By your logic, Apple would be doing poorly as they don't always go with the cheapest option. That kind of thinking is why a company such as Microsoft couldn't put out a decent iPod clone even after a few years despite anyone with half a clue being able to tell you what they are doing wrong. Product design is more than just penny pinching.
Oh yeah, royalty fees less than $1 are such a killer, and USB chips are completely free. Perhaps your argument would hold more weight if you hadn't posted anonymously.
Probably because they are generally designed better in other areas, too. My aluminium Firewire/USB2/eSATA drive enclosure was more expensive than my cheap, plastic USB2 enclosure. The market for people who want to buy Firewire is probably closer to the market that also want to pay a bit extra for quality. That's also partly why Firewire isn't going away anytime soon, at least on the Mac.
Drive-by-wire can be done properly. If it's good enough for large passenger planes, then it's good enough for cars. Although, the two industries are quite different in the way they do things (costs, redundancy, etc). Still, it's seems to be creeping more often into the auto industry, too.
I agree, certainly if the extra costs are for such things as conservation of the environment. It's not like consumers are going to be sympathetic to manufacturers for having to comply with laws that are there to help protect everyone.
Perhaps for the same reason manufactures are being forced to? Doing his bit for the environment? Less exposure to lead? Curiosity? Why not bother with lead-free solder?
Simple: One bulky one for at home or work, and a smaller travel model. I'm sure they've thought of these things as I thought of them as soon as I read your complaint.
Power standardisation seems a bit unrealistic. Big things are easier to standardise (and most are, like a dektop computer for example), but smaller devices such as mobile phones and laptops have a much greater variation because of the space and weight considerations and power requirements of different models.
And who's to say you still can't keep one or two small wall-warts around for specific devices when you travel?
The only problem with that is it's not supported by the vendor. Pretty much all the devices I've seen say that a warranty is void if you use someone else's charger. If they can get this system to work and big companies start to adapted it, then it seems like it would be a better solution.
Pitty a 3.5" HDD enclosure won't run off a USB (or even FireWire) connector. Same goes for laptops, some LCD displays, etc.
As for the whole cost thing meaning that it will go nowhere, that seems a bit presumptuous. As Apple has proved, people are willing to pay extra for things that make their life easier. I'd have no problem paying an extra $20 per device to support a system like this. That's a huge mark-up over $2.
I'm sick of all the power adapters I have and I'm more than willing to spend a reasonable amount of money for a proper solution.
Sounds like you guys have a real bad setup. Here, you don't get charged for receiving cellphone calls, only making them, so as you'd expect, telemarketing on cellphones has never been a problem.
Why waste time on anti-spitting strategies when the problem is easily fixed with a billing policy change?
Call me weird, but I prefer downloads to appear on the desktop. I use the desktop as a dumping ground for anything new that I haven't yet sorted or looked into. The downloads folder is a sensible default, though.
I saw that test in an article in my local news site. One thing that they don't take into account, of course, is the life-style these people live. Depression has also be shown to shrink your brain. The brain shrinkage from that scientific test could just be a consequence of the lifestyle of the test subjects. It's not too hard to believe that people who smoke 5 joints a day for 10 year might not do very much and be in a similar state to depressed people in terms of neurological activity. You could probably get the same results from people who watch TV all the time.
Well, the reason it's easy to chip car paint is because it's hard. A flexible but durable surface might be a lot harder to damage from small, flying objects. As for safety, are you seriously asking if the car is only made from fabric, with no other structural protection?
I think you will find that many people would prefer to save $200 and stick with the crap camera. Even if they did upgrade it, it would still be crap. Yeah, I guess video would be neat, but I won't really be missing it and neither will many others. You could always jailbreak it if you need it that much. Perhaps battery life was an issue.
Where did the "$59.99 * 24 = $1638.76" come from? I only spend about $50 a year on my pre-paid Vodafone plan. Unless they plan to restrict the iPhone to a certain plan or something, which won't go down as well in many countries where SIM cards and GSM are the norm.
Now, *how* many people who've downloaded a "pirated" version of one of his photos, or worse, have decided to post in a forum or blog a 600x450 crop of one, do you think would've bought one of his prints instead? I mean, seriously now.
