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Memories of Steve

donmelton.com

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Re: Memories of Steve

#91

Post by Dewie »

Tloewald wrote: post #87
Dewie wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a user. Am I oblivious to my own experience? :)

You're oblivious to user experience not your own user experience . A good usability person can put him/her-self in someone else's shoes, rather than assume everyone else thinks like they do. Since software engineers think very differently from most people good usability people are rare. (Steve Jobs was actually such a person. People forget he knew enough programming and electronics to be dangerous.) The thing Apple d…

> You're oblivious to user experience not your own user experience. A good usability person can put him/her-self in someone else's shoes, rather than assume everyone else thinks like they do. Since software engineers think very differently from most people good usability people are rare. (Steve Jobs was actually such a person. People forget he knew enough programming and electronics to be dangerous.)

I'm not a usability person, never claimed to be. I am a user who is sharing his experience with using ipods. In order to empathize with other people's experience I need to hear them first.

I feel like I'm being painted like "oh look, another tasteless nerd who doesn't _get_ the benefit of UX that comes in another flavour than a virtual terminal". I have never, ever touched a terminal unless I absolutely have to, right up until about my second year as a programmer, which learnt as an adult. I still think that things like terminals are overrated as far as streamlined work flow goes.

> The thing Apple did with the iPod was offer a seamless end-to-end user experience, to allow "normal" people to buy a song and have it appear on their devices legally, simply, and at a reasonable price. This involved software, UI design, hardware design, negotiating compromises with the RIAA (e.g. iPods did not simply act as a file system to prevent casual piracy while not seriously inconveniencing users). This combination of software, hardware, design, and legal wrangling was not replicated by anyone, even approximately, for several years (Sony and Microsoft eventually managed to get something vaguely comparable, but it was too little too late.)

I haven't had the impression that ipods were such a revolution. Maybe it has to do with where I live.

I'll concede that the ipod was clearly simpler for people who thought dragging and dropping to a USB like thing was intimidating, and at the same time couldn't/wouldn't/had moral qualms about pirating music. I reckon ripping CDs was not a viable option for most people. I think I've only tried to do that once or twice myself.

Re: Memories of Steve

#93

Post by pessimizer »

lightyrs wrote: post #9
throwaway7548 wrote: post #8

According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.[65] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.[66] --- End of story. Before continuing celebrating Jobs, ask yourself a question, do you want…

I agree with you on principle, however, the story does not end here. Woz himself said the following: "What Steve does on the good side — like the music scenario [in which] we didn't bring just a music device called the iPod, we brought a whole music system: a store that sells it, a computer that manages and organizes it. And an iPod is just a satellite to your computer. Plug it in and it works. You don't have to do a…

Not everyone is going to have regrets about stealing from friends. Wozniak is just being generous.

Re: Memories of Steve

#95

Post by rz2k »

Dewie wrote: post #52
lightyrs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on principle, however, the story does not end here. Woz himself said the following: "What Steve does on the good side — like the music scenario [in which] we didn't bring just a music device called the iPod, we brought a whole music system: a store that sells it, a computer that manages and organizes it. And an iPod is just a satellite to your computer. Plug it in and it works. You don't have to do a…

I still don't see the big deal with iTunes and iPod's. ipod is a great product, but there is no real killer feature; "plug it in and it just works", yes, if you have iTunes. Meanwhile, plug in any decent mp3 player of that time\* and it Just Works, assuming you just have a file system - drog and drop the files you want into the mp3 player. Maybe you could say that ipods with itunes is simpler than dragging and droppi…

Long before the music store existed, the iPod was entirely different than other MP3 players of the time.

When I got the first iPod, I also had a Creative Nomad player that had a little more storage and a search function. However, the iPod on the other hand had Firewire rather than USB 1.1, making it a painless process to add and remove songs right before you go somewhere, rather than a hours long process you had to plan in advance. Even more importantly the scroll wheel on ball bearings with made it feasible to fly through a tree of artists and albums with thousands of audio tracks.

The shift in convenience was on the level of shifting from a phonograph to a cassette tape, except that records are more convenient in some situations.

