Interesting thing about the dollar coin is that it is in wide circulation in Ecuador (due to the dollarization of 2000 based on the hyperinflation of the sucre). It was odd seeing so many transactions with the US dollar coin there (parking, transport, food, etc), when I have almost never seen it in circulation in the US. It's actually odd just using US currency in a country that currently has a president with a measure of a anti-US sentiment and strong ties with Cuba, Venezuela, etc.
I'm 30, and while I don't expect on dying soon, if I did the best way to get the word out would be through Facebook. Sure one of my relatives could put an obit in the newspaper, but most of my friends would find out much faster and more efficiently if they got a notice of my passing-away as a status update. Even people that might not be connected to me directly would likely find out pretty quickly through those that were without too much extra effort. Sure that probably wouldn't work for a lot of people in older age groups, but if the trend is for more and more people to use social networking we might as well use those outlets to spread news that is worthwhile instead of constant updates of trivial information.
Honestly AT&T are making some poor decisions right now. Whatever your opinion on the iPhone it has changed the game with cell phones, and has been a huge win for AT&T. I have no idea how many new customers the iPhone has given AT&T, but I am one, and most of the iPhone owners I know also switched networks so it must be a pretty substantial amount. The thing is, iPhone users have no loyalty to AT&T so when the exclusivity contract is over a huge number will jump ship. I would have thought that AT&T would be jumping through hoops to appease Apple so that when it's time to renegotiate the contract things go well for them, but as I see it now, Apple would make much more money opening the iPhone to Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T when they are able. I would love to see the iPhone on all the networks because they we could have some competition on plans/pricing.
AT&T just screws us over whenever they can. I'm still on the first gen iPhone and to upgrade to the latest I will have to pay at least $15 more a month to get the most basic plan ($10 more for the 3g data, and $5 for the 200 text that were included in the original plan). I'm not really one to have government step in and mess with businesses, but something should be done with the wireless providers because I'm tired of being screwed over.
I agree. I was browsing some areas of places where I've lived and while there are some new higher quality images in parts of Honduras, my current residence in the US has a lower res image than it had previously (although it is newer now).
I also think there should be some sort of tag listing the date of the image (maybe there is but I can't find it) so that if I'm planning a trip I can tell that the image was from 3 years ago and that the roads could have changed since.
Considering a lot of the ads I see are Flash based ads then by way of viewing the web on the iPhone you already have a built-in ad blocker because it doesn't support Flash. It's not a bug it's a feature sort of thing.
I work at a medium-sized printing house in their prepress department and my specific job primarily uses Photoshop for color correction, retouching, etc. I've used Photoshop for over 10 years including schooling and various jobs. To me creating an online version of Photoshop just doesn't make very much sense. Photoshop is one of those programs where its demands scale each release (RAM, processor, HD space, etc). I can't see a reason where I'd want to create a significant bottleneck by using an "internet app." I regularly work on files over 200 MBs each and working over a local network frustrates me enough already that I can only imagine that an "internet app" would be magnitudes worse. I'm glad Adobe is looking ahead but I hope they blindly don't assume that what is best for their corporation is best for their users.
Ten years down the road is a long time and tech will probably be significantly different than what we have today. However I still think some things don't change. I personally don't want to rent software or deal with advertising within a program (causing it to be free, but reducing my efficiency). I think most of us would rather own something than rent it. Also add that in 10 years the whole world will not be magically wired with fiber or whatever so if all software companies start going on a purely "internet software solution" any developing country will be thrown a nice roadblock halting their tech progression at least in using the latest software.
Consider that CS3 really didn't give many reasons to upgrade over CS2 (at least in Photoshop) if Adobe doesn't play it smart you'll have a lot of people using previous versions (think XP vs. Vista).
I got my iPhone last night, I was upgrading from a 4 year old sony erickson model (free with activation), so it is quite the upgrade. However after running it through a few things over the period of about half a day this is what I'm surprised isn't there.
