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On Succeeding Steve Jobs

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Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#101
post #29
post #7

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Historically, there were probably more gays and such in public life than the history books would suggest. One American president (never married) is thought to have possibly been gay. Lots of historical figures who were very successful were minorities of some sort and hid it and tried to blend: Jewish, Hispanic, etc. They altered their names, dyed their hair, learned to dress more "white" and so on. (Rita Hayworth com…

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Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#102

There is a better chance of Apple choosing its next CEO through a raffle of ten golden tickets hidden inside iPad boxes distributed around the globe than that they’d give the job to Eric Schmidt. Quote of the day right there.

I imagine that's why he even mentioned him. Though I don't understand why he mentions Ellison and Bezos. This is like the King of France giving up his position so he can be the King of England. Gates? Ballmer? Padding the list I guess.

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#103
post #96

There is a better chance of Apple choosing its next CEO through a raffle of ten golden tickets hidden inside iPad boxes distributed around the globe than that they’d give the job to Eric Schmidt. Quote of the day right there.

The craziest part was mentioning Guy Kawasaki (Guy Kawasaki!) in the same context as Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Ellison. Wow. Just goes to show the power of self-promotion.

well Guy was chief evangelist at apple during the 90s, thats what he's actually famous for (originally). Now he's famous for self-promotion and tangientially his vc activities.

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#104
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woz's lineage is in the overall engineering talent. Woz himself was no longer a major part of the company by the time the Mac was designed. Guys like Bud Tribble, Andy Hertzfeld, and Bill Atkinson were three of Woz's (many) successors already. It's not down to any individual exec to carry on Woz's legacy, because Woz was never an executive, not even an engineering executive. He only wanted to be an engineer. There ar…

> There are thousands of successors to Woz That alone means a lot of authority. Woz embodies half of Apple's soul - the brilliantly unique hardware. It's true his half has been taken care by his successors, but it's still his half, although I suspect the PC-ness of current Macs would be offensive to him and he being on board would be our only chance of seeing an elegant x86-based computer, ever. That said, he wouldn'…

> I suspect the PC-ness of current Macs would be offensive to him and he being on board would be our only chance of seeing an elegant x86-based computer, ever.

In what ways do you find the iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook Air et al. to be inelegant or PC-like?

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#105
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are thousands of successors to Woz That alone means a lot of authority. Woz embodies half of Apple's soul - the brilliantly unique hardware. It's true his half has been taken care by his successors, but it's still his half, although I suspect the PC-ness of current Macs would be offensive to him and he being on board would be our only chance of seeing an elegant x86-based computer, ever. That said, he wouldn'…

> I suspect the PC-ness of current Macs would be offensive to him and he being on board would be our only chance of seeing an elegant x86-based computer, ever. In what ways do you find the iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook Air et al. to be inelegant or PC-like?

Every x86 box has, unless I am very wrong, an ISA bus buried somewhere in the chipset. Deep down there, you may find a functionally complete IBM 5150 PC. I wouldn't be surprised if, somehow, you could trick the video hardware into emulating a CGA (or an MDA text mode).

If you ever had the chance, take a look into the schematics of a 5150 and compare how clumsy, inefficient and plain inelegant it is when compared to a years-older Apple II. Then you will fully understand why I hold x86-computers in such low esteem.

And yes, I am typing this on a x86 laptop. I'd love to have an option.

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#106

There is a better chance of Apple choosing its next CEO through a raffle of ten golden tickets hidden inside iPad boxes distributed around the globe than that they’d give the job to Eric Schmidt. Quote of the day right there.

I imagine that's why he even mentioned him. Though I don't understand why he mentions Ellison and Bezos. This is like the King of France giving up his position so he can be the King of England. Gates? Ballmer? Padding the list I guess.

Well, there's the War of the Spanish succession, where the heir to France gave up his position to be the King of Spain.

Sort of. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#107
some of these choices are designed to be provocative, not necessarily legitimate. "built to last," the wonderfully insightful book on technology entrepreneurship by jim collins, contains interesting analysis about the difficulties in replacing a charismatic, controlling founder like jobs. suffice to say, the odds are against apple. but so they were in 1998. http://www.amazon.com/Built-Last-Successful-Visionary-Essent...

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is indeed something memorable, but considering main stream America's view on homosexuals, I don't think this is something that should be mentioned too often.

I get the impression that the mainstream already thinks that Apple users are basically equivalent to whatever they think homosexuals are, so this probably wouldn't have an effect.

By the way, I am not trying to say anything negative about either group. Simply pointing out that from simply living in N. American society and reading forums such as reddit, I have observed prejudice against linux users, Apple fans, GBLT folks, non-white middle class people, and so on which all has a similar flavor.

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect the PC-ness of current Macs would be offensive to him and he being on board would be our only chance of seeing an elegant x86-based computer, ever. In what ways do you find the iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook Air et al. to be inelegant or PC-like?

Every x86 box has, unless I am very wrong, an ISA bus buried somewhere in the chipset. Deep down there, you may find a functionally complete IBM 5150 PC. I wouldn't be surprised if, somehow, you could trick the video hardware into emulating a CGA (or an MDA text mode). If you ever had the chance, take a look into the schematics of a 5150 and compare how clumsy, inefficient and plain inelegant it is when compared to a…

It's no secret that x86 is an inelegant architecture. There was no shortage of RISC CPU architectures in the 90's designed to dethrone x86. Windows NT was even written to run on two of them (DEC Alpha and PowerPC). Apple and IBM carried this experiment forward the longest, but it didn't work out that way.

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every x86 box has, unless I am very wrong, an ISA bus buried somewhere in the chipset. Deep down there, you may find a functionally complete IBM 5150 PC. I wouldn't be surprised if, somehow, you could trick the video hardware into emulating a CGA (or an MDA text mode). If you ever had the chance, take a look into the schematics of a 5150 and compare how clumsy, inefficient and plain inelegant it is when compared to a…

It's no secret that x86 is an inelegant architecture. There was no shortage of RISC CPU architectures in the 90's designed to dethrone x86. Windows NT was even written to run on two of them (DEC Alpha and PowerPC). Apple and IBM carried this experiment forward the longest, but it didn't work out that way.

No it didn't because economies of scale took their toll. Still, it would be possible to build an elegant Mac around an x86 processor, but Apple would have to design and manufacture their own chipset. Nothing would make the CPU elegant, but, at least, the rest of the computer wouldn't be this mess.

But then Macs wouldn't be able to boot Windows. When that becomes irrelevant, we may see change.

Minor nitpick: Windows NT has been ported to MIPS, PPC, Alpha and Itanium, and was originally developed for the Intel 860 (though that version was never sold). Legend says there were Intergraph Clipper and SPARC ports too. If Microsoft pulls off the ARM release of Windows 8, that will be one more architecture with a Windows NT port.

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