The tablet you want, with all these features, and not crashing, and with wireless everything, and expandable memory, and everything, will cost a shit ton of cash. Way more than the current iPad. Oh, and it will be a lot bulkier too. It'll be along the lines of a modbook, and run to 4000 dollars. 500 dollars is CHEAP!
All they have to add is one feature. The ability to install apps via a cable that are not form the app store. Adding that one feature will not change the user interface in any way. In fact, it doesn't need any user interface which does not already exist. All that is required is a desktop tool to send the app over, which already exists because it is in the developer's kit. The amount of money to add this feature is non-existent.
Why don't they do it? Not so much because they want to control the platform, which they do. But because it will allow people to sell apps without Apple being able to take a cut. I say fuck you. You didn't make the app, you don't get a cut. Ford doesn't get a cut if I buy new tires from GoodYear. Dell doesn't get a cut if you buy a Blu-Ray drive from Sony. Microsoft doesn't get a cut when you buy Photoshop for Windows.
This is worse than razors and blades. It's you make a razor, then you get money for blades other people make and sell. The only places this happens are on Apple's platforms, and on game consoles. An artificial business model on artificially closed platforms. I'm done with it. As soon as this iPhone contract is over, it's done.
Or maybe making it is more difficult, time-consuming and expensive than you think. Why don't android apps install to the SD drive,it'd be so easy.If it was that easy they would have done, but people much smarter than you still haven't cracked it in a good way. Much the same way with cars, you can make a car twice as efficient, but the design compromises would cripple it for anything but highway cruising. Sometimes things are the way they are for a good reason, not because they want to spite people and make more money.
No, it's easy. They just didn't do it. Wii games didn't install to the SD drive, then Nintendo just did it. It was easy to do, they just didn't rush to do it because it wasn't a priority for them. The priorities of the producers and consumers are not in line, and that is why knowledgeable consumers are always angry on the Internets.
Any company that actually serviced the desires of the consumers would KILL. They just don't. And because doing so requires vast resources and access to factories and talent, we can't do it ourselves like we can with open source software.
No, it's easy. They just didn't do it. Wii games didn't install to the SD drive, then Nintendo just did it.
Cause the Wii OS and the android are in any way related.
Any company that actually serviced the desires of the consumers would KILL.
Has the thought ever crossed your mind that maybe they are servicing their consumers wants? That maybe the vast majority of people don't even listen to podcasts and therefore don't give a crap about syncing them over 3G? I want a corvette with the 5.3 V8 instead of the 6.2, but GM will never make one because I'd be the only one who would buy it. There's no demand for a corvette with less hp. Much the same way there's no demand for apple to make a good terminal app. Nearly no one will use it, so why bother making it.
You and most of the people who bitch about this crap on the internet probably represent less than 1% of consumers.
You and most of the people who bitch about this crap on the internet probably represent less than 1% of consumers.
Blackberry is still the #1 smartphone. Android is also coming on very strong. Yet, the iPhone has far and away the best user interface. There is nothing lacking in their hardware whatsoever. All they need to do is add better corporate support, and open up. In fact, if they opened up, someone else would write the corporate support. All the nerds would write what they want for themselves. None of that would in any way interfere with the normys. Yet, it would make the iPhone the world's #1 phone, every other phone would be shit.
But they don't do it.
If only 1% of consumers are bitching, why isn't Apple at 99%? Why are Mac sales < 10% of the total market? For every Mac sold, more than 9 PCs are sold.
Apple can easily achieve nearly 100% market share. They just don't.
Blackberry is still the #1 smartphone. Android is also coming on very strong. Yet, the iPhone has far and away the best user interface. There is nothing lacking in their hardware whatsoever. All they need to do is add better corporate support, and open up. In fact, if they opened up, someone else would write the corporate support. All the nerds would write what they want for themselves. None of that would in any way interfere with the normys. Yet, it would make the iPhone the world's #1 phone, every other phone would be shit.
But they don't do it.
If only 1% of consumers are bitching, why isn't Apple at 99%? Why are Mac sales < 10% of the total market? For every Mac sold, more than 9 PCs are sold.
Apple can easily achieve nearly 100% market share. They just don't.
