This is awesome!(Via Brothers Brick)
Struggling with a Real World Project in Aperture 3
Over on The Aperture Blog I talk about my recent (less than positive) experiences using Aperture for a big project.
Eric Felten from the WSJ on the App Store
Eric Felten: Can Steve Jobs Sell More Apps If Apple Blocks Pornography? – WSJ.com:
“My, how the definition of imposing one’s morality has changed over the years. Once it meant enforcing criminal sanctions on smut-peddlers. Now, a businessman who prefers to opt out of the trade is accused of impinging on everyone else’s free speech.”
Best perspective on the subject I’ve seen in a while. His last two lines in the article say it all.
What a peculiar—and peculiarly modern—controversy. Is it really such an affront to the rights of those who would buy and sell pornography that someone might want the right to choose not to?
Read the article. It’s a very honest and balanced take on the situation
Ted Responds, I respond Back
Ted Landau has taken the time to respond. I’ll return the favour.
What struck me most about Fitzgerald’s column is how little of what he said had anything to do with what I actually wrote. He clearly had some arguments he wanted to present and intended to do so, even if what I wrote didn’t apply. What follows are some quotes from his column with my response.
• “I’m sorry, but that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” [written in reference to a quoted paragraph from my article.]
If this is so, Mr. Fitzgerald must lead a very sheltered life. Perhaps I’m too biased to judge my own writing fairly, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone would have trouble coming up with at least a few things that are more ridiculous. But why quibble? This is a minor point.
You’re absolutely right. It was a bad way to phrase it. But I like to write like I’m talking to someone, and who hasn’t said something like “that was the worst movie I’ve ever seen” or some such thing. I know you know I meant that, but hey, like you said, why quibble. Still, I don’t believe that at any point I made a personal insult to you, so bad form on the “sheltered life” quip when you know that’s just an expression. I was arguing with what you wrote, not with you.
Do you make a sound when you back up like that ?
Daniel Eran Dilger from Appleinsider, commenting on the story doing the rounds yesterday, where Apple publicly stated that AppleInsider’s previous article from the day before was complete bull…
The site (Cnet) reportedly received an official comment stating, “Final Cut Pro is the first choice for professional video editors and we’ve never been more excited about its future. The next version of Final Cut is going to be awesome and our pro customers are going to love it.”
….
Dalrymple’s conclusion was not based on anything reported by AppleInsider, nor are the prosumers who buy Final Cut Express or Studio likely to be using iMovie or expecting an iLife-style app.
Dalrymple also speculated that, due to the presence of iMovie and Final Cut Express, “the Final Cut team should be free to concentrate on more high-end features.” The information provided to AppleInsider by person with inside knowledge of Apple’s plans does not support Dalrymple’s speculation.
Oh well, then I guess your inside source is more reliable than a direct “No” from the company. However, and this is the best bit… he goes on to say that it’s “to early to worry” and that:
“The fact the Apple’s Professional Applications Design Group is still hiring a Senior Visual Interface Designer and Senior Human Interface Designer to help design future iterations of its “high-visibility applications that are used daily by creative professionals working in post-production,” as reported by AppleInsider last week, makes it clear that the work on Final Cut’s future direction is both still under way and still targeted to serve the needs of professionals.”
Google on Android Battery Life
Page was speaking at the Google Zeitgeist forum yesterday in London, when he was asked about battery life. Throwing the blame on third-party developers, he said that apps are the reason people may not be getting a full 24 hours of battery life. Twitter and other social networking sites constantly connecting to draw new tweets or status updates are battery-draining for sure, but even without these apps running there are still problems.
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt was on hand to chip in that “the primary consumer of the battery life on these phones is the transmit/receive circuit. So tuning that and obviously figuring out a way to not use too much of that extends your battery life…and people bring in applications that are not particularly smart about that, which is what Larry is trying to get at.”
So what you’re saying is that Apple was right then ?
Apple scaling Final Cut Studio apps to fit prosumers ?
“Apple’s Final Cut Studio suite of video post production apps is getting a significant makeover to better target the software to the mainstream of Apple’s customer base rather than high end professionals.
According to a person with knowledge of Apple’s internal Pro Apps plans, the company has shuffled around management within the Final Cut team in order to retarget its efforts to more closely match the needs of the majority of its customers. Apple’s Mac customer base has steadily shifted from desktop models to notebooks, while also broadening out from a high end creative niche to a wider installed base that includes more prosumer and advanced home users. “
I find this highly unlikely. While it’s possible that Apple may add some prosumer features there’s no way they’re going to kill one of their most successful software businesses. There has been fears for the future of Final Cut Pro from many industry professionals I’ve talked to and I suspect that this rumour is just a manifestation of those fears. I could be wrong but I really don’t think they will do this.
[UPDATE] Yep, bogus.
I want choice, but only if I agree with your choice
Ted Landau complaining about Steve Jobs’s responses to Ryan Tate, taking issue with Jobs comment that “There are almost 200,000 apps in the App Store, so something must be going alright.”
“More to the point, suppose there was a car that offered excellent reliability and 100 MPG. With these admirable characteristics, the car becomes very popular, deservedly so. But suppose people complained that the car had practically no trunk space or that visibility from the rear view mirror was very poor. What if the company’s only response to such complaints was: ‘Our car is the number seller in its class. We must be doing something right.’ Would you consider this an appropriate and sufficient response? I hope not.”
I’m sorry, but that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. If the car had the problems he’s saying it had (poor visibility and no trunk space) it would never have become so very popular as he describes. On the one hand he’s arguing that the App store should be free and open and follow the market principles of letting the customer decide, then he presents an argument against judging a product on its success in the market. You can’t have it both ways.
I think Ted’s problem, like that of many analysts/bloggers/journalists/geeks etc on the issue is that they’re confusing fundamental flaws with not liking something. People like Ted don’t like the closed nature of the App store, but that doesn’t mean it’s fundamentally flawed, or a lack of choice. If it was fundamentally flawed it wouldn’t be a success because people would have chosen to buy something else. That success been determined by the market you so desperately want to preserve the freedom of.
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