No support for dragging/dropping a song/movie in iTunes. This was strange since I've been doing it for ages on an iPod. I now have to create a playlist, add my songs into that playlist, then sync the playlist to the iPhone. Too many steps in my opinion to add a few songs. Please make the behavior similar to the iPod.
Would like to have support to delete multiple emails at a time, and an option to delete all the emails in the trash at once. For some reason when adding my gmail account it loaded up all of my emails for the past 3 weeks (around 300) so I had to go and manually delete each of them. I'm not sure why it loaded so many as I had most of the conversations archived on my gmail account and there weren't many in my gmail inbox when the iPhone started retrieving them.
There has been some strange behavior connecting to WiFi routers. At my home it could see my network, and I typed my password since it was locked. After trying, the iPhone said it could not connect. After trying multiple times I ended up changing the security on my router to WEP from WPA and it worked. However my friend had the opposite problem and changed it from WEP to WPA and it did work for him. This could be a router issue, but I don't understand why my iPhone had problems when my mac didn't connecting to the same WiFi.
If you are talking to someone on the phone you cannot edit contact information. This is a pain since sometimes I am getting a new address or phone number that I need to add while I'm talking on the phone to someone. Wish this would be implemented.
Other than that I've been impressed with quite a few features I've stumbled across. I'm sure I'll find other things I'd like updated but I've only had it for less than a day.
The chances of a Zune Scene editor running into a Microsoft Zune employee in the wild are pretty slim, but recently the stars were aligned and I got the inside scoop on the Zune 2.0 and also the flash based Zune coming out in 2007.
This short article seems to me as just a way to get some free publicity for the Zune (Slashdot front page will reach a few million just by itself). Seriously how many "Zune Scene Editors" are there? Maybe a handful if you're generous, but more likely one. A random business trip will not have you sitting next to a Zune engineer on a plane (or where-ever) who will freely talk about the product. There are either details left out such as this editor visiting the Redmond campus and running into this guy eating lunch in the cafeteria or, much more likely, this is a ploy by the Microsoft marketing machine. I'll have to believe the one that is more plausible.
I agree with parent on this issue. How hard would it be to index offline media to be able to search using Spotlight? I worked at a Photography Studio (just quit) where it would have saved me so much time if I could have used Spotlight to search for old archives rather than the program we used (Portfolio). Spotlight searches the layer names in Photoshop files, and any text within the file as well as a lot more information that could have been very useful for us in the archives. We were limited in Portfolio to only search by file name or folder which became a pain many times. (You could also manually view thumbnails or setup keywords but keywords weren't worth the hassle of doing.) I know there are hidden indexes for spotlight somewhere on my computer and I think there could be a program that would just make a new index for an inserted disc (or whatever media). If not Apple, someone should get on this idea and create it.
"Today we would like to introduce our next generation 'razor.' Going back to one of our root products we had early in the millennium we have decided to name this the Fusion 2. However, unlike it's name-sake, there are no blades present. Today's introduction of the 'Fusion 2' is the first time we have been able to implement a small fusion reactor (thus the name) coupled with a high-powered laser that will remove any unwanted hair almost instantaneously. Today we embark on a new revolution in shaving history!*"
*Sides effects may include blindness or holes due to prolonged exposure. Device may double as a laser-pen.
Well as long as I can get my GameStop pre-order (I was fourth at my store that had 12 pre-orders allowed) then I'll be happy. Sure I know I'm not guaranteed anything, but I'm crossing my fingers. It should mean it will go for even more on Ebay!
...GIMP has multi-level undo as a keyboard shortcut. In Photoshop, ctrl-Z toggles undo-redo. When I'm using a tablet, a quick pen stroke may mean several paint operations, and to undo it means going over to the History panel and manually paging back. (If there is an easy keyboard shortcut for this, please tell me as it really pisses me off)
There is an easy keyboard shortcut for multiple undo in Photoshop: ctrl-Z will toggle Undo/Redo like you said, however if you press ctrl-alt-z then you will continue to go back sequential steps in the history palette. Hopefully this will help you.
