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| 5/24 |
| 2007/7/1-5 [Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:47143 Activity:high |
6/30 JOBS IS YOUR NEW iGOD
\- link:tinyurl.com/2sxpf4
\_ Here is the full article:
http://nymag.com/news/features/33524
\_ Maybe he will actually allow his OS to run in a VM some day.
I don't get all of the iPhone hype. It's a phone. It's a nice
phone, but it's a phone. It doesn't do anything existing
devices didn't do, do them cheaper, or possibly even better (I
haven't used one yet, so I can't say). Why is there so much
hype over a flipping phone? My coworker took off work yesterday
to go get one and when he did he had to spam us all with photos
of him in line, him opening the box, and so on. Give me a
break. I'm sure I'll have some similar device in a year or two
and it will be more featureful and cost half as much. Why is
this such a "must have" device that people will wait in line
to pay $600 for one? And I'm not talking Mac geeks here. I'm
talking 20 year old receptionists in Des Moines.
\_ let me guess, you also think most people are stupid right?
\_ Just people who wait in line for a new phone. -John
\_ I'm a well educated urbanite and I simply don't understand
why people want to live in Los Angeles! It is a total dump
because *I* hate LA and I don't see WHY anyone else wants
to live there!</sarcasm>
\_ What about iPod and Gucci and Louis Vouitton stuff? They are
completely useless shit yet people want them. Why? And what
and Porsche Cayenne and Chevy Suburban? Clearly they have
no values for 98% of the daily commutes in the US but people
want them. Why?
\_ People do not typically line up at 4am a day in advance
to buy a Gucci bag or a Suburban. My question is not:
"Why do people want a phone?" as much as "Why is this
particular phone so hyped?"
\- they might line up at 4am to get a Birkin Bag. It also
costs 10x - 100x what an iPhone costs. Yes, I am not
kidding ... a bag pricier than a Suburban.
\_ Purchacing one of these should be grounds for
institutionalization.
\- if you make me king for 6mos,
i will deal with them.
\_ Shithead.
\_ Welcome, King of Hearts.
\_ I think you mean Queen of Hearts: OFF WITH
THEIR HEADS! Partha, you know that you don't
hit people, right? You know, grade school
stuff. -- ilyas
\_ No, ilyas, I meant The King of Hearts,
with Alan Bates. If he's King of this lot,
trust me, the analogy is apt. --erikred
\_ My apologies, that's even funnier.
\_ I can't speak for the great unwashed since I didn't line
up to buy one, but I'm excited at the idea of an LCARS-
esque interface. I know the iPhone is not that, but it's a
step closer, and that's worth getting excited about. That
said, I don't have $500 for a toy right now.
\_ Well, iPods are the most popular mp3 players, so getting that
with a phone and google maps and whatever must be appealing.
It's a lot of money yeah. I don't know, a lot of people like
to spend money on gadgets and cars. If I travelled around a lot
I think this phone could be quite useful. My non-sexy phone
already plays mp3s fine though and cost nothing.
\_ I forgot to mention that you have to use Cingular's crappy
service. As a current Cingular customer that would seal
the deal for me *not* getting an iPhone right there.
\_ "Yes, but MINE is an apple!"
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2005-05-08.shtml
\_ I was reading this, thinking "wow, what an amazingly
stupid person" then I realized it was OSC. Good for a laugh,
but boy is that guy clueless...
\_ I thought he was spot on.
Everybody else makes black notebook computers.
Apple decides to be different and makes white/silver ones
Apple later makes black ones just like everybody else
and now prices them $150 more than their white/silver
ones.
Apple fanbois are idiots.
\_ Do you really think that OS X has the same amount
of security and reliability flaws as Windows XP?
\_ Do you really think the addition of Randy Moss
significantly increases the odds of the Pats
winning the Super Bowl? What the hell does your
question have to do with the statement above?
Stupid Apple fanbois...
\_ Awesome: you'd rather have a cheaper, easier-
to-zombify machine. The irony is choking me.
\_ Your Alanis Morissette sense of irony is
choking me.
\_ I don't know about "easier-to-zombify", but
I, for one, would indeed rather have a
cheaper machine, all else being equal.
\_ I use both at work and home, so I have
no emotional investment here, but the
point seems to be that "all else" is not
equal.
\_ Ya think? Why do you think I said
"all else being equal"? Maybe because
I understand they aren't? The point is
that cost is not a virtue. (But if you
want to get into it, I find them equal
enough that what matters is the apps
available, and Windows wins there.)
