Steve Jobs lesson…
As you all know, Steve Jobs passed away. I have to say I am not a huge Apple fan, there are things I like about Apple and things I do not like. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. What I will miss from Steve Jobs is the ability and the courage to create something “new”. He didn’t fear to create something unexpected, unexplored and most of the times something very simple and easy.
And this is what I sometimes miss in the camera industry. Micro Four Thirds was one of those (few) great inventions that moved me to create that website. But I still see to much fear in the eyes of Panasonic and Olympus (but also other camera makers). It looks like they are all taking boring “calculative” decisions. That’s the wrong way to become successful. Apple was almost dead as company back in the nineties, with no vision and almost no hope. A couple of right decisions, with very clean and revolutionary ideas brought them back to live and success. So please camera makers, there is so much you can do right now! Do not fear, just do dream a bit more!
P.S.: Here are just a couple of things I think you should work on:
- Social integrated cameras (for low-end consumer)
- Easy and simple menus with less complicated options and expandable via a sort of APP store
- Software (APP store) and hardware (modular) expandeable cameras
- Large sensor mirrorless system (See Fuji X)
And so on…
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marsupial2go
8 months ago |I think Panasonic made monumental missteps in the past year that Steve Jobs would never have made. I live in Apple territory, so we get a lot of coverage about Jobs, and in an interview today co-founder Steve Wozniak said jobs was a marketing maven more than a technological guru. And that’s where Panasonic made grave errors – in marketing.
Panasonic had forward-looking products, massive consumer interest, innovative ideas, etc., but they stayed in their cave and didn’t deliver. Potential marketshare is lost forever. We are so close to the 5DM3 at Photokina, Fuji’s big sensor, Sony’s 1080p60, etc., and Panasonic could have grabbed that market with less competition early, but were real sloppy in deliverance. Now they’ll have more competitors in 2012.
Yup, you’re right, Steve Jobs taught us a lot!
frosti7
8 months ago |Steve jobs RIP
I might be able to imagine a better more open-source Apple, but its hard to critisize the company that gave us UI-based OS (that inspired windows)
that invented the mouse and smartphone (and many other things)
I’ll hope more companies will be inspired by Apple creativity under Steve jobs, and as you pointed out, will be more bold and innovative then just copying and incremental improving old produts
Atle
8 months ago |Apple has done a lot of good innovation, annd I am sad that Jobs died. However claiming that they invented the mouse, the smartphone and UI-based os is at best stretching it pretty far.
Fafhrd
8 months ago |No Apple did not make the first personal computer, or the first laser printer, or the first GUI interface, or the first media player, or the first smartphone, or the first tablet computer, etc.
But to expand upon Alan Kay, they made the first pc, laser printer, GUI, media player, smartphone, tablet computer etc THAT WERE WORTH CRITICISING!
agent00soul
8 months ago |Xerox invented the mouse and there were several smartphones before the Iphone.
Thomas
8 months ago |Well, define “smartphone”. For me, early Windows Phones were NOT smartphones.
But yea. Apple was more about bringing existing to the mass market. Thats were they really shine.
The world has lost an incredible man, and i really dont like apple at all.
RIP Steve!
bilgy_no1
8 months ago |Well, there were Nokia smartphones, Symbian based, many years before the iPhone. In facto, Jobs conceptualised the iPhone because he saw that smartphones with media players were a threat to the iPod.
And this kind of forward thinking, coupled with exceptional marketing, brought Apple where it is today. In a camera parallel: m43 was first, but Sony is doing a better job marketing the Nex.
jules
8 months ago |I remember the iPhone 1, compared to many other smart phone back then, to be snappy and reliable, boasted with a flashy interface that did not bring that much extra ergonomics(1) on the table, if at all (except for web browsing, maybe). Did it actually bring just one new feature on the table, I am not even sure. In fact it was underspect.
And when you did an honest comparison, the Window phones did everything the iPhone did. Not as pretty, not as snappy. buggier. User Interface …being windows experience, was acceptable.
To say that they “defined smartphones”, that is a bold statement.
What Apple did was to make smartphones more popular than ever.
(1)I also remember fondly -and SLR users will relate to that- that iPhone fanboys would confuse thoughtfully ergonomics, learning curve and beauty of the interface.
