Jobs likes the fight. Fight for your view and prove you're more right than he is. May the best idea win.
Define "more right"? it's very easy to have correct on more occasions than Jobs. In fact, we only have verifiable proof of Jobs being correct on a handful of occasions. They extremely world-changing "rights" but still few in number. My by own count I've been right a lot more than Jobs ever was, but then again I have my entire life in which to compare to the few and far between occurrences of Jobs being right. That said, it's improbable that wasn't also right on a vast number of occasions but I simply have no evidence of that.
For instance, the other day i took a chance on a shortcut with the expectation it would lead me to a specific destination. I was right. Did Jobs have the same acuity when it comes to spacial awareness as I do? I don't know, but my experience tells me mine is atypical, at least among the people I tend to hangout with.
I can safely say I know [@]Dick Applebaum[/@] better than i know Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was certainly a celebrity and, in some way, a part of my life since childhood, whilst Mr. Applebaum is someone I've only gotten to know in the past 5 years or so, but I've certainly had more interaction with Mr. Applebaum, and have read a great deal more from him than from Steve Jobs. From my experience Dick Applebaum has been more right, but, again, it's the same situation because there are more times in which to judge.
Now, if I could go back and check off everything right or wrong each has stated up until know I would probably find that Steve Jobs was right a higher percentage of the time, but that's also flawed because we mostly know of Steve's successes. Who knows what ideas he had that were killed and therefore never became a product or feature. Then we have typos to consider, which — in a forum environment — as a high probability to being high for Mr. Applebaum compered to a carefully crafted, open letter to music industry by Steve Jobs.
My God! I never knew Echo Park -- had to look it up.
I grew up in Pasadena, worked in downtown LA, 8th and Main, 1st and Vermont; lived in MacArthur Park area, the Wilshire District, attended hundreds of weeks of classes and debugging sessions at the Data Center in the then IBM Bldg, next to the then Ambassador hotel. Dated girls in Glendale, lots of visits to Hollywood ...
But, I don't recall ever going to the Echo Park area -- though I lived, worked and played all around it.
I am not a racist, nor an ethnicist ... but enjoy a clever line ... I am of mixed descent - German, Dutch, Romanian (Jewish), married a Croatian ... so permit me to repeat this short line, apologies in advance. no offense intended:
A Jewish man married a Mexican woman ... Their first son was named Chavez Levine ...
Very funny. Don't think either ethnic would mind.
But you must have taken Glendale Blvd. past Aimee Semple Macpherson's Angeles Temple to get to Glendale, unless you took Alvarado, which joined Glendale at the Edendale post office, just before the Sennet studios. (I lived two blocks to the east of right there, in a damp little canyon with goats and chickens as neighbors.)
Anyway, you had to go through Echo Park to get to Glendale. The Temple was on the north side of the lake.
I met the first Macintosh pioneer professor at Cal Arts through friends in Echo Park. The very Bohemian heights used to be called "Red Hill" after all the Jewish lefties who moved out of Boyle Heights and into EP after the East LA transformation into Los Lobos/Cheech and Chong territority. So your joke has historical merit.
Well ... I've seen the temple on 2-3 occasions. My parents moved to Pasadena when I was 11 (1950) and the family would "go for a drive" (entertainment in those days).
I seldom drove directly between LA and Glendale -- mainly used Alvarado when I did.
Another joke from the same source: The Jewish woman who married a Japanese man -- On December 8, their son attacked Pearl Schwartz ... sorry!
There are little, obscure pockets of civilization [?] in every city -- We lived in a suburb of a suburb of Chicago in 1968-71 -- Chicago-->Fox River Grove-->Venetian Gardens ...
There were people living in log cabins with outhouses. Fox River grove had 1 stoplight, a castle, a train station, a bowling alley with 7 lanes * and in the 1920's a dancehall frequented by the mafia.
* after bowling a frame, one of us would slide down the alley and manually reset the pins for all the lanes in use
Jobs likes the fight. Fight for your view and prove you're more right than he is. May the best idea win.
Define "more right"? it's very easy to have correct on more occasions than Jobs. In fact, we only have verifiable proof of Jobs being correct on a handful of occasions. They extremely world-changing "rights" but still few in number. My by own count I've been right a lot more than Jobs ever was, but then again I have my entire life in which to compare to the few and far between occurrences of Jobs being right. That said, it's improbable that wasn't also right on a vast number of occasions but I simply have no evidence of that.
For instance, the other day i took a chance on a shortcut with the expectation it would lead me to a specific destination. I was right. Did Jobs have the same acuity when it comes to spacial awareness as I do? I don't know, but my experience tells me mine is atypical, at least among the people I tend to hangout with.
I can safely say I know [@]Dick Applebaum[/@] better than i know Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was certainly a celebrity and, in some way, a part of my life since childhood, whilst Mr. Applebaum is someone I've only gotten to know in the past 5 years or so, but I've certainly had more interaction with Mr. Applebaum, and have read a great deal more from him than from Steve Jobs. From my experience Dick Applebaum has been more right, but, again, it's the same situation because there are more times in which to judge.
