Steve Job's interview with cnet re: Quicktime 6
An interesting read:
<a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-932419.html"; target="_blank">http://news.com.com/2100-1040-932419.html</a>;
<a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-932419.html"; target="_blank">http://news.com.com/2100-1040-932419.html</a>;
Comments
[ 06-05-2002: Message edited by: Fischer ]</p>
A: They're doing just fine.
Uh-oh. Shortest answer. Not good.
I have a strange feeling that the iMac is going to turn out to be a financial mistake, that Apple's predicted sales were too high, and the return will be lower than required to make up for the reduced profit margin.
It's probably our fault. The Apple fanatics bleated for so long that the iMac must get a TFT display, and Apple decided to start "listening".
In the "PC world", 17in, 19in, and 21in CRTs still outsell TFTs by a colossal margin.
I've always preferred TFTs, I find them much more comfortable (My eyes seem to be super-sensitive to flicker). However, if I were in the market for a desktop machine, I think I'd currently choose the eMac over the iMac, especially if it were updated to include a SuperDrive (Though I suspect Apple won't do this to mark the line between the two machines).
<strong>MPEG4 better than MPEG2??? At a lower bitrate even. I say PROVE IT! I have my doubts about that statement.</strong><hr></blockquote>
How many MPEG-2 streams have you watched?
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How many MPEG-2 streams have you watched?</strong><hr></blockquote>
[quote]What's so great about MPEG-4?
It delivers video quality as good as MPEG-2 at about one-third less the bit rate. But then you can crank down the bit rate for lower bandwidth connections and it scales down beautifully. So you can deliver incredible streaming video with MPEG-4. It has got higher quality than anything out there--including Microsoft's upcoming Corona--and it's totally scalable. Everybody's jumping on this bandwagon. We've announced we're going to switch over to MPEG-4. Real has said they're going to. All the cell phone companies are going to be using it; it is the standard for third-generation cell phone video streaming. It also features AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) audio, which is the best audio around. It blows away MP3 (and) Windows Media. And it also is the audio format adopted by all satellite radio (companies). So this is gathering a tremendous amount of steam, and I think everybody is going to be cutting over to MPEG-4, with the possible exception of Microsoft, which is going to try and push its Corona technology that comes out later this year. They haven't gone into a preview or beta mode yet, but they said they were going to release it sometime this year.
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JLL...take a look at that Quote and tell me where SJ specifically says "streaming" only. All I see is talk of Bitrate but even DVD's have varying Bitrate so I cannot assume his opinion that MPEG4 is better than MPEG2 was only in the context of Video Streaming.
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JLL...take a look at that Quote and tell me where SJ specifically says "streaming" only. All I see is talk of Bitrate but even DVD's have varying Bitrate so I cannot assume his opinion that MPEG4 is better than MPEG2 was only in the context of Video Streaming.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And where does he say that MPEG-4 is better than MPEG-2?
[ 06-05-2002: Message edited by: JLL ]</p>
It's probably our fault. The Apple fanatics bleated for so long that the iMac must get a TFT display, and Apple decided to start "listening".<hr></blockquote>
Re: Predicted Sales... The numbers are always so big that I find it very hard to objectively predict whether they will meet them or not. Selling desktop computers... is 5000 a month a lot? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? I'm one of those clueless morons who just "ooohs" whenever they announce the sale of X units in just N days. But if you're judging by Steve's response to the question: "How are the new iMacs selling?", then I agree with you in that it was definitely a low-key-let's-move-on-kind-of-answer.
Re: Mac fanatics... I think Apple has done a much better job than we have of listening to the market... even though we are a weird subset of it. A TFT AIO was inevitable. It has the right price and the right stuff. The only question is whether people (real people, not us!
[ 06-05-2002: Message edited by: jutus ]</p>
I've yet to burn a DVD, or really watch DVD disks. Something tells me I would've been just fine with a 24x CD-RW and a larger monitor.
The only thing the eMac lacks that my iMac has is a 100MHz gap in speed and 20GB less hard drive.
But I haven't even filled up 15GB of the 60 available to me!
AND, I could've saved $700.
Would've been cool because all along (last year or so) all I asked Apple to do was stick the iMac guts inside a 17" Studio Display shell and make it swivel/tilt capable.
They go and do this AFTER I drop $1799 on my iMac.
he he, my brother in law had an entire feature of Carnival down in brazil. that chapter rules!
lol, it was funny though, almost back to the CD days, where you worry about burning a bad disk. at $5 a pop, it's something to think about.