Anonymous
8 months ago |Aps-c existed way before m43. And m43 was not the first large sensor compact either.
Tropical Yeti
8 months ago |At Frosti:>
Hold on your horses Apple faithfull.
Computer mouse is (of course) not Jobs invention, it is far pre-dating Apple computers (See wikipedia “Computer mouse”) Jobs has seen mouse for the first time at Xerox in 1979. He did immediately understand what it means for computing tough.
Similar goes for GUI (please learn about PARC, Xwindows…)
Other than worshipping his professional genius (undobtfuly true), his personal behaviour is much kept under the rug. You can read several books about Apple computers, or even what Wikipedia has to say about him.
Godot
8 months ago |People point out Apple’s copying of ideas as if it’s a bad thing.
And yet the real genius of Apple, especially over the last decade and also in the 80s, is in taking technologies that are already out there and redesigning and repackaging them into something that the average person can not only use, but enjoy using.
The iPod is probably the best example. Before the iPod, there were plenty of portable MP3 players. But they were usually complicated, either bulky or with tiny capacity, and relied on USB (then in the 1.x generation, so it was ridiculously slow to load up anything with a multi-gig hard drive). In short, these were toys by and for geeks, with very limited consumer appeal.
Apple comes along and sources a tiny 1.8″ 5 GB hard drive, making possible the deck-of-cards form factor. They give it an easy-to-use interface, and Firewire for fast loading. And didn’t stop improving and iterating, and willingly cannibalizing their own products, ditching Firewire when the time was right (despite howls of outrage from some fans), etc.
Within a year or two, they launched their music store. The brilliance there: successfully competing with FREE online music. How they did it: by discovering that for many people (not all or even most, but enough), EASY (and legal) trumps free (and illegal).
The iPhone is pretty similar. Yes, there were smartphones before, but as geeky niche products. Apple made them consumer-friendly, and kept on adding value like movie downloads, the App Store, and so on.
And you can take that all the way back to the Mac and the mouse. Did Apple invent the GUI and mouse? No. But without Apple, those things were geeky laboratory experiments that Xerox was never going to commercialize. So props to Xerox for doing the groundbreaking research, but props to Apple for reshaping it into something we could all use.
jules
8 months ago |I don’t think anyone is looking down on Apple’s achievement’s base on the fact that they are not the inventors.
Science as we know it today would be in bad shape if we’d rely only on original creators to bring any new ideas to the forefront.
bilgy_no1
8 months ago |Exactly, Apple dus a great job in marketing: popularising smart phones beyond business people, package deals with network operators to give iPhone users faster mobile internet, making it exclusive for selected operators and negotiating a cut from subscription fees (meaning the operators were tied into the iPhone’s success), control content and revenue through the storen, etc. There are even some unique tech and design features.
But all that doesn’t mean we should rewrite history…
Redkite
8 months ago |I’m an Apple disciple and I mourn Steve’s loss.
exacta
8 months ago |To the admin: you don’t have to look far for a camera company that has flair like Apple /Jobs.
Olympus is (was?) the one company that dared to be different. Think of Yoshihisa Maitani’s exploits.
Eric
8 months ago |Olympus and Pentax are arguably the two most original of the Japanese camera companies. However, I’ve said for years I wish apple would make a camera so they would show the rest of the world how to design a UI. Every single camera OS I’ve tried has been ugly, clunky, and many are cluttered and overly complicated. Sony has made an attempt to modernize them with NEX, but still, Sony is no Apple when it comes to GUI design.
The camera world reminds me if cell phones before the iPhone came out and showed everyone how to do it. The camera industry needs the same thing. Aside from Leica it seems like everyone puts every feature under the sun into a camera instead if sitting down and thinking about what a camera truly needs to do, then eliminate the excess.
avds
8 months ago |Huh? What’s so wrong with Panasonic m43 series, exactly? The UI of the GF1 I own seems to be totally perfect, and according to reviews all current G series cams are even better thank, in part, to the touch screen.
elleyy
8 months ago |“…But I still see to much fear in the eyes of Panasonic and Olympus (but also other camera makers). It looks like they are all taking boring “calculative” decisions.”"”
