CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
other touch-screen devices are available.
I've only joined the party within the last 2 weeks, have to say I think a lot of my previous prejudice against them was completely unfounded!
for home use I like a mouse and keyboard as most of the work I use my PC for needs you to very accurately position the cursor while simultaneously mashing combinations of keys! I've tried graphics tablets but at the time didn't work for me, perhaps the technology was too in its infancy.
"Is it a year since a lot of 'experts' said there was no market for it??"
'market' or 'need'?
Stepdoh
"My plus 4 then 64 then Amiga progression"
We (my brother specifically) had a Plus 4. Bit of a rare beast. He'll still have it somewhere.
We had many different 8-bits over the years but were primarily an Amstrad CPC operation. (664, 6128, 6128+ and GX4000).
The Plus/4 was awesome (in a kind of un-awesome lumped in with the C16 way). Getting my technically superior but older designed 64C felt like a step back.
I only knew one other guy at school to swap Plus/4 games with and he got rid of it fairly quickly. Everyone else would swap Spectrum and C64 games. Then we got a CPC but by the everyone else was on STs and Amigas. Aye, we were a bit behind the times...
"'market' or 'need'?"
Well clearly no-one needs 'gadgets'.
But it was most entertaining in the run up to the iPad launch, how many people - hard core Apple fans (not the target market) and 'financial analysts' - who thought (loudly and publicly) that Apple had lost it.
'Who would want to buy an oversized iPhone', etc.
Part of apple's genius is convincing people they "need" these things. Of course no one needs to be able to take a photo, have it geotagged, flickered, tweeted, facebooked with a couple of finger strokes and then check with a spirit level app to see if the earth is straight or not, but now that they can they want to!
It's a fair point about their software though - remember quicktime? That was possibly one of the worst video players for the PC ever and one of the most insidious at trying to re-install itself or lurk in the depths of your system.
"no one needs to be able to take a photo, have it geotagged, flickered"
OH YES THEY DO
Can't remember what I used to do.
Hazy recollections of a darken room and chemicals.
"How much market research did you do for the iPad?" Jobs replied: "None. It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want." (via @asymco on Twitter)
"How much market research did you do for the iPad?"
"
1:06
To date, Developers have earned $2B from the App Store.
1:06
Apple just shipped is 100 millionth iPhone recently as well.
1:07
And today, Apple is here to talk about its third post PC blockbuster. First was iPod in 2001. Then iPhone in 2007, then iPad in 2010.
1:07
Apple's now generating the majority of its sales from those three devices.
1:08
People weren't sure about the potential for iPad, steve says.
1:08
But Apple sold 15 million in 2010 alone.
1:08
Steve says thats more than all other tablets ever sold, combined.
1:09
"The modern tablet PC IS the iPad" - Steve
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It's been their fastest product to stardom.
1:09
And some industry watchers believe its the most successive consumer electronics device ever.
1:09
Apple has more than 90% share of the Tablet PC market as a result.
"
etc.
Can't argue with the numbers I suppose but whatever happened to "think different"?
they realised they make a lot more money if lots of people think the same?
It's worth watching "The Men Who Made Us Spend" on BBC iPlayer. Episode 2 has a bit about 'planned obsolescence' and mentions Apple devices in particular.
As well as physical obsolescence i.e. failure, there is also psychological obsolescence e.g. Nobody wants the iPhone5 anymore even though technically there isn't much difference between it and the 5S
psychological obsolescence
Standard issue consumerism/keeping up with the Joneses/status anxiety, isn't it?
"Nobody wants the iPhone5 anymore"
I like mine!
"even though technically there isn't much difference between it and the 5S"
There are those who 'have to have the latest' and those happy (or not) to stick with their 2 year contract.
The whole business of 'technology' and 'consumerism' is fraught with conflicting motivations and justifications (etc.)
I've had 4 models of iPhone over the past six years. Consequently I have not bought at least one laptop 'upgrade' (and haven't bought another iPod over the same period). Of the 3 previous iPhones - one died on its third owner, the other two are still in use.
There are still people who just have 'a 'phone', but the advent of 'smartphones' has engendered a whole new range of possibilities and uses.
I'm sure 'social/personal interaction' has suffered, but there have been some benefits...
"Standard issue consumerism/keeping up with the Joneses/status anxiety, isn't it?"
Keeping up with the Jobses. In a sense.
Hands up who has spent more than the cost of a Rholoff hub on internet-enabled devices in the last three years?
I bought a wee blue Win7 laptop out of Tesco - I was backwards futureproofing myself against Win8. It cost just over what the Sturmey 3-speed with drum brake did.
"Hands up who has spent more than the cost of a Rholoff hub on internet-enabled devices in the last three years?"
Interesting question...
Partly depends on whether you just mean hardware, or include ISP charges.
But, as with everything else 'discretional', it's not an either or!
I cycled past the store this morning and despite staring at it, didn't spot the apple logo. More interesting though was a guy making a dog sculpture out of sand, somewhere around Jenners. I'm an Apple fan, but the dog was more impressive, tbh.
We have a daily dog sculptor in Dunfermline too. He seems to create his dog in a couple of hours then spend the rest of the day spraying it with water to stop it drying out.
Hands up who has spent more than the cost of a Rholoff hub on internet-enabled devices in the last three years?
If I include the wifi kettle then I might have. If I knew what a Rholoff hub cost. But I still think I've spent more on bikes. But maybe more on music. I've definitely spent more than the cost of a Rholoff on music and beer combined. It's hard to say.
The trouble with ideas of planned obsolescence and producers manufacturing wants is the almost complete contempt that it has for consumers. It places them in the role of dumb suckers endlessly manipulated by evil megacorps. Leaving aside the inherent snobbery of it (the speaker/writer at least implicitly makes themselves immune from the malign influence, making only wise and informed choices) 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.
if your starting point is that the people are gullible schmucks
Something has gone wrong if you think I think that.
I didn't think you'd mentioned planned obsolescence or manufactured needs so, no, I wasn't referring to you. I wasn't referring to anyone specifically just 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 who make people spend too much on things they irrationally want but don't need and drive their competitors out of business.
Anyway, I'd hoped the wifi kettle would convey the sense of absurdity. Sorry, my fail.
But what's the significance of people's spending on internet enabled devices compared with the cost of a hub?
The trouble with that comparison is that even though my phone (which I find very useful and use every day etc.) is getting on for four years old I still always keep it in my pocket rather than leaving it on the street tethered to the ground by a bolt-croppable shackle.
Anyway, I'd hoped the wifi kettle would convey the sense of absurdity.
Phew. Though I believe wifi fridges do exist?
But what's the significance of people's spending on internet enabled devices compared with the cost of a hub?
@chdot warned me the other day that Rholoff hubs are expensive, which they are. They cost as much as a decent bicycle.
I just wondered how much people spend on devices. I have a £17 mobile phone and a second hand laptop I got off my old man. I spend quite enough time in the bowels of computers at work.
I think I'd quite like to spend the money I haven't spent on touch-screens on German engineering.
I'm such a neo-Luddite at home that I actually did an 'internet kettles, eh, whatever next?' tanktop and pipe type double take at your attempt to indicate light-heartedness. Pity we cant use comic sans on here.
"@chdot warned me the other day that Rholoff hubs are expensive"
Yes, but I was also suggesting that for someone who has 'the right sort of riding'* they are probably good value.
* - lots of miles, mixed terrain, probably touring/loaded, possibly tandeming.
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