This is simple, Apply only plays in certain markets, you are not in their target market. Find a different product (Google or Blackberry or whatever).
This is simple, Apply only plays in certain markets, you are not in their target market. Find a different product (Google or Blackberry or whatever).
But I, and many many many other people, want a product for our market that has many of the features that Apple products happen to have. There is no technological reason that the product we desire can not exist. If such a product did exist, it would make a killing. Yet, nobody makes it.
And how many many people are in this group? A thousand? 2 thousand? Even if there are a hundred thousand of you, you're nothing. Apple doesn't give a fuck about you. Why you ask? They sell around 10 million iPods...A QUARTER!!! 250 million iPods have been sold in less than 10 years. Some whiny techno nerds on the internet are not even on their radar. So the actual answer is that if such a product existed, it would probably not make enough to recoup the development costs. Keep on whining about how stupid Apple is, and they'll continue knowing exactly what they're doing and making a killing while they do it.
Get a grip. Things that Apple could have included but didn't don't just affect the geeks among us. Take the iPad's lack of multitasking. You think the average Joe doesn't find any usefulness in being able to watch a YouTube video while having an IM conversation? I explained that the iPad couldn't do that to some people who aren't computer-oriented at all and their response was "wat."
I would go so far as to suggest that the problem is the arrogance of some geeks among us in thinking that there are "features" of computers that only we use and no one else. Now, Scott and I are still on the same page with side-loading. However, any person who is remotely comfortable with the desktop analogy and likes some background noise knows that they can open a media player while they browse, or open up YouTube links from an IM client without ending a conversation. Most people understand simple drag-and-drop interfaces after a brief first encounter. These seem trivial to us, as most of us have scratch-built PCs, dabbled in programming (or made it our profession), or been involved in any number of other computer-related things far past the average person's level of interaction. However, trivial as they may seem, they are still fundamental parts of today's OSes, and as such are utilized to a great extent by nearly everyone.
When Apple says "You don't need multitasking/micro-USB/drag-n-drop/side-loading," they're akin to a government rationing things. The people say "Well, this is how much butter we like to use, and we like to use flour with our butter." Apple replies, "Well, we can give you butter and flour, but you can only use one at a time and you can only have this much of it."
Most people understand simple drag-and-drop interfaces after a brief first encounter.
I take issue with that statement. Many, many people can't grasp the "dragging" part, let alone the "drop." Nevermind any understanding of what the action means. They also often miscontextualize it when they do understand it, leading to people dragging a word document onto a web page and expecting it to email the webmaster.
I would say that in my professional opinion, maybe half of the population of America can successfully drag and drop without heavy hand-holding.
It means about as much to them as "tech out" means to most gamers. ^_~
Apple likes to throw out these big numbers, but the fact is their market share is poop. iPods, sure. But iPods can play MP3s. If you compare the number of iPods out there to the number of songs sold, you will see the truth. Even normal people know open from closed. No matter how well designed the iPod, if it could only play music from the iTunes store, they would be selling less than 1% of the ones they do sell. You don't hear many people complaining that the iPod sucks because it can't do X. Even though it's closed, they gave it almost all of the functionality necessary. It is missing some stuff, like wireless syncing, but the competition barely offers that. I think the Zune can do it, but the Zune requires that shitty Zune software on the PC, and the iPod nano has a fucking video camera in it, so... no competition.
The Macintosh does incredibly poorly compared to Windows machines. It does even worse when you remember how many people are boot-camping it. Why? Because there are things OSX can't do that even normal people want to do. It's basically useless for business and/or gaming. The only thing OSX has over Linux, really, are the media production apps. But the media production software it does have is often not as good as, or exactly equal to, what you can get on Windows. It also has eye candy. Even non-nerds understand this, and that is why Macs are actually incredibly unpopular. Less than 1/10 computers sold is a Mac.
The iPhone sells decently because other phones are all complete shit. It also has an iPod in it, which as I already discussed is terrific. But it is missing a lot of things that even normal people understand, use, and need. That missing functionality, and also the closedness from the carriers, is why Android is coming on strong, Blackberry has always been stronger, and Nokia owns the rest of the world.