“..So please camera makers, there is so much you can do right now! Do not fear, just do dream a bit more!..”
???!!?? LOL sorry, you got a great website(s) but this is very funny. What is’t that you want from camera makers??? Put a fruit logo on it?
frank
8 months ago |fruit logo, great idea!
frank
8 months ago |The great thing about Apple products is that they are quite techie, nerdish products with a great user interface. That’s where everyone else gets it wrong. Others think they don’t have to have all the tech inside because the outside looks so simple. Take the way in which you hook up a beamer to a windows laptop, always having to use Fn+F5 or so and it never quite works. WIth an Apple you just hook it up and go, and that takes much more tech than the Fn+F5 button although it doesn’t look like it.
But I like my GF1 very much, I don’t think an Apple camera would really work for me because I like a lot of direct buttons that work straightforward, like the GF1 has. And I am quite sure that is an Apple thing, oh well, maybe not, whatever
Thomas
8 months ago |Actually, i have to say, that this beamer thing doesnt work properly. I see this on presentations, MAC books got the biggest problems of all laptops.
frank
8 months ago |I have never seen it go wrong, just plug it in wand wait 5 seconds and all is well. At least here in Europe it is…
Len Metcalf
8 months ago |RIP Steve… makes me sad… I love all my apple products… And a CEO that inspired and encouraged creativity…
Micro four thirds could really do with another camera maker in their partnership… Pity as I could only see benefits for all concerned. Cooperation, not competition… Open standards are the way forward..
Rainer
8 months ago |Some weeks ago I took a Seminar at my professor, which is also known as a management book autor, Edgar Geffroy, he told about Steve jobs:
“He did look at the same market …but with a different view.” That’s what made Apple special
Thomas
8 months ago |+1
Yep thats it.
Rainer
8 months ago |“Xerox invented the mouse and there were several smartphones before the Iphone.”
Yes but most of the companies have been to stupid and ignored those inventions, Steve not – he made them “happen”.
Hiplnsdrftr
8 months ago |Admin makes an excellent point. Camera makers really need a shot of “stay hungry, stay foolish”.
For example, Panasonic makes the brilliant GF1 and has since done everything in it’s power to detune it. Canon once made a camera called the Pro-1 and Sony made an R1. Both of these cameras were ahead of their time and both lines were fearfully discontinued.
The Nikon 1 cameras are obviously designed to not threaten dSLR sales. Canon refuses to even venture into this new arena.
I don’t think Admin is saying to make cameras like iPhones. I think the point is to push the design and innovation of cameras. Let great cameras challenge the designers to continue to come up with new concepts. How sad is it that one of the best cameras out there is a 4 year old GF1?
It is so obvious that the technology exists to make great innovative cameras, yet too much emphasis is placed on protecting dSLR sales, designed obsolescence protecting future upgrades and an overall dumbing down of machines for the masses.
vromopodarix
8 months ago |Exactly the same happened with autofocus in lenses. The first to develop it was…Leica and then sold the tech to Minolta because ‘Leica user know how to focus without machines’.
Many great inventions are buried because of short sightness
Esa Tuunanen
8 months ago |> Canon once made a camera called the Pro-1
Which was just distracting enthusiasts for keeping them away from advanced, direct control “prosumer” cameras of other makers until Canon could get their first worser controls entry level DSLR body out.
It was Minolta Dimage 7 serie (first model in 2001) and especially following A1 and A2 (A200 was dumbing down) which pushed forward what fully digital camera could be and even today offer better controls and ergonomy than any entry level DSLR body, or anything what m4/3 has or overhyped NEX-7. And A2′s 922 000 pixel EVF was actually in top of EVFs/LCDs in image sharpness for nearly five years until Panasonic G1 in late 2008.
With removal of film era mirror from camera system I was expecting Olympus to make also same caliber of functionality EVF based fully digital camera body as they even even tried their feet (C-8080) in prosumer “compacts” at the time of A2 but disappointingly Olympus has now been just clinging to this big digicompact with interchangeable lens PEN-concept whose ergonomy loses even to their entry-level DSLRs instead of offering whole range of different bodies for the same system.
