Do people honestly think they can come to understand a man by watching two hours of fictionalized clips out of an entire lifetime? I think these make for the worst kinds of movies - low in entertainment value and at worst a rewriting of history.
shareIn one word. Yes.
Jobs will go down in history as the man who succeeded in proving how stupid the American consumer is, forever changing the market. And people ADORE him for appealing to their illiteracy, who has the time to read a manual anyways?
So you see, many people regard Steve as a God... the first person to treat them how they wanted to be treated (like idiots) and will watch this film oohing and ahhing at the IMAGE they perceive their savior to be.
In the absence of a true God, man will find a new being to center his affections.
Okay, let's make a product that requires being a geek who understands tech. The products don't sell, company fail to make a profit, and smart, creative people get laid off. What good does that do?
Let's say they had end up making an iPhone which no one loved. And people preferred the older phones we had. What good does that do? It'll only make CEOs and executives to take even less risk. getting it right, is good for everyone. It's good for the consumers, for the engineers and designers, and good for the economy.
Yes, now there are cheaper touch pads with more features. But, without the sales figure of iPad, do you think any of those companies would risk pushing their touch pads even if they had the tech? No way.
iPads are for idiots -__-;
Also, iPads were not the original... and are inferior to the originals (tablet pc existed for ages, it took "dumbing it down and making it more expensive" to make it a profitable market)
But are you saying the act of READING the MANUAL is so difficult, so unbelievable, that uneducated people (such as yourself) cannot do it? That UNEDUCATED PEOPLE, such as yourself, are asking companies to DUMB IT DOWN?
Reading a manual should be exciting, learning what your new toy can do.
Instead people say "My toy should have LESS features than the original before Apple dumbed it down cause I don't understand how to push the buttons"
Uneducated people like myself? LOL.
The very reason you think "dumbing down" products is stupid, is that you know nothing about design.
And you still can't look at economics in a grand scale. You are still at that stereotypical teenage angst of "I don't like what everyone likes, so I must be smarter."
Some people love taking things apart. Taking a watch apart, investigate how everything works. Some people, don't care. They prefer dreaming up crazy stuff out of thin air, and write fiction. Some people like to just play sports with friends, feel that bonding, instead of being alone fiddling a watch. No one is smarter than any others, in choosing what they would rather do with their time.
iPad, or whatever electronic products, is, ultimately, a tool. Some people use their tools, and love modifying their tools, some people just want to use it to get things done, and move on to other things they are good at.
There is nothing wrong with making money. Where does those money go? Apple? And where does Apple spend it. Can Apple go to a sushi bar and waste it on sake? Those money, allows Apple to pay high salaries to engineers who worked on it. If Apple failed in making money they get laid off, or takes pay cut. These engineers than are able to afford fancy restaurants which will support those businesses and waiter/waitresses.
And how do you make a product successful? When people want it, and use it. And how do you make people want it and use it? Make it intuitive. So they're focused on using the tool than trying to figure out how the tool work.
If it's a vacuum cleaner comes with complex instructions. You'll be crying the designers are stupid. That, how hard can it be, to make a simple to use vacuum cleaner. It's the designers' job to make their products intuitive. Or consider a steadycam. One requires a class to learn to use, another is ready for use out of the box. Both can do the same tasks. So, the one that required a class, is better designed? Maybe this email thing, is bad. It's dumb. And people who use it, don't know how it works. Morse code communication requires more skills and knowledge.
For argument's sake, let's say you know everything about tablet. That you can design one, and build one yourself. Even in that case, can you write the CAD/CAM program you need to use? That's your tool. Should that CAD/CAM be written in such a way that, when you're designing your tablet, you will end up spending 90% of the time trying to figure out the software, why it doesn't work? And if you think that's bugging you, that means you're too dumb to write your own, and expecting the CAD/CAM to dumb it down for you? For someone who use his/her tablet for whatever his/her job is, why does that person need to know about that tablet? A lawyer using an iPad to streamline his work. You know how to debug/hack/mod tablet but that lawyer only use it. So, you must be smarter than a lawyer?