If you want to be closed, you need to provide every function a user wants to get them to buy in. If you are open, it's perfectly ok to be missing functionality because users know they can go get it themselves.
OSX itself shows how true this is. Even the hardcore Mac people understand that OSX is missing a ton of stuff. That is why there is big money in making non-free apps that "fix" OSX. Have you ever seen someone's Mac without Quicksilver? One without Firefox (because Safari sucks)?
From using Windows for many many years, people are used to adding functions they want to their systems. They also are good at knowing what functions they want. They want the same one's they've always been using. When functions are missing, and can not be added, people close their wallets. A web browser without facebook games is useless to a metric fuckton of people.
I would say that in my professional opinion, maybe half of the population of America can successfully drag and drop without heavy hand-holding.
Even in terms of a simple thumb drive? However, you do hold the professional opinion here, so we can rule that part of the argument out. I still feel like multitasking is something the iPad needed. If it had multitasking, I'd probably be eying it right now.
Hopefully. If there's a reliable jailbreak, I might go for it. However, the Tegra is coming (or at least widespread usage of the Tegra), so all bets are off.
They don't know they need to eject it. They don't know that they can't eject it while they're still using it. They don't know what "using it" really means, and what the ramifications of that are. If it doesn't pop up on the desktop automatically, they don't know how to access the files. This is all irrespective of the fact that many, many people do not even understand the very concept of "dragging" something with the mouse. To them, it is an incredibly frustrating and counter-intuitive experience.
That's disappointing. I feel like dragging and dropping is one of those things that's so easy it becomes difficult to explain, like when a little kid asks about basic math and then asks you to justify something.
To them, it is an incredibly frustrating and counter-intuitive experience.
This is why I think Apple may be onto something with the "simple is better" iPad. Is this going to be the way we use computers in the future. Personally I don't think so, but it might be at least a step in that direction.
Of course we might also be able to solve the problem by making it so people's eye's don't glaze over anytime they have to "learn" or "read" anything.
That's disappointing. I feel like dragging and dropping is one of those things that's so easy it becomes difficult to explain, like when a little kid asks about basic math and then asks you to justify something.
The Street Fighter players think the same thing about a quarter-circle or a charge.
This is why I think Apple may be onto something with the "simple is better" iPad. Is this going to be the way we use computers in the future. Personally I don't think so, but it might be at least a step in that direction.
Of course we might also be able to solve the problem by making it so people's eye's don't glaze over anytime they have to "learn" or "read" anything.
One of my problems with the device is that it doesn't teach you anything, and there's no room to learn. Theoretically, Apple could take the high road, and build this amazing device that easily teaches all sorts of principles. Instead, they take the low road, and just drop computing to a lower level. I feel like this is creating this stagnant environment which keeps the illiterate illiterate (while allowing them to perform at a pace equal to those of us who can do anything we want given enough processing power), and alienates those who know how a computer works.
The human experience is largely an endless quest for knowledge and information, and we live in the goddamn information age. It should follow, then, that our creations are used in a manner that helps other garner knowledge, instead of tucking the knowledge away and preventing people from knowing what's happening underneath the surface. Imagine what we could achieve if an Apple device could teach a person about drag and drop, or how to operate a simple email client, or how to properly organize files and folders.
If people don't want to learn, find a new way to teach. I am convinced Apple could do it, but they don't.
The Street Fighter players think the same thing about a quarter-circle or a charge.
I guess that stands to reason. Drag and drop is to computing as a Hadouken is to Street Fighter.
One of my problems with the device is that it doesn't teach you anything, and there's no room to learn. Theoretically, Apple could take the high road, and build this amazing device that easily teaches all sorts of principles. Instead, they take the low road, and just drop computing to a lower level. I feel like this is creating this stagnant environment which keeps the illiterate illiterate (while allowing them to perform at a pace equal to those of us who can do anything we want given enough processing power), and alienates those who know how a computer works.
If they can perform equally to us, what does the world need us for?
After years of inane questions I'd be more than happy if I were just left alone. People come to me as their computer fix it god, and that's not what I do for a living nor what I went to college for. I work on advanced information systems, fixing your virus ridden computer is not on my list of "fun things to do."