Loud ones rarely develop anything really new. It’s just that the loud and famous (that’s Canikon in photography) take and get credit for all the work done by quiet ones.
Like this hype around Apple having invented and done about everything (reminding me about certain Kim Jong-il who has done everything if you ask his followers) while in reality it was mainly just Steve Jobs’ incredible marketing and persuading abilities… actually even nicknamed as reality distortion field, and parodied in Dilbert ~year ago.
yusuke
8 months ago |Indeed. Totally agreed. I respect Steve Jobs the same way and request Olympus the same things. A great post, admin.
DingieM
8 months ago |Steve Jobs lesson to the world is actually the criminality of the western medical system (they can only suppress symptoms a little). He actually got killed by the barbaric chemotherapies that has existed for over…50 years? Call it extreme conservatism by the never-changing oncology. Well they get bucketloads of money from cancerous people. Its a very big industry…keeping people ill.
Naturalnews.com
M
8 months ago |Fuck you. Go away with your “natural” scam and I hope you die of cancer yourself.
Nico Foto
8 months ago |No need to be rude, please.
dudeness
8 months ago |Yeah, you’re right, let’s be nice to the sociopath who prey onto desperate cancer patients, have them quit their oncology treatment so he can enrich himself selling his snake oil, while they become terminal, stuffer the martyr, and then finally die for his profit.
Great advice you give there buddy, you’re quite the humanitarian!
Mr. Reeee
8 months ago |Methinks your tin foil hat fell off.
G_C
8 months ago |M has no brain.
Esa Tuunanen
8 months ago |Don’t blaim one bad apple (my apology for word which can be interpreted as aimed insult) in the bucket when whole society is steered more and more toward resulting those.
Just think how everything is now measured in money and how money is everything and nothing is allowed to stand in front of making maximum amount of it. Or how again lots of money is spent in somewhere just because it can be used for making lots of profits while products are in the end entirely superfluous. For example moving annual marketing and research budget of cosmetic industry into medical research would surely go long way for eventually finding cures to many serious and painfull diseases. (no instant My finger hurts because of stick in it – so I’ll pull stick out miracle solutions in these)
If someone hasn’t watched or remember Star Trek First Contact movie I would suggest watching it.
In one point there’s that talk about how finding out that there’s sentient and intelligent life outside Earth eventually unified mankind and turned aim from money and personal profits to exploring the universe, increasing knowledge and bettering mankind.
That’s the spirit what would be needed for solving global problems and curing diseases.
Mr Hipsta
8 months ago |There certainly is no Steve Jobs in the photo industry, why is that? Steve made the Apple live streaming events something to look forward to (early 2000) and made the computer and IT industry so much more fun. Really can’t understand why the major photo companies don’t have live events and presentations like that.
Rest in Peace Steve!
/Mac user since 1984
Frederic Hew
8 months ago |There’s no Steve Jobs in the camera industry because cameras are not a part of everyone’s life and as innovative as cameras may one day become it will only make some enthusiasts happy but that’s about it.
What made Apple big at first was the PC revolution, but later on and on a much a much greater scale the mobile phone business – there are some 6 billion mobile phones on the planet.
Myself, I’m still waiting for the dental floss guru, a charismatic genius who will change the face of dental hygiene. Feeling creative, admin?
dirque
8 months ago |Well the most popular camera in use today according to flickr is the iphone. So steve jobs did change photography.
Fafhrd
8 months ago |That camera is the iPhone. Check the percentage of photos on Flickr taken by iPhone.
Alfons
8 months ago |Admin, sorry to say this but your ideas wouldn’t change photography but adapt to what photography is today.
Simon
8 months ago |What Steve Jobs did was to create products that are outstanding not because of awesome specs but because they are highly usable and feel great.
Very different from most cameras that are deeply flawed in at least some aspects.
Imagine no specs and megapixel war anymore and having a naming scheme for products that don’t involve endles cryptic figures and letters.
Apple also doesn’t offer intendionally stripped versions of the same product. They just put all innovations in one iphone, instead of offering 50 different models like Nokia or Samsung.
M
8 months ago |Steve jobs never invented anything, and Apple is based on stealing other people’s ideas and marketing shiny products to sheeple. There ipods and iMacs are copies of Braun’s household appliances from the 60s. Everything there hardware does has already been done at least a year ago, in a cheaper device.