In any case, the great contribution of Jobs and Gates, was not products. It's an entire culture that we now take for granted.
They don't pay high salaries to engineers. They get Indian engineers , so they can pay them peanuts.
shareLOL. You think those Indians don't get paid well? If you live in the Bay Area you'll know. Asians are hired not because they are cheaper. It's demand for engineers far exceeding what U.S. education can supply. Partly due to U.S. educational system, partly due to a culture which values popularity and sports over science and engineering. In any case, it's a supply and demand issue, with demand for engineers far exceeding supply. Tech industry is still up in arms in lobbying for more H1.
Most non-American engineers I know here makes 130k at least. And those are the ones who can only afford to rent and won't be able to buy into good school district till after a decade of well-managed savings. Most houses in good school district is around 1.2 million, with the cheapest you can find around 0.9 million. And yes, many Indian families own houses in great school districts. Not only that, those families have no problem sending their kids to Stanford, which is ridiculously expensive.
But back to topic. Without good leadership and good design, when a project failed, there will be casualties, engineers and designers ( both citizens and foreigners ). And their hard work and efforts goes to waste ( financially ). Apple has the least projects going on at any one point, by far, because Jobs axed projects early on, instead of just throwing darts randomly and hoping one hits. Think about how many products are launched per year by each company, how many failed. Apple had only a few rare cases. That means less loss, which translates to better bonuses. Most tech companies succeed because they value their assets, which are creative engineers. And they are well rewarded and appreciated. ( This is one thing asian companies will never learn. ) And not making money, means those who are good at tinkering, don't get paid as much as if the company is making tons.
Making a tablet that appeal only to a niche group, also means it's going to be extremely expensive due to much smaller volume.
So, would you rather be in a world where you can tinker an expensive tablet you paid for ( where "dumb masses like lawyers and doctors who aren't techie" won't appreciate ), or in a world where you can get paid extremely well designing and engineering products that appeal to masses? Which scenario is better for tinkerers?
Think America is suffering from a serious skills gap? Think again, says Adam Davidson in a piece for The New York Times. Davidson argues that the inability of employers to recruit skilled workers, particularly in the manufacturing industry, is not a result of a mismatch between the type of education being undertaken by students and the skill sets demanded by the current job market, but rather a function of low wages being offered by employers. Companies can’t hire the skilled workers they need because they don’t pay them enough. And young workers are avoiding in-demand jobs because they’re seeking better salaries elsewhere.
The numbers bear out this argument. Of the top five fast-growing occupations in America, four of them pay $27K or less a year – which is only slightly above the poverty threshold for a family of four – but all five require specialized skills and training beyond a high school diploma in many jurisdictions. For example, personal care workers whose employers receive Medicare reimbursements are required to pass a competency test and federal law recommends they undergo at least 75 hours of classroom and on-the-job training under the supervision of a registered nurse. There very well may be lots of open jobs in this field, but for a median salary of $19K, plenty of prospective personal care workers might opt to work retail – where the median salary for a sales associate is around $25K – and fold sweaters instead of changing bedpans.
Davidson pays particular attention to the manufacturing industry, which is often mentioned as suffering acutely from a small skilled labor pool. Currently, manufacturing wages are hovering around their 2000 level and as The Wall Street Journal notes, high unemployment and rising global competition means that employers are able to wring wage and benefit concessions from unions and employees in order to avoid outright job cuts, making the sector as a whole less attractive to potential hirees. But the skills gap in the manufacturing sector has actually been overstated, according to the Boston Consulting Group. They find that there is a gap of 80 000 – 100 000 jobs, which represents less than 8% of the country’s total highly-skilled manufacturing workforce. And even the most sought-after position represented by those 80 000 – 100 000 jobs – welders and machinists among them – only earn an average of $36K – $40K.