After years of inane questions I'd be more than happy if I were just left alone. People come to me as their computer fix it god, and that's not what I do for a living nor what I went to college for. I work on advanced information systems, fixing your virus ridden computer is not on my list of "fun things to do."
I was being a bit facetious. I like having a reputation as a tech wizard or what have you, but unless its my immediate family, I'm not helping you.
Besides, we can always feel important with science degrees that make people go "whoa."
If we want to, we can discuss the morality of creating simple user interfaces.
Think about the way out government was fashioned. They created three branches to check and balance each other and a bicameral legislature. This design makes it intentionally difficult to do anything. The original intent was that such a government would only be able to do something if it was really a good idea and passed a very rigorous examination.
Now think about design of other things in life. Planes are very difficult to fly. It requires a great deal of training. We have also built a system around flying to make it very difficult to get a license to fly. This doesn't have to be that way. Sure, some of the difficulties of flying are due to the nature of flight and the limitations of our technology. Even so, right now we have the means with which to build planes that can take off, fly, and land themselves in clear weather and minimal pilot control. Heck, we have drones we can fly by remote control. Why not have flying drones with passengers and a pilot in a remote tower? We can do that, but we don't.
Cars used to be like planes. They were all manual transmission, no power steering, and rather difficult to operate. People wouldn't own cars, they would have drivers. Most of the time they would take public transportation. Then we invented things like the automatic transmission and other systems which make driving available to the masses. Has that really been a good thing for us overall? Obviously it has good and bad aspects, but is it a net benefit or net harm?
And the same applies to computers. It is possible to make computers easier to use, but do we want to? Is it a good idea? Is it a net benefit to our society in the long run to put vast amounts of computing power in the hands of those who are completely ignorant? Would it not be better to have a higher barrier to entry?
Spider-Mans dead uncle says that with great power comes great responsibility. As we make every piece of powerful technology including guns, cars, computers, robots, musical instruments, GPS, the tools of media production, and more easier to use, there are some obvious benefits. But there really isn't anybody making any ethical decisions or considerations as to whether those tools are actually good for the future of our species. These simple interfaces give great power to individuals who are not unlike children, lacking experience and knowledge to carry the responsibility of that vast power.
Do we really want to live like the Jetsons where brainless morons can live a life of luxury by pressing a single button? That is the end result of Apple's philosophy. Perhaps maybe it's better to intentionally make things more difficult to use to keep this great power from falling into the wrong hands. Auto accidents, viruses, spam, and more are almost always the result of people operating powerful machinery with insufficient training. That is, if you also believe that the reason for our incredibly low rate of airplane accidents is that they are only (supposed to be) operated by highly trained professionals.
The benefits and risk must be weighed, but nobody is doing any weighing. We are making first, and not even weighing later. We're just not weighing at all.
Theoretically, Apple could take the high road, and build this amazing device that easily teaches all sorts of principles. Instead, they take the low road, and just drop computing to a lower level.
Awesome! The lower level the computing, the less shit I have to put up with. When my laptop is turned off, it takes a few minutes before I can start working on it. When my iPod Touch is turned off, it takes about three seconds before I can be reading my emails. This is a Good Thing! The less principles that I or anyone else needs to know before we can do things like, you know, email friends, the better.
Imagine what we could achieve if an Apple device could teach a person about drag and drop, or how to operate a simple email client, or how to properly organize files and folders.
It isn't Apple's job to do any of this. Personally I don't want to have to us an email client. I want it to be as easy as sending txt messages. And organizing files and folders? Fuck that! If there was an iTunes like program where I could just drop everything and it all gets sorted out and properly labeled and put into files, I'd pay 500 dollars just for that. I HATE having to keep track of files and folders. I do so, and have some good systems for it, but it's a sucky job and gets in the way of me doing things like, you know, chatting with friends and looking at photos and editing video. Having lots of storage and using Spotlight is a good start, but I often find 1gb files and think "Oh man, I could have deleted this months ago." And as I only have a 120 gb HD on this laptop, that can make a big difference.
Do we really want to live like the Jetsons where brainless morons can live a life of luxury by pressing a single button? That is the end result of Apple's philosophy. Perhaps maybe it's better to intentionally make things more difficult to use to keep this great power from falling into the wrong hands.
