"Taking out choices does not equal easy to use, that is advocating a remote that has one button to make it easier to change channels because you know that a "guide" button just confuses people...."
Yada. Yada. Yada. How many times are you going to post this obvious (and totally flawed) bit of "wisdom".
I mean, it may surprise you, but I completely agree that simply taking a device and chopping features left and right doesn't equate to ease of use. Apple works to a design, and makes choices based on that design philosophy. Simplicity is a goal, but it's not the ONLY goal.
"... and choice is why they use a *Nix OS"
True. And that underlying power is one of the reasons that *I* use a Mac.
Yes, but many of the ways the server or database BECOMES hacked lies in holes in the OS (network buffer overruns, TCP/IP stack hacks, some weird service or port exploit, and so on), which in turn are escalated up into kernel until the entire system becomes rooted.
While the perfect bug-free service will probably never exist, they can be isolated, and communications between the lower-priority services and the kernel can be be better protected, monitored, and defended.
You could make a pressure-sensitive keyboard screen that had the little "home" ridges in the right spots to help things out, but I'm not sure that's enough. (Have to be pressure-sensitive so that you can rest your fingers on the keys without typing.)
Touch PADS, however, are a different story. Apple is busy building multi-touch guestures into its product line, including the iPhone, the Touch, and the Air, with rudimentary support in the MacBooks and the MacBook Pro (two fingered scrolling).
While not touch "screens", a lot of the same kind of manipulations are possible, with the added advantage that you have a place to rest your arms while you work, and that you're not continually cleaning fingerprints off your screen.;)
Which brings us to the question of just why those AREN'T goals? Wait, I know. It's so we can get 5 more FPS out of Unreal, right?
But seriously, even in a transaction-processing server environment, isn't it worth giving up some performance for a system that can't be crashed and can't be hacked?
"Turn signals are a courtesy, nothing else. They allow you to communicate your intentions..."
BS. It's not courtesy, it's safety. They give people the clues they need to keep from running into your worthless ass when you hit the brakes ten feet from your intersection.
"... when it just isn't worth it..."
You mean, when you THINK it isn't worth it. That's an assumption. No matter how smart you think you are, or how good a driver you think you are, you simply can't know the location of every intersection, driveway, car, truck, motorcycle, bike, and kid in your immediate area that may or may not be affected by your actions. If you were omnipresent, you'd be god. You're not god.
Besides, even when you THINK that car a half-mile behind you should have plenty of time to figure out that you're turning, it may be driven a fellow idiot who's busy talking on the cell phone while rumaging around in the glove compartment for a pen. Boom. Close encounter.
Those bright, flashing lights are attention getting for a reason. And failure to use them could turn you (or worse, others) into "incorporeal beings".
From TFA, "...a testament to what can be done by independent musicians [sic] without a label [sic], without the RIAA, and often without a professional studio [sic].... produced by both experienced bands and novice musicians [sic], often in continent-spanning online collaborations."
Ah, good luck in your quest. I suspect Sturgeon's Law applies here... in force.
(Actually, start with the best 10%, and then apply Sturgeon's Law to that.)
Examining the Air's cross-section, and calculating the top and the bottom back, front, and midsection separately as discrete elements, and accounting for the radius curves along the sides, I got a combined total of 56.81 cubic inches. Larger than 52.6, but still smaller than the Eee.
Of course, that got me wondering if what was fit for the goose was fit for the gander, and lead me to search out a cross-section of the Eee, which isn't a simple trapezoid either. In fact, the Eee bulges rather sharply about a third of the way back to nearly its maximum thickness, which means it too is larger than I first calculated.
I think the point here is WHERE you carry all of those things. Most of the time when I travel I carry my iPhone and its cable, my notebook, and a single charger in my backback, and then I put additional uSB chargers, dongles, cables, connectors, and other thingamabobs in a bag in the luggage, where a few extra ounces isn't going to be noticed. You may want those things handy, but you don't need to carrythem.
And Apple dropped internal modems in all of their notebooks back when they made the Intel switch.
The calculations are based on a trapezoidal solid that's 0.16 at the base, 0.76 at the top, and with the other dimensions given. It is thick at one end and thin at the other.