Nice story, but expense is relative. Time = money, so any extra time the little kid spends dealing with bugs in GIMP or configuring it to use in whatever system he has could and will often be equivalent to the price of a Photoshop upgrade if not more so. If the little kid wants to work in a design studio or publishing house he will have to learn Photoshop whereas no one will ever have to learn GIMP. Sure he could freelance it on his own, but there is a reason why Photoshop (and much of the Creative Suite) is a standard in the industry.
Your generalization of me being "lazy to learn" is ignorant. I said GIMP has it's place, but it is not to be a replacement for Photoshop. Your analogy is bad also. While a calculator would speed up calculating my finances compared to an abacus, GIMP will never be able to do the same for my Photoshop work. Now maybe if GIMP were counting on my fingers and Photoshop were an abacus I would agree. Not everyone needs to count above 10, and not everyone needs to work with hundreds of layers in an image file either.
For you to have GIMP become an industry standard you will have to have all of the features companies need. There will have to be people who know how to use those features. There will have to be schools that teach those features. And there will need to be someone to provide technical support when those features don't work as expected. Photoshop has this and this cycle continually becomes stronger. There is no major reason for anyone to use GIMP over Photoshop so I'm not sure why you think an insignificant cost would break the cycle.
And just because I choose not to do something a different way compared to what is normal for me doesn't imply that I'm lazy. I choose to walk on my feet since walking on my hands is inconvenient. I also choose to paint by holding a brush with my hand rather than my foot because I don't feel the need to train my foot how to paint. I'd rather create then take the time to learn a new way to make something unless that new way is substantially more beneficial. Of course maybe you walk on your hands and paint with your feet. If you do, then good for you, I'm glad you found the way you prefer.
I have a degree in graphic design. I currently work at a photography studio doing Photoshop work full-time. I've used Photoshop for around 10 years now. That is my background.
Let's assume for all purposes that GIMP can do everything that Photoshop can do (yes, I know it can't). For me to learn the GIMP UI and become as proficient as I am now in Photoshop would take some time. If it took me more than 8 hours (which is pretty much assured) then it makes no sense for me to use GIMP. I could buy a Photoshop upgrade for less then the productivity time I lost learning GIMP. Even if I had to buy a full new version the time lost learning the new program would be more and would actually cost me quite a bit. Although GIMP may appear to be be free, it really is not to anyone who uses a image editing program such as Photoshop to make a living. It may be great for the hobbyist, but not for the professional.
Re:The problem with guis is they don't work
on
GUIs Get a Makeover
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· Score: 1
There's nothing you can't do in a shell that a gui provides extra ability for, when you've been well trained or decided to -learn- how to use a text mode interface well.
I use photoshop.
This was also my response as I read the grandparent post. However, after I read the parent post I thought about the times when I have used Photoshop without any menus or toolbars showing. Granted, it is a pain in the neck and I never work like that for long, but it is possible if you know the keyboard shortcuts. You could theoretically work in Photoshop doing many things without toolbars or menus. However, if you were to go for photo retouching or any planned-out design you would need at least a cursor and a window to view your image. I guess you could do some kind of abtract "art" without anything viewed on the screen (turn off your monitor while running the program and see what you get) but I doubt the results you get would be very useful.
Uncle Rico: Back in '82, I used to be able to throw a pigskin a quarter mile.
Kip: Are you serious?
Uncle Rico: I'm dead serious ...
Uncle Rico: How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?... Yeah... Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.
Stop living in the past and then maybe you'll get somewhere this next election.
I liked the LOTR movies, even waited in line to watch them opening night and all that. Just a few things I ask though for The Hobbit. Please don't make it faster to read the book than to watch the movie. Those movies just became incredibly too long. Also, don't split it into two films.
So how long will it be before Hollywood make the Shannara books by Terry Brooks now?
