Steve Jobs Resigned!

[eLondon]

Maybe now he can find the time to go clothes shopping - he really needs to wear something other than a black turtle-neck and faded jeans.

 

[Behrluvr]

Maybe now he can find the time to go clothes shopping - he really needs to wear something other than a black turtle-neck and faded jeans.

He could take a cue from his customers. Many of whom are on the cutting edge of fashion.

 

[gb2000ie]

Maybe now he can find the time to go clothes shopping - he really needs to wear something other than a black turtle-neck and faded jeans.

Why does anyone need to wear certain cloths just to please anyone else? Need? Seriously? Are you the fashion police or something?

B.

 

[Daedalus]

Maybe now he can find the time to go clothes shopping - he really needs to wear something other than a black turtle-neck and faded jeans.

I was just thinking the exact same thing myself...

) )

 

[Behrluvr]

One may spew platitudes about fashion police and such but the fact of the matter is how one appears to the outside world is critical. Look at Apple. It is primarily a fashion industry. The white look and all.

It is a fashion statement to stroll around with white earplugs dangling. It is a fashion statement to have a white iphone, even in the case of here in the US where iphones are notorious for dropped calls. Form over function. Appearance first. Who cares if you can't make a call, you look good. It is a fashion look to sit in Starbucks with a white laptop, with an illuminated fruit on the open cover, just in case the white case gets confused with a Sony or something.
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How do you account for the rise of companies like Ralph Lauren, Perry Elis, Polo? Ironically much of the fashion label stuff is poorly made by slave labor in China, yet looks good , at least for one or two wearings, again form over function.
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So to decry what one wears as a symptom of pleasing others is to ignore reality. All you gotta do is look all around you. What we wear is critical and not only noticed but studied. And behind ones back often talked about. heyheyhey... like the fashion icon I posted in my pic above...btw I wonder if that guy knows he's kinda famous all over the 'net for his butt crack?

 

[Behrluvr]

Looks like Steve Jobs has abandoned the jeans and turtle neck look.

 

[gb2000ie]

One may spew platitudes about fashion police and such but the fact of the matter is how one appears to the outside world is critical. Look at Apple. It is primarily a fashion industry. The white look and all.

I couldn't disagree more! It's not a fashion thing, it's a design thing. It's classic Bauhaus design, form follows function, and simplicity is king. Fashions come and go, the Apple look has been shockingly constant, the materials have changed over time, from coloured plastic to white plastic to titanium, to brushed metal, to the current glass and aluminium phase, but the aesthetic has remained constant.

Apple products are not designed as fashion items, yes, some of them have become that through their popularity, but that's purely a by-product. Apple products are not popular because they are fashionable, they are fashionable because they are very well designed.

It is a fashion statement to stroll around with white earplugs dangling. It is a fashion statement to have a white iphone, even in the case of here in the US where iphones are notorious for dropped calls. Form over function. Appearance first. Who cares if you can't make a call, you look good. It is a fashion look to sit in Starbucks with a white laptop, with an illuminated fruit on the open cover, just in case the white case gets confused with a Sony or something.

Sorry, I couldn't disgree more. Apple laptops are gaining in popularity because they are the best value for money out there. Even PC magazine has named Macs as the best Windows laptops!

How do you account for the rise of companies like Ralph Lauren, Perry Elis, Polo? Ironically much of the fashion label stuff is poorly made by slave labor in China, yet looks good , at least for one or two wearings, again form over function.

These companies exist, and they do indeed make crap that costs a mint, but it's not in line with reality to put Apple into that camp.

So to decry what one wears as a symptom of pleasing others is to ignore reality. All you gotta do is look all around you. What we wear is critical and not only noticed but studied. And behind ones back often talked about. heyheyhey... like the fashion icon I posted in my pic above...btw I wonder if that guy knows he's kinda famous all over the 'net for his butt crack?

Apple have got to where they are today by refusing to go with the flow, by not doing what is expected of them. Everyone said the future was in Windows, and that the days when hardware makers had their own OS were dead. Apple ignored the popular 'wisdom'. Everyone said the Mac had to allow clones or it was a dead platform, Steve Jobs ignored them and killed the program the instant he came back as CEO.

Everyone said you had to build commodity computers or you couldn't last, the race to the bottom was the answer, cheaper, lower margins, and make it up in volume. Apple ignored everyone, and now takes the lion's share of the profit in the personal computer market, while only making a small percentage of the units.