Now, if I could go back and check off everything right or wrong each has stated up until know I would probably find that Steve Jobs was right a higher percentage of the time, but that's also flawed because we mostly know of Steve's successes. Who knows what ideas he had that were killed and therefore never became a product or feature. Then we have typos to consider, which — in a forum environment — as a high probability to being high for Mr. Applebaum compered to a carefully crafted, open letter to music industry by Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs could be right and wrong at the same time ...
Here's several examples from the Apple ][ and early Mac days:
Jobs was obsessed with not having a fan in the Apple ][. So much so, he commissioned Rod Holt to design a special light-weight, low-heat-generating power supply -- the first of its kind in the microcomputers of that era.
The 1977 Apple ][ had an extruded plastic (high quality) case which contained the electronics and the keyboard. Early prototypes did not include cooling vents (slots) on each side. The Apple ][ required expensive dies ($hundred thousand) to produce the case. Other computers of the era, including the 1981 IBM/PC, used inexpensive bent (folded) metal cases The Apple ][ was light and attractive ... the others just noisy, ugly, heavy, metal boxes.
The Apple ][ ran quiet, but somewhat hot -- After a number of power off/on cycles, the RAM chips would walk up out of their sockets and cause the computer to fail.
Was Steve right not to include a fan? Was he wrong?
The Apple ][ had a socket to which you could connect an external monitor -- but there were no reasonably priced monitors available at that time -- especially color monitors needed to exploit the Apple ][ color graphics capability.
Instead, you needed to connect the Apple ][ to an inexpensive color TV using an inexpensive RF Modulator such as this:
AIR, the M&R modulator shown sold for $19 -- and every Apple ][ customer bought one -- *Crazy Marty" Spurgel (the M of M&R), likely, made a small fortune filling this void.
At the same time, this very same 3rd party savior solution was a cause of many. many complaints -- it seems the Sup "R" Mod generated a lot of RF noise which interfered with TV reception -- causing lots of complaints. My computer was in the den about 40' feet from my neighbor's family room -- he couldn't watch TV if I was using the computer (He's a Notre Dame alumnus). It got so bad that I complained, and Apple sent Rod Holt out to fix the problem ... several hours of fiddling, wrapping cables in torrid cores, experimenting -- eventually resolved the issue.
Was Steve right not to include an RF modulator? Was he wrong?
In 1979 a company named Corvus sold a 5 MB hard drive for $5,000, Early in 1980 they developed a star network where 7 Apple ][ computers could share the expensive Corvus HD using 50-pin cables wired to a multiplexor. Sounds crazy, but it worked and was cost effective ... AFAICT, we installed the first computer LAN at Saratoga HS in June 1980.
Later, Corvus created a superior (for its time) network called Omninet * -- running over twisted-pair telephone wire -- it was fast (1 megabaud), reliable, inexpensive, flexible, easy to install (2-wire vs coax) ...
There were networks that potentially provided faster speeds ... But Omninet had a superior transmission protocol which resulted in faster throughput.
When the Mac first became available, Corvus created an interface adapted for it (AIR it cost $99). Meanwhile, Apple created it's own, slow, klugey, expensive solution called AppleTalk. It was pretty good at connecting a LaserWriter -- but not so much for LAN networking.
We ended up selling hundreds of Macs and Omninet LANS mostly in Northern California, but some in other states and foreign. We even sold Omninet LANS to Apple (7 networks) and IBM. During this time, I became friends with the founders of Corvus. Mark Hahn was the tech genius behind Omninet ... He saw the potential with Apple but had no success convincing them to even consider Omninet as an alternative to AppleTalk. Frustrated, Mark once told me he offered to license the Omninet tech to Apple for $10 per Mac.
Was Steve right to reject Omninet in favor of AppleTalk" Was he wrong?
IDK, but Apple could have run circles around the competition LANS, and, IMO missed a great opportunity.
TBH, the advantage would, likely, have lasted only 5-7 years -- that thingy called TCP/IP started gaining popularity ... but still ...
Jobs likes the fight. Fight for your view and prove you're more right than he is. May the best idea win.
Define "more right"? it's very easy to have correct on more occasions than Jobs. In fact, we only have verifiable proof of Jobs being correct on a handful of occasions. They extremely world-changing "rights" but still few in number. My by own count I've been right a lot more than Jobs ever was, but then again I have my entire life in which to compare to the few and far between occurrences of Jobs being right. That said, it's improbable that wasn't also right on a vast number of occasions but I simply have no evidence of that.
For instance, the other day i took a chance on a shortcut with the expectation it would lead me to a specific destination. I was right. Did Jobs have the same acuity when it comes to spacial awareness as I do? I don't know, but my experience tells me mine is atypical, at least among the people I tend to hangout with.
I can safely say I know [@]Dick Applebaum[/@] better than i know Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was certainly a celebrity and, in some way, a part of my life since childhood, whilst Mr. Applebaum is someone I've only gotten to know in the past 5 years or so, but I've certainly had more interaction with Mr. Applebaum, and have read a great deal more from him than from Steve Jobs. From my experience Dick Applebaum has been more right, but, again, it's the same situation because there are more times in which to judge.