I don't really want to download current movies I can get on a dvd. I can easily just buy them and rip them to my hard drive. There may be a possibility for obscure good movies I might want, but the odds of those coming online soon are probably less than being able to find them through ebay or some p2p/bittorrent solution.
What I would pay for are for movies currently playing in the theater. Heck, you could even make them limited to only play for a week/day after you downloaded them if needed. I would spend $15 to be able to watch whatever is new in the comfort of my home theater with family or friends than rather wait in line and deal with other theater inconveniences. Depending on the movie I would even spend more (split the cost with my friends of course). I doubt this offer will ever happen, but I do think it would be interesting to see how well it could do.
Don't get me wrong, the theater experience is great with the huge screen and the good sound system, but sometimes I'd rather be comfortable on my couch.
While I agree with much of your comments, I still ponder a few things. With the introduction of Leopard next year and the "Time Machine" feature it makes sense to have another drive to backup to. With Apple touting this feature as easy this is something I would think they would want all their users to use. So unless you buy another external hard drive or partition your main (not the best solution against hard disk failure I might add) then this feature will go largely unused.
Also if there were two drive bays, the target audience you describe would either buy another drive at purchase or take it to an Apple store to have it installed if they wanted another. Either way adds more revenue to Apple. If they don't want a second drive the bay can go unused and it really wouldn't matter.
I understand I'm not the norm for this market segment. I currently own a G5 tower for the expandability. I was going to get a Mac Pro in the future, but this new iMac is just at the border of what I could use. I'm not sure which way I'll go now. I'll either have to get some external HDs or go with the Mac Pro. I'm sure there are a few more thinking the same thing.
So I've been looking to buy a new monitor recently. I need at least a 23" so this new 24" iMac actually might do very well for me (considering I would end up buying a new computer anyway by early next year). However after looking at the specs there is only one thing I really see missing - why not another bay for a second hard drive? With the extra room created by another 4 inches of screen I would think it pretty easy for Apple engineers to find space for two hard drives. I can only see this as not wanting buyers of the Mac Pro buying the iMac instead. Sure I can by some Firewire external drives but I'd rather have two drives inside.
On a side note it would be nice for Apple to be competitive on graphic cards and offer newer models than they usually do.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like his next job is confirmed to be at Apple, although what position is undisclosed. http://recode.net/2014/08/31/v...
Interesting thing about the dollar coin is that it is in wide circulation in Ecuador (due to the dollarization of 2000 based on the hyperinflation of the sucre). It was odd seeing so many transactions with the US dollar coin there (parking, transport, food, etc), when I have almost never seen it in circulation in the US. It's actually odd just using US currency in a country that currently has a president with a measure of a anti-US sentiment and strong ties with Cuba, Venezuela, etc.
I'm 30, and while I don't expect on dying soon, if I did the best way to get the word out would be through Facebook. Sure one of my relatives could put an obit in the newspaper, but most of my friends would find out much faster and more efficiently if they got a notice of my passing-away as a status update. Even people that might not be connected to me directly would likely find out pretty quickly through those that were without too much extra effort. Sure that probably wouldn't work for a lot of people in older age groups, but if the trend is for more and more people to use social networking we might as well use those outlets to spread news that is worthwhile instead of constant updates of trivial information.
Honestly AT&T are making some poor decisions right now. Whatever your opinion on the iPhone it has changed the game with cell phones, and has been a huge win for AT&T. I have no idea how many new customers the iPhone has given AT&T, but I am one, and most of the iPhone owners I know also switched networks so it must be a pretty substantial amount. The thing is, iPhone users have no loyalty to AT&T so when the exclusivity contract is over a huge number will jump ship. I would have thought that AT&T would be jumping through hoops to appease Apple so that when it's time to renegotiate the contract things go well for them, but as I see it now, Apple would make much more money opening the iPhone to Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T when they are able. I would love to see the iPhone on all the networks because they we could have some competition on plans/pricing.
