As much as I don't want to sound like a fanboy, it's actually depressing how good the the UI on the Newton was when I think that no PDA or smartphone I've owned or even heard of since (and that must be about 20) has even been HALF as good. I really agree. I would never have believed that in 2007, the tech world would not have caught up to the 1997 Newton. It's depressing.
No. iPod manufacturing is and has been no better or worse than for other large, well-known companies' products. That may be good or bad, I'm just saying it's not different.
Quote: "There is also the slight problem that the original ipod sounded terrible, it took several models to catch up with the nomad sound quality."
Not true. I owned both in 2001. The original iPod sounded great -- at lest a good as the Nomad. Once I had the iPod, I never bothered with the Nomad again.
"Archos is the real mp3 player pioneer, they paved the way for large hard drive mp3 players with their Jukebox Multimedia. If you want any of the features mentioned in this article, you don't have to wait for the next iPod, because Archos has had them for a while now."
Geez. More Archos whining. Archos players -- particularly the early (supposed "pioneering") models, represented everything that was wrong about MP3 players, which Apple fixed with the iPod.
A few years later, Apple really got the Newton right, but nobody noticed -- everyone had had too much fun making jokes about the earlier models. I can't think of any other 7-year-old tech device that's still amazing & useful...
...the first iPod sucked... The first iPod didn't even slightly suck. It was one of the coolest, most useful gadgets I ever got. Worked like a charm, incl. the mechanical scroll wheel, which had a great feel and was perfectly reliable as long as I owned the iPod. The first iPod was revolutionary, because of its size and its ease-of-use. I had owned a Nomad Jukebox HD player before it, and the difference was beyond night & day....
Apple hasn't said anything about the development tools or capabilities for this thing. I wonder whether it will be totally programmable in all languages, particularly C and C++. They haven't been so open about programming the iPod and not mentioning it all has me a little worried...
One could argue that conclusions based on Fitt's law break down as screens get bigger. This doesn't mean it's a fallacy -- any more than Newton's laws are fallacies just because they break down at extreme scales.
Fitt's law is no "fallacy." I take advantage of it hundreds of time every day. Windows frustrates me in the way I have to take care to vertically position the pointer on the menu bar, because of the lack of Fitt's law help.
Consider the possibility that there is no one correct answer here.
I'm also a longtime Mac user, and have spotted the occasional howler at RoughlyDrafted, but overall, I think he's been successful at packaging up history in an interesting way. It's a topic lots of us are interested in, so a little redundancy isn't a bad thing. I look forward to reading his new installments.
"Apple, the iPod, the Macintosh, and Steve Jobs are all out of fashion. The new fashion styles are Linux organizations, open source MP3 players, Linux PCs, and Linus Torvalds. 'Finn is in!'"
I see. Turns out the guy complaining about iPod fanboys is actually a fanboy himself.
Explains everything.
iPod was the first 1.8" HD-based player
on
Video iPod Oct 12?
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· Score: 1
The huge Nomad jukebox fit fine in your pocket? I hate to think of what *your* fashion sense is...
Dude, you gots to chill -- reduce your anger against perceived "Bigoted Apple Zealots." Because you're wrong here.
The quote, "The original iPod changed the way you listen to music by putting thousands of songs in your pocket," is actually hard to argue with. You seem to have forgotten (if you ever knew) that Apple was the first to use the 1.8" HD. Before the iPod, HD-based MP3 players used larger HDs & had a much larger form factors -- eg the 6GB Nomad Jukebox, which I owned before the iPod came out. It was bigger than a CD player. There were *no* HD-based players nearly as compact as the iPod, which *was* the first player to put "thousands of songs in your pocket." Regular-size pockets, anyway.
You're interpreting a past tense into my post that doesn't exist.
What has happened *so far* has been smooth -- growing list of announcements for supported apps; no prominent platform defections or developer complaints; sales of current hardware not just steady, but increasing; analysts happy & press generally quite positive; stock price solid...
I cannot imagine the Intel "Plan B" going smoother *at this stage*, and I can easily imagine it far worse.
"If Apple opened their OS to commodity PC's how long do you think it would take for MS to drop Office for the Mac? This would essentially kill the market..."
I might have agreed with this a few years ago, but not anymore.
Under Steve Jobs II, Apple has shown itself to be a master of "Plan B." After all, OS X was running secretly on Intel for 5 years -- almost no one expected Apple could lose PPC so smoothly.
I suspect Apple has a Plan B for MS Office, too. Anything else would be very unwise, and potentially grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.
Forbes.com had an article about a comprehensive consumer survey conducted by S.G. Cowen & Co. in June. 1,443 households were surveyed.
"Some pundits had speculated that Apple would lose Mac market share while it transitions from IBM's PowerPC chip to Intel's Pentium. But 16% of the responders said the decision by Steve Jobs' team to switch to Intel made them more likely to consider buying Macs. Only 2.7% said they were "less likely" to buy a Mac because of the switch."