Now, if I could go back and check off everything right or wrong each has stated up until know I would probably find that Steve Jobs was right a higher percentage of the time, but that's also flawed because we mostly know of Steve's successes. Who knows what ideas he had that were killed and therefore never became a product or feature. Then we have typos to consider, which — in a forum environment — as a high probability to being high for Mr. Applebaum compered to a carefully crafted, open letter to music industry by Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs could be right and wrong at the same time ...
Here's several examples from the Apple ][ and early Mac days:
Jobs was obsessed with not having a fan in the Apple ][. So much so, he commissioned Rod Holt to design a special light-weight, low-heat-generating power supply -- the first of its kind in the microcomputers of that era.
The 1977 Apple ][ had an extruded plastic (high quality) case which contained the electronics and the keyboard. Early prototypes did not include cooling vents (slots) on each side. The Apple ][ required expensive dies ($hundred thousand) to produce the case. Other computers of the era, including the 1981 IBM/PC, used inexpensive bent (folded) metal cases The Apple ][ was light and attractive ... the others just noisy, ugly, heavy, metal boxes.
The Apple ][ ran quiet, but somewhat hot -- After a number of power off/on cycles, the RAM chips would walk up out of their sockets and cause the computer to fail.
Was Steve right not to include a fan? Was he wrong?
The Apple ][ had a socket to which you could connect an external monitor -- but there were no reasonably priced monitors available at that time -- especially color monitors needed to exploit the Apple ][ color graphics capability.
Instead, you needed to connect the Apple ][ to an inexpensive color TV using an inexpensive RF Modulator such as this:
AIR, the M&R modulator shown sold for $19 -- and every Apple ][ customer bought one -- *Crazy Marty" Spurgel (the M of M&R), likely, made a small fortune filling this void.
At the same time, this very same 3rd party savior solution was a cause of many. many complaints -- it seems the Sup "R" Mod generated a lot of RF noise which interfered with TV reception -- causing lots of complaints. My computer was in the den about 40' feet from my neighbor's family room -- he couldn't watch TV if I was using the computer (He's a Notre Dame alumnus). It got so bad that I complained, and Apple sent Rod Holt out to fix the problem ... several hours of fiddling, wrapping cables in torrid cores, experimenting -- eventually resolved the issue.
Was Steve right not to include an RF modulator? Was he wrong?
In 1979 a company named Corvus sold a 5 MB hard drive for $5,000, Early in 1980 they developed a star network where 7 Apple ][ computers could share the expensive Corvus HD using 50-pin cables wired to a multiplexor. Sounds crazy, but it worked and was cost effective ... AFAICT, we installed the first computer LAN at Saratoga HS in June 1980.
Later, Corvus created a superior (for its time) network called Omninet * -- running over twisted-pair telephone wire -- it was fast (1 megabaud), reliable, inexpensive, flexible, easy to install (2-wire vs coax) ...
There were networks that potentially provided faster speeds ... But Omninet had a superior transmission protocol which resulted in faster throughput.
When the Mac first became available, Corvus created an interface adapted for it (AIR it cost $99). Meanwhile, Apple created it's own, slow, klugey, expensive solution called AppleTalk. It was pretty good at connecting a LaserWriter -- but not so much for LAN networking.
We ended up selling hundreds of Macs and Omninet LANS mostly in Northern California, but some in other states and foreign. We even sold Omninet LANS to Apple (7 networks) and IBM. During this time, I became friends with the founders of Corvus. Mark Hahn was the tech genius behind Omninet ... He saw the potential with Apple but had no success convincing them to even consider Omninet as an alternative to AppleTalk. Frustrated, Mark once told me he offered to license the Omninet tech to Apple for $10 per Mac.
Was Steve right to reject Omninet in favor of AppleTalk" Was he wrong?
IDK, but Apple could have run circles around the competition LANS, and, IMO missed a great opportunity.
TBH, the advantage would, likely, have lasted only 5-7 years -- that thingy called TCP/IP started gaining popularity ... but still ...
Great examples.
And not that I wish to pile onto Solip, but another example of the difficulty in proclaiming absolutes. Maybe Jobs had lots of failures, but that was probably a good thing. If he hadn't had them, he wouldn't have fine-tuned the Mac and found what worked and what didn't. Even asking the wrong questions can sometimes be the right thing to do. The journey is the thing.
In the context of his statements, at the launch of both the iPhone and the iPad. Apple offering an optional stylus 8 and 5 years later respectively, on a huge glass canvas, has no bearing on what he said back then.
The Macalope today is for those who would twistedly exploit his context-specific statements.
In the context of his statements, at the launch of both the iPhone and the iPad. Apple offering an optional stylus 7 and 5 years later respectively, on a huge glass canvas, has no bearing on what he said back then.
The Macalope today is for those who would twistedly exploit his context-specific statements.
In the context of his statements, at the launch of both the iPhone and the iPad. Apple offering an optional stylus 7 and 5 years later respectively, on a huge glass canvas, has no bearing on what he said back then.
The Macalope today is for those who would twistedly exploit his context-specific statements.
Answer me this. If Apple releases a iPad Pro with a optional stylus isn't the UI going to be specifically designed to optimize the usage of said stylus?
