The problem with this comparison is that, while it's not remotely easy, it's far easier to compete with Facebook or Google than to compete with an ISP.
Facebook barely existed 10 years ago. And it wasn't until maybe the last five years that it was recognized as a competitor to Google.
It would make perfect sense if they'd bundled a controller (and/or made it more straightforward to have ipads/ipods/phones usable as controllers) and put an A8X in it.
It would've been the middle ground. Not just streaming, but not as hardcore as an XBox/PS4 (which weren't $250 when the AppleTV launched.)
The big mis-step of the 4th gen AppleTV is that they didn't pick any direction for it. It's a bit like the first-gen Watch. They just threw a bunch of crap at the wall and expected the early adopters to sift through it.
1. Because the mindset of work > leisure is rewarded in the U.S., so wealthier people aren't choosing work because they're wealthier, they're wealthier because they choose work.
2. Because they have more leverage not only in how much they work, but in what work they do. If you draw a stark line between your job and what you enjoy, naturally you'll want to minimize that work and maximize your leisure. But if you actually enjoy your job...
It didn't? I distinctly remember the same sort of FUD progression with regards to the ozone hole.
1. It wasn't actually happening/a problem.
(It's hippy nonsense. [insert sarcastic comment about saving butterflies])
2. It was happening, but it was natural, not caused by human activity
(The ozone hole grows and shrinks naturally throughout the year! And its been bigger and smaller in the past!)
3. It was happening, caused by human activity, but there wasn't anything we could do about it
(We can't force the other countries to change, and if they won't change it'll keep growing anyway!)
There's really no difference in the playbook between it and global warming. It's just the financial incentives to delay are much stronger with carbon.
Even the "equivalent replacements" for CFCs were widely regarded as overpriced and far worse at the time. (I still hear people bemoan the loss of freon AC to this day.) It's not so different from solar/wind vs fossil fuels.
Much more recently, the Republican candidate running for the US Presidency still expressed skepticism that him using hair spray on his hair in his home had anything to with the ozone hole: http://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/trump-on-hairspray-and-ozon... .
As terrible as this idea is for phones -- it's perfect for home automation.
Having each and every widget doing its own network and software stack is just a mess. Nevermind having to power all these gadgets.
There's very little reason to have more than one base in a room, that could handle all the non-switch/non-outlet duties. (cameras, air quality sensors, motion sensors, mics and speakers for echo-type interaction, tv input, etc.)
If all those features were just modules that stacked on top of a base (and could be swapped independently), you'd really have something.
Home automation is, by the nature of it, a series of distinct functions spread throughout the home (e.g. front door lock, garage control, temperature control, lights in each room, sprinkler system, washer/dryer alerts, etc); so you're going to need each of these geographically separate things communicating into a central control "hub."
You cannot physically move these things into a module on the central control hub. Most of them have to be in the location they're already at (e.g. physically in the front door).
How does making the control hub a modular unit help with the complexity of home automation? If anything it further adds to the complexity. A lot of the solutions now just use WiFi networking and a standard protocol.
I think what he's saying is that rather than selling a bunch of different devices (or one device with every sensor under the sun), you sell a "room base", and a bunch of different monitoring plugs that can slot into the "room base".
If your laundry room doesn't really need a camera, it just needs a thermometer, you just slot in the thermometer plug into that room base, etc.
Basically, yeah. Some stuff is necessarily distinct. But an awful lot of it is not. And given the way this tech is advancing, and the cost of retrofitting, most of the stuff people will first encounter and install will fall under the umbrella of "not distinct".
(e.g. people are going to buy an Echo or a Dropcam long before they refit their house for smart switches/outlets/bulbs/appliances.)
The environmental conditions of a 'scorched' Earth aren't themselves that big a problem. The bigger problem is the disparity between how many people are on Earth now, and how many people we can support in those new environmental conditions.
As usual: humanity's primary challenge is humanity.
If the choice is between data security and a few family members being unwilling to click an email link, I'd choose data security.
Let's face it: the kind of people who only look at your photos when they're very convenient to look at aren't interested to begin with. Nothing of value is being lost.
That's exactly my thinking. The people I email generally open the link, look through the photos, and sometimes even write an email in response! It's the damnedest thing.
I put effort into arranging everything, and everyone else puts effort into looking at it. It's a pretty fair trade.
It did when the alternative was the entire educational process behind knowing what they need, what tradeoffs are inherent, what the price should be, what vendors provide it at the acceptable price, what drawbacks come with those other vendors, living with those drawbacks, etc.
Technical people like to pretend it's the easiest thing in the world to "know" how much computer someone needs and to buy it. But if you're non-technical, all you hear is technical people saying "trust me". Which is precisely the same thing Apple is saying.
And, yes, we show them lower sticker prices. But Apple has a far better track record of delivering customer satisfaction than technical people recommending beige boxes. So, for anyone with the money, why in the world would they care for two seconds about "too much computer"?
"Aww shucks. I bought too much computer and loved it, instead of listening to the geeks, getting just enough, and hating it."
Yes, but I am often looking at 10 or 20 things at the same time. I don't need to "read later", I need to read all of them now. I'll probably lose like half my trains of thought if I have to wait multiple seconds to switch back to page rendering one of the other umpteen search results...
Well, yeah, at the scale of "real research" it doesn't really work. But you wouldn't want to do that on a tiny screen even if copy/paste was up to it. You probably wouldn't even want to do it on a laptop screen. That's just a tool/task mismatch.
Communicating, managing projects, taking notes, reviewing/signing documents, sending payments, drafting designs, outlining documents, finding/ordering kit -- are these not productive?
Yeah, you're probably not doing hardcore document creation, or real research, away from a keyboard, comfortable chair, and a nice big screen, but that's not the shape of all productivity.
For some users, sure. But that'd be about the user, not the platform. And more specifically, that'd probably be mostly about the time and place of use, not even the user.
If those same people had a 27" screen during that same slice of time and space, they'd probably be doing the same thing.
Facebook barely existed 10 years ago. And it wasn't until maybe the last five years that it was recognized as a competitor to Google.
Compare that to Google Fiber's 7 year slog.