Apple's Steve Jobs has passed

[signalhome]

Originally Posted by thorn

But you would mostly still have windows, and no matter what your hardware is, windows can and usually does, screw it up. Hence, the reason guys like me (Tech support) have continuous employment, knowing Microsoft's moto should be: We will gladly screw it up today so your tech support can fix it tomorrow, again and again and again.

I strongly disagree with Doug that Apple was all marketing, while their products weren't ground breaking in terms of hardware or technology in general, they were that much better than anyone else's because they refused to let you screw it up. They knew users couldn't leave well enough alone so they made it a non-open source product that works well so you can experience the most important part of today's technology, the experience, not the hardware.

This may be the first place where I've ever seen non-open source mentioned in a positive light.

I've owned two Apple products in my life: an iPod and an iPhone. I've never had the slightest desire to actually purchase a computer from them; I play a lot of PC games, and it's cheaper for me to build a much more powerful PC, never mind the fact that I don't have to worry about compatibility issues with games if I run Windows. I understand their appeal to casual users, but it has never really made sense to me why advanced users would pay so much money for an Apple computer. They look awesome, yeah, but I'd rather build a more powerful rig that I can customize to my heart's desire for a lot less money.

[Stray]

Originally Posted by thorn

But you would mostly still have windows, and no matter what your hardware is, windows can and usually does, screw it up. Hence, the reason guys like me (Tech support) have continuous employment, knowing Microsoft's moto should be: We will gladly screw it up today so your tech support can fix it tomorrow, again and again and again.

I strongly disagree with Doug that Apple was all marketing, while their products weren't ground breaking in terms of hardware or technology in general, they were that much better than anyone else's because they refused to let you screw it up. They knew users couldn't leave well enough alone so they made it a non-open source product that works well so you can experience the most important part of today's technology, the experience, not the hardware.

I guess I'm on the other side of the fence here. I actually prefer Windows for the reasons you just mentioned. Just like I prefer Gingerbread/Sense and other Android platforms because there is more freedom for the user without having to root/jailbreak the phone.

I can see where some people need to be protected from themselves so they don't screw something up, but I still don't see where that is worth the difference in price. And with Windows 7 now it's almost a self healing OS for common problems, it can troubleshoot and fix a lot of minor issues...but hey, when they can't figure something out it's good to have guys like you to call .

Maybe I'm just frugal by nature and hate to overspend. Heck I didn't really like spending 1000 bucks on the Sony laptop I recently purchased.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by thorn

But you would mostly still have windows, and no matter what your hardware is, windows can and usually does, screw it up. Hence, the reason guys like me (Tech support) have continuous employment, knowing Microsoft's moto should be: We will gladly screw it up today so your tech support can fix it tomorrow, again and again and again.

I strongly disagree with Doug that Apple was all marketing, while their products weren't ground breaking in terms of hardware or technology in general, they were that much better than anyone else's because they refused to let you screw it up. They knew users couldn't leave well enough alone so they made it a non-open source product that works well so you can experience the most important part of today's technology, the experience, not the hardware.

They aren't all marketing, but that is what really set them apart. They make good products. I have used them. They are just about 50% more expensive than what their counterpart product would be and probably just as good too in most cases. I can build a "hackintosh" for roughly 50% of what a Mac costs. It would have the exact same hardware and software, with the same size monitor... the only thing missing would be that little apple logo on the tower and monitor. You are paying a whole lot for that little logo. With that said, for most of my friends, I have started suggesting they buy them because I am tired of working on their PC's because they don't have a clue what they are doing any always mess them up with viruses and spyware. That is one benefit of Macs. You aren't getting that stuff 99% of the time.

One thing that does bother me though is that there used to be a time when Macs were the "it" thing for video editing. Today, they are really falling behind the times because of their software. With the newer processors with multiple cores, there is a lot more power to be had with them. Macs will not allow you to use those extra cores while editing and it really slows you down. I don't use them, but I do know that a lot of people within the industry are moving back to PC's (and Adobe Premiere instead of Final Cut Pro) because of the limited power that is being restricted by the software.

[757690]

As a teenager, Jobs created the frist personal computer. His vision made it possible for people to have computers in their homes. There is no way to overstate the influence he had on our society and the world just with that invention.

[Caveat Emperor]

Originally Posted by signalhome

They look awesome, yeah, but I'd rather build a more powerful rig that I can customize to my heart's desire for a lot less money.

The genius of Jobs is that he recognized that you're the 5-10% of people who enjoy customizing things and messing around, while the other 90% of really just want to turn the thing on and have it work nicely with no work on our part. Part of the genius of the Macintosh when it came out was uniformity across the platform on how software behaved -- you didn't need to figure out how to quit a program since there was always a "quit" menu you could select in the File menu at any time in every program, you didn't need to figure out how THIS word processor handled copy/paste because it was always in the Edit menu in every program.