Answer me this. If Apple releases a iPad Pro with a optional stylus isn't the UI going to be specifically designed to optimize the usage of said stylus?
Nope. It'll work in many of the basic finger movements, like a tap, but there is plenty of innovation around the multi-finger use, like pinch and zoom, that will not work with a stylus. I guess you could argue that they could use multiple styluses like chopsticks but I wouldn't. Also, it might light not even be capacitive, like with those cheap, 3rd-party solutions that have been on the market since before the iPad launched. It might need to connect specofiy with a unique component that doesn't currently exist in the iPad, not to mention the Franeworks and APIs to make it a viable tool.
Some thoughts on Styluses, AlGore, Hanging Chad and the Excited Lizard problem ...
In the 1950s IBM created a specialty punched card where the holes in every other column were lightly-scored so that they could be manually punched out with a stylus.
Hopefully, the actually pieces of the cards that were punched out (called chad) would be completely removed and fall into a reservoir behind the card. Then, the card could be put through a card reader and the punched holes could be read and tabulated.
In the hands of trained people, this process worked pretty well and eliminated the slow intermediate step of keypunching.
Unfortunately, IBM and others decided to promote the use of the technology by untrained laymen -- for example, in the voting booth.
If the user was not paying attention, some of the chads were not completely removed and hung off the top, bottom, corners or sides of the holes -- the infamous hanging chad problem that AlGore used to challenge the outcome of the 2000 Florida Presidential vote count.
When you have hanging chad several things can happen in subsequent handling and processing: [LIST] [*] the hanging chad can fall out (detach itself) from the hole -- messy, but preserving the validity of the desired punch (vote) [*] the hanging chad can can fall back into place, filling the hole -- thus invalidating the desired punch (vote) [*] in alternate passes through the card readers, the hanging chad can alternately cover or expose the punched hole -- giving inconsistent results [/LIST]
Even worse, though, if the cards are improperly made (scored) and/or the card reader improperly adjusted -- a pass through the reader may punch out additional chads -- never intended by the originator ... and each repeat of the process (reading of the cards) would make the problem worse -- with this sharp confetti (chads) everywhere ... in your eyes, hair ...
You can see that the results were preordained to failure -- with each recount providing results further removed from reality ... AlGore lost the presidential election.
It is worth noting that IBM recognized the problems much earlier and got out of the controversial business of recording votes (by any means).
Here is a scored punched-card with a container and stylus -- used to manually punch a card:
I worked for IBM in Las Vegas in 1964-1968. At the time, the AEC (Atomic Energy Comission) was conducting underground nuclear tests at Mercury, NV. Basically, what they'd do is dig a very deep hole, place a nuclear device at the bottom -- then fill the shaft with instrumentation and dirt, etc.
When the shot was detonated, they'd gather as much data as they could before the instruments were consumed. Usually, the surface of the hole would cave slightly -- resembling a comet crater.
Sometimes, though the hole would vent exposing the surrounding area with dangerous radiation.
After each shot, scientists (wearing proper protection) would examine the surrounding flora and fauna to see if they could detect any abnormalities.
Enter the Excited Lizard problem!
One of the favorite things to examine were the various lizards that populate the desert:
[LIST] [*] the scientists used a clipboard containing various forms to be filled out [*] they'd capture a lizard and hold it on its back on the clipboard [*] then, they'd use a stylus (similar to a short chopstick) to probe its various organs and apertures [*] the lizard would get excited and wizz (or worse) all over the forms on the clipboard [*] [/LIST]
This was a real problem for the scientists -- and for Data Processing who had to keypunch and archive the forms ... yuck!
One scientist asked my co-worker, Marv, if IBM could come up with a solution for this challenging problem ...
After, some deliberation and a little experimentation -- Marv came up with a simple, but elegant solution: They'd still use the clipboard to hold and probe the lizard -- but the data gathering would be done on the above Port-A-Punch attached to the clip board ... Problem solved!
Keyword being 'need'. The iPad will never need a stylus. It would be an optional accessory that enhances writing.
Correction: That enhances drawing/sketching/painting.
Nobody writes on tablets. Even a virtual hunt and peck tablet keyboard is better than a stylus for writing on a screen.
Anytime you see a commercial for a tablet product where someone is writing on the screen with a stylus, you are seeing desperation at work. "Look! You can write on this thing! Isn't that what you're sitting at home wishing you could do right now!?!?"
Some thoughts on Styluses, AlGore, Hanging Chad and the Excited Lizard problem ...
Lizards 1 :: AlGore 0
Very interesting post. Although I'd be remise if I passed up an opportunity to point out to someone that the reality TV show that you watched that told you who and how the "election" was "won"....is no more realistic than the outcome of professional wrestling events.
Some thoughts on Styluses, AlGore, Hanging Chad and the Excited Lizard problem ...
Lizards 1 :: AlGore 0
Very interesting post. Although I'd be remise if I passed up an opportunity to point out to someone that the reality TV show that you watched that told you who and how the "election" was "won"....is no more realistic than the outcome of professional wrestling events.
Politics is the greatest show on earth … Although someone has to clean up after the elephants!
