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Having said that, Apple fans will buy any crap Apple sells. My phone plays videos, music, and does a whole lot more than an Apple iPod and iPhone, so why should I purchase something like that? Yet they're still selling in droves, because consumers are a bunch of idiots.
There are many things that need to happen before printed books even start dwindling, much less being replaced.
Sometimes, the low tech solution is superior.
Perhaps, this should be included in the PODCAST.
No one reads!? LOL - How do you respond to a goofy comment like that...
The bigger question is: Will Jobs ever have anything approaching an original thought?
Xerox PARC of course came up with the first GUI, and it had also been common on high-end UNIX workstations before Apple, then Microsoft got into the act.
As for Jobs, he does have a solid knack for one thing: Taking a good idea and actually putting it to good use. Before the iPod, portable mp3 players were largely unknown to the average public. They were also somewhat cryptic to use, tended to be clumsy, didn't hold a whole lot of data, and were pretty useless to most people. Jobs (or more accurately, Apple), took the concept, and put a nice design, a revolutionary interface, and a solid but simple software package together.
The Mac Mini? That came from seeing people build shoebox-sized PC's for their house; a lot of people simply did not want a big beige or black tower system sucking up dust and sticking out (then again, Apple did come out with the Cube back in 1999-2000, long before it was trendy to build small systems).
He is right in that generally, about 40% of the public doesn't read but maybe one book a year, if that. Time constraints, a busy lifestyle, raising kids... things such as these prevent many folks from sitting down with a good book.
OSX is a no-brainer: take a flexible and rock-solid OS (BSD-style *nix-based NeXT), give it a good work-over, and use it as a base for your OS. Now you get all the benefits of *nix and a slick UI to boot.
---
Now, all this said, I think Jobs is happy to see him go, mostly because I think (and he probably believes) that Microsoft probably won't survive Gates' departure past the next decade or so. It's already apparent as MSFT casts about for all kinds of weird "markets" (automobiles, shopping cart adverts, and suchlike), and desperately chase existing markets by throwing huge gobs of money at the projects in question (e.g. the Xbox has yet to turn a profit, the Zune is still a miserable failure, and no amount of channel-stuffing or creative accounting will ameliorate this).
Sure, MSFT is still raking in money, but the vast majority of that income is coming from XP and Office sales (in spite of the fact that MSFT counts an XP sale nowadays as a "Vista" sale, due to "downgrade rights").
...and so the industry evolves onwards...
/P
how many tv shows have you watched?
how many songs have you listened to?
and how many books have you read?
For most people, the last question will be less than 1% of each of the first three.
No Battery, No DVD Drive, No Stereo Speakers, NO WAY!
He should've introduced it as the World's First Disposable Laptop.
-Google founders put loads of money into environmentally sound projects. (Which is great, because apparently the web can save the world*)
- What the heck has Steve Jobs ever done besides wear slick sweaters?
*http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=142504&
The Air is massively overprice
It is radically underpowered
It is wildly overhyped
It is missing many key features
The screen is way too small
It must be an Apple product.
And Microsoft still can't see Apple in it's rear view mirror. The score is 95% to 3%. As long as Apple keeps coming up with products as stupid as this one things will never change.
compared to ...what? I checked at Dell, and I defy you to find something at equal (or better) specs for the same price.
[i]"It is radically underpowered"[/i]
A Core 2 Duo w/ 2GB of RAM and 80GB of HDD space? That's as beefy as most users' desktops. What pray tell do you consider "overpowered" in the ultra-portable class?
[i]"The screen is way too small"[/i]
It's actually an inch larger than the Dell equivalent (Latitude D430)...
[i]"And Microsoft still can't see Apple in it's rear view mirror"[/i]
That's because Microsoft is looking in the wrong direction.
BTW, Apple's marketshare is nearly 10% now. ;)
/P
significant supply of people willing to cut down those who
produce in an attempt to get their name in the look at me I am
bright too column.
We have a PC industry in large part because of Bill Gates. We
have clever computing design in large part because of Steve
Jobs. Both have stubbed their toes in the processes of pushing
the personal computing industry to its current heights.
Where in the history of personal computing do we find most of
the folks we see knocking these leaders?
As we learned early in our family If you can't think of something
positive to say, keep your mouth shut until you do.
Jim
The Apple way is already there: "Audiobooks" is prominently featured in the iTunes Store.
In any case, you can get over 20,000 books from the Gutenberg Project. (and over 100k from affiliates) [but you probably know this already]
Don't feel bad, none of my predictions came to be.
From The Basement Of The Science Building
to my comment here.
Fair enough?
Mr. Jobs...you are truly a fool. Then again, lack of the ability to comprehend is probably why the idiot-proofing of Mac is gaining popularity in the first place.
- If you repeat something enough, people believe it
- by iBuzz January 18, 2008 8:26 AM PST
- OK Mr. Jobs, let me see if I got this straight:
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(40 Comments)Digital music rentals/subscriptions == bad
Digital movie rentals == good
Digital book sales == bad
2-year mobile phone contract/subscription lock-in == good
Thanks Mr. Jobs. Without you telling me what I should want, I
would've been completely lost.