The imminent retirement of the Baby Boomers complicates any discussion of the skills shortage. At the same time employers have difficulty in filling current positions, they’re also staring down the barrel of losing a significant portion of their older workforce. The oldest of the Boomers started hitting retirement age in 2011. In a joint survey by the Society for Human Resource Management and AARP, 71% of HR professionals said that while they realized that losing skilled older workers could pose problems in their workplace, their companies hadn’t done any formal strategic planning around how to address this exodus. And the reality of retiring Boomers is expected to hit manufacturers particularly hard, with the largest companies in the industry expected to face costs of $100M each over the next five years as they try to fill vacancies left by skilled retirees, which in turn increases pressure to cut operational costs, including payroll.
Davidson concludes his piece by claiming that what we think of as a skills gap is really a gap in education – employers would hire workers and provide needed training to allow them to grow into well-paying jobs, but current graduates and job seekers don’t even have the basic math and science skills required to make them appropriate trainees. While he’s in the ballpark when it comes to the need for education, the real emphasis should be on educating both prospective employees and employers on managing their expectations. Employers cannot expect to recruit and retain the top-tier talent that will allow them to compete globally with rock-bottom wages and college grads cannot expect that a four-year liberal arts education will be sufficient (or even necessary) to grant them access to the highly-paid careers of the next decade and beyond.
I'm not talking manufacturing. Manufacturing floor guys don't get bonuses, even if they do, not much. So projects' success and failure, though do affect them, it's not as direct, and not as much impact.
And I did not "think" so. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet said so in a joint interview. Go google it. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are actually putting efforts to change that. They both believe U.S. educational system is failing. As I had pointed out, I was talking about engineering jobs with 120k a year minimum. Not manufacturing.
Bill Gates also mentioned that they fear China, as companies there can set up R&D much faster than any U.S. corp due to available immediate resources of qualified engineers. They didn't mention why U.S. is still leading, but it's obvious U.S. current competitive edge is leadership and vision. Engineers can devote their time to work, but if that something they work on, can not be sold, they don't get rewarded, because little or no financial reward was gained. While I'm at that, this is also why visionary leadership like Jobs matter, even though he didn't build any stuff he sold.
In Asia, it's not uncommon to meet sales of electronic products ( even just sales at Best Buy equivalent ), or workers in assembly line, having masters degree in engineering. Because over there, supply of qualified engineers far exceeds demand. That can change soon.
Also, the point was, where do these money came from? Successful products. Successful "dumb" products for the masses do benefit tech-inclined designers and engineers who are capable of creating, understanding and building complex products.
I do have to say, your grasp of economics is exceptionally poor.
What Apple has done is exceptionally simple. Take an existing "professional" product that had poor market coverage, redesign it to appeal to kids and flood the media with "you have to get this now" messages.
No one needed or wanted the iphone and they still don't "need it" so much as fall victim to the marketing draws of social media. (That part has to deal with psychological dependency and wasn't even Apple's doing, nor the product availability, so much as changes that came around the same time.)
Do note: The difficulties in the fields were partly due to lack of investor financing and the longevity of the products provided. In short, the companies were having a hard time convincing people to buy new products when their old ones were performing the tasks desired of them. (Apple, instead, does its best to both "sell" the new product with marketing and make the old product develop "defects" that are too expensive to fix [and was sued once due to that])
There was a large amount of mismanaging the business going on, but the real problem was the adoption rate was too low and they didn't have the money laying around (like apple) to run extensive ad campaigns to get new customers.
By reducing the number of features in a product, you reduce the complexity which hence makes it easier to use... but doesn't actually improve the product.
Ask any person who actually uses a vacuum cleaner to "clean" rather than run it a few times and say "okay, done for the week." They'll trade the need to read a manual for a vacuum cleaner that can perform in all kinds of different situations.
How about a camera? DSLRs have sizable market; while photographers expect to find the basic ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture settings without the use of a manual; understanding the more advanced features is expected to require extensive studying of one.