I don’t recall insulting anyone's intelligence, and I'll say again the an entire company can't be hypocritical. On the rare occasion I've gotten a poster to say something along the lines of 'SJ was right about many things, but in this instance he wasn't', and there's absolutely nothing wrong with being wrong. He was human as are you, and I, and we're prone to be mistaken.
It wasn't my intention to draw the ire of so many, and my comment is trollish only if you perceive it be. I did, however find it comical how many different interpretations was given for a little quote spoken in plain English. Btw the only hypocrites are those that used the same quote to mock the competition, and now claims it means something else when Apple decides to do it.
You're being a bit dodgy here, although this isn't unexpected. Whether or not Apple was proven to be hypocritical, or whether SJ was wrong, was not part of my argument. I'm not arguing any of the any of the points discussed, just calling into question your intentions. Your obfuscation about this is a bit disingenuous at best. Ok, so you didn't insult any one person, but you insulted several at the same time with your brains comment. And again, so, you didn't intend to draw ire or sound trollish, but then you state you enjoy pissing people off. This doesn't ring inconsistent to you?
FWIW, I feel the stylus debate here was pretty fun to observe, but also pretty inane. Still though, it doesn't need to devolve to petty bickering, which is were the intent to piss people off leads. And it seems pretty unnecessary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dasanman69
Answer me this. If Apple releases a iPad Pro with a optional stylus isn't the UI going to be specifically designed to optimize the usage of said stylus?
C'mon now, this is getting ridiculous. You know very well there's a difference between "optimize" and "need."
You're being a bit dodgy here, although this isn't unexpected. Whether or not Apple was proven to be hypocritical, or whether SJ was wrong, was not part of my argument. I'm not arguing any of the any of the points discussed, just calling into question your intentions. Your obfuscation about this is a bit disingenuous at best. Ok, so you didn't insult any one person, but you insulted several at the same time with your brains comment. And again, so, you didn't intend to draw ire or sound trollish, but then you state you enjoy pissing people off. This doesn't ring inconsistent to you?
FWIW, I feel the stylus debate here was pretty fun to observe, but also pretty inane. Still though, it doesn't need to devolve to petty bickering, which is were the intent to piss people off leads. And it seems pretty unnecessary.
Speaking of brains, I must be losing mine, because I don't remember making a comment like that. If I did insult anyone I apologize. I didn't think so many would jump into the fold, and to then grow into the madness it became. I wasn't looking for enjoyment, but I won't deny that as the ridiculousness ensued it became somewhat amusing, but my initial intention was to point out a irony. Fair enough?
Speaking of brains, I must be losing mine, because I don't remember making a comment like that. If I did insult anyone I apologize. I didn't think so many would jump into the fold, and to then grow into the madness it became. I wasn't looking for enjoyment, but I won't deny that as the ridiculousness ensued it became somewhat amusing, but my initial intention was to point out a irony. Fair enough?
Strange, because the comment isn't there anymore, and I'm not in the habit of making up fake quotes from people. I certainly didn't copy this quote out of the ether: "there's plenty of people here without a brain." Not that it's a big deal, no need to apologize; I wasn't offended, and I doubt anyone else was either, it's just a flippant comment. If anything it probably livens things up a bit. But, in the context of the rest of your posts, it's part of a pattern, a pattern that leads to pointless bickering and derails otherwise productive/interesting threads. I don't think anyone else would argue that you could take 150 posts out of this thread without taking anything meaningful/interesting away.
Anyway, you say your initial intention was to point out an irony. Sure, that's fair enough. But, I'm just hoping some of the other nonsense can be avoided in the future.
Strange, because the comment isn't there anymore, and I'm not in the habit of making up fake quotes from people. I certainly didn't copy this quote out of the ether: "there's plenty of people here without a brain." Not that it's a big deal, no need to apologize; I wasn't offended, and I doubt anyone else was either, it's just a flippant comment. If anything it probably livens things up a bit. But, in the context of the rest of your posts, it's part of a pattern, a pattern that leads to pointless bickering and derails otherwise productive/interesting threads. I don't think anyone else would argue that you could take 150 posts out of this thread without taking anything meaningful/interesting away.
Anyway, you say your initial intention was to point out an irony. Sure, that's fair enough. But, I'm just hoping some of the other nonsense can be avoided in the future.
Oh yes, I remember that comment. I was being facetious. I obviously value what you, and the other regulars have to say, or why else would I be here.
Oh yes, I remember that comment. I was being facetious. I obviously value what you, and the other regulars have to say, or why else would I be here.
I'm glad to hear that. There are so many great commenters here; that's why I appreciate AI so much, and also why it's annoying when threads get derailed.
Well... I guess people will probably quote Jobs' opinion about the merits of a stylus (he was against it).
That is actually incorrect. Jobs wasn't against having a stylus. He was against requiring one. Which was the state of the smart phone at the time that the iPhone was being developed. If you lost your stylus you couldn't really use the phone. He didn't like that.
Apple actually had stylus on sale in their stores at one point early on. And they just put the 53 Pencil into many stores.
Comments
Jobs likes the fight. Fight for your view and prove you're more right than he is. May the best idea win.
As the old saying goes: "The boss (SJ) isn't always right -- but he's never wrong!