"...but the extra carbon footprint the sealed-in battery exchange costs is ok because, well..., just because."
EXTRA carbon footprint? Give the thing a removable battery and a battery compartment like that of the MBP and you need MORE materials for both the compartment and the battery, and for the replacement battery... which you'd probably have to drive to the Apple store to buy anyway.
"You can actually sell electronic gear on a level competitive with Dell, or anyone else.... extremely cool, extremely well engineered electronics."
Typical financial analysis from someone whose probably only managed and owned a paper route.
The first point to consider is that if they concentrate on hitting Dell's price points they'll have to do the same as Dell and start going for the cheapest components they can find. They'll also have to cut R&D, design, and materials costs. As such, those "extremely well engineered electronics" will begin to be anything but.
And speaking of R&D, one has to remember that Apple, unlike Dell, has an entire operating system division to support. Cut costs and reduce margins, and ultimately you begin to cut out all of those things that make a Mac a Mac.
Next, what's wrong with being high-end? Do you see Lexus or Mercedes or BMW or Jaguar going after the econo-box market?
Further, you're making a common assumption that the "make it up in volume" approach always applies. Making more machines means higher fixed costs, as you need more factories, suppliers, shipping, management, etc.. And I'm willing to bet that Apple is already getting the best deals possible from its suppliers. Besides, do you know how many more machines they'd have to sell to make up the difference if they cut prices 30%?
Which leads us to the next point. You're assuming that price is the primary reason people aren't buying Macs. I mean, it can't be proprietary software needs, Window's requirements, comfort levels, corporate hardware requirements, existing software ownership, lack of games, or the "if it isn't broken too bad then there's no need to fix it" mentality.
If the market isn't ready to switch, then cutting costs simply means cutting revenues.
Regardless of whether or not you're hung up on definitions, I know which one I'd rather spend a lot of time actively working with and using on a day-to-day basis.
If a super-small screen and cramped keyboard were the only consideration, I'd be writing articles on my iPhone.;)
At 12.8x8.94x0.16~0.76, the Air takes up 52.63 cubic inches of space in a bag or briefcase. Your 12" PowerBook, at 10.9x8.6x1.18, takes up a whopping 110.6 cubic inches of space in the same container, or over twice as much room.
Further, the Air is only a third of an inch deeper (8.94 vs. 8.6), so in terms of depth (and in screen height when opened) they're functionally identical. As such, on a airline tray table they'd behave pretty much the same. (Since tray tables are typically 16.5" wide by 9.5-10.5" deep, the Air's extra width has little impact. Still room for it and a cup of coffee.)
Personally, I think the telling point is whether or not you would have paid for a copy if no free version was available. If so, and you're still using the free version then you've definitely deprived the artist of a sale.
When I was growing up we always managed to find money for the music we wanted.
Today, most of the arguments I see are simply rationalizations for keeping your money and spending it on something else.
I'm pretty sure you missed his point. If ebooks become the norm, and if the book can be easily stolen/copied/infringed/whatever, then exactly what principles is the author supposed to leverage in order to "profit"?
Sell t-shirts at his concert? Beg for donations? Add advertising that no one wants and that will be stripped out or blocked at the first opportunity?
And I'm afraid the "make it cheap" mantra doesn't fly either. No matter how cheap you make it, someone is going think a "fair" price is even less.
Finally, the "scale" argument assumes that there's a vast number of people out there who want that particular type of book or movie, when in fact for some genres the audience is already at niche levels.
Try reading Ted Nelson's Literary Machines sometime, especially the section where he discusses architectures for micropayments. There are other internet possibilities out there, each with it's own "physics".
Just just be nine different fronts. Apple should file for summary judgement and immediately sue them for filing a frivolous lawsuit. The iPhone doesn't have "removable storage".
"... sometimes I tap a phone number expecting to edit contact info and it makes an unexpected call."
Happens to me occasionally on the favorites panel. Just have to make sure you tap the right edge on top of the blue arrow button and not in the middle or on the left.