\_ Did you even read OSC's rant? If you did, your
English comprehension skills are very poor. Or
maybe I should just follow your lead and say:
OSC fanbois are idiots.
\_ Yes I did read the rant. Did you? One of his
main points is that Apple fanbois seem to
always think that Apple invents stuff that
they just copy. I cited an actual example.
Everybody makes black notebooks. Apple at
first made white ones. Then when they decide
to "think different" and make black notebooks
like everyone else, the Apple fanbois are like
like everyone else, the Apple fanbois are all
OMG! Black! Must have! and Apple charges a
premium for a product that now looks like
everyone else. Now, idiot, please spell out
everything else. Now, idiot, please spell out
why this is untrue without an ad hominem
attack or bashing Microsoft/Sony/Motorola.
Fucking dumbass.
attack on the author (I don't even know who
OSC is other than that he wrote Ultimate
Iron Man which sucked) or bagging on
Microsoft/Sony/Motorola which was never
brought up by me or OSC. Fucking dumbass.
\_ Pretty amusing that the guy who says
"Apple fanbois are idiots" and "fucking
dumbass" now complains about ad hominem
\_ It's called a demonstration of real
irony, moron.
irony, you fucking turd burglar.
\_ Is the part where you claim there
is no reference to Windows in the
article supposed to be "irony" as
well? I am so confused, what part
of your argument is a genuine
attempt to make a point and what
part is just an attempt to
ironically make yourself look
clueless? Maybe you could use
markup tags next time.
attacks. Go back now and v-e-r-y
s-l-o-w-l-y read the part where OSC
says that Mac's are no better than
Windows because they have security
bugs, too! Perhaps you did not realize
this, but the line "just like Windows"
is a reference to a Microsoft operating
system (which you claim OSC never
brought up). He also explicitly mentions
Microsoft in the line "despite the best
efforts of Microsoft." Read more
carefully next time.
\_ Yeah, I find it totally amusing that
you're a total buffoon.
\_ I know you don't care, but your facts
are mostly wrong. Although the Mac
Portable could arguably be called white,
all powerbooks until the g3 era where
grey. In the g3 era, the powerbooks
were black and the iBooks were white
+ color (like the iMacs) (the first
all white iBook came in May 2001). The
black powerbooks were much loved amongst
the fan base. Many fans did not like the
switch to Ti and Al. It is for these
historic customers that Apple seems
to have reintroduced the black MacBook.
The assertion that Apple decided to
"think different" by copying others
is, therefore, mostly inaccurate.
I can understand that you may not
understand why someone would pay more
for a black MacBook than a white one.
That may be a valid argument, but
then again people seem to be willing
to pay more to buy cars and clothes in
specific colors and the use of such
colors, though common by some is still
regarded as "innovated" when adopted by
a major market participant - perhaps
as a reflection of the economic risk
involved.
specific colors.
\_ "I took History of English in grad school and followed the
familiar pattern -- attempt to explain how English got to
be the way it is today."
As a former English major, I find OSC harder and harder to
take seriously. Can he not afford an editor?
\_ I think Cingular went away didnt it |
| 5/24 |
|
| nymag.com/news/features/33524 -> nymag.com/news/features/33524/ Features Steve Jobs in a Box Its a stunning box, a wizard object with a passel of amazing features (Its a phone! But for all its marvels, the iPhone inaugurates a dangerous new era for Jobs. Illustration by Default (Photo: Harald Franzen/Zuma Press) He saunters out onstage, and the first thing you think is, man, Steve Jobs looks old. The second thing you think is, no, not old: He finally looks his age. Well into his forties, Jobs appeared to have pulled off some kind of unholy Dorian Gray maneuver. But now, at 52, his hair is seriously thinning, his frame frail-seeming, his gait halting and labored. His striking facial featuresthe aquiline nose, the razor-gash dimplesare speckled with ash-gray stubble. A caricaturist would draw him as a hybrid of Andre Agassi and Salman Rushdie. The senescence on display is jarring, but its also fitting. After three decades as Silicon Valleys regnant enfant terrible, Jobs has suddenly, improbably, morphed into its presiding minence grise. The stage in question is at the Four Seasons in Carlsbad, California, where Jobs has come this afternoon in May for The Wall Street Journal conference D: All Things Digital. Well very shortly be in three businesses and a hobby, Jobs replies, projecting the mildest affect he can musteryet still the crowd is goggle-eyed, as if Bono were in the house. The clich of Jobs as rock star is, of course, hoary to the point of enfeeblement. From the start of his careerwhich is to say, for his entire adult lifehe has radiated a mesmeric presence, his reality-distortion field. But as Jobs makes clear today, Apples reality is no longer in need of much distortion. last month, AAPL was named to the S&P 100, making it a bona fide blue chip. With what Jobs dubs a hobby, Apple TV, the company has invaded the sanctum sanctorum of living-room entertainment. Then theres that third, impending business, which revolves around a