Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 29th Oct 2012 22:13 UTC
"Apple today announced executive management changes that will encourage even more collaboration between the Company's world-class hardware, software and services teams. As part of these changes, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will add more responsibilities to their roles. Apple also announced that Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim." The most important thing to remember is that Ive will head interface design. Ive is supposedly not a big fan of skeuomorphism, so hopefully, iOS and OS X will move away from the My First Operating System-look. Expect the current popularity of skeumorphism - including elaborate reasoning as to why it's the best choice - to magically radically decline among Apple fans.
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Member since:2005-07-06
NeXT. The vision was extraordinary, the pool of talent was brilliant, and they didn't have any of these cookie cutter morons trying hype the latest incredible version of photobooth. Look at the cube, at the boards, the software, the marketing material, the documentation, the magnesium enclosure, the drop-dead gorgeous logo. Those things were just begging to solve hard problems... and, no rounded rects either.
But the cube was tied at first to the mistake of MO, and no FDD in the times when it was definitely premature (one can argue it was premature also with iMac, since it created a whole new popular category/waste of USB FDDs).
And you know, it seems that Forstall was with Jobs since the Next days... (though maybe not the earliest years, not the 80s)
Hartmund Esslinger designed the Next Cube, as well as [...] the early Snow White machines for Apple... IIc, SE/30, IIcx and the Quadra 700 are particularly sexy.
A bit "smoother" forms of Classic and LC475 resonate the most with me, I see them as the nicest ...might be because they were pretty much the only ~old Macs I had contact with, hm (at school, in a place where Apple hardly existed otherwise)
The original sparc hardware with all the hard edges looked like it should have rendered the universe 1.6 times faster than realtime... the kind of stuff vampires would buy.
[...] SGI didn't fail because they couldn't make an affordable products and stay relevant. Their biggest mistake was changing the logo.
[...] SGI didn't fail because they couldn't make an affordable products and stay relevant. Their biggest mistake was changing the logo.
What do vampires need such computers for?
And oh come on, SGI was clearly swamped by the rise of consumer GPUs and Linux.
Some think this stuff's not important, but it is. When you walk past your machines, do you think of them as something annoying, cumbersome, full of hollow promises, or do you feel guilty you're not using it to its full potential?
I'd say the ultimate goal is to make the machines... invisible. Ordinary tower PCs go somewhat in that direction, they are typically hidden under the desk. Laptops are also like that, really - they are essentially formed from two halves, display and input; the computer part isn't very prominent.
I love the part of your post with "several centuries of hammering away" BTW
Edited 2012-11-03 05:55 UTC
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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2012-10-30
Stay of execution I think.
The last time I was this pissed with Apple was 1997... thanks to the powermac 7300, which was just the same as the powermac 7200, except it was CRAP.
Why, after several centuries of hammering away at turning ligntning and fire into extraordinarily powerful tools, capable of unlocking the mysteries of the universe, simulating lifeforms at the molecular level, and connecting every point on the planet to every other point on the planet within less than the blink of an eye, the brightest minds in the world, in order to revolutionise the way we manage our lives, in ways we couldn't imagine, by replacing our cumbersome diaries, notepads and address books, toiled away in back rooms, partitioned off from each other and the world to create something so incredible it required trademarking every superlative in existence.
What have they given us?... a PICTURE, of a diary, a notebook and an address book.
I spent a fair bit of time earlier this year going back to have a look at the time Steve Jobs spent putting together NeXT. The vision was extraordinary, the pool of talent was brilliant, and they didn't have any of these cookie cutter morons trying hype the latest incredible version of photobooth. Look at the cube, at the boards, the software, the marketing material, the documentation, the magnesium enclosure, the drop-dead gorgeous logo. Those things were just begging to solve hard problems... and, no rounded rects either.
And not just NeXT... this isn't a fanboy thing. Hartmund Esslinger designed the Next Cube, as well as the first Sparc machines for Sun, and the early Snow White machines for Apple... IIc, SE/30, IIcx and the Quadra 700 are particularly sexy. The original sparc hardware with all the hard edges looked like it should have rendered the universe 1.6 times faster than realtime... the kind of stuff vampires would buy.
Then there's other gems like the SGI Crimson. SGI didn't fail because they couldn't make an affordable products and stay relevant. Their biggest mistake was changing the logo.
Some think this stuff's not important, but it is. When you walk past your machines, do you think of them as something annoying, cumbersome, full of hollow promises, or do you feel guilty you're not using it to its full potential?