I'd just like to say that most of the your logic here is misplaced. For example, let's say I need a power adaptor at work.
Well, instead of carrying one back and forth all of the time and digging under the desk every day, I simply bought one and left it at work. Problem solved. So if I should need an ethernet connector to get on the office LAN, I'd probably just do the same thing: buy one and leave it connected to the LAN.
For the external drive, I'd probably leave it at home. I mean, how often do you really need to install new software when you're on the road? And software that isn't available by download? Besides, there's always Remote Disk. So if someone hands me a disk I'll just run the utility on their machine.
USB ports? Same home/office situation applies here for most cases. Plug multiple devices into port. Get home, plug single port into Air. And there's also AirPort Express. Back when my main machine was a 17" MBP, my printer and speakers were all plugged into an Express. My mouse was Bluetooth. A shared server handled extra drives. As such, my only physical connection was a power cable.
As SJ says, our future is increasingly wireless.
One final thought. Dongles, cables, drives, and whatnot can easily go into checked baggage, leaving you with a much lighter machine in your briefcase or backpack.
It's easy to simply list problems and disaster worst-case scenarios. Here, however, it should have been equally simple to have given each case more than five seconds of thought and found solutions to each problem. As you said, "we'll have to see how it does."
The Air is the same depth from to back as the 12" PowerBook (just under nine inches). At 12.8" it's two inches wider, true, but as my experience the depth (and as such screen height) are the primary controlling factors, the Air should fit that little table just fine. (BTW, most coach airline seating is 17-18" wide.)
So while I agree that footprints matter, I think the Air's footprint is just fine for this situation.
Slashdot Mirror
"Taking out choices does not equal easy to use, that is advocating a remote that has one button to make it easier to change channels because you know that a "guide" button just confuses people...."
Yada. Yada. Yada. How many times are you going to post this obvious (and totally flawed) bit of "wisdom".
I mean, it may surprise you, but I completely agree that simply taking a device and chopping features left and right doesn't equate to ease of use. Apple works to a design, and makes choices based on that design philosophy. Simplicity is a goal, but it's not the ONLY goal.
"... and choice is why they use a *Nix OS"
True. And that underlying power is one of the reasons that *I* use a Mac.
Macs are moving forward into guestures and other interface technologies, which makes simply having another mouse button seem... quaint. ;)
Yes, but many of the ways the server or database BECOMES hacked lies in holes in the OS (network buffer overruns, TCP/IP stack hacks, some weird service or port exploit, and so on), which in turn are escalated up into kernel until the entire system becomes rooted.
While the perfect bug-free service will probably never exist, they can be isolated, and communications between the lower-priority services and the kernel can be be better protected, monitored, and defended.
You could make a pressure-sensitive keyboard screen that had the little "home" ridges in the right spots to help things out, but I'm not sure that's enough. (Have to be pressure-sensitive so that you can rest your fingers on the keys without typing.)
Touch PADS, however, are a different story. Apple is busy building multi-touch guestures into its product line, including the iPhone, the Touch, and the Air, with rudimentary support in the MacBooks and the MacBook Pro (two fingered scrolling).
;)
It's only a matter of time before it hits the desktop.
While not touch "screens", a lot of the same kind of manipulations are possible, with the added advantage that you have a place to rest your arms while you work, and that you're not continually cleaning fingerprints off your screen.
"If your goal is reliability and security..."
Which brings us to the question of just why those AREN'T goals? Wait, I know. It's so we can get 5 more FPS out of Unreal, right?
But seriously, even in a transaction-processing server environment, isn't it worth giving up some performance for a system that can't be crashed and can't be hacked?
"Turn signals are a courtesy, nothing else. They allow you to communicate your intentions..."
BS. It's not courtesy, it's safety. They give people the clues they need to keep from running into your worthless ass when you hit the brakes ten feet from your intersection.
"... when it just isn't worth it..."
You mean, when you THINK it isn't worth it. That's an assumption. No matter how smart you think you are, or how good a driver you think you are, you simply can't know the location of every intersection, driveway, car, truck, motorcycle, bike, and kid in your immediate area that may or may not be affected by your actions. If you were omnipresent, you'd be god. You're not god.