AT&T just screws us over whenever they can. I'm still on the first gen iPhone and to upgrade to the latest I will have to pay at least $15 more a month to get the most basic plan ($10 more for the 3g data, and $5 for the 200 text that were included in the original plan). I'm not really one to have government step in and mess with businesses, but something should be done with the wireless providers because I'm tired of being screwed over.
I agree. I was browsing some areas of places where I've lived and while there are some new higher quality images in parts of Honduras, my current residence in the US has a lower res image than it had previously (although it is newer now).
I also think there should be some sort of tag listing the date of the image (maybe there is but I can't find it) so that if I'm planning a trip I can tell that the image was from 3 years ago and that the roads could have changed since.
Considering a lot of the ads I see are Flash based ads then by way of viewing the web on the iPhone you already have a built-in ad blocker because it doesn't support Flash. It's not a bug it's a feature sort of thing.
Did my bookmark take me to Digg somehow with a Slashdot theme? I wouldn't have expected any story from "The Onion" to make frontpage /. material.
I work at a medium-sized printing house in their prepress department and my specific job primarily uses Photoshop for color correction, retouching, etc. I've used Photoshop for over 10 years including schooling and various jobs. To me creating an online version of Photoshop just doesn't make very much sense. Photoshop is one of those programs where its demands scale each release (RAM, processor, HD space, etc). I can't see a reason where I'd want to create a significant bottleneck by using an "internet app." I regularly work on files over 200 MBs each and working over a local network frustrates me enough already that I can only imagine that an "internet app" would be magnitudes worse. I'm glad Adobe is looking ahead but I hope they blindly don't assume that what is best for their corporation is best for their users. Ten years down the road is a long time and tech will probably be significantly different than what we have today. However I still think some things don't change. I personally don't want to rent software or deal with advertising within a program (causing it to be free, but reducing my efficiency). I think most of us would rather own something than rent it. Also add that in 10 years the whole world will not be magically wired with fiber or whatever so if all software companies start going on a purely "internet software solution" any developing country will be thrown a nice roadblock halting their tech progression at least in using the latest software. Consider that CS3 really didn't give many reasons to upgrade over CS2 (at least in Photoshop) if Adobe doesn't play it smart you'll have a lot of people using previous versions (think XP vs. Vista).
I got my iPhone last night, I was upgrading from a 4 year old sony erickson model (free with activation), so it is quite the upgrade. However after running it through a few things over the period of about half a day this is what I'm surprised isn't there.
No support for dragging/dropping a song/movie in iTunes. This was strange since I've been doing it for ages on an iPod. I now have to create a playlist, add my songs into that playlist, then sync the playlist to the iPhone. Too many steps in my opinion to add a few songs. Please make the behavior similar to the iPod.
Would like to have support to delete multiple emails at a time, and an option to delete all the emails in the trash at once. For some reason when adding my gmail account it loaded up all of my emails for the past 3 weeks (around 300) so I had to go and manually delete each of them. I'm not sure why it loaded so many as I had most of the conversations archived on my gmail account and there weren't many in my gmail inbox when the iPhone started retrieving them.
There has been some strange behavior connecting to WiFi routers. At my home it could see my network, and I typed my password since it was locked. After trying, the iPhone said it could not connect. After trying multiple times I ended up changing the security on my router to WEP from WPA and it worked. However my friend had the opposite problem and changed it from WEP to WPA and it did work for him. This could be a router issue, but I don't understand why my iPhone had problems when my mac didn't connecting to the same WiFi.
If you are talking to someone on the phone you cannot edit contact information. This is a pain since sometimes I am getting a new address or phone number that I need to add while I'm talking on the phone to someone. Wish this would be implemented.
Other than that I've been impressed with quite a few features I've stumbled across. I'm sure I'll find other things I'd like updated but I've only had it for less than a day.