But SJ was often wrong -- to be honest, most of us are often wrong.
I think we [can] learn more from our mistakes than from our successes.
I never witnessed it, but I've heard it reported several times: That SJ, when wrong and challenged -- would flip sides in an instance ... Boom!
Jobs likes the fight. Fight for your view and prove you're more right than he is. May the best idea win.
Liked, sadly.
Would that he were here.
Define "more right"? it's very easy to have correct on more occasions than Jobs. In fact, we only have verifiable proof of Jobs being correct on a handful of occasions. They extremely world-changing "rights" but still few in number. My by own count I've been right a lot more than Jobs ever was, but then again I have my entire life in which to compare to the few and far between occurrences of Jobs being right. That said, it's improbable that wasn't also right on a vast number of occasions but I simply have no evidence of that.
For instance, the other day i took a chance on a shortcut with the expectation it would lead me to a specific destination. I was right. Did Jobs have the same acuity when it comes to spacial awareness as I do? I don't know, but my experience tells me mine is atypical, at least among the people I tend to hangout with.
I can safely say I know [@]Dick Applebaum[/@] better than i know Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was certainly a celebrity and, in some way, a part of my life since childhood, whilst Mr. Applebaum is someone I've only gotten to know in the past 5 years or so, but I've certainly had more interaction with Mr. Applebaum, and have read a great deal more from him than from Steve Jobs. From my experience Dick Applebaum has been more right, but, again, it's the same situation because there are more times in which to judge.
Now, if I could go back and check off everything right or wrong each has stated up until know I would probably find that Steve Jobs was right a higher percentage of the time, but that's also flawed because we mostly know of Steve's successes. Who knows what ideas he had that were killed and therefore never became a product or feature. Then we have typos to consider, which — in a forum environment — as a high probability to being high for Mr. Applebaum compered to a carefully crafted, open letter to music industry by Steve Jobs.
Well ... I've seen the temple on 2-3 occasions. My parents moved to Pasadena when I was 11 (1950) and the family would "go for a drive" (entertainment in those days).
I seldom drove directly between LA and Glendale -- mainly used Alvarado when I did.
Another joke from the same source: The Jewish woman who married a Japanese man -- On December 8, their son attacked Pearl Schwartz ... sorry!
There are little, obscure pockets of civilization [?] in every city -- We lived in a suburb of a suburb of Chicago in 1968-71 -- Chicago-->Fox River Grove-->Venetian Gardens ...
There were people living in log cabins with outhouses. Fox River grove had 1 stoplight, a castle, a train station, a bowling alley with 7 lanes * and in the 1920's a dancehall frequented by the mafia.
* after bowling a frame, one of us would slide down the alley and manually reset the pins for all the lanes in use
Steve Jobs could be right and wrong at the same time ...
Here's several examples from the Apple ][ and early Mac days:
Jobs was obsessed with not having a fan in the Apple ][. So much so, he commissioned Rod Holt to design a special light-weight, low-heat-generating power supply -- the first of its kind in the microcomputers of that era.
The 1977 Apple ][ had an extruded plastic (high quality) case which contained the electronics and the keyboard. Early prototypes did not include cooling vents (slots) on each side. The Apple ][ required expensive dies ($hundred thousand) to produce the case. Other computers of the era, including the 1981 IBM/PC, used inexpensive bent (folded) metal cases The Apple ][ was light and attractive ... the others just noisy, ugly, heavy, metal boxes.
The Apple ][ ran quiet, but somewhat hot -- After a number of power off/on cycles, the RAM chips would walk up out of their sockets and cause the computer to fail.
Was Steve right not to include a fan? Was he wrong?
The Apple ][ had a socket to which you could connect an external monitor -- but there were no reasonably priced monitors available at that time -- especially color monitors needed to exploit the Apple ][ color graphics capability.
Instead, you needed to connect the Apple ][ to an inexpensive color TV using an inexpensive RF Modulator such as this:
AIR, the M&R modulator shown sold for $19 -- and every Apple ][ customer bought one -- *Crazy Marty" Spurgel (the M of M&R), likely, made a small fortune filling this void.
At the same time, this very same 3rd party savior solution was a cause of many. many complaints -- it seems the Sup "R" Mod generated a lot of RF noise which interfered with TV reception -- causing lots of complaints. My computer was in the den about 40' feet from my neighbor's family room -- he couldn't watch TV if I was using the computer (He's a Notre Dame alumnus). It got so bad that I complained, and Apple sent Rod Holt out to fix the problem ... several hours of fiddling, wrapping cables in torrid cores, experimenting -- eventually resolved the issue.
Was Steve right not to include an RF modulator? Was he wrong?
In 1979 a company named Corvus sold a 5 MB hard drive for $5,000, Early in 1980 they developed a star network where 7 Apple ][ computers could share the expensive Corvus HD using 50-pin cables wired to a multiplexor. Sounds crazy, but it worked and was cost effective ... AFAICT, we installed the first computer LAN at Saratoga HS in June 1980.
Later, Corvus created a superior (for its time) network called Omninet * -- running over twisted-pair telephone wire -- it was fast (1 megabaud), reliable, inexpensive, flexible, easy to install (2-wire vs coax) ...