Besides, even when you THINK that car a half-mile behind you should have plenty of time to figure out that you're turning, it may be driven a fellow idiot who's busy talking on the cell phone while rumaging around in the glove compartment for a pen. Boom. Close encounter.
Those bright, flashing lights are attention getting for a reason. And failure to use them could turn you (or worse, others) into "incorporeal beings".
"If they are decent, I'll buy them..."
... produced by both experienced bands and novice musicians [sic], often in continent-spanning online collaborations."
From TFA, "...a testament to what can be done by independent musicians [sic] without a label [sic], without the RIAA, and often without a professional studio [sic].
Ah, good luck in your quest. I suspect Sturgeon's Law applies here... in force.
(Actually, start with the best 10%, and then apply Sturgeon's Law to that.)
"But my point is that I began to spend money on music again, and the RIAA had my bootlegging friends to thank."
You [singular] began spending money again thanks to your bootlegging friends [plural].
Pretty much sums up the entire problem, doesn't it?
Examining the Air's cross-section, and calculating the top and the bottom back, front, and midsection separately as discrete elements, and accounting for the radius curves along the sides, I got a combined total of 56.81 cubic inches. Larger than 52.6, but still smaller than the Eee.
Of course, that got me wondering if what was fit for the goose was fit for the gander, and lead me to search out a cross-section of the Eee, which isn't a simple trapezoid either. In fact, the Eee bulges rather sharply about a third of the way back to nearly its maximum thickness, which means it too is larger than I first calculated.
Shall we run those numbers?
I think the point here is WHERE you carry all of those things. Most of the time when I travel I carry my iPhone and its cable, my notebook, and a single charger in my backback, and then I put additional uSB chargers, dongles, cables, connectors, and other thingamabobs in a bag in the luggage, where a few extra ounces isn't going to be noticed. You may want those things handy, but you don't need to carrythem.
And Apple dropped internal modems in all of their notebooks back when they made the Intel switch.
The calculations are based on a trapezoidal solid that's 0.16 at the base, 0.76 at the top, and with the other dimensions given. It is thick at one end and thin at the other.
"...but the extra carbon footprint the sealed-in battery exchange costs is ok because, well..., just because."
EXTRA carbon footprint? Give the thing a removable battery and a battery compartment like that of the MBP and you need MORE materials for both the compartment and the battery, and for the replacement battery... which you'd probably have to drive to the Apple store to buy anyway.
Oops. Blew the stock link. Here's the correct version, where you can see that Apple is outperforming the market by over 2,000%.
Yep, Apple's "marketing strategies" and "business practices" really suck.
"You can actually sell electronic gear on a level competitive with Dell, or anyone else. ... extremely cool, extremely well engineered electronics."
Typical financial analysis from someone whose probably only managed and owned a paper route.
The first point to consider is that if they concentrate on hitting Dell's price points they'll have to do the same as Dell and start going for the cheapest components they can find. They'll also have to cut R&D, design, and materials costs. As such, those "extremely well engineered electronics" will begin to be anything but.
And speaking of R&D, one has to remember that Apple, unlike Dell, has an entire operating system division to support. Cut costs and reduce margins, and ultimately you begin to cut out all of those things that make a Mac a Mac.
Next, what's wrong with being high-end? Do you see Lexus or Mercedes or BMW or Jaguar going after the econo-box market?
Further, you're making a common assumption that the "make it up in volume" approach always applies. Making more machines means higher fixed costs, as you need more factories, suppliers, shipping, management, etc.. And I'm willing to bet that Apple is already getting the best deals possible from its suppliers. Besides, do you know how many more machines they'd have to sell to make up the difference if they cut prices 30%?
Which leads us to the next point. You're assuming that price is the primary reason people aren't buying Macs. I mean, it can't be proprietary software needs, Window's requirements, comfort levels, corporate hardware requirements, existing software ownership, lack of games, or the "if it isn't broken too bad then there's no need to fix it" mentality.
If the market isn't ready to switch, then cutting costs simply means cutting revenues.
