151–160 of 161 posts
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There's a difference between not promoting someone from lead code monkey, and not promoting someone from head of industrial design at Apple. The latter is a valid landing point for the rest of your life.
"Code monkey", really? I guess Jeff Dean, for example, feels pretty good as a top code monkey at Google.
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Actually, John Lasseter defends Cars 2: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/movies/john-lasseter-of-pi... Apparently the "critics" were far harsher than audiences.
They usually are, but that's often the last defense of truly awful movies. I've never seen Cars 2 so I wouldn't know about it in particular, but we can all think of some truly bad movies that did good box office.
It's a return to form after the truly awful Wall-E and Up! (Which were both made to please critics and get awards rather than please audiences)
Interestingly enough, there is a quote from the Jobs book, from Ive, that was tweeted by Bianca Bosker, who works at the Huffington Post: https://twitter.com/bbosker/status/127357233632788480 "Jony Ive:'I pay maniacal attention to where an idea comes from...so it hurts when [Jobs] takes credit for one of my designs'" As much as Jobs considered Ive a 'spiritual partner' there was still a power play that existed betwee…
I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards.
I do not think I have ever heard anyone, [precious few], accuse himself of this vice.
And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone [...] who showed the slightest mercy to it in others.
There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.
And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.
The vice I am talking of is Pride. . . .
. . . In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, “How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?”
The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride.
It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise."
-- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, chapter 8.
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They usually are, but that's often the last defense of truly awful movies. I've never seen Cars 2 so I wouldn't know about it in particular, but we can all think of some truly bad movies that did good box office.
I've seen Cars 2. It's not a dud. The people saying it's a dud are the intellectual high brow adults who don't get it. It's a return to form after the truly awful Wall-E and Up! (Which were both made to please critics and get awards rather than please audiences)
Toy Story & Shrek did something far cleverer. Shrek especially is smart, sophisticated humour for smart, sophisticated kids. The references are all from children's literature and culture. Kids know the references and are able to understand the clever puns.
Shreks 2&3 are dumb adult humour forced into the Shrek world. Many of the puns are above children's heads and are not sophisticated enough for the adult audience. Adding plot-lines about lawyers, unions etc just confuse small kids and leave adults slightly cringing.
Pixar and Dreamworks are at their best when they choose their target audience and focus on it. Toy Story & Nemo are for smart young kids; Ratatouille & The Incredibles are for smart older kids. Then enough is added for the rest of the family: everyone gets a clever joke every few minutes; the stories are understandable by all. Wall-E and Up are very adult in the big story (but full of great fun in the small story) I thought they were wonderful but I do understand your point (although they are I no way 'awful'—even if you are 5).
I'm not convinced that Pixar have mad a bad film yet. Cars grows on me the more I see it (and believe me if you have kids you end up seeing these films any times). Nemo (by far the funniest film Pixar have made) still makes me laugh despite having seen it 20+ times.
{I'm told that Cars 2 is relentless: too fast and too complicated for young kids, but as I haven't seen it I can't judge. The fact that I haven't seen it says something: I normally see every Pixar film the week it comes out.}
The problem that Pixar has had is that we have had to judge Pixar by Pixar standards as until recently no-one was making anything as good. This has now changed. Wonderfully for us Pixar now has serious competition. Dreamworks has made a number of films that are as good as Pixar's. Some of them are as good as Pixar's best: How to Train Your Dragon, Megamind, Kung Fu Panda. Walt Disney Animation Studios is back on form with Tangled (Monsters v Aliens wasn't bad either).
How to Train Your Dragon & Tangled are thankfully free of transfer-modern-society-into-cartoon-world puns. Instead you are given a detailed, self-consistent world that complements the story (rather than being the story). This is a very good thing—something I hope that Pixar will move back towards (although I don't hold out much hope for Monsters Inc 2).
It staggers me that time and time again Apple lays out the reasons for it's unrivalled success for all to see, yet non of it's rivals seem interested in copying their methods and opt for simply copying their products. Fortune favours the brave.
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I've seen Cars 2. It's not a dud. The people saying it's a dud are the intellectual high brow adults who don't get it. It's a return to form after the truly awful Wall-E and Up! (Which were both made to please critics and get awards rather than please audiences)
Cars and Cars 2 suffer from some of the same problems that Shrek 2 & 3 suffered from: creating a self-consistent universe based on adult puns based on characters of modern society.Unless it is done with restraint and real skill it soon behinds to feel insincere and contrived (see Sharks Tail, Chicken Run). Toy Story & Shrek did something far cleverer. Shrek especially is smart, sophisticated humour for smart, sophist…
Actually Shrek 2 I think was on par with Shrek. My son watched it about 5 times on a flight from UK->US. I agree Shrek 3 was poor, but I think that was more to do with the story (or lack of) rather than humor etc.
Also with Toy Story... Our kids (And I) prefer Toy Story 2 to Toy Story, it just has a stronger story and more refined.
Agree @ Tangled though. Awesome back to form. Also Princess+Frog was excellent.
But yet, you never see him up on stage... There's a cult of personality around Ive on the Internet—everyone wants him to replace Jobs as CEO, but is that even realistic? Sure, he can design, but can he run a company?
Have you heard about the Peter Principle? From Wikipedia: "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence", meaning that employees tend to be promoted until they reach a position at which they cannot work competently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle Knowing what somebody is not good at is almost as essential as knowing what people are good at. I guess both Ive and Apple know thi…
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/rule-zero-how-things-reall...
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Jobs has never taken credit for a design, has he? People who are uninformed just assume it's Jobs, and that perhaps is what Ive is referring to. He probably meant "it hurts when [Jobs] gets credit..." If you look at the Objectified interview, along with nearly every promotional video that Apple puts out, it's very clear that Ive is the design guy.
Could be an internal thing. I really can’t remember Jobs ever publicly and personally taking credit for design. But maybe he did inside the company? I guess we will have to wait for the book for more context.
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Might I just add, I am not your typical fan boy for Apple. Quite the opposite actually. I am a Microsoft geek at heart, learnt basic when I was 13 and loved them since. They can do minimal wrong in my eyes (except for windows ME). I appreciate Apple in a completely different way, I think how they have created their following in nothing short of amazing. The spot a market potential and they make it work, really well.…
The iTunes Store came with the original iPod, and it was an integral part of Apple's strategy. You probably meant the App Store, which wasn't on the very first iPhone and was, in fact, a bit of a lucky strike. Jobs didn't want anyone installing anything on the phone (classic Apple control-freakery at its finest), so he insisted for months after launch that extensibility would come exclusively from sandboxed web-appli…