Steve never gave money to charity. Hes filthy rich, never gave a dime. He cheated the US medical system to get a liver transplant.
Good riddance.
Frederic Hew
8 months ago |That comment is awfully mean.
I was never fond of that company’s products or politics, or of Jobs’ managerial style, still I find comments such as these revolting.
phooey.
Andy
8 months ago |Best thing to do is just ignore trolls like M. They get off on upsetting people so just don’t give them the satisfaction.
dudeness
8 months ago |Yeah, call somebody who is right on all points a troll, that way you don’t have to admit you can’t counter-argue because he’s right.
Andy
8 months ago |I couldn’t give a crap what he did or didn’t do. The guy just died after a long term illness – this is not the time or place to be slamming him.
It is pretty clear that M = dudeness = fat pathetic 40 year old loser with no friends who gets a boner slagging off people who just died. Ever had sex with a woman before? I think not.
Hiplnsdrftr
8 months ago |http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2011/01/how_did_steve_jobs_get_his_liver.html
Frederic Hew
8 months ago |had i needed a liver transplant to save my life i would have done everything within my power to the extent permitted by the law. wouldn’t you?
M
8 months ago |The greedy bastard stole a life from someone.
Mr. Reeee
8 months ago |Did zombies eat your brain?
dudeness
8 months ago |Do you have a counter-argument? Do you have any evidence to prove the greedy billionaire didn’t use his fortune to deprive someone of life saving treatment so he could live a few months more? Do you have anything at all, or you’re just another sour forum critter who think ad hominem is an argument?
Godot
8 months ago |“to deprive someone of life saving treatment”
As I understand it, he did what rich people generally do: played by the rules in ways his money made possible. In other words, he went on multiple waiting lists (allowed, not practical without money to fly to the site at a moment’s notice, pay for various expenses, etc.), and took advantage of other things made possible by having money.
But if he was legally on the Tennessee list, and his turn came up, and he had the operation, it’s a stretch to accuse him of manslaughter for it, which is what your post amounts to.
In general, I think it’s unseemly to play armchair doctor, as in the Slate article and some of the posts here, to conclude this man was unworthy, selfishly bought himself a liver, etc. You feel you know enough of the facts to come to that conclusion? Fine. I don’t. I’ll leave you to play Internet MD.
As for charitable giving, how do any of us know? Maybe he gave anonymously, and generously.
We don’t know what happens to his fortune now, either. He’s been dead a day, do you want to know it’s going to starving children right this minute, minus a modest trust fund for his family?
The guy was no saint. But that doesn’t mean he was a demon. Consider the good alongside the bad. There was lots of good there.
54545
8 months ago |so tell us what exactly has jobs invented?
jobs…. not steve wozniak!
Miroslav
8 months ago |While yesterday your comment tone may be acceptable, today I find it too offensive. Do show some respect for the man.
On the other hand, I agree that Apple’s greatest products were generally repackaged ideas of others, but one needed a good business sense to know what to “rework”, how to pack it and how to market it. At least in the beginning. In recent years, marketing was done partially by the laymen from the mainstream media – couple of days ago many there were live broadcasts from Apple’s press conference for new iPhone. What other consumer electronics company gets live coverage of its product announcements on 24h news channels?
What would Jobs ( and his team ) do in the photo world? They’d make Sony NEX like camera with 4″ touch LCD, integrated 40GB SSD, WiFi and iOS. Take someone else’s product, strip most of its commands, make it easy to use for beginners, make shiny futuristic casing for it, rename it and market it as if you’ve invented it. Sony marketing differs from Apple’s and that’s why they don’t have cult following like Apple does.
Anyway, Jobs’ death will be a great loss to the technology world. Apple did copy from others, but they were copied by others even more. Those others then made better products than Apple, but bought only by the people who bother to read the specs.
Fafhrd
8 months ago |You are a turd floating in a punch bowl.
MikeS
8 months ago |Steve, you’ll be missed.
If only there were someone with such vision running a camera company…
Bob B.