Then we come to Steve, the man so synonymous with the company. Everyone said no one would take you seriously in business if you didn't wear a suit, Steve ignored them.

Steve's iconic dress is symbolic of Apple I guess, it's symbolic of their non-conformity, and, to use their own cliché, their freedom to think different.

Telling Steve what to wear is an absolute anathema to everything Apple represents, they don't follow fashions, and neither does Steve.

B.

 

[topdog]

The turtleneck and jeans uniform would be boring if you or I did it - but Steve has turned it into a trademark. I doubt he has missed many business opportunities because he was under-dressed.

What an impact he has had:

• The first must-have personal computer: Apple II
• The first must-have graphical interface computer: Mac
• Bought the computer graphics unit of LucasFilm, switched the direction of the company from hardware to production animation thus creating Pixar, and gave them $5 million to create Toy Story.
• The first must-have MP3 player: iPod
• The first must-have smartphone: iPhone
• The first must-have tablet: iPad
• Sold Pixar to Disney. Now owns 7% of all Disney stock, worth around $4 billion. Add that to the value of his Apple stock - and he has $6.6 billion in stock assets alone.

Of course, he's had his failures (Lisa, NeXT), but he's managed to use the setbacks to reach the next success (Mac, NeXT bought by Apple).

Pretty amazing.

 

[gb2000ie]

T
Of course, he's had his failures (Lisa, NeXT), but he's managed to use the setbacks to reach the next success (Mac, NeXT bought by Apple).

The NeXT story is very interesting. NeXT was a massive technical success, but it never took off from a profit point of view. The first thing you notice when you start programming for the Mac, iPhone, or iPad, is that lots of the software libraries start with the letters NS, like NSButton, NSColor, etc.. This seems confusing on the surface, until you realise that NS stands for NeXT Step. NeXT was not successful as an independent company, but the NeXT Step OS combined with Apple's hardware became the Mac we know today, and OS X is just the natural evolution of NeXT Step.

I wish all my failures worked out that well

B.

 

[Tjerk12]

I am an anarchist, the highest form of liberalism and socialism. I would never force somebody to do things he doesn’t want to do. Fashion is in my opinion a severe form of limitation of freedom. Clothes have an elementary function. They should keep you warm and fit in a way that they do not limit your freedom of movement and they should last. Most of the fashion stuff does not fulfill these demands. When I buy shoes, I carefully watch how they are constructed and what the price is. I buy them cheap and using them every day they normally last about five years. If well-chosen they are a blessing for your feet. My boys buy Nikes and other rubbish. Very expensive, no blessing for their feet and they last less than a year. I think it is a stupid thing to do, but I have no intention to say so. It is their choice, their life. Let us have respect for others choices.

 

[Behrluvr]

How can one call Apple computers good value for the money? They are a fashion statement. They look good sitting on a table in Starbucks with the fruit logo illuminated ...but a MacBook Air also goes for what? $1600 US?

You can buy any number of win7 powered laptops with far more horsepower for 1/4 of that figure. Pick a brand, Asus, Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, whatever. with a budget of $400 US and good shopping you can pick up a leading/bleeding edge laptop. (and you can even watch Flash vids on it. heyheyhey)
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I just picked up a 17" Toshiba for $450 US. Quad core, 6 gigs, 500 gigs HD, every bell and whistle imaginable. Thats a good bargain.

 

[Behrluvr]

I am an anarchist, the highest form of liberalism and socialism. I would never force somebody to do things he doesn’t want to do. Fashion is in my opinion a severe form of limitation of freedom. Clothes have an elementary function. They should keep you warm and fit in a way that they do not limit your freedom of movement and they should last. Most of the fashion stuff does not fulfill these demands.

Agree, but why can't you do both? Wear clothes that are well made and also look good on you? The big fashion houses don't have any monopoly on good taste. Just the opposite, alot of that stuff is tasteless, gaudy, and only really looks good on some pimp from the 'hood.
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And if you pick and choose you can even find some pearls among the big fashion houses. Not all their stuff is crapola, but just about everything marketed to the youth market is. If you look at timeless classics like a leather motorcycle jacket, you'll find some high quality ones available. You just won't find it in Abercrombie. ( and with a sharp eye for sales you'll pick up a $400US leather jacket for $79US as I've done)

 

[Tjerk12]