There were networks that potentially provided faster speeds ... But Omninet had a superior transmission protocol which resulted in faster throughput.
When the Mac first became available, Corvus created an interface adapted for it (AIR it cost $99). Meanwhile, Apple created it's own, slow, klugey, expensive solution called AppleTalk. It was pretty good at connecting a LaserWriter -- but not so much for LAN networking.
We ended up selling hundreds of Macs and Omninet LANS mostly in Northern California, but some in other states and foreign. We even sold Omninet LANS to Apple (7 networks) and IBM. During this time, I became friends with the founders of Corvus. Mark Hahn was the tech genius behind Omninet ... He saw the potential with Apple but had no success convincing them to even consider Omninet as an alternative to AppleTalk. Frustrated, Mark once told me he offered to license the Omninet tech to Apple for $10 per Mac.
Was Steve right to reject Omninet in favor of AppleTalk" Was he wrong?
IDK, but Apple could have run circles around the competition LANS, and, IMO missed a great opportunity.
TBH, the advantage would, likely, have lasted only 5-7 years -- that thingy called TCP/IP started gaining popularity ... but still ...
Great examples.
And not that I wish to pile onto Solip, but another example of the difficulty in proclaiming absolutes. Maybe Jobs had lots of failures, but that was probably a good thing. If he hadn't had them, he wouldn't have fine-tuned the Mac and found what worked and what didn't. Even asking the wrong questions can sometimes be the right thing to do. The journey is the thing.
In the context of his statements, at the launch of both the iPhone and the iPad. Apple offering an optional stylus 8 and 5 years later respectively, on a huge glass canvas, has no bearing on what he said back then.
The Macalope today is for those who would twistedly exploit his context-specific statements.
http://www.macworld.com/article/2871919/never-say-never-again.html
Via Gruber, who agrees.
http://daringfireball.net
8 and 5 years later.
Answer me this. If Apple releases a iPad Pro with a optional stylus isn't the UI going to be specifically designed to optimize the usage of said stylus?
Nope. It'll work in many of the basic finger movements, like a tap, but there is plenty of innovation around the multi-finger use, like pinch and zoom, that will not work with a stylus. I guess you could argue that they could use multiple styluses like chopsticks but I wouldn't. Also, it might light not even be capacitive, like with those cheap, 3rd-party solutions that have been on the market since before the iPad launched. It might need to connect specofiy with a unique component that doesn't currently exist in the iPad, not to mention the Franeworks and APIs to make it a viable tool.
In the 1950s IBM created a specialty punched card where the holes in every other column were lightly-scored so that they could be manually punched out with a stylus.
Hopefully, the actually pieces of the cards that were punched out (called chad) would be completely removed and fall into a reservoir behind the card. Then, the card could be put through a card reader and the punched holes could be read and tabulated.
In the hands of trained people, this process worked pretty well and eliminated the slow intermediate step of keypunching.
Unfortunately, IBM and others decided to promote the use of the technology by untrained laymen -- for example, in the voting booth.
If the user was not paying attention, some of the chads were not completely removed and hung off the top, bottom, corners or sides of the holes -- the infamous hanging chad problem that AlGore used to challenge the outcome of the 2000 Florida Presidential vote count.
When you have hanging chad several things can happen in subsequent handling and processing:
[LIST]
[*] the hanging chad can fall out (detach itself) from the hole -- messy, but preserving the validity of the desired punch (vote)
[*] the hanging chad can can fall back into place, filling the hole -- thus invalidating the desired punch (vote)
[*] in alternate passes through the card readers, the hanging chad can alternately cover or expose the punched hole -- giving inconsistent results
[/LIST]
Even worse, though, if the cards are improperly made (scored) and/or the card reader improperly adjusted -- a pass through the reader may punch out additional chads -- never intended by the originator ... and each repeat of the process (reading of the cards) would make the problem worse -- with this sharp confetti (chads) everywhere ... in your eyes, hair ...
You can see that the results were preordained to failure -- with each recount providing results further removed from reality ... AlGore lost the presidential election.
It is worth noting that IBM recognized the problems much earlier and got out of the controversial business of recording votes (by any means).
Here is a scored punched-card with a container and stylus -- used to manually punch a card:
[IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/54523/width/500/height/1000[/IMG]
I worked for IBM in Las Vegas in 1964-1968. At the time, the AEC (Atomic Energy Comission) was conducting underground nuclear tests at Mercury, NV. Basically, what they'd do is dig a very deep hole, place a nuclear device at the bottom -- then fill the shaft with instrumentation and dirt, etc.
When the shot was detonated, they'd gather as much data as they could before the instruments were consumed. Usually, the surface of the hole would cave slightly -- resembling a comet crater.
Sometimes, though the hole would vent exposing the surrounding area with dangerous radiation.
After each shot, scientists (wearing proper protection) would examine the surrounding flora and fauna to see if they could detect any abnormalities.
Enter the Excited Lizard problem!