8 months ago |If you are not a huge Apple fan…then what you missed was huge…..
smelly alvin
8 months ago |Jobs was brilliant – dedicated to what he believed in. This
causes others who are lesser to dislike. Grow up. The world
isnt perfect and one person cant make it change. He is one
of the original founders in computing who moulded what we
take for granted today. He helped move computers from things
only massive corporations could afford into the hands of
normal people. My first computer I ever worked on was a
Apple 2 at school in 1981. I programmed it in turtle.
Its a very sad day. There is very few of the ‘old guard’
still actively working in the field.
Frederic Hew
8 months ago |I think that would have been Logo and not turtle
I had an Apple II as a kid and was really into everything that company represented at the time but eventually disenchanted with what it became, its products and Jobs himself (that may had something to have with Wozniak leaving the company).
Jobs deserves a lot of credit, but the PC revolution owes its existence to the open PC platform and not the Lisa or Mac that followed the Apple II E’s and C’s. Hong Kong and Taiwan were making cheap PCs by the millions when Apple was busy filing lawsuits against clone makers.
He was a branding and marketing genius, and a brilliant trend maker. Like him or not, you can not take that away from him.
Mr. Reeee
8 months ago |317 Apple patents with Steve Jobs’ name on them.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-jobs-patents.html?smid=fb-nytimes&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB
Frederic Hew
8 months ago |Below is one of them, copied from that website you linked to.
The vast majority of those patents has to do with product design, not technology. Job’s name is listed among many other names – I’ll let you guess how much resources he invested and how much credit he deserves for this one.
With your kind permission I’ll leave it at that.
Quote follows:
Display
Description: The ornamental design for a display, as shown and described.
Inventors: Bartley K. Andre, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Steven P. Jobs, Duncan Robert Kerr, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Douglas B. Satzger, Calvin Q. Seid, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Anthony Whang
Patented: April 23, 2002 Filed: July 17, 2000
Bob B.
8 months ago |WOW!
54545
8 months ago |yeah because he was a lunatic. read a bio about him.
he wanted to be on these patents because of his ego but had nothing to do with them.
just as he was crying that wozniak got the apple employee no. 1 and he was listed as second. then he screamed like a child until they gave him the no. 0
what a joke….
zigi_S
8 months ago |Hope this is the end of the cult.
Mr. Reeee
8 months ago |Mac users were never a cult. Passionate users with a great appreciation for intuitive, flexible, powerful and elegant tools that work well, are made well and are beautiful? Yes. Absolutely.
zigi_S
8 months ago |If someone buys a product from a company and then starts to talk about it’s “genious” CEO(leader) and repeats the marketing slogans, that sounds to me like a cult.
Apple products were never about technology but about status. They are priced high so only the well off can buy it. And that certainly sends a strong message to a lot of people. Steve Jobs knew how to manipulate the psychy of the masses. Lets see if his successor manages the same, or people will finaly come to their senses and see the emperor has no clothes.
Mr. Reeee
8 months ago |There’s nothing quite like the taste of sour grapes, eh?
zigi_S
8 months ago |Isn’t my comment true?
Jobs marketing strategies lead the world to even greater social divide.
He has done enough damage imho.
Mr. Reeee
8 months ago |Apple products have always been about technology, but technology applied transparently. It’s about WHAT you do, not HOW you do it.
And, yes, Apple’s marketing is… and has always been… absolutely brilliant…
from the introductory Macintosh “1984″ ad to the “Think Different” campaign to iPod ads to “I’m a Mac”.
There’s little to say to someone who clearly doesn’t get it.
zigi_S
8 months ago |“There’s little to say to someone who clearly doesn’t get it.”
And I’m glad I don’t.
Bob B.
8 months ago |Zigi
++++++20 sour grapes.
Not about status…its about “user friendly”…seamlessness between person & machine.
You must be an IBM bean counter…those guys can’t take any good pics either!
Too busy adjusting pocket protector.
dudeness
8 months ago |Then why do you act like a fanatic and insult people who bring facts that displease you. That’s tribal instinct, and it’s the worse kind AFAIC, the vain, empty branded consumer cultism.
54545
8 months ago |you are just a manipulated idiot like most apple fanboys….