gorgeous sliver of palmtop gee-whizzery that you may have heard about: the iPhone. Ten years ago, when Jobs retook the reins at Apple, the suggestion that the company would be where it is today would have seemed a fantasyor a joke. Apple was bleeding cash, bleeding talent, bleeding credibility. Its war with Microsoft had devolved into a self-lacerating pathology. Today the Mac is, albeit slowly, gaining ground on Windows. And the iPod, which in less than six years has sold north of 100 million units, has Microsoft choking on its dust. Mossberg notes this astonishing achievement and inquires of Jobs how many copies of iTunes software are in circulation. At least 300 million, Jobs answers, prompting Mossberg to follow up: Does the scale of this surprise you? Nodding sagely, Jobs responds, The scale of a lot of things were doing surprises me. The Steve Jobs story is one of the classic narrativesmaybe the classic narrativeof American business life. Its structure has been rigorous, traditional, and symmetrical: three acts of ten years each. Act One (19751985) is The Rise, in which Jobs goes into business with his pal, Steve Wozniak; essentially invents the personal-computer industry with the Apple II; takes Apple public, making himself a multimillionaire at age 25; Act Two (19851996) is The Fall: the expulsion from Apple, the wilderness years battling depression and struggling to keep afloat two floundering new businesses, NeXT and Pixar. Act Three (19972007) is The Resurrection: the return to Apple and its restoration, the efflorescence of Pixar and its sale to Disney, the megabillionairehood, the sanctification as god of design and seer of the digital-media future. The consistent thread running through all three acts is Jobss singular persona. His messianism has been present from the start: He always believed, says Wozniak, he was going to be a leader of mankind. Yet the most common descriptor applied to him, by friends and foes and even Jobs himself, is asshole. Given an early glimpse of the Segway high-tech people-mover, he bellowed, I think it sucks, then later called the companys founder, trashed his CEO as a butthead, and said his marketing chief should be selling Kleenex at a discount store in Idaho. Implored by the government to take part in the federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, he snapped at the United States assistant attorney general, Joel Klein, Are you going to do something serious? |
| www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2005-05-08.shtml Aviator, Spanglish, Fockers, and Fat Albert 01-02-05 iPod, Cut and Run, English, Ford 500 I don't know about you, but I'm about fed up with all the free -- and ridiculous -- advertising and publicity Apple Computers gets. If they decided to bottle air and sell it, calling it, no doubt, "PowerAir" or "AirMac" or "AirPod," they'd claim that they had invented air. Then all the articles about the new MacAir would treat that claim as if it were true and suddenly start treating other air-packagers as mere imitators, playing "catch-up" with Apple. I remember years ago, when Apple came out with their PowerBook notebook computer. I was at a meeting with an extraordinarily dumb young movie producer who kept going on and on about all the cool things his PowerBook could do. I can care it with me on planes and it runs on batteries!" Finally I got fed up and just showed him my Toshiba laptop. "I can do all those things, and this computer cost me a thousand dollars less than yours." It was a cruel thing to do, I thought, to take the wind out of his sails like that. He gave me a withering look and said, "Yes, but mine is an Apple." All the rigid, corporate-determined uniformity and buy-it-from-us-or-drop-dead attitude of Microsoft, but you have to buy your hardware from them, too. I watch Apple users attempt to manipulate their clunky operating system -- click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, just to get where I can go with a single action on my keyboard -- and I hear them raving on and on about what wonderful trhings Apple is finally deigning to make available to them, but which PC users have had for years, and it all makes me vaguely sad. Then, when they're talking among themselves and they don't think you're listening, they reveal the evil truth: Macs crash too. And Mac software has bugs and flaws and security gaps and stupidity built in, just like Windows. Once you've bought into the hype and forked over your money, they've got you and you can't get free without completely replacing everything. My little Panasonic E-Wear, and later my Rio Cali, let me take incredible amounts of music with me when I exercised or took long flights. Then the iPod comes out and it doesn't do anything that I needed and didn't already have. Not only that, but it was deeply ugly, a plain ivory-colored box with pathetic controls that looked like it should hold generic earswabs. Compared to my Rio Riot, it was a piece of junk and looked like a piece of junk. I still have MP3 players with more capacity and better interface than the iPod, and people talk and write as if the iPod had invented the whole class of machine, and all the others were just imitations. Even the current PC World magazine has been suckered into this Apple mystique. They had a "brave and daring" front-of-book essay about how PC