One of the favorite things to examine were the various lizards that populate the desert:
[LIST]
[*] the scientists used a clipboard containing various forms to be filled out
[*] they'd capture a lizard and hold it on its back on the clipboard
[*] then, they'd use a stylus (similar to a short chopstick) to probe its various organs and apertures
[*] the lizard would get excited and wizz (or worse) all over the forms on the clipboard
[*]
[/LIST]
This was a real problem for the scientists -- and for Data Processing who had to keypunch and archive the forms ... yuck!
One scientist asked my co-worker, Marv, if IBM could come up with a solution for this challenging problem ...
After, some deliberation and a little experimentation -- Marv came up with a simple, but elegant solution: They'd still use the clipboard to hold and probe the lizard -- but the data gathering would be done on the above Port-A-Punch attached to the clip board ... Problem solved!
Lizards 1 :: AlGore 0
Keyword being 'need'. The iPad will never need a stylus. It would be an optional accessory that enhances writing.
Correction: That enhances drawing/sketching/painting.
Nobody writes on tablets. Even a virtual hunt and peck tablet keyboard is better than a stylus for writing on a screen.
Anytime you see a commercial for a tablet product where someone is writing on the screen with a stylus, you are seeing desperation at work. "Look! You can write on this thing! Isn't that what you're sitting at home wishing you could do right now!?!?"
No.
Some thoughts on Styluses, AlGore, Hanging Chad and the Excited Lizard problem ...
Lizards 1 :: AlGore 0
Very interesting post. Although I'd be remise if I passed up an opportunity to point out to someone that the reality TV show that you watched that told you who and how the "election" was "won"....is no more realistic than the outcome of professional wrestling events.
Politics is the greatest show on earth … Although someone has to clean up after the elephants!
I don’t recall insulting anyone's intelligence, and I'll say again the an entire company can't be hypocritical. On the rare occasion I've gotten a poster to say something along the lines of 'SJ was right about many things, but in this instance he wasn't', and there's absolutely nothing wrong with being wrong. He was human as are you, and I, and we're prone to be mistaken.
It wasn't my intention to draw the ire of so many, and my comment is trollish only if you perceive it be. I did, however find it comical how many different interpretations was given for a little quote spoken in plain English. Btw the only hypocrites are those that used the same quote to mock the competition, and now claims it means something else when Apple decides to do it.
You're being a bit dodgy here, although this isn't unexpected. Whether or not Apple was proven to be hypocritical, or whether SJ was wrong, was not part of my argument. I'm not arguing any of the any of the points discussed, just calling into question your intentions. Your obfuscation about this is a bit disingenuous at best. Ok, so you didn't insult any one person, but you insulted several at the same time with your brains comment. And again, so, you didn't intend to draw ire or sound trollish, but then you state you enjoy pissing people off. This doesn't ring inconsistent to you?
FWIW, I feel the stylus debate here was pretty fun to observe, but also pretty inane. Still though, it doesn't need to devolve to petty bickering, which is were the intent to piss people off leads. And it seems pretty unnecessary.
Answer me this. If Apple releases a iPad Pro with a optional stylus isn't the UI going to be specifically designed to optimize the usage of said stylus?
C'mon now, this is getting ridiculous. You know very well there's a difference between "optimize" and "need."
Speaking of brains, I must be losing mine, because I don't remember making a comment like that. If I did insult anyone I apologize. I didn't think so many would jump into the fold, and to then grow into the madness it became. I wasn't looking for enjoyment, but I won't deny that as the ridiculousness ensued it became somewhat amusing, but my initial intention was to point out a irony. Fair enough?
Speaking of brains, I must be losing mine, because I don't remember making a comment like that. If I did insult anyone I apologize. I didn't think so many would jump into the fold, and to then grow into the madness it became. I wasn't looking for enjoyment, but I won't deny that as the ridiculousness ensued it became somewhat amusing, but my initial intention was to point out a irony. Fair enough?
Strange, because the comment isn't there anymore, and I'm not in the habit of making up fake quotes from people. I certainly didn't copy this quote out of the ether: "there's plenty of people here without a brain." Not that it's a big deal, no need to apologize; I wasn't offended, and I doubt anyone else was either, it's just a flippant comment. If anything it probably livens things up a bit. But, in the context of the rest of your posts, it's part of a pattern, a pattern that leads to pointless bickering and derails otherwise productive/interesting threads. I don't think anyone else would argue that you could take 150 posts out of this thread without taking anything meaningful/interesting away.
Anyway, you say your initial intention was to point out an irony. Sure, that's fair enough. But, I'm just hoping some of the other nonsense can be avoided in the future.
Oh yes, I remember that comment. I was being facetious. I obviously value what you, and the other regulars have to say, or why else would I be here.
I'm glad to hear that. There are so many great commenters here; that's why I appreciate AI so much, and also why it's annoying when threads get derailed.
Stylus, eh?
Well... I guess people will probably quote Jobs' opinion about the merits of a stylus (he was against it).
That is actually incorrect. Jobs wasn't against having a stylus. He was against requiring one. Which was the state of the smart phone at the time that the iPhone was being developed. If you lost your stylus you couldn't really use the phone. He didn't like that.
Apple actually had stylus on sale in their stores at one point early on. And they just put the 53 Pencil into many stores.