You know what? Fuck you!
To me, the end result of Apple's philosophy is Time Machine. Backing up files is a pain in the ass, for most people, but I just plug in an external hard drive and it's done. Job over. I don't have to think about it, it just works. I want this great power to fall into EVERYBODY'S hands, so nobody has to stupidly lose data ever again. Single button solutions are powerful, and there is no reason why everyone can't benefit.
My grandfather couldn't get used to using a computer. He's over 80. He's still quite active, and does a lot, but he had trouble controlling the mouse, due to arthritis and such. And the text was hard to read. Not the size of the text, but the jumbled layout of text on websites. The iPad would probably be the first portal to computing and the internet connected world that he'd be able to use. He'd be able to see photos of his grand and great grand children. He'd be able to send emails. He'd be able to do all kinds of shit that doesn't appeal to me, because I'm not 80. And he wouldn't have to worry about viruses and file systems and folders and email clients and dragging and dropping and dozens of other things.
And you think this is good thing? What world are you living in? What are the powers that my grandfather suddenly has access to that are as dangerous as crashing a car or a jet? What is he going to do by accident on the iPad that will suddenly have any negative impact on his life or the wider world? Name one thing, and I'll let your point stand. But I doubt you can.
I would rather say that he's still at a stage in his life where he has too much time on his hands.
These "single button" solutions are not only for the technologically impaired. I use unix and linux systems at work for scientific calculations and there are a lot of interesting kinks to work out and stuff for which I have to code one off solutions for. When I get home, however, I just want to do stuff instead of figuring out ways of how to do them. And this is by no means because I cannot figure out how to do them, just that I value my time too much.
EDIT: I just read through Scotts post and retract everything; he's and elitist bastard.
I love how when you ask a question from one side, people take it as a statement.
"Does the sun not rise in the morning?" is taken to mean "The sun rises in the morning." "Does the sun not set in the morning?" is taken to mean "The sun sets in the morning."
But seriously, I don't think you guys are really thinking about all of the consequences. You find one good reason for something and that validates the entire thing. Yes, an easy to drive car grants the power of transportation to many who would otherwise have a very difficult time moving around. That is good. However, it also causes many many problems. Is the trade-off acceptable? You might say yes, but if someone close to you was killed by a car, would you change your mind?
An easy to use computer allows people who are not technologically inclined access to vast amounts of information. But in the long run, will it result in a society dependent on advanced technology that extremely few people understand?
People going to school for computer science and IT is decreasing year after year after year. Even people who do go, so few of them actually know anything from anything. Even those who are good are mostly only capable of high level programming, creating applications and such. I very much fear that the first generation to be born after I die will be dependent on machines and only a handful of people will have any understanding of processors, assembly, or how anything works on a low level. At least if something is open source, that's a chance someone can figure it out. But if the Apple philosophy dominates, even nerds might not be able to stop the out of control robots from killing everybody.
If my dark vision of the future is true, should we cease making closed appliances for the sake of the future?
Comments
Why don't they do it? Not so much because they want to control the platform, which they do. But because it will allow people to sell apps without Apple being able to take a cut. I say fuck you. You didn't make the app, you don't get a cut. Ford doesn't get a cut if I buy new tires from GoodYear. Dell doesn't get a cut if you buy a Blu-Ray drive from Sony. Microsoft doesn't get a cut when you buy Photoshop for Windows.
This is worse than razors and blades. It's you make a razor, then you get money for blades other people make and sell. The only places this happens are on Apple's platforms, and on game consoles. An artificial business model on artificially closed platforms. I'm done with it. As soon as this iPhone contract is over, it's done.
Any company that actually serviced the desires of the consumers would KILL. They just don't. And because doing so requires vast resources and access to factories and talent, we can't do it ourselves like we can with open source software.
You and most of the people who bitch about this crap on the internet probably represent less than 1% of consumers.
But they don't do it.
If only 1% of consumers are bitching, why isn't Apple at 99%? Why are Mac sales < 10% of the total market? For every Mac sold, more than 9 PCs are sold.
Apple can easily achieve nearly 100% market share. They just don't.
