News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
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Mail Starting 9/7/97 | |
I read his article and you know, I like this Doc.
From: clem@westnet.com (clemster);
Sent at 9/7/97; 7:23:01 PM;
Re:What's Up Doc?But in a web-centric world, one with I hope opening standards and a flattening of the information barriers to entry which you have written about with eloquence is there a place for "novel works of beauty and style"? A pathetic question, I realize; but the web levels all, doesn't it?
You know I am reminded of another definition of art: "Art is any orphaned form of communication." Thus photography din't become art until the advent of Xerox. The auteur movement in film turned filmmakers suddenly into 'artists', but only after television had orphaned film. There are a thousand other examples.
Seems like Twilight of Insanely Great, no matter how you slice it. Gloom descends. What can we do?
Ric Ford's open letter:
From: vegan@www.salsgiver.com (Matthew Ball);
Sent at 9/7/97; 5:25:05 PM;
What next?http://www.macintouch.com/openletter.html
is the best I have seen on the subject to date. It seems likely that what he supposes is true. My question now is, what next? What should we do? What can we do?
A month or so ago, I could look forward to absurdlyfast machines with falling CHRP prices, the ability to run other OSs at a reasonable speed with VirtualPC, a the best OS (Rhapsody) down the road, and better beyond. Now it is a question of NT, Be, or something else.
Art may have a place in the construction of computers, or any other utilitarian device. But you can't sit on the Mona Lisa can you? What would everyone say if the church turned Chartres Catherdral into a hog barn? Da Vinci walked the fine line between Art and function like a pro. Does form follow function? Is form itself function? Are computers simply tools to make Art or are they Art themselves? I suppose if you just want to sit and look at it, it's Art. If you actually want to use the thing, Art has to get out of the way. Personally, I use my computer to make things. When the computer becomes Art, I would would be afraid of breaking it. If Steve Jobs wants to make Art, he definately should go back to Pixar. I won't be using my copy of Toy Story to hammer a nail.
From: gkucharo@ntp-mail.netpower.com (Greg Kucharo);
Sent at 9/7/97; 2:02:03 PM;
Doc Searls on JobsIn the September issue of "c't Magazin", Germany's most renowned professional computer mag, there's a lot of praise towards Apple. After reading the Amelio interview carefully, I think I know where we should look for the causes for this. Some quotations:
From: chrisp@karlsruhe.netsurf.de (Christoph Pingel);
Sent at 9/7/97; 10:48:26 PM;
Amelio obviously did a good job"System 8 is Windows 2001, and the world's fastest PC is not a PC, but a Mac. After some clueless years, Apple is working on it's comeback methodically." (p.5)
About the 9600/300 "As we expected, the 300 Mhz Mach5 couldn't be stopped even by the fastest Pentium II in our house ... Even the "bilinear interpolation", which Intel describes as an MMX strength, was computed faster than by any MMX chip - although the compared MMX was feeded with manually optimized MMX code and not with ordinary C-compilate like the Mach5. ... "We have understood" - that's what Apple could state (resembling a popular car advertisement): A "cool" processor design instead of breading CISC overkill, a good memory performance due to fast L2-cache, a very practical case and finally a reliable OS with a nice surface - what else do you need? Well, we could think of a higher bus rate, Ultra-SCSI and lower prices..." (p.88)
The next issue of c't is going to feature a detailled comparison between OS8 and Win95, not only the features, but the usefulness in daily work.
Why do I say this? I think that these reviews in a remarkably "objective" publication like c't (this is not MacWorld or some evangelist), taken together with the unexpected success of OS8, prove two things: Apple doesn't need Rhapsody to be successful, and Gil Amelio did a good job. As he said, it takes a while to get things out of the door, so I expect to see some more interesting and successful things coming up. On the other hand, this is the reason why everyone who cares about the Mac platform should watch closely (as closely as possible in a closed company like this) what Jobs is doing now: It will take a while until we will see the results of his politics now. I'm afraid that Ric Ford's guesses are dangerously close to the truth.
I agree with Doc wholeheartedly, but there's some additional insights I think is necessary to the situation:
From: marc@canter.com (Marc Canter);
Sent at 9/7/97; 10:28:43 AM;
Re:What's Up Doc?
- First of all, Steve's innovation and 'Cause' kept Apple going for only 5 years. The petty politics and religious spiratuality the bogged the company down created a complete lack of good business decisions and arrogance that we've all experienced in one way or another. That arrogance is what Apple is today.
- Elitism without affordability or access is fascism. Who cares about Steve's Art - when it's relegated to only the rich? The real anguish and pain that's going through the world today is that children and non-rich people are being forced to deal with an inferior copycat of the Mac - and that's a crime! We can thank both Steve and Apple's arrogance for that!
- Even the best Art has friends - and right now I can't think of anyone who is really Steve or Apple's friend - except for maybe Larry Ellison and with friends like that......
- Think of it as Richie Rich's mean cousin - he's got all the money in the world, all the cool toys - life size railroads, a private zoo, yachts, airplanes - but no one to play with.
- When you preach exclusivity in the computer world - it's like telling other hardware companies to roll over and play dead. And now it's even worse - now they're asuming that software developers would shoot off both feet and live off the crumbs that they leave behind - until they decide that whatever you're doing is system software - and then they usurp YOUR world and discard you as well.
- Finally (and this is the same for other 'visionaries' like Alan Kay) they actually don't CREATE their Art at all. It was Andy Herzfeld, Steve Capps, Bruce Horn and Bill Atkinson - for the Mac and John Lassiter and Ed Catmull - for Pixar. This is the REAL scam going on - that the world thinks that Steve 'created' these products or companies. Sure he knows how to sell them - and wax eloquently about them (I guess that's called marketing) - but to understand Steve and Alan Kay is to understand the world of hucksterism today.
It's sort of like the scam pulled on artists like Mark Rothko by their art dealers. Who do you think ended up with all the money?
As I chatted away with a long time Mac advocate and developer on the net tonight, I was thinking about recent events, and what do you know, but I was inspired by Elton's gift to Di. We were both lamenting what appears to be either a very low point or even signs of the coming end to the Mac platform.
From: RGB555@aol.com;
Sent at 9/7/97; 3:44:01 AM;
A little songWith apologies to Elton and Di:
Goodbye MacOS!
Though I never knew you would fall...
It was clear that the fight was on,
If we were to keep you at all.
Even when we tried
Oh the press they hounded you.
All the pundits had to say
Was that Apple was better off as food.It seems to me, you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind.
Never knowing who to sell to
When the rain set in.
And I would have liked to keep knowing you
But who am I to kid?Your legend burned out long before
Your candle never did.