Frederic Hew
8 months ago |On the contrary… it will only become worse
Thyl
8 months ago |Looking at the timid Japanese camera industry these days, I think that the only company that might finally come to comprehend the chances offered by digital xameras, and their possible accessory systems, could again be Apple.
Please don’t laugh. Apple now has quite some experience in cameras, they have a suitable operating system, iOS, they are allways looking for new commercial endeavours, integration of camera and computer is still a bit of a hassle (i.e. Opportunities to do better), and, do not forget: they did it before, with the iPod, the iPhone, and (less successful) AppleTV, all of them products nobody saw coming.
Apple could spend one billion dollars on developping a killer camera system, and would not even feel it on their bank accounts.
fabio
8 months ago |Yoshihisa Maitani and Steve Jobs, my camera since 1974 and my computer since 1988
fred schumacher
8 months ago |What Maitani and Jobs had in common was a commitment to parsimony. (I also got my first OM-1 in 1974 and Mac in 1988.)
Maitani simplified and downsized the mechanical SLR, turning it from a klunky, heavy, noisy object into a sleek, little, fast operating tool. As a photographer on the Dakota Photo Documentary Project in 1976, I was able to work fast, with a few of Maitani’s tiny lenses in my pockets, while the other photographers were struggling with their bulky camera bags and heavy gear.
Maitani reduced the information provided by the camera to the user to the most important components, freeing a photographer from sensory overload.
Jobs did the same with Apple products. His counterpart at Microsoft, Bill Gates, went the other way, adding feature after feature to make the product more complicated.
“Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.” That’s Ockham’s Razor, a principle firmly adopted by Maitani and Jobs.
Kodiak
8 months ago |Rest in peace, Newton twentieth century
54545
8 months ago |moron….
54545
8 months ago |oh please give me a break.. i hope that media fuzz about jobs is over soon.
he has done nothing for me or anyone i know.
he sat onto his money until the end… unlike other billionairs.
he was ok with using asian workslaves.
he stole money from wozniak.
he gave us DRM.
he did not want to support his illegitimate daughter. what kind of billionair father was he?
and he gave us these apple fanboy idiots….
so thanks jobs for nothing!
EE
8 months ago |> he has done nothing for me or anyone i know.
I wasn’t aware that he personally owed you or your acquaintances anything. However, the companies he has been associated with have redefined an impressive number of industries. This was not by chance or accident. You may not like Macs or iPods or iPads or iPhones or even Pixar movies, but you are a fool if you do not believe that these examples would not be the gold standard without Jobs’ obsession with details and surrounding himself with those of like mind. Many of those said details involved accessability for the disabled, so in truth the products Apple has developed have made life better for a number of people. I can guarantee you that even though he wasn’t writing the code or picking the ICs, he was very much involved in the design process.
> he sat onto his money until the end… unlike other billionairs.
So you knew him personally? Of course you didn’t. What a ridiculous statement. You have no idea what he did with his money, and you have no right to know. Just because people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet make a big show of their contributions doesn’t mean all wealthy people do.
> he was ok with using asian workslaves.
So are you going to stop buying the majority of consumer electronics?
> he gave us DRM.
The movie and recording industries gave you DRM. Apple offers DRM free iTunes where they have permission. What Apple did offer was the first mainstream way to legally purchase the music you want (and JUST the music you want) from your computer.
I snipped out the other personal attacks because they are extremely petty and one-sided. If you dislike Apple and Jobs that’s fine, but I would hope that attacks like this are beneath you.
Rutrem
8 months ago |Jobs even stoled the Apple logo from the Beattles Apple Comp. what a great genius. he was just marketing guy,very good one. If we have to credit some companys for the innovation and ideas those are SGI,Amd,nVidia,Linux comunity. What to say about Jobs great “success” the Next, an repacked linux distribut
ion.
EE
8 months ago |The original Apple Computer logo and the Apple Records logo are similar in the type of fruit only. AMD didn’t invent the processor, nVidia didn’t invent the video card, Linus Torvalds didn’t invent the operating system… so why does Apple get no credit for the industries their products revolutionized? And to say NeXT/OS X is a repackaged Linux distribution betrays your ignorance on the subject entirely.