makers ought to learn to do things more like Apple. The colors and shape of the cheap plastic they wrap their products in. They make the ugliest, silliest, most embarrassing-looking cheap plastic products in the industry, charge half again as much as you'd pay for a cleanly designed, functional looking product, and they are given credit for design! A lot of smug Apple owners will write me taunting letters about how Windows crashes all the time. And I have about a hundred times as much software to choose from, and can customize my own machine (despite the best efforts of Microsoft) a thousand times more than you can, and I'm paying less for it, and it looks like I actually intend to do serious work with it. As for your iPod, I just have to shake my head and laugh. There are much better -- and better-looking -- products out there, and I already own some of them. But you go on believing that yours Is the best in the world. You'll get into the harness, they'll put the blinders on you, and you'll think you're pulling the queen's carriage instead of the old farm wagon you're dragging along. Not until his was the name paired with Dave Berry's on the wonderful children's chapter book Peter and the Starcatchers. But with a collaboration, you never know which author contributed what. Most collaborations are unequal in the contribution of the collaborators. Some collaborations are greater than the sum of their parts. So I assumed -- shoot me if I'm wrong -- that Dave Berry was the guy who thought up the huge pirate ship sail made of brassiere material, and Ridley Pearson thought up the good stuff. Mostly I assumed that Pearson actually did the sentence-by-sentence writing. So when, in Hudson's News at the Atlanta airport during a long layover, I saw Ridley Pearson's name on a new novel Cut and Run, I let nothing stand in my way -- not even the fact that my bag was already full and to have any hope of fitting this book into my bag I'd have to forgo buying the history of the 1917 flue epidemic that I had already decided to buy. Nothing against the history of the flu, but it will still be buyable when I get back home. Not that I couldn't have bought Cut and Run back home, too, but then I wouldn't have been able to read it on the first three hours of my flight to LA. Larson is a federal agent with the Witness Protection Program when he falls in love with a protected witness named Hope and, against all the rules, has a brief affair with her. But when she cuts loose from the program and goes out on her own, hiding from the feds and the crooks because she's lost faith in the program's ability to protect her, he isn't with her -- and it's his own fault. For years he harbors the vain hope of reconnecting with her, only to have it forced on him by the fact that the whole database of protected witnesses has been compromised by the very criminal syndicate that wants her dead. They aren't after her particularly -- the list of protected witnesses and their hiding places is valuable in large part because it can be auctioned off so lucratively to other crime groups. But Larson is sure that she'll be at the top of their list of targets. And now everything is complicated even more by the fact that she has a child with her. Like any sane American, I want this book to be made immediately into a movie because everything that happens in it is cinematic and thrilling. Nobody's just sitting around being protected -- everybody, the child included, is determined to survive. And there's a hit man named Paolo who is just about the scariest guy I've seen in crime fiction for years. Pearson doesn't spend a lot of time giving detailed backstory and developing subtle characters. Some readers might even think he isn't characterizing at all. He's merely doing it subtly, in the midst of the action. Only one thing stuck in my craw -- the absolutely implausible but apparently obligatory sex scene, under circumstances where I simply can't believe any woman -- or at least any mother -- suddenly wanting to get it on. But I forgive Pearson that faux pas for the sake of how exciting and satisfying the rest of the novel is. Nothing against you personally, but the odds are on my side on this. Fans of language in general, especially histories and grammars of languages, are not exactly thick on the ground. I actually read, for pleasure, books like The Languages of China and The Languages of Japan, because even though I'm too old and mentally faded to learn new languages now, I still am fascinated by how languages tick, and all the strange and wonderful ways humans have found to organize their thoughts. But nothing is more fascinating to me than my own language -- how it works and how it has changed across time. I had to tell you this so you'd understand that when I rave about David Crystal's book on the history of our language, The Stories of English, I don't actually expect you to enjoy it. I took History of English in grad school and followed the familiar pattern -- attempt to explain how English got to be the way it is today. But usually, that means looking at standard English today and in every previous era -- which leaves out much if not most of the story. Because of course standard English is not and never has been spoken by most people. What most of us speak and write is something else, which can differ from st... |