Well, probably not many, since anyone who'd be satisfied with one of them might not see the point in buying a high quality print, which is a pretty much a different thing altogether to a low-res JPG. But that's a certain type of photography, and you can't really compare it to books. But that wasn't really my point.
Apple works hard to ensure that applications written to OS X will not easily be ported to other platforms.
And you have good evidence that this is the reason for the way they have done things, as opposed to making sure that apps written for OS X simply integrate well with the system to provide a good and consistent user experience?
In a world where most apps are written for Windows, it doesn't really make sense for Apple to try and make it hard to stop people from porting Mac apps to other platforms. Apple aren't stupid.
This is why I consider the Mac OSS community to be a bunch of leeches. They've ported most open source unix applications to OS X but to date have given nothing useful back. The attitude seems to be that its fine for them to use stuff from BSD or Linux, but if you want to run their software, you should just buy a Mac.
Or perhaps they are only interesting in creating apps for OS X? I mean, if they take from the OSS community to begin with, then how can they consider it their software? How do you know that they simply don't consider themselves porting software to OS X for the benefit of OS X users? What would they contribute back, anyway? remove all the OS X parts and give back what they took in the first place? You're not making much sense.
I think you are simply being paranoid or have something against people who use Macs.
Perhaps David Pogue is wrong, but my point was more that it's still his right as the creator to decide how his work is distributed and that it shouldn't be made into a DRM or copyright debate, since he has never supported DRM or anything to my knowledge, yet that is were this forum has headed.
As for piracy only having a positive effect, that is simply BS. While piracy may not have much of an effect on some people, it still does hurt others. I do get a bit sick of this assumption that piracy is always harmless. It's all fun and games to laugh at Hollywood's "you wouldn't steal a car..." promos, but please don't be so naive as to think that piracy never affects creators in a negative way. It really depends on many things.
As for my photos, If I thought they would sell enough to make a profit, I'd be doing just that. Unfortunately, I need a lot of practice until I can start comparing myself to photographers like Ansel Adams -- that was kind of my point.
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You forgot about my oxyacetylene cutting torch.
By your logic, Apple would be doing poorly as they don't always go with the cheapest option.
That kind of thinking is why a company such as Microsoft couldn't put out a decent iPod clone even after a few years despite anyone with half a clue being able to tell you what they are doing wrong.
Product design is more than just penny pinching.
Just how many Firewire ports have you ever seen on a single device? Would they even add up to more than $5 in royalties?
Oh yeah, royalty fees less than $1 are such a killer, and USB chips are completely free. Perhaps your argument would hold more weight if you hadn't posted anonymously.
Probably because they are generally designed better in other areas, too. My aluminium Firewire/USB2/eSATA drive enclosure was more expensive than my cheap, plastic USB2 enclosure.
The market for people who want to buy Firewire is probably closer to the market that also want to pay a bit extra for quality. That's also partly why Firewire isn't going away anytime soon, at least on the Mac.
But recycling car batteries is pretty common, so you can't really compare it.
Drive-by-wire can be done properly. If it's good enough for large passenger planes, then it's good enough for cars. Although, the two industries are quite different in the way they do things (costs, redundancy, etc). Still, it's seems to be creeping more often into the auto industry, too.
I agree, certainly if the extra costs are for such things as conservation of the environment. It's not like consumers are going to be sympathetic to manufacturers for having to comply with laws that are there to help protect everyone.
Perhaps for the same reason manufactures are being forced to? Doing his bit for the environment? Less exposure to lead? Curiosity? Why not bother with lead-free solder?
Simple: One bulky one for at home or work, and a smaller travel model. I'm sure they've thought of these things as I thought of them as soon as I read your complaint.
Power standardisation seems a bit unrealistic. Big things are easier to standardise (and most are, like a dektop computer for example), but smaller devices such as mobile phones and laptops have a much greater variation because of the space and weight considerations and power requirements of different models.
And who's to say you still can't keep one or two small wall-warts around for specific devices when you travel?
You can power your laptop over your desktop's USB hub? I'm impressed. How about 3.5" drives?
The only problem with that is it's not supported by the vendor. Pretty much all the devices I've seen say that a warranty is void if you use someone else's charger. If they can get this system to work and big companies start to adapted it, then it seems like it would be a better solution.
Pitty a 3.5" HDD enclosure won't run off a USB (or even FireWire) connector. Same goes for laptops, some LCD displays, etc.