Fafhrd
8 months ago |Oscar Wilde said that “The fact of a man’s being a poisoner is nothing against his poetry.”
bbking
8 months ago |I hope Apple don’t make a 4/3 or Micro 4/3 camera… :/
Surefoot
8 months ago |Mr Steve Jobs was a genius in marketing and strategy. He also had a very good vision of technology, for a man in his position. Usually CEO’s are businessmen with no understanding of the technologies their company sell, on the opposite Mr Jobs understood everything and was involved in every little detail. What he did with NeXT and onwards is still under estimated, he brought up the antique UI’s to modern standards. He also led a small revolution in industrial design, see the huge influence Apple had on the current return to “simple and elegant”.
We owe him a lot, probably not what most seem to think (no he did not invent the mouse or windowed UI) – but he was a strong, influential, with the temper that goes with the genius, granted… He was one of the few industry leaders to be directly involved in the technology of his own company products. This makes a LOT of difference from usual corporate drones…
It would take a huge shakeup in some of these Japanese companies to emulate that kind of vision and business model. Currently top executives and marketing do not even know what the cameras they sell can do. Most blatant example is Panasonic. They had some killer products, that they kept hidden away from public view like they were a well hidden secret. See how Sony compares with a very poor system so far…
Jim
8 months ago |Apple has always made products for people who can’t/dont want to, use/understand tech…
I’ve always looked at apples as PCs for people that can’t use a pc…
EE
8 months ago |What hogwash. If you ever even bothered to look under the hood you’d know that OS X is based on BSD and is Unix 03 certified. They make it easy for people to do the things that should be easy, but they give you the tools to do just about anything you could possibly want. This is coming from someone that has done Windows and Unix programming for 10 years. I now much prefer my Mac to any Windows computer I’ve ever owned.
Jim
8 months ago |Come on… took em years to finaly support a 2 button mouse
EE
8 months ago |Why don’t you go ahead and tell everyone how long Mac OS has SUPPORTED multi-button mice. And then tell us how that relates to computing today.
Or better yet, come up with a legitimate argument so this isn’t too easy for me.
Jim
8 months ago |2000-ish
David Morgenstern, a Mac veteran and former editor of MacWeek, said Raskin didn’t even want the mouse to “double-click” — he wanted a one-button, one-click device.
“Mac users have always said Windows is so complicated you need another button to get to all the features,” he said. ”
EE
8 months ago |It was officially supported 1997 in OS8, but you could actually use them before that with third party drivers. So your big zing is that well over a decade ago they didn’t have built-in OS support for two-button mice. Wow. So again, what relevance does that have TODAY?
You don’t have to like Apple products. You can even quietly look down on the people that use them (which is actually pretty silly because you have formed a blanket opinion about a significantly large and diverse group). But you should know that using stale talking points does not a good case make.
Jim
8 months ago |It has little real relevance…
I’ve been playing the mac pc debate for over 15yrs now
Only thing I would say is it shows where they are comming from, as a design ethos.
Lock
8 months ago |Photography is more about art and knowledge, not just about tools. Many talk about excellent Apple products that’s ok..but what the majority do with that tools? Nothing new or interesting.
EE
8 months ago |Seeing as how most developers use Macs to develop OS X or iOS applications, many production people use Final Cut and Logic, and the Adobe CS products still run on Macs last I checked, there are plenty of people using Apple computers to create.
A lot of people with cameras take bad pictures, but I’m not about to write off photography.
Ulli
8 months ago |I always taught during the mc68000 days, the Commodore Amiga was the better computer, both hardware en os wise, and unlike Apple pc’s, low budget models were quickly available.
Jim
8 months ago |Yep, Amega was a monster! I’ll even begrudginly admit the Amiga was better than the ST…
Surefoot
8 months ago |The amiga was better in its days indeed, but at the same time Jobs was at NeXT preparing the next UI revolution, and some concepts from it trickled down to the Amiga OS especially the v3. I see the modern MacOsX machines as being the spiritual successors to the Amiga, for the slick, easy to use OS, with intuitive user interface.
Gabriel
8 months ago |Your wishes are mine, as i said in another comments. A themable interface, full tactile driven camera. Sometime, i try too swipe photo on my DSLR, or press the aperture number in order to change the value