Agree, but why can't you do both? Wear clothes that are well made and also look good on you? The big fashion houses don't have any monopoly on good taste. Just the opposite, alot of that stuff is tasteless, gaudy, and only really looks good on some pimp from the 'hood.
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I do agree about that. I have no objections about fashion in principle. I remember still that moment in the early seventies when I was in Kitzbühl. I was watching the window of a fashion shop. A really beautiful girl was decorating with long leather jackets, rough leather on the outside and real fur on the inside. Extremely beautiful and extremely expensive (prices between 5000 and 15000 dollars, a fortune in those days). The girl invited me with her hands to come into the shop. I explained that I had no money, but she kept inviting me. I spent more than an hour in the shop. One jacket after another changed my looks into that of a film star. After a passionate kiss I left the shop. It was an amazing experience to wear such clothes (and to meet such an attractive young lady). But I would never have bought such clothes, even when I had the money for it. Why? Just because it wasn’t me. They fitted fantastic, but they changed my personality in a way I did not like.
What I wanted to explain is, when somebody is easy with the way he looks, let him. Why changing into something different. The way you look can be a part of a (strong) personality. The man we talk about has with no doubt a strong personality.

 

[gb2000ie]

How can one call Apple computers good value for the money? They are a fashion statement. They look good sitting on a table in Starbucks with the fruit logo illuminated ...but a MacBook Air also goes for what? $1600 US?

You can buy any number of win7 powered laptops with far more horsepower for 1/4 of that figure. Pick a brand, Asus, Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, whatever. with a budget of $400 US and good shopping you can pick up a leading/bleeding edge laptop. (and you can even watch Flash vids on it. heyheyhey)
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I just picked up a 17" Toshiba for $450 US. Quad core, 6 gigs, 500 gigs HD, every bell and whistle imaginable. Thats a good bargain.

I didn't say they were CHEAP, I said they were GOOD VALUE FOR MONEY.

If you think there is nothing more to a laptop than RAM and CPU then you're best to stick with Dell, they'll suit you better.

If you care about more than that, then you start to see the value in a Mac.

All my Macs have lasted at least 5 years, my 6 year old MacBook Pro still gets admiring looks, and people still ask me how new it is! Why is that? Because Apple don't make their computers from cheap plastic, they make them from metal. The new Mac laptops are literally made by cutting them out of a solid block of Alumnium with a laser, so you can pick up a MacBook Pro by one of the front corners with the screen open and the body will not twist even slightly. All that while being very light and having massive battery life. Try that with a $450 Dell! If you travel a lot, a metal Mac will stand up to that punishment so much better. And yes, you can get comparable laptops from Lenovo, but guess what, they cost MORE than the Macs!

If you calculate what my MacBook Pro has cost me per-year it's about €500, for a 17" laptop, that's a very reasonable price to computer in comfort! If you do the same for my €1200 iMac it comes down to €200 a year, not bad I say!

OK, so they are well built, what else? They come with fantastic quality screens, LED back-lit, high colour gamut, wide angle of view, bright, and very good resolution.

They also come with Thunderbolt ports, which I'm sure will make it to the cheap $450 laptops some time in the next 5 years, but I wouldn't hold my breadth Mac also always come with gigabit ethernet and N wireless, while cheap laptops tend to still come with 10/100 network cards and G wifi cards.

They you have the little things like backlit keyboards for when you're working at night, and the mag-safe power connectors that stop your laptop being pulled to the ground when someone snags your power cable (that's saved my MacBook Pro many times over it's 6 year life).

Finally, you get the Mac OS which gives you a heck of a lot more out of the box than Windows, and you get iLife, giving you a full creative suite free with the computer.

BTW - the new MacBooks air are all SSD disks, so be sure to bear that in mind when doing price comparisons.

Macs are not a fashion statement, they are a statement that you value design and build quality in your computers. Computers are tools, we all know the difference between a cheap powerdrill and a quality one, it's not the RPM or the horsepower that matter, it's much more than that, that tool has to be fit for the level of use you'll be giving it, and it has to last.

I'm not one of those people who think everyone should have a Mac, they are not the best fit for everyone, but that does not mean they are not a great fit for anyone, or that they are 'just' about looks, there's a hell of a lot more going on than that!

B.

 

[gb2000ie]

(and you can even watch Flash vids on it. heyheyhey)

I presume you know Flash works as well on a Mac as it does on a PC right?