This short article seems to me as just a way to get some free publicity for the Zune (Slashdot front page will reach a few million just by itself). Seriously how many "Zune Scene Editors" are there? Maybe a handful if you're generous, but more likely one. A random business trip will not have you sitting next to a Zune engineer on a plane (or where-ever) who will freely talk about the product. There are either details left out such as this editor visiting the Redmond campus and running into this guy eating lunch in the cafeteria or, much more likely, this is a ploy by the Microsoft marketing machine. I'll have to believe the one that is more plausible.
Looking at the folder of software I use for new installs this is what I would have (no particular order):
Some other nice programs (although not essential):
Obviously I have more programs but these are the ones I feel could be used by most people.
I agree with parent on this issue. How hard would it be to index offline media to be able to search using Spotlight? I worked at a Photography Studio (just quit) where it would have saved me so much time if I could have used Spotlight to search for old archives rather than the program we used (Portfolio). Spotlight searches the layer names in Photoshop files, and any text within the file as well as a lot more information that could have been very useful for us in the archives. We were limited in Portfolio to only search by file name or folder which became a pain many times. (You could also manually view thumbnails or setup keywords but keywords weren't worth the hassle of doing.) I know there are hidden indexes for spotlight somewhere on my computer and I think there could be a program that would just make a new index for an inserted disc (or whatever media). If not Apple, someone should get on this idea and create it.
One day in the future...
"Today we would like to introduce our next generation 'razor.' Going back to one of our root products we had early in the millennium we have decided to name this the Fusion 2. However, unlike it's name-sake, there are no blades present. Today's introduction of the 'Fusion 2' is the first time we have been able to implement a small fusion reactor (thus the name) coupled with a high-powered laser that will remove any unwanted hair almost instantaneously. Today we embark on a new revolution in shaving history!*"
*Sides effects may include blindness or holes due to prolonged exposure. Device may double as a laser-pen.
Well as long as I can get my GameStop pre-order (I was fourth at my store that had 12 pre-orders allowed) then I'll be happy. Sure I know I'm not guaranteed anything, but I'm crossing my fingers. It should mean it will go for even more on Ebay!
There is an easy keyboard shortcut for multiple undo in Photoshop: ctrl-Z will toggle Undo/Redo like you said, however if you press ctrl-alt-z then you will continue to go back sequential steps in the history palette. Hopefully this will help you.
Nice story, but expense is relative. Time = money, so any extra time the little kid spends dealing with bugs in GIMP or configuring it to use in whatever system he has could and will often be equivalent to the price of a Photoshop upgrade if not more so. If the little kid wants to work in a design studio or publishing house he will have to learn Photoshop whereas no one will ever have to learn GIMP. Sure he could freelance it on his own, but there is a reason why Photoshop (and much of the Creative Suite) is a standard in the industry.
Your generalization of me being "lazy to learn" is ignorant. I said GIMP has it's place, but it is not to be a replacement for Photoshop. Your analogy is bad also. While a calculator would speed up calculating my finances compared to an abacus, GIMP will never be able to do the same for my Photoshop work. Now maybe if GIMP were counting on my fingers and Photoshop were an abacus I would agree. Not everyone needs to count above 10, and not everyone needs to work with hundreds of layers in an image file either.
For you to have GIMP become an industry standard you will have to have all of the features companies need. There will have to be people who know how to use those features. There will have to be schools that teach those features. And there will need to be someone to provide technical support when those features don't work as expected. Photoshop has this and this cycle continually becomes stronger. There is no major reason for anyone to use GIMP over Photoshop so I'm not sure why you think an insignificant cost would break the cycle.
And just because I choose not to do something a different way compared to what is normal for me doesn't imply that I'm lazy. I choose to walk on my feet since walking on my hands is inconvenient. I also choose to paint by holding a brush with my hand rather than my foot because I don't feel the need to train my foot how to paint. I'd rather create then take the time to learn a new way to make something unless that new way is substantially more beneficial. Of course maybe you walk on your hands and paint with your feet. If you do, then good for you, I'm glad you found the way you prefer.