Finally, take a peek at Apple's stock performance vs. Dells. I'd say they're competing quite well.
Regardless of whether or not you're hung up on definitions, I know which one I'd rather spend a lot of time actively working with and using on a day-to-day basis.
;)
If a super-small screen and cramped keyboard were the only consideration, I'd be writing articles on my iPhone.
At 12.8x8.94x0.16~0.76, the Air takes up 52.63 cubic inches of space in a bag or briefcase. Your 12" PowerBook, at 10.9x8.6x1.18, takes up a whopping 110.6 cubic inches of space in the same container, or over twice as much room.
Further, the Air is only a third of an inch deeper (8.94 vs. 8.6), so in terms of depth (and in screen height when opened) they're functionally identical. As such, on a airline tray table they'd behave pretty much the same. (Since tray tables are typically 16.5" wide by 9.5-10.5" deep, the Air's extra width has little impact. Still room for it and a cup of coffee.)
Heck, going by the same calculations, the Air is even smaller than the Eee.
Is it storage if you don't store anything on it? I believe the iPhone keeps everything in the phone's flash memory.
Personally, I think the telling point is whether or not you would have paid for a copy if no free version was available. If so, and you're still using the free version then you've definitely deprived the artist of a sale.
When I was growing up we always managed to find money for the music we wanted.
Today, most of the arguments I see are simply rationalizations for keeping your money and spending it on something else.
Ever heard of the Free Rider problem?
I'm pretty sure you missed his point. If ebooks become the norm, and if the book can be easily stolen/copied/infringed/whatever, then exactly what principles is the author supposed to leverage in order to "profit"?
Sell t-shirts at his concert? Beg for donations? Add advertising that no one wants and that will be stripped out or blocked at the first opportunity?
And I'm afraid the "make it cheap" mantra doesn't fly either. No matter how cheap you make it, someone is going think a "fair" price is even less.
Finally, the "scale" argument assumes that there's a vast number of people out there who want that particular type of book or movie, when in fact for some genres the audience is already at niche levels.
Try reading Ted Nelson's Literary Machines sometime, especially the section where he discusses architectures for micropayments. There are other internet possibilities out there, each with it's own "physics".
Just just be nine different fronts. Apple should file for summary judgement and immediately sue them for filing a frivolous lawsuit. The iPhone doesn't have "removable storage".
"... sometimes I tap a phone number expecting to edit contact info and it makes an unexpected call."
Happens to me occasionally on the favorites panel. Just have to make sure you tap the right edge on top of the blue arrow button and not in the middle or on the left.
I'd just like to say that most of the your logic here is misplaced. For example, let's say I need a power adaptor at work.
Well, instead of carrying one back and forth all of the time and digging under the desk every day, I simply bought one and left it at work. Problem solved. So if I should need an ethernet connector to get on the office LAN, I'd probably just do the same thing: buy one and leave it connected to the LAN.
For the external drive, I'd probably leave it at home. I mean, how often do you really need to install new software when you're on the road? And software that isn't available by download? Besides, there's always Remote Disk. So if someone hands me a disk I'll just run the utility on their machine.
USB ports? Same home/office situation applies here for most cases. Plug multiple devices into port. Get home, plug single port into Air. And there's also AirPort Express. Back when my main machine was a 17" MBP, my printer and speakers were all plugged into an Express. My mouse was Bluetooth. A shared server handled extra drives. As such, my only physical connection was a power cable.
As SJ says, our future is increasingly wireless.
One final thought. Dongles, cables, drives, and whatnot can easily go into checked baggage, leaving you with a much lighter machine in your briefcase or backpack.
It's easy to simply list problems and disaster worst-case scenarios. Here, however, it should have been equally simple to have given each case more than five seconds of thought and found solutions to each problem. As you said, "we'll have to see how it does."
The Air is the same depth from to back as the 12" PowerBook (just under nine inches). At 12.8" it's two inches wider, true, but as my experience the depth (and as such screen height) are the primary controlling factors, the Air should fit that little table just fine. (BTW, most coach airline seating is 17-18" wide.)
So while I agree that footprints matter, I think the Air's footprint is just fine for this situation.