Re: Memories of Steve

#96

Post by noddingham »

Dewie wrote: post #52
lightyrs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on principle, however, the story does not end here. Woz himself said the following: "What Steve does on the good side — like the music scenario [in which] we didn't bring just a music device called the iPod, we brought a whole music system: a store that sells it, a computer that manages and organizes it. And an iPod is just a satellite to your computer. Plug it in and it works. You don't have to do a…

I still don't see the big deal with iTunes and iPod's. ipod is a great product, but there is no real killer feature; "plug it in and it just works", yes, if you have iTunes. Meanwhile, plug in any decent mp3 player of that time\* and it Just Works, assuming you just have a file system - drog and drop the files you want into the mp3 player. Maybe you could say that ipods with itunes is simpler than dragging and droppi…

It wasn't the case of any individual feature of iTunes or the iPod, it was that iTunes and the iPod were the killer feature. If you were to have looked at the landscape at that time for MP3 players, there was nothing even remotely like the iTunes+iPod experience. Even the tagline of the very first commercial was ridiculous at the time: "iPod, a thousand songs, in your pocket." That was equivalent to Google giving people 1GB of storage with their GMail account.

It doesn't seem like a big deal now, but in 2001 it was a very big deal.

Re: Memories of Steve

#97

Post by Tloewald »

Dewie wrote: post #89
ceejayoz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A HN user's idea of "user friendly" likely varies from the average.

If anything I'm less technical than most HN users. I certainly was back when the ipod was new-ish. I was probably more technical than the average user at the time, though. I gave concrete examples of the usability of the ipod. I would like it if people argued against those points, rather than some smartass, sarcastic response like the grandparent.

Sarcasm saves a lot of time. Look at how long your second response was without actually getting the point.

Re: Memories of Steve

#98

Post by rz2k »

nnq wrote: post #42
72deluxe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does "ruthless businessman" ===== "liar"? So to be a great businessman, I just have to lie to people that help me, right? I suppose it would revolve around what people think "success" is - if it means lying to others and abandonment of morals for personal gain, then that's a very sad definition of "success".

Well, he did say the truth about getting paid by Atari, and gave him "his half", which Woz regarded as "good enough compensation", otherwise he wouldn't have considered working with him in the future. It's kind of the same game played when a middle manager that brings no value to the company gets paid 3x the engineers salary, or when the CEO gets the golden parachute while the shareholders are loosing money and the e…

I'm not sure how those two conclusions can be gleaned from this story.

It is pretty safe to assume that Steve Wozniak was not pulling the same types of shenanigans. And, it's really too bad if the story serves to normalize such behavior.

Second, it isn't a story about managers providing no value compared to less well paid engineers, it is a brilliant engineer letting something despicable pass because his partner brought so many non engineering assets to the table.

I think people should flee any company where there are dishonest managers who provide no value. It isn't uncommon to see companies that start out with comparable products, design and engineering talent diverge because one has a terrible management team.

Re: Memories of Steve

#99

Post by resu_nimda »

Dewie wrote: post #91
Tloewald wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're oblivious to user experience not your own user experience . A good usability person can put him/her-self in someone else's shoes, rather than assume everyone else thinks like they do. Since software engineers think very differently from most people good usability people are rare. (Steve Jobs was actually such a person. People forget he knew enough programming and electronics to be dangerous.) The thing Apple d…

> You're oblivious to user experience not your own user experience. A good usability person can put him/her-self in someone else's shoes, rather than assume everyone else thinks like they do. Since software engineers think very differently from most people good usability people are rare. (Steve Jobs was actually such a person. People forget he knew enough programming and electronics to be dangerous.) I'm not a usabil…

I don't know where you live, but I think it's pretty well accepted that the iPod was a revolution. It swiftly and thoroughly dominated and expanded the MP3 player market, and set the bar for others to copy. Much like the iPhone did later. And the iPod came at the front end of the Apple renaissance, before they had the consumer mindshare and perception that they do now (in fact the iPod deserves most of the credit for vaulting Apple into that position).

I'm actually traditionally a Windows guy and scoff/roll my eyes at a lot of Apple stuff, but it's pretty undeniable that they've created some amazing, bar-raising products. They've done this by enforcing an uncompromising UX-first philosophy that covers all aspects of product design.

Re: Memories of Steve

#100

Post by archgrove »

ksec wrote: post #28

I was reading and hoping there was an explanation why Safari for Windows discontinued. It is the only popular WebKit browser ( after Chrome fork to Blink ) on Windows. Otherwise another great piece.

Back in the iOS 1.0 days, the iPhone development platform was web apps. These were pushed by Apple as the "right way", which negated the need for an App Store. As the browser engine on iOS is basically identical to the desktop WebKit, I always assumed Safari for Windows was a push to enable iOS development on Windows.

With the release and success of the App Store, that became unnecessary. I guess killing it was a function of its relative lack of popularity; Apple in the Jobs 2.0+ era justifiably don't like keeping dead-weight projects around.

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