I have a degree in graphic design. I currently work at a photography studio doing Photoshop work full-time. I've used Photoshop for around 10 years now. That is my background.
Let's assume for all purposes that GIMP can do everything that Photoshop can do (yes, I know it can't). For me to learn the GIMP UI and become as proficient as I am now in Photoshop would take some time. If it took me more than 8 hours (which is pretty much assured) then it makes no sense for me to use GIMP. I could buy a Photoshop upgrade for less then the productivity time I lost learning GIMP. Even if I had to buy a full new version the time lost learning the new program would be more and would actually cost me quite a bit. Although GIMP may appear to be be free, it really is not to anyone who uses a image editing program such as Photoshop to make a living. It may be great for the hobbyist, but not for the professional.
I saw this sentence in the article and didn't read more:
Do I even need to list the examples that state the contrary?
Just in time for Vista!
This was also my response as I read the grandparent post. However, after I read the parent post I thought about the times when I have used Photoshop without any menus or toolbars showing. Granted, it is a pain in the neck and I never work like that for long, but it is possible if you know the keyboard shortcuts. You could theoretically work in Photoshop doing many things without toolbars or menus. However, if you were to go for photo retouching or any planned-out design you would need at least a cursor and a window to view your image. I guess you could do some kind of abtract "art" without anything viewed on the screen (turn off your monitor while running the program and see what you get) but I doubt the results you get would be very useful.
This reminds me of a movie quote:
Stop living in the past and then maybe you'll get somewhere this next election.
I liked the LOTR movies, even waited in line to watch them opening night and all that. Just a few things I ask though for The Hobbit. Please don't make it faster to read the book than to watch the movie. Those movies just became incredibly too long. Also, don't split it into two films.
So how long will it be before Hollywood make the Shannara books by Terry Brooks now?
I don't really want to download current movies I can get on a dvd. I can easily just buy them and rip them to my hard drive. There may be a possibility for obscure good movies I might want, but the odds of those coming online soon are probably less than being able to find them through ebay or some p2p/bittorrent solution.
What I would pay for are for movies currently playing in the theater. Heck, you could even make them limited to only play for a week/day after you downloaded them if needed. I would spend $15 to be able to watch whatever is new in the comfort of my home theater with family or friends than rather wait in line and deal with other theater inconveniences. Depending on the movie I would even spend more (split the cost with my friends of course). I doubt this offer will ever happen, but I do think it would be interesting to see how well it could do.
Don't get me wrong, the theater experience is great with the huge screen and the good sound system, but sometimes I'd rather be comfortable on my couch.
While I agree with much of your comments, I still ponder a few things. With the introduction of Leopard next year and the "Time Machine" feature it makes sense to have another drive to backup to. With Apple touting this feature as easy this is something I would think they would want all their users to use. So unless you buy another external hard drive or partition your main (not the best solution against hard disk failure I might add) then this feature will go largely unused.
Also if there were two drive bays, the target audience you describe would either buy another drive at purchase or take it to an Apple store to have it installed if they wanted another. Either way adds more revenue to Apple. If they don't want a second drive the bay can go unused and it really wouldn't matter.
I understand I'm not the norm for this market segment. I currently own a G5 tower for the expandability. I was going to get a Mac Pro in the future, but this new iMac is just at the border of what I could use. I'm not sure which way I'll go now. I'll either have to get some external HDs or go with the Mac Pro. I'm sure there are a few more thinking the same thing.
So I've been looking to buy a new monitor recently. I need at least a 23" so this new 24" iMac actually might do very well for me (considering I would end up buying a new computer anyway by early next year). However after looking at the specs there is only one thing I really see missing - why not another bay for a second hard drive? With the extra room created by another 4 inches of screen I would think it pretty easy for Apple engineers to find space for two hard drives. I can only see this as not wanting buyers of the Mac Pro buying the iMac instead. Sure I can by some Firewire external drives but I'd rather have two drives inside.
On a side note it would be nice for Apple to be competitive on graphic cards and offer newer models than they usually do.