"
Price and delivery:
£159.95
+ £2.78 UK delivery
"
'Realistically' that is expensive.
But in terms of 'price v average wage' I suspect these were even more so when first produced -
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Computers, GPS, 'Smart' 'Phones
"Apple plans to open first ever shop in the Capital"
(102 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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Insto: "the general idea implicit in many of these kinds of discussions that consumers are passive in the process of consumption and that the only active participants in markets are evil corporations"
I'd like to amend my view if there's evidence that this isn't the case but when the quote comes from Steve Jobs himself it's difficult.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I'd have thought the last person you'd trust would be the evil corporation itself. On the market research front Jobs was reinforcing his own myth that Apple anticipates consumer needs rather than following them. There may be an element of truth in the claim in the sense that they don't go out to focus groups with a mocked up iPad and ask people what they think. They don't react to consumers in that sense. If they had been led by consumers they would have died long ago.
But it's simply not true to that Apple does no research. They used to publish, through their funding of the Australian Universities Consortium, a really good journal devoted to research on all aspect of how people used computers and, in particular, human-computer interfaces (Wheels for the Mind). You might like the logo, which you can see here.
Too academic? Maybe but it isn't even true that they don't do market research in the sense of talking to consumers. My colleagues in the States say different. They don't do normal research. Of course, in many respects you could see that as worse. The evidence of the Macintosh, the Laserwriter, iPod, iMac, iPhone and iPad is that they understand their consumers better than the "experts" do.
But the idea that when these products were launched Apple had to manipulate people into wanting them is laughable. No more than bicycle manufacturers manipulate us into wanting N+1.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"No more than bicycle manufacturers manipulate us into wanting N+1"
Current Evans ad (with ITV4 TdeF coverage) - "of course we always need one more bike".
Posted 9 years ago # -
That's series of well accepted statements of fact.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Back to the point about planned obsolescence: here's some old tech that's still working fine.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/09/voyager_1_hears_sounds_of_space_as_solar_tsunami_sweeps_past/As it says at the end of the article,
"If that sounds feeble, remember that the Voyagers launched in 1977. Then ask yourself if you own anything that old that's still working, never mind contactable after travelling more than 17 light hours through the radiation-wracked nastiness of space. "Posted 9 years ago # -
"My colleagues in the States say different"
The power of Apple - they can even alter grammar.
Now, that iKettle is expensive but it will save you two days a year. That awful dead time between switching it on and the water boiling.
Posted 9 years ago # -
BBC Acorn computer will still work. Quite slow and you need a tape recorder.
Apple II was a nice computer
Also those funny wee cubes they did with the one inch screens were indestructible but even when they were edgy, very slow.
So these are obsolete due to speed.
However iPads, iPhones iPods are virtually identical despite upgrades in speed, screen definition etc
So obsolescence is more of a stylistic term in this instance rather than speed or performance etc.
Obsolescence in the eye of the beholder?
My recollection of thirty odd years ago is that
Windows was a clumsy operating system before they stole the apple system.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Crivens. There's no humour at all to be had in this place.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Crivens. There's no humour at all to be had in this place.
You could always get yourself one of these if humour is what you're after. It's a lot cheaper than the kettle too although harder to set up.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@Instography. Where's the joke? What you said in response to chdot's video seemed eminently sensible to me. Surely n+1 is too serious a subject for joking.
Gladstone to Disraeli*
"I hear you have a reputation as a wit and can make a joke about any subject. I challenge you to make a joke about Queen Victoria"
Disraeli to Gladstone
"Her Majesty, sir, is not a subject"(*or some other dead white males from Victorian times)
Posted 9 years ago # -
Nah, it was the deliberate use of "say different" to refer to what my American colleagues say of Apple. Although to be fair, our transatlantic cousins have certainly impacted our grammar.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I couldn't tell if it was humour as it was quite subtle. Thought I would check.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"I couldn't tell if it was humour as it was quite subtle."
Subtle? On CCE??
Posted 9 years ago # -
"That awful dead time between switching it on and the water boiling."
Watched kettle and all that.
Think of all those people who stick their kettles on the gas - all that extra dead time...
Posted 9 years ago # -
Of course cost/value/time saving is all relative.
If you had one of these -
http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/blog/2014/07/specialized-s-works-mclaren-tarmac
would you 'save' time by going faster or 'waste' more by cycling more??
Posted 9 years ago # -
I fail to see how the time it takes for the kettle to boil can be considered wasted time. Surely the time is just as wasted if you tell the kettle to boil from the couch and wait for an email before getting up only to realise that it is now off the boil and so your tea will be ruined.
Imagine the feeling of despondence when your log into your kettle during the last few minutes of your commute home only to discover that you forgot to fill it with water in the morning and you'll now need to wait another 45 seconds for your cuppa.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Humour is an extremely serious business.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"I fail to see how the time it takes for the kettle to boil can be considered wasted time."
Indeed. There is some implicit assumption that 'you can't do anything else' - like find the pot, cups, biscuits etc.
"only to discover that you forgot to fill it with water"
Yes, definitely a need for a self-fulfilling kettle!
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Humour is an extremely serious business."
That's too subtle for me.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Humour is an extremely serious business."
Pretty sure that was a running joke amongst professional comedians at the Perrier awards back in the early 1990s. That exact phrase. Coined by one Arnold Brown (remember him?).
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Coined by one Arnold Brown (remember him?)"
Did he go back to accountancy?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Insto: "I'd have thought the last person you'd trust would be the evil corporation itself. "
It didn't occur to me that he could be lying.
Alex Steffen* said "Cynicism is often seen as a rebellious attitude in western popular culture, but in reality, our cynicism advances the desires of the powerful: cynicism is obedience."
I think you are right when you say "it's really defeatist if you're also the kind of person keen on radical social change, if your starting point is that the people are gullible schmucks". Apple was founded on idealism and optimism and it's just a bit weird to find a quote that seems so at odds with that.
*I've just found an essay he wrote called "My other car is a bright green city".
Posted 9 years ago # -
There's no humour at all to be had in this place.
I'd agree that phlegmatic posts are in short supply, but examples of choleric, sanguine and melancholic ones are reasonably easy to find (yours is melancholic), therefore your proposition is falsified.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"your proposition is falsified"
Is that the same as "economical with the truth"?
Posted 9 years ago # -
IMO recombodna's posts were the funniest, usually snappy one-liners that would get a chuckle from me. he doesn't seem to post so much these days.
Still plenty of good jokes though and wry observations.Posted 9 years ago # -
Is that the same as "economical with the truth"?
[choleric]No.[/choleric]
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Coined by one Arnold Brown (remember him?)"
Did he do Red Dwarf?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Norman Lovett played Holly the Computer for about half of red dwarf and Hattie hayridge the other
Arnold brown catchphrase Why Not
Scottish and Jewish, two racial stereotypes for the price of one he had to suffer the ignominy of watching his father being flung into pubs in Glasgow on a Saturday night.
Posted 9 years ago #
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