I would go so far as to suggest that the problem is the arrogance of some geeks among us in thinking that there are "features" of computers that only we use and no one else. Now, Scott and I are still on the same page with side-loading. However, any person who is remotely comfortable with the desktop analogy and likes some background noise knows that they can open a media player while they browse, or open up YouTube links from an IM client without ending a conversation. Most people understand simple drag-and-drop interfaces after a brief first encounter. These seem trivial to us, as most of us have scratch-built PCs, dabbled in programming (or made it our profession), or been involved in any number of other computer-related things far past the average person's level of interaction. However, trivial as they may seem, they are still fundamental parts of today's OSes, and as such are utilized to a great extent by nearly everyone.
When Apple says "You don't need multitasking/micro-USB/drag-n-drop/side-loading," they're akin to a government rationing things. The people say "Well, this is how much butter we like to use, and we like to use flour with our butter." Apple replies, "Well, we can give you butter and flour, but you can only use one at a time and you can only have this much of it."
I would say that in my professional opinion, maybe half of the population of America can successfully drag and drop without heavy hand-holding.
It means about as much to them as "tech out" means to most gamers. ^_~
The Macintosh does incredibly poorly compared to Windows machines. It does even worse when you remember how many people are boot-camping it. Why? Because there are things OSX can't do that even normal people want to do. It's basically useless for business and/or gaming. The only thing OSX has over Linux, really, are the media production apps. But the media production software it does have is often not as good as, or exactly equal to, what you can get on Windows. It also has eye candy. Even non-nerds understand this, and that is why Macs are actually incredibly unpopular. Less than 1/10 computers sold is a Mac.
The iPhone sells decently because other phones are all complete shit. It also has an iPod in it, which as I already discussed is terrific. But it is missing a lot of things that even normal people understand, use, and need. That missing functionality, and also the closedness from the carriers, is why Android is coming on strong, Blackberry has always been stronger, and Nokia owns the rest of the world.
If you want to be closed, you need to provide every function a user wants to get them to buy in. If you are open, it's perfectly ok to be missing functionality because users know they can go get it themselves.
OSX itself shows how true this is. Even the hardcore Mac people understand that OSX is missing a ton of stuff. That is why there is big money in making non-free apps that "fix" OSX. Have you ever seen someone's Mac without Quicksilver? One without Firefox (because Safari sucks)?
From using Windows for many many years, people are used to adding functions they want to their systems. They also are good at knowing what functions they want. They want the same one's they've always been using. When functions are missing, and can not be added, people close their wallets. A web browser without facebook games is useless to a metric fuckton of people.
Of course we might also be able to solve the problem by making it so people's eye's don't glaze over anytime they have to "learn" or "read" anything.
The human experience is largely an endless quest for knowledge and information, and we live in the goddamn information age. It should follow, then, that our creations are used in a manner that helps other garner knowledge, instead of tucking the knowledge away and preventing people from knowing what's happening underneath the surface. Imagine what we could achieve if an Apple device could teach a person about drag and drop, or how to operate a simple email client, or how to properly organize files and folders.
If people don't want to learn, find a new way to teach. I am convinced Apple could do it, but they don't. I guess that stands to reason. Drag and drop is to computing as a Hadouken is to Street Fighter.
Besides, we can always feel important with science degrees that make people go "whoa."
Think about the way out government was fashioned. They created three branches to check and balance each other and a bicameral legislature. This design makes it intentionally difficult to do anything. The original intent was that such a government would only be able to do something if it was really a good idea and passed a very rigorous examination.
Now think about design of other things in life. Planes are very difficult to fly. It requires a great deal of training. We have also built a system around flying to make it very difficult to get a license to fly. This doesn't have to be that way. Sure, some of the difficulties of flying are due to the nature of flight and the limitations of our technology. Even so, right now we have the means with which to build planes that can take off, fly, and land themselves in clear weather and minimal pilot control. Heck, we have drones we can fly by remote control. Why not have flying drones with passengers and a pilot in a remote tower? We can do that, but we don't.
Cars used to be like planes. They were all manual transmission, no power steering, and rather difficult to operate. People wouldn't own cars, they would have drivers. Most of the time they would take public transportation. Then we invented things like the automatic transmission and other systems which make driving available to the masses. Has that really been a good thing for us overall? Obviously it has good and bad aspects, but is it a net benefit or net harm?
