my more original efforts, check out this one.
Apple fanatics would flood Slashdot in praises of the incredibly simple design of the base vMac unit, its zero heat radiation, superb energy efficiency and environmental friendliness, and its perfect invulnerability to malware.
"Hey, I had a power adapter in the plug of my 65 LeSabre when we went on vacation to New Mexico. Had a laptop plugged into it and watched movies as we cruised down the Interstate at 90." Did the customs agents attempt to confiscate your movies when you came back into the United States?
Don't argue with him. I bet he drives a car where the door handles are inside the trunk instead of on the doors. And he loves it too.
What about the anti-anti-Apple zealot zealot zealots? Remember, in Soviet Microsoft, developers say "Ballmer Ballmer Ballmer!".
So, did you end up making a career out of Photoshop-related litigation?
One of those isn't something to be very proud of. The reason the IBM eraser tip is not a lot more common is that IBM charges a lot to license their patent. At times, Toshiba has chosen to bite the bullet and include it The eraser nipple thing is far easier to use than one of those mushy touchpads. Especially when so many touchpads have the horrendous "feature" where if you bump the surface, it acts as a mouse click. This makes absolutely no sense: how many real mice register a click when you touch the mouse without clicking it? I've seen some where you could not even turn it off, making "a Drag is often a Click and Drag even though you never clicked any button" a common situation.
That is amazing. At the exact same time, Microsoft is selling X-Boxes based on the halo effect.
Seriously, though, I think there is a good chance that the iTMS/Pod stuff might swamp and entirely redefine Apple. They could evolve into a huge music company while the computer part fades away.
How many remember that the toy/game company Coleco started out as Connecticut Leather Company? Commodore started out importing typewriters. Is that what they are known for?
That is the philosophy I strongly disagree with. What is the real point of it? Perhaps it is just to sell new machines?. Shouldn't the new technology be driven forward instead by the needs of the users? Shipping a machine without a feature in order to "force" them to use another feature is an example of high-handed "morality" being handed down from on high.
"What Apple did spurred the creation of the USB device market; a market that was invented by intel, but was failing to catch on because it wasn't "better enough" compared to the legacy ports."
How is this good? It is not even true: at the time the iMac came out, many Intel PCs had USB ports built in, and more were adding them all the time. The PC adoption of USB was not affected by the Macintosh "forcing", and it ended up being easier on the users.
"Had they not done it, perhaps the parallel port would still be "needed".
And the problem is...?
"Apple also ditched the floppy drive with the iMac and replaced it with a recordable CD drive. You don't hear anybody complaining about that anymore"
You sure did hear howls at the beginning. For one thing, you are remembering the history differently from what occured. Those floppy-less iMacs first came with non-recordable CD drives, you forget. You had to log on, or buy extra hardware just to remove data from them. This was another bad idea, and a step backwards. This was another "Bad thing". Only later did iMacs add the CD-R. Floppy drives have only recently started to fade in the PC world because the PC makers, are, again, more responsive to the needs of the users.
A CD is a poor replacement for a floppy because of the slow speed of burning. Only in the past year or two has the floppy become obsolete due to the increase in cheap thumb drivers. The recordable CD dented the floppy, but only the thumb drive is killing it.
The design should serve the users. Not some department head who somehow thinks it is immoral to use a floppy drive or a Centronic printer port. Or perhaps someone who has a motive of forcing people to buy new printers and peripherals when their old ones work fine. Either way, these design decisions are not in the interests of the users.
Shouldn't the decision to replace a printer be made because the old one is broken, or the new one has a nice photo feature you want? Not because some design-nazi in Cupertino determined that the port of the old printer was immoral and had to be stamped out?
There is definitely tactile feedback on touch sensitive panels. you have to touch them in order for them to register anything. This fits in with the definition of tactile: "Perceptible to the sense of touch; tangible". Perhaps what you are really missing is the bounce of a keyclick. Not sure what that is called: kinetic feedback?
If you want an example of a user interface that has no tactile interface, look at the virtual reality helmet-based GUI that the Keanu Reeve character used in (I think) "Jonny Mnemonic". While it looked like he was pressing buttons when he saw it through the goggles, outside his fingers were just whooshing through the air.
This is true now, but not when the iMac came out. Back then, it was missing something that was needed.
"Plus, I think you'd be surprised how many PCs are legacy port free these days."
I know. I use one, and have a Belkin dongle for it. It is not so bad now, as these ports are starting to fade away. At the time that other ports were removed from the iMac, they were in common usage. Taking the ports away a few years down the road when few miss them is not a bad idea. Shipping computers without ports or devices that most users need (and have had up to that point) and somehow saying that this loss is a good thing is a bad idea.
The real tendency is for people to choose products that serve their needs. This also goes for SUVs. Just because you do not need one does not mean that someone else does not. The "my product is unpopular because everyone is brainwashed" idea never pans out.
Not every port: just the popular ones that are still used. Most PCs still have 9 pin serial and Centronics printer port, along with a bunch of USB ports. Most PC companies tend to be more responsive to the customers. No way would Dell or Gateway get away with Apple's "We are forcing you to use only USB for your own good"... like Apple was on some sort of moral crusade, rather than trying to make it easier for iMac users to use their machines. With Apple sometimes, and especially with the iMac, Apple's attitude was "we crippled it. So go ahead and buy extra drives and dongles. Tough.". Also, based on the prices of the units, you end up paying a lot less to have more.
"The fact of the matter is that your complaint that you had to buy a USB to parallel adapter to use an old printer on your iMac is a stupid complaint."
The guy appeared to be complaining that the iMac was a step backwards in that you had to buy a dongle to do what the previous Macs did without extra hardware and hassle. If anything is stupid, it is insisting that this dongle situation was a good thing.
Because most of the printers that the users want are non-Apple brand printers.
"Plus, so what if you have to buy a $10 adapter. Better to make the few users that need it pay the extra $10"
It probably costs a tiny fraction of that to just build in the port. Typical PC makers still build in these ports. It serve the needs of the users. Are you actually arguing that it is a good thing that Apple makes it harder for users to use other printers?
I have to admit, this one had me scratching my head too. I bet if he can find workers to do half the pay at 80 hours a week, it won't take him long to find the worker that works for 1/4 the pay at 160 hours a week.
Why not? It certainly would support our quality of life, as prices would go down due to lower labor costs.
Yeah, I can even do it for $10 if you don't mind haywires and big globs of duct tape. There is a piece of uncooked maceroni that got into the tape somehow, so you will have to accept that. The cigarette lighter plug smells like Uncle Leonard's cigars, but hey, I saved money by swiping it from his 1973 LeMans.
Incontinent Tiger, burning bright
Apple Secrets, in blog shall write
But tiger urine's not the drink for you
We know panther urine makes Mountain Dew.
Google is going to have to clear a lot of images in order to get rid of French material in its news listings. Not only are they going to remove Jerry Lewis fan material, they are going to remove pictures such as this one. Leave nothing French online, google!
Thank you. Don't mind if I do. That's the best thing you've said all evening. Cheers!
It is a lot closer than you think. The Mexican auto workers are not near as productive as the American ones.
"Unions are not the problem. They're a symptom"
They are a big part of the problem.
They have themselves to thank, for their own hard work, not the dwindling unions that control 10% of the workforce.