Even your CAD/CAM software. Sure, basic GUI actions can be expected usable without the manual, but far greater functionality is available to people who read the manual.
But read the manual for the iPhone and it'll say "WYSIWYG, sorry, nothing more here."
When you use a device as a tool, rather than a toy, your expectations grow much higher.
Which is why Apple has been successful, the iPhone; initially marketed at kids like toys, has become a toy for adults who use excuses as to why they need it. When you get right down to it, the majority of the "work related features" were far better represented in "work designed phones" but the desire for the newer and better gadget drove the market to what also appealed to the "that looks cool" over "that fits my needs perfectly" devices.
You are the one who has no grasp of economics. It does not matter what your preferences in phones are, the public has spoken with their wallets. The point I was trying to make is, successful products create jobs. Money that consumers spent goes to engineers, people working on it. Even money that went to shareholders, those shareholders will spend it at some high end sushi bars. Failed products lay off people, shut down departments.
If you do not like Apple, compare what Blockbuster had done to its employees and what Netflix had done not just to its own employees but for actors, comedians, by being so successful they can start they won productions.
As far as design goes, you are in the wrong. Which is why many companies have failed product launches and Apple has few. Their leaderships understand it. All your description of iPhone being reduced to a toy, to look cool, is what makes it likable, are wrong. It's the experience of an interface that establish a connection that the tech just disappear, and make users feel like they are not interacting with a tech gadget, but just doing whatever they want to do. It is something that's extremely hard to accomplish if you know anything about design. For example, when you are using a GPS, you are aware you are using a GPS, with its cluster of clumsy menus that keep reminding you that it's a GPS, but if you are using a well designed tech, you will only feel like you are making sure where you are going, because all things to do with instructing the tech, or trying to get the tech to work for you, disappears.
Erin Pizzey
https://youtu.be/Ix5-jqQYU1M
Yeah but you can't really blame them for it right :) The business is a tough arena and Apple has done exceptionally well...I really admire them. I admire them in the same way as I admire Justin Bieber (or better - his management). He makes trash music and makes billions of dollars with it. Apple makes *beep* and expensive devices (just look at the specs of most Air laptops and note their price, now compare that with other laptops in this category). Yet they managed to convince people that they have to buy them and made a *beep* of money. It's the absolute mastery of doing business. But like I said, this is exactly what the market is about...who is smarter, wins. And it's not about making the best possible product, it's about making money :)
shareWhen you say "touch pads" do you mean tablets!? Unless im missing something here LOL.
shareOh, *beep* you.
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Before you jump on me, know this: I rarely think things through before posting.
If only it could be blamed on the dumb American consumer. Truth is you see the same amount of apple fanboys everywhere in Europe and the rest of the world as well. Jobs will simply go down as the guy who brought fashion to tech. And like all of fashion, it is functionally useless, but everywhere there is a fashion culture, people will eat it up on a cyclic basis when the trends change. Even if like in apple's case it is an insignificant change.
shareMaking complicated things simple is rare talent. You don't have to be super computer geek in order to use technology. You don't need to be car engineer in order to drive a car. You don't need to be a writer in order to understand Shakespeare, and you don't need to be a genius in order to understand how pretentious and stupid is your post
float with spirits in mountain caves,swim the meadows in twilight waves
Making complicated things simple is not a "rare" talent.
Convincing people that the features removed are "worthless" is.
Jobs will go down in history as the man who succeeded in proving how stupid the American consumer is, forever changing the market.
"In the absence of a true God, man will find a new being to center his affections."
Yeah, I'm guessing yours is Bill Gates.
You say that as though there would be something wrong with holding Bill Gates in high regard???
shareYou say that as though there would be something wrong with holding Bill Gates in high regard???
shareWhy read a manual if the device can be designed to function so intuitively that you don't need to? Look up UX (user experience) sometime.
shareI find biopics to be among the most inherently interesting movies out there. What's not to love?
Agree.
These are stories. And very good stories.