As for the whole cost thing meaning that it will go nowhere, that seems a bit presumptuous. As Apple has proved, people are willing to pay extra for things that make their life easier. I'd have no problem paying an extra $20 per device to support a system like this. That's a huge mark-up over $2.
I'm sick of all the power adapters I have and I'm more than willing to spend a reasonable amount of money for a proper solution.
Doesn't that apply to pretty much all computer games?
Sounds like you guys have a real bad setup. Here, you don't get charged for receiving cellphone calls, only making them, so as you'd expect, telemarketing on cellphones has never been a problem.
Why waste time on anti-spitting strategies when the problem is easily fixed with a billing policy change?
Call me weird, but I prefer downloads to appear on the desktop. I use the desktop as a dumping ground for anything new that I haven't yet sorted or looked into. The downloads folder is a sensible default, though.
I saw that test in an article in my local news site. One thing that they don't take into account, of course, is the life-style these people live. Depression has also be shown to shrink your brain. The brain shrinkage from that scientific test could just be a consequence of the lifestyle of the test subjects. It's not too hard to believe that people who smoke 5 joints a day for 10 year might not do very much and be in a similar state to depressed people in terms of neurological activity. You could probably get the same results from people who watch TV all the time.
Well, the reason it's easy to chip car paint is because it's hard. A flexible but durable surface might be a lot harder to damage from small, flying objects. As for safety, are you seriously asking if the car is only made from fabric, with no other structural protection?
Since when has exclusivity had anything to do with it's popularity?
I think you will find that many people would prefer to save $200 and stick with the crap camera. Even if they did upgrade it, it would still be crap. Yeah, I guess video would be neat, but I won't really be missing it and neither will many others. You could always jailbreak it if you need it that much. Perhaps battery life was an issue.
Where did the "$59.99 * 24 = $1638.76" come from? I only spend about $50 a year on my pre-paid Vodafone plan. Unless they plan to restrict the iPhone to a certain plan or something, which won't go down as well in many countries where SIM cards and GSM are the norm.
Now, *how* many people who've downloaded a "pirated" version of one of his photos, or worse, have decided to post in a forum or blog a 600x450 crop of one, do you think would've bought one of his prints instead? I mean, seriously now.
Well, probably not many, since anyone who'd be satisfied with one of them might not see the point in buying a high quality print, which is a pretty much a different thing altogether to a low-res JPG. But that's a certain type of photography, and you can't really compare it to books. But that wasn't really my point.
I'm not just talking about books, though.
Apple works hard to ensure that applications written to OS X will not easily be ported to other platforms.
And you have good evidence that this is the reason for the way they have done things, as opposed to making sure that apps written for OS X simply integrate well with the system to provide a good and consistent user experience?
In a world where most apps are written for Windows, it doesn't really make sense for Apple to try and make it hard to stop people from porting Mac apps to other platforms. Apple aren't stupid.
This is why I consider the Mac OSS community to be a bunch of leeches. They've ported most open source unix applications to OS X but to date have given nothing useful back. The attitude seems to be that its fine for them to use stuff from BSD or Linux, but if you want to run their software, you should just buy a Mac.
Or perhaps they are only interesting in creating apps for OS X? I mean, if they take from the OSS community to begin with, then how can they consider it their software? How do you know that they simply don't consider themselves porting software to OS X for the benefit of OS X users? What would they contribute back, anyway? remove all the OS X parts and give back what they took in the first place? You're not making much sense.
I think you are simply being paranoid or have something against people who use Macs.
Perhaps David Pogue is wrong, but my point was more that it's still his right as the creator to decide how his work is distributed and that it shouldn't be made into a DRM or copyright debate, since he has never supported DRM or anything to my knowledge, yet that is were this forum has headed.
As for piracy only having a positive effect, that is simply BS. While piracy may not have much of an effect on some people, it still does hurt others. I do get a bit sick of this assumption that piracy is always harmless. It's all fun and games to laugh at Hollywood's "you wouldn't steal a car..." promos, but please don't be so naive as to think that piracy never affects creators in a negative way. It really depends on many things.
As for my photos, If I thought they would sell enough to make a profit, I'd be doing just that. Unfortunately, I need a lot of practice until I can start comparing myself to photographers like Ansel Adams -- that was kind of my point.