 

[gb2000ie]

Agree, but why can't you do both? Wear clothes that are well made and also look good on you? The big fashion houses don't have any monopoly on good taste. Just the opposite, alot of that stuff is tasteless, gaudy, and only really looks good on some pimp from the 'hood.

Totally agree with that.

I've never bought branded cloths, but I don't think I dress badly. There's high-quality stuff that will last from store own-brands that looks good and costs a fair price, that's what I wear.

B.

 

[topdog]

How can one call Apple computers good value for the money? They are a fashion statement. They look good sitting on a table in Starbucks with the fruit logo illuminated ...but a MacBook Air also goes for what? $1600 US? ... I just picked up a 17" Toshiba for $450 US. Quad core, 6 gigs, 500 gigs HD, every bell and whistle imaginable. That's a good bargain.

I didn't say they were CHEAP, I said they were GOOD VALUE FOR MONEY.
.... The new Mac laptops are literally made by cutting them out of a solid block of Alumnium with a laser... All that while being very light and having massive battery life... If you travel a lot, a metal Mac will stand up to that punishment so much better. And yes, you can get comparable laptops from Lenovo, but guess what, they cost MORE than the Macs!

I think I can sum up what you're saying, gb2000ie, as:

Apple produces a better product, sells it for the same price or less than other goods of comparable quality, and still has higher profit margins on each unit than other manufacturers.

Nice business model, eh? (For the record - I work exclusively with Microsoft products and do not own any Apple products - though I have at times in the past. So I am not an Apple fan-boy.)

Behrluvr, Macbooks probably are a fashion statement for some users. They could get by with less, but are dazzled by the Apple design. But some mobile professionals are lugging their laptops from meeting to meeting, building to building, and through airport security. The Air takes up next to no space in the briefcase, weighs only 2.5 lbs, lasts all day on a single charge, and is as powerful as your desktop computer. For them, the Air is not fashion - it's a practical decision that pays for itself in less than a month in increased productivity.

As for cost, you are probably remembering the first generation Macbook Air that, I think went for between $1800 and $2200, depending on the configuration. The current Air's start at $999. A similarly configured Samsung Series 9 (which is the only line of Windows computers that are trying to compete with the Air on size, power, solid state drives, and build quality) starts at $1050, and has an Intel i3 processor instead of the Air's i5. (See note* at end for differences between i3 and i5.)

This is the same thing we see in the tablet market. Apple's iPad is such a strong and mature product at this point, it would make sense for competitors to come out at a lower price point. But they can't! Since Apple has a limited product line that uses similar components and direct control over their manufacturing, they make massive deals on parts. This cuts their costs and allows them to price competitively - but still make a healthy profit. HP, Samsung, HTC, and Motorola would have to sell their tablets at a loss to undercut the iPad's price.

* Note (For nerds only): Intel Sandy Bridge i3 processor is dual core and does not support virtualization, AES security encryption acceleration, or the Turbo Boost dynamic overclocking feature. The i5 is quad core, and has all of those extra capabilities.

 

[SophieSweets]

Apple have Logic Pro Studio... It's my Favourite music Software and is the best all round Sequencer and recording program, with inbuilt Mastering tools. Only Apple have this, Hence I have a Mac... Nowt to do with fashion... now If I'd started on Pro Tools or something I'd have a PC... Just my tuppence

 

[gb2000ie]

Apple have Logic Pro Studio... It's my Favourite music Software and is the best all round Sequencer and recording program, with inbuilt Mastering tools. Only Apple have this, Hence I have a Mac... Nowt to do with fashion... now If I'd started on Pro Tools or something I'd have a PC... Just my tuppence

In a similar vane, I'm a photographer, and iPhoto (free with every Mac), and Aperture (equivalent to Adobe Lighroom but for just $80) make it so easy for me to concentrate on photography instead of wrestling with technology. I do all my own Christmas cards and calendars with iPhoto, and I use Aperture as the core of my photographic workflow. I COULD do most of that on the PC, but it would cost me more, and not be as nicely integrated.

I'm also starting to experiment with combining photos and videos into multi-media presentations, and the free iMovie is more than I need to do that, and do it well. Windows Movie maker is a pathetic toy compared to iMovie, and lets not even mention MS Paint

B.

 

[stanho19]

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, David Packard/Bill Hewlett (HP) are all great examples of people thinking out of the box to bring to market great and ground breaking products. I hope Mr. Jobs' health issues haven't taken a nosedive on him of late.