You can enjoy Apple products with zero tinkering and zero knowledge of anything beyond how to turn it on.

Lazy? Maybe. But every minute I don't spend fiddling around with my computer to make it work right is another minute I have to do something more productive with my time.

[MWM]

I think dwindling Jobs' accomplishments down to marketing is seriously selling him short.

[Redsfaithful]

Originally Posted by MWM

I think dwindling Jobs' accomplishments down to marketing is seriously selling him short.

Yeah it is. The guy had a massive impact on like five different markets.

The thing that bothers me about these conversations is the people who say 'well there were always tablet computers, the iPad was just marketing" which is nonsense. He created an entire category and market there. Tablets existed but they were junk and nobody was buying them. Now they are ubiquitous. Same thing with the iPhone, sure there were touchscreen phones, but they were nothing like the iPhone. It's about more than tech specs, it's about the user experience, which Apple has gotten so much better than any other tech company. They made buying a computer and tech fun for the average person - look at Apple stores and how busy they are. That's still astonishing to me.

We're too close to all of this right now to even gauge the man's impact properly. The iPhone is only four years old. In 50 years it's going to be much more apparent how much of an impact Apple and Jobs have had on our lives.

[Reds4Life]

Originally Posted by MWM

I think dwindling Jobs' accomplishments down to marketing is seriously selling him short.

I agree, and I dislike Apple's marketing. Although I use Android, the iPhone was a game changer in the cell phone world. Not only did the phone itself revolutionize what a smartphone was, it caused the entire consumer cell phone market to shift dramatically. Without the iPhone, we wouldn't have Android or other devices that are capable of doing what they can do today. The capability of the phone also drove carriers to improve networks, etc.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by MWM

I think dwindling Jobs' accomplishments down to marketing is seriously selling him short.

I don't think anyone said that. I think there is a large difference between what some people saying Jobs did and reality though. I have seen many people say he was a great inventor or this, that and the other, and well, he simply wasn't the inventor of those things at all.

Apple came out with products that were better versions of things that already existed. But the fact that they were better isn't why they sold like hot cakes in most cases IMO.

They made other companies step up their games, which is great for all of us who use technology. They still have an overpriced product no matter what product you are buying from them. They still market their product better than anyone else too.

[Johnny Footstool]

Originally Posted by 757690

As a teenager, Jobs created the frist personal computer. His vision made it possible for people to have computers in their homes. There is no way to overstate the influence he had on our society and the world just with that invention.

Not entirely true.

http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

[Johnny Footstool]

Originally Posted by Redsfaithful

They made buying a computer and tech fun for the average person.

That's marketing.

[Redsfaithful]

Originally Posted by Johnny Footstool

That's marketing.

Somewhat, it's also making products that are enjoyable and hassle free to use. Leads to a better store experience as it's more fun to demo an iPhone or iPad than pretty much anything in Best Buy.

Edited to add that I don't want to imply that I don't think a lot of Apple is marketing, it is. I just think there's much more to what Jobs did.

[Ohayou]

Originally Posted by Ohayou

Well, he was responsible for Pixar, not to mention many of the tools used to make films. He's changed the computer world forever.

Just to expand on my previous post: Final Cut (current rev aside) went from being the underdog used by amateurs to being irreplaceable for low to mid-level budget films to being used by heavy hitters (like the Coens) to cut award winning films.

Add to that the Color program which many used for a low cost alternative to far more expensive color grading tools (and which spurred the big boys like Da Vinci into creating lower cost software-based grading tools for Mac) and the iPad which has become almost omnipresent on film sets for any number of purposes, from scheduling to convenient digital storyboards, etc.

Also, Mac hardware is huge in the industry. Most digital compositing and a fair amount of CG animation is done on Mac workstations (albeit CG is generally rendered on Linux or Windows machines), and most screenwriters are Mac people.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by Ohayou

Just to expand on my previous post: Final Cut (current rev aside) went from being the underdog used by amateurs to being irreplaceable for low to mid-level budget films to being used by heavy hitters (like the Coens) to cut award winning films.

Of course now things are going back to PC's because of the issues with performance because Mac's aren't allowing you to use all of the cores of your processor to edit, while PC's are.

And even still, I think FCP is used more now than it was before because Apple sold the idea that it was better, not because it is better. There really isn't anything FCP can do that Premiere/AE can't do. It has just gotten to be more fashionable over the last 5-10 years.

[RFS62]

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220515


Here's a pretty good article about his 7 rules of success.