And the same applies to computers. It is possible to make computers easier to use, but do we want to? Is it a good idea? Is it a net benefit to our society in the long run to put vast amounts of computing power in the hands of those who are completely ignorant? Would it not be better to have a higher barrier to entry?
Spider-Mans dead uncle says that with great power comes great responsibility. As we make every piece of powerful technology including guns, cars, computers, robots, musical instruments, GPS, the tools of media production, and more easier to use, there are some obvious benefits. But there really isn't anybody making any ethical decisions or considerations as to whether those tools are actually good for the future of our species. These simple interfaces give great power to individuals who are not unlike children, lacking experience and knowledge to carry the responsibility of that vast power.
Do we really want to live like the Jetsons where brainless morons can live a life of luxury by pressing a single button? That is the end result of Apple's philosophy. Perhaps maybe it's better to intentionally make things more difficult to use to keep this great power from falling into the wrong hands. Auto accidents, viruses, spam, and more are almost always the result of people operating powerful machinery with insufficient training. That is, if you also believe that the reason for our incredibly low rate of airplane accidents is that they are only (supposed to be) operated by highly trained professionals.
The benefits and risk must be weighed, but nobody is doing any weighing. We are making first, and not even weighing later. We're just not weighing at all.
To me, the end result of Apple's philosophy is Time Machine. Backing up files is a pain in the ass, for most people, but I just plug in an external hard drive and it's done. Job over. I don't have to think about it, it just works. I want this great power to fall into EVERYBODY'S hands, so nobody has to stupidly lose data ever again. Single button solutions are powerful, and there is no reason why everyone can't benefit.
My grandfather couldn't get used to using a computer. He's over 80. He's still quite active, and does a lot, but he had trouble controlling the mouse, due to arthritis and such. And the text was hard to read. Not the size of the text, but the jumbled layout of text on websites. The iPad would probably be the first portal to computing and the internet connected world that he'd be able to use. He'd be able to see photos of his grand and great grand children. He'd be able to send emails. He'd be able to do all kinds of shit that doesn't appeal to me, because I'm not 80. And he wouldn't have to worry about viruses and file systems and folders and email clients and dragging and dropping and dozens of other things.
And you think this is good thing? What world are you living in? What are the powers that my grandfather suddenly has access to that are as dangerous as crashing a car or a jet? What is he going to do by accident on the iPad that will suddenly have any negative impact on his life or the wider world? Name one thing, and I'll let your point stand. But I doubt you can.
These "single button" solutions are not only for the technologically impaired. I use unix and linux systems at work for scientific calculations and there are a lot of interesting kinks to work out and stuff for which I have to code one off solutions for. When I get home, however, I just want to do stuff instead of figuring out ways of how to do them. And this is by no means because I cannot figure out how to do them, just that I value my time too much.
EDIT: I just read through Scotts post and retract everything; he's and elitist bastard.
"Does the sun not rise in the morning?" is taken to mean "The sun rises in the morning." "Does the sun not set in the morning?" is taken to mean "The sun sets in the morning."
But seriously, I don't think you guys are really thinking about all of the consequences. You find one good reason for something and that validates the entire thing. Yes, an easy to drive car grants the power of transportation to many who would otherwise have a very difficult time moving around. That is good. However, it also causes many many problems. Is the trade-off acceptable? You might say yes, but if someone close to you was killed by a car, would you change your mind?
An easy to use computer allows people who are not technologically inclined access to vast amounts of information. But in the long run, will it result in a society dependent on advanced technology that extremely few people understand?
People going to school for computer science and IT is decreasing year after year after year. Even people who do go, so few of them actually know anything from anything. Even those who are good are mostly only capable of high level programming, creating applications and such. I very much fear that the first generation to be born after I die will be dependent on machines and only a handful of people will have any understanding of processors, assembly, or how anything works on a low level. At least if something is open source, that's a chance someone can figure it out. But if the Apple philosophy dominates, even nerds might not be able to stop the out of control robots from killing everybody.
If my dark vision of the future is true, should we cease making closed appliances for the sake of the future?