Look, the iPhone 5 is great. All the things you’ve read about it already being light, fast, with a richer-looking display, all that’s true, so let’s take that as a given. But there are real trade-offs. And I don’t mean like the iPad mini’s display. That’s not a trade-off (“swallow” the lower resolution display to …
Tag Archive: apple
Sep 14 2012
Wait
Since the truth of the working conditions of those who make our iDevices has come to light, thanks in very large part to Mike Daisey, our collective consciences have been, shall we say, challenged. Some have decided to forgo Apple altogether as a result, which I think is fairly pointless unless one wants to live …
Aug 26 2012
Amazon and Apple and Love-Hate
After its beatdown of Samsung last week, a Fortune piece wonders who Apple will sue next. Analyst Florian Mueller: “If I were in Apple’s shoes the next company I would sue is not Google, but Amazon, which has an even weaker patent portfolio than Google and sells large volumes of Android-based devices with a subsidies-centric …
Jul 04 2012
Apple vs. Google vs. Microsoft Keynote Gimmicks
Inspired by the conversation on the recent edition of John Gruber’s The Talk Show, here’s a totally unscientific comparison of some approaches to product introductions at huge tech keynotes. Google Glass (2012): “Hey look, this shit’s great for video conferencing while jumping out of airplanes and rappelling down a building!” Microsoft Surface (2012): “Hey look, this …
Apr 28 2012
It Looked Like a Toy
I am in the midst of reading James Gleick’s The Information (and I think I’m the last person left who hasn’t), and I was startled by his retelling of the initial reactions to the introduction of the telephone. See if it reminds you of anything. The next year, in England, the chief engineer of the …
Mar 17 2012
The Veracity and the Vicissitude of Mike Daisey
Listening tonight to the nearly-unbearable “Retraction” edition of “This American Life” in which Mike Daisey is taken to task for his fabrication of details about his experiences in China, I kept waiting for Daisey to more effectively counter the assertion by Ira Glass that people who come to see a monologue expect that every word of it …
Mar 11 2012
Oh, That’s Why People Like Tablets So Damn Much!
The so-called post-PC revolution came to my house. This has been my first weekend off in a couple of weeks, and though I’ve been browsing the Web, tweeting, and now blogging, I didn’t even turn on my computer yesterday, and if you know me at all, you know that the only reason this could be …
Oct 11 2011
It’s Not Your Job to Know What You Want: A Jobsian Lesson for Government?
Matt Bai of the New York Times wishes Washington could learn some lessons from Steve Jobs. In his obituary of Mr. Jobs on The Times’s Web site, John Markoff quoted him as explaining his aversion to market research this way: “It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” In other words, while Mr. Jobs tried to …
Oct 07 2011
Grieving an Ethos, Ctd.
Following up from my post on Steve Jobs, I decided soon after posting that I needed to make one addendum. Lots of folks have been throwing Jobs’ name into lists including Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, among others, and I think those particular two men raise an interesting point: they were both, reportedly, pretty abysmal …
Oct 06 2011
Grieving an Ethos: Thoughts on the Loss of Steve Jobs
Most of the people I work with are, naturally, having very strong feelings about the death of Steve Jobs. But not all, and that’s fine. My wife is also not what I would call crushed by his passing, but she is extremely sympathetic and supportive; she understands how I revered the man and what he …
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