So according to this survey (and it was a pretty big survey), the switch is 6X more likely to encourage Mac purchases than to discourage them.
Of course the civilian population reacts differently than Slashdot readers...
Yes- Spotlight needs fixing. The concepts are good, and in time I think it will be great, but for now it has horrendous usability problems.
Not too long ago, I was using a system with (pre-Spotlight) Panther -- I hit command-F, and the old Find File dialog came up. I was happy to see it instead of Spotlight.
Most of my searches still involve file names, and the old system is superior for that kind of search.
Slashdot Mirror
No. iPod manufacturing is and has been no better or worse than for other large, well-known companies' products. That may be good or bad, I'm just saying it's not different.
Not true. I owned both in 2001. The original iPod sounded great -- at lest a good as the Nomad. Once I had the iPod, I never bothered with the Nomad again.
Geez. More Archos whining. Archos players -- particularly the early (supposed "pioneering") models, represented everything that was wrong about MP3 players, which Apple fixed with the iPod.
A few years later, Apple really got the Newton right, but nobody noticed -- everyone had had too much fun making jokes about the earlier models. I can't think of any other 7-year-old tech device that's still amazing & useful...
...the first iPod sucked... The first iPod didn't even slightly suck. It was one of the coolest, most useful gadgets I ever got. Worked like a charm, incl. the mechanical scroll wheel, which had a great feel and was perfectly reliable as long as I owned the iPod. The first iPod was revolutionary, because of its size and its ease-of-use. I had owned a Nomad Jukebox HD player before it, and the difference was beyond night & day....Seems like they were trolling for attention from the geek set.
Apple hasn't said anything about the development tools or capabilities for this thing. I wonder whether it will be totally programmable in all languages, particularly C and C++. They haven't been so open about programming the iPod and not mentioning it all has me a little worried...
You're new here, aren't you?
One could argue that conclusions based on Fitt's law break down as screens get bigger. This doesn't mean it's a fallacy -- any more than Newton's laws are fallacies just because they break down at extreme scales.
Fitt's law is no "fallacy." I take advantage of it hundreds of time every day. Windows frustrates me in the way I have to take care to vertically position the pointer on the menu bar, because of the lack of Fitt's law help.
Consider the possibility that there is no one correct answer here.
If you have to repeatedly pick up your mouse, I wonder how your mouse acceleration is set.
As for Fitt's law being a "lie" -- geez, don't get upset!
Fitt's law
I'm also a longtime Mac user, and have spotted the occasional howler at RoughlyDrafted, but overall, I think he's been successful at packaging up history in an interesting way. It's a topic lots of us are interested in, so a little redundancy isn't a bad thing. I look forward to reading his new installments.
More scientists skeptical of Gore: article from Canada's National Post. Seems like much more of a mainstream publication.
Hey, j. a. rogers, that's way too much common sense for a slashdot topic related to US foreign policy. Get with the program!
Dude, nice subject change!
A new font in OS X does not mean a reboot. You might have to re-launch the app, but that's it.
I see. Turns out the guy complaining about iPod fanboys is actually a fanboy himself.
Explains everything.
The huge Nomad jukebox fit fine in your pocket? I hate to think of what *your* fashion sense is...
The quote, "The original iPod changed the way you listen to music by putting thousands of songs in your pocket," is actually hard to argue with. You seem to have forgotten (if you ever knew) that Apple was the first to use the 1.8" HD. Before the iPod, HD-based MP3 players used larger HDs & had a much larger form factors -- eg the 6GB Nomad Jukebox, which I owned before the iPod came out. It was bigger than a CD player. There were *no* HD-based players nearly as compact as the iPod, which *was* the first player to put "thousands of songs in your pocket." Regular-size pockets, anyway.
What has happened *so far* has been smooth -- growing list of announcements for supported apps; no prominent platform defections or developer complaints; sales of current hardware not just steady, but increasing; analysts happy & press generally quite positive; stock price solid...
I cannot imagine the Intel "Plan B" going smoother *at this stage*, and I can easily imagine it far worse.
I might have agreed with this a few years ago, but not anymore. Under Steve Jobs II, Apple has shown itself to be a master of "Plan B." After all, OS X was running secretly on Intel for 5 years -- almost no one expected Apple could lose PPC so smoothly.
I suspect Apple has a Plan B for MS Office, too. Anything else would be very unwise, and potentially grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.
The first lunar rover was on Apollo 15 in 1971.
Of course the civilian population reacts differently than Slashdot readers...
Yes- Spotlight needs fixing. The concepts are good, and in time I think it will be great, but for now it has horrendous usability problems.
Not too long ago, I was using a system with (pre-Spotlight) Panther -- I hit command-F, and the old Find File dialog came up. I was happy to see it instead of Spotlight.
Most of my searches still involve file names, and the old system is superior for that kind of search.