I think the biggest problem with this story is that it doesn't seem like it's accurate. They make Wozniak look like the fat nerd, which he doesn't look like til way later in life.
Another thing is, most people will be upset from how this compares with Pirates of Silicon Valley, which seems like a much better movie that shows how mean Steve Jobs was and how mean Bill Gates was.
Even Bill Gates came to say how accurate Pirates of Silicon Valley was.
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Well, just think about the titles of the 2 movies. One was "PirateS of Silicon Valley" the other "Jobs". So a lot of "Valley" stuff was glossed over. Honestly this movie could have been longer and kept my interest. There's a flash of "@#$@#$#@@#%% Microsoft and @#(*$(## Bill Gates" but that's it. Not a mention of Xerox PARC and where the Mac team stole its GUI design from.
And Wozniak is/was a fat nerd, God love him!
I think the biggest problem with this story is that it doesn't seem like it's accurate. They make Wozniak look like the fat nerd, which he doesn't look like til way later in life.
Another thing is, most people will be upset from how this compares with Pirates of Silicon Valley, which seems like a much better movie that shows how mean Steve Jobs was and how mean Bill Gates was.
Even Bill Gates came to say how accurate Pirates of Silicon Valley was.
It's actually one of my favorite genres in movies
shareIt's actually one of my favorite genres in movies
as opposed to what? They don't subtract from knowledge.... At the very least, even if there are 30 seconds of insight, thats 30 seconds more than you would've had.... Ever seen Raging Bull? Amadeus? Schindler's List? Gahndi? Malcolm X?
These are the worst kind of movies you say? interesting, because i find these among the finest films ever made.
Add the Social Network to that, well at least I would.
shareBelow is an excerpt from another web page, my point being, Gandhi had a well documented life with facts that are easy to verify. When the whole world believes the film about Jobs and the others involved say it was not that way, fiction becomes fact, like Einstein failing Mathematics, Apollo 13 never said "Houston we have a problem", and people knew the earth was round, when Columbus sailed to find India, and got to the West Indies instead.
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In an interview, Wozniak said he was approached by the makers of "Jobs" but turned them down after reading an early version of the script.
Wozniak said he hasn't seen the film and could not judge it, but objected to the way it reprocessed history in a two-minute trailer. In it, "Steve is lecturing me about where computers could go, when it was the other way around," Wozniak said.
"Steve never created a great computer. In that period, he had failure after failure after failure. He had an incredible vision, but he didn't have the ability to execute on it," Wozniak said. "I would be surprised if the movie portrays the truth."
Daniel Kottke, an early Apple employee who was a script consultant on the film, praised the fastidious attention to detail in parts of the film, especially its reconstruction of the moment when Apple introduces the Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire.
Kottke had a cameo in the scene, filmed at the Pasadena Convention Center, for which he says he had no need for wardrobe help. He wore the same rimless glasses and clothes that he'd had on that very day in 1976: slacks and a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt that his father had given him.
But as someone who worked in that Los Altos garage side by side with Jobs and Wozniak, Kottke has strong feelings about lionizing Jobs at the expense of Wozniak.
He said that he asked the filmmakers to make changes that would give credit to Wozniak as an "equal visionary," but that they did not respond.
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It will be entertaining, but not factually correct, and make him more of a hero than the a-hole that a lot of people say he was really like.
tyrexden said: Ever seen Raging Bull? Amadeus? Schindler's List? Gahndi? Malcolm X? (Implying this being 'Biographical Movies'..)
"Hey, I'll be a part of this world."share
This is all too often the case, but not all biopics are this way.
With the biopics I like, I only see them as an interpretation, not an attempt to understand. I'd recommend Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters.
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Judging by your question I'd say you must have little understand that Hollywood operates soley on $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$4
"The beaurocratic mentality is the only constant in the universe" - McCoy
Yeah, it's an easy way to make money. never mind original screenplays, just crank out biopics, sequels ans remakes. Oh, and movies based on books!
share[deleted]