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How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

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Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#71

Post by jwhitlark »

scott_s wrote: post #46
jwhitlark wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logical conclusion of the personal computer revolution is the person doesn't control their device?! That's not revolutionary; that's a return to the bad old days...

Yes, because most people don't want a device . They want to be able to watch videos, read books and listen to music. The enabling device is incidental.

I understand what you're saying, but the key is enabling. This device enables some things at the cost to many others.

Mind you, I'm not saying it won't be cool, and I'm not saying it won't sell many units, (although I have my doubts). I'm just saying this isn't the logical conclusion to the personal computer revolution. A personal computer is, by definition, a general purpose computing device, which this most assuredly is not.

Edit, reply to following comment: How is "it does what I tell it" a narrower definition of enable than "it does what it's allowed to do by the people I bought it from"?

I'm not trying to be flip; I think it looks very sexy. However, it's just a narrow tool, not the end-all of computers.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#72

Post by raganwald »

Todd wrote: post #48

I know of no other company that can charge $100 for 16GB of flash memory. Differentiating on real features like 3G is good and expected. Differentiating on commodity hardware like memory is unfair. With the ubiquity of SD and micro SD and need for more and more storage due to the explosion of digital media, they don't even provide a port. Obviously, they don't provide a port because it would destroy their product lin…

I know of no other company that can charge $100 for 16GB of flash memory. Differentiating on real features like 3G is good and expected. Differentiating on commodity hardware like memory is unfair.

Ahem: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/blu-ray-maker-re-boxe...

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#73

Post by flogic »

dannyr wrote: post #38
yesimahuman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the design will be shit and you won't have the user base.

It's almost guaranteed that anybody who disses a product is very likely to have never tried it. Likely they read it on some blog that it is shit and just believed it.

I'm using Fedora 11 right now, I despise it. IT put it there and I don't want to go through the Linux wireless dance again.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#74

Post by mattmanser »

lambda wrote: post #65
coffeemug wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad, mom, grandma, and grandpa can watch videos, look at photos of their kids/grandkids, send e-mails to their relatives oversees, and read their favorite books on it, all without the need for a "computer-savvy guy" who has to teach them how it works, and fix it when it's broken. In other words, it's a logical conclusion of the personal computer revolution. I understand you need to run your Ruby scripts, but this…

The thing is, without an open platform, the new, innovative ways of working with this machine will never be invented. This is about far more than running your own Ruby scripts. It's about the fact that true innovation cannot exist in such an environment. And the problem is, you will not see what you're missing; people won't bother developing new technologies that have no platform they can legally run on. Would the We…

This is alarmist nonsense.

The App store and the iPhone have fostered a colossal amount of innovation, and made a lot of normal non-techy people very, very happy. And a bunch of techies too.

And in the end I hope it doesn't come down to open source advocates getting their way so they can install vim, but it being about my Mum being able to use it without having to phone me saying that it's all gone wrong again and can I talk through 3 hours of trying to fix the damn thing.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#75

Post by GHFigs »

Scriptor wrote: post #64
GHFigs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get the text you're reading right now on your computer without being able to plug in a USB drive?

That just means a device for people who have very few technical skills will need a near-constant and perfectly working internet connection to be passably useful.

I'm confused. How does skill level factor into it? And what is wrong with assuming that internet connections are usually available?

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#76

Post by metra »

I believe Apple's success stems from its portable devices, mainly the iPod and the iPhone. Both of those devices could take full advantage of Apple's closed door policy. The iPod and the iPhone are extremely well built because Apple had complete control over all the parts. All the other phones on the market just felt like cheaper plastic knockoffs. Furthermore, Apple is somewhat lucky that the functionality you'd want from these portable devices is very limited and so Apple didn't miss any of the market by providing such limited functionality.

However, devices bigger than iPhone - in the netbook/iPad range - need significantly more functionality. I believe Apple missed the boat with the iPad, especially if it really is targeting grandpa and grandma. People are becoming more tech savvy and they will be less and less willing to shell out money for an inflexible device that only serves a rigid set of predefined functions.

The iPad, I'm sure, is constructed extremely well. However, taking it to the bathroom, to bed and around the house in general isn't the same thing as taking it everywhere you go. Apple's success is in building beautiful durable portable hardware. The iPad just isn't portable enough or flexible enough for people to want it.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#77

Post by quantumhobbit »

fierarul wrote: post #3

I bet someone at Apple is thinking hard about how could they seal the MacPro case too. It's the only system they sell that you are allowed to open and upgrade or tinker (beyond something limited like a RAM upgrade). Apple is no longer called Apple Computers because they will not sell computers anymore. They will sell closed devices with a closed software ecosystem. They will also sell the best devices money can buy.

http://www.ifixit.com/

I'm typing this on a Macbook that no longer has its original RAM, hard drive, or keyboard/trackpad. The RAM and hard drive upgrades didn't break any sort of warranty and were rather trivial.

The Mac Pro is certainly not the only apple computer to modify. It is only the easiest to upgrade. Just because an upgrade isn't easy or encouraged doesn't mean you can't do it.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#78

Post by Scriptor »

scott_s wrote: post #46
jwhitlark wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logical conclusion of the personal computer revolution is the person doesn't control their device?! That's not revolutionary; that's a return to the bad old days...

Yes, because most people don't want a device . They want to be able to watch videos, read books and listen to music. The enabling device is incidental.

Netbooks, which are basically the same price or cheaper, can do the same as the above and are much less locked in. More immediately, they also have Flash support, multitasking, and USB ports.

People still need more heavy-duty computers to do those other things as well as for non-leisure stuff. The advantage of an iPhone was that it was extremely portable and you could just pull it out on the bus to pass the time.

The iPad is barely more portable than a laptop, and much less functional. I guess reliability of the machine is greater since it's so stripped down. Other than that, I don't see what's so special.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#79

Post by mcantelon »

coffeemug wrote: post #12
zacharypinter wrote: post #2

This post adequately sums up my concerns. Here we have a device that doesn't support USB thumbdrives, doesn't support dropbox (at least system-wide, I assume the dropbox iphone app would work), is unable to run ruby or any of my other dev scripts/tools, cannot install firefox or firefox plugins, etc. I do not want to see computing head this direction.

My dad, mom, grandma, and grandpa can watch videos, look at photos of their kids/grandkids, send e-mails to their relatives oversees, and read their favorite books on it, all without the need for a "computer-savvy guy" who has to teach them how it works, and fix it when it's broken. In other words, it's a logical conclusion of the personal computer revolution. I understand you need to run your Ruby scripts, but this…

Mac OS X is quite user friendly, yet isn't locked down. No need to lock a system down to make it usable.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#80

Post by GHFigs »

lambda wrote: post #65
coffeemug wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad, mom, grandma, and grandpa can watch videos, look at photos of their kids/grandkids, send e-mails to their relatives oversees, and read their favorite books on it, all without the need for a "computer-savvy guy" who has to teach them how it works, and fix it when it's broken. In other words, it's a logical conclusion of the personal computer revolution. I understand you need to run your Ruby scripts, but this…

The thing is, without an open platform, the new, innovative ways of working with this machine will never be invented. This is about far more than running your own Ruby scripts. It's about the fact that true innovation cannot exist in such an environment. And the problem is, you will not see what you're missing; people won't bother developing new technologies that have no platform they can legally run on. Would the We…

The thing is, without an open platform, the new, innovative ways of working with this machine will never be invented.

You mean aside from the ones Apple developed? Why is the platform vendor always excluded?

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