Showing posts with label apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apple. Show all posts

Thursday, October 6, 2011

DEP Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs era un genio. Eso es innegable. Era un genio en su campo de trabajo, y era un genio comercial. Nadie supo dar a la gente lo que creía que necesitaban (o mejor dicho, hacer creer a la gente que necesitaban lo que les daba) mejor que él.

Y, por encima de todo, es el primer empresario que ha conseguido convertir una marca en una religión. Y sin duda eso se estudiará durante décadas en las escuelas de marketing.

Pero, ¿ha cambiado el mundo como dicen algunos?

Influyó decisivamente en el mundo de los portátiles pero, ¿creó los portátiles? No. Aunque algunos pretendan hacernos creer lo contrario. El primer portatil considerado como tal fue el Osborne, aunque su aspecto nos advierte que más bien era un híbrido entre un ordenador de sobremesa y un portatil tal como lo conocemos hoy en día. Como la mayoría de inventos en tecnología fue un proceso evolutivo como puede verse aquí; si bien el primer portátil con verdadera portabilidad fue el Toshiba T1000, de 1987 (recordemos que el primer portátil Apple es de 1991).

Revolucionó el mundo de la telefonía móvil pero, ¿creó la telefonía móvil? No, ni siquiera creó los smartphone, y si no, lean esto. Revolucionó el mundo de los tablets pero, ¿creó los tablets? Tampoco, vean aquí. En ambos casos, creó un producto de gran calidad, y le añadió algo que el resto de fabricantes ignoraban, diseño.

Es comprensible que su empresa y sus amigos digan que "The world is immeasurably better because of Steve." [apple.com]; lo fascinante es que haya personas anónimas que lo crean.

Pero, ¿es el mundo inconmensurablemente mejor gracias a Steve Jobs? Sin duda ha participado en la fijación de los "estandards" de muchos de los aparatos electrónicos que utilizamos pero eso no ha hecho el mundo "inconmensurablemente mejor".

Me parece más allá de toda duda que Google ha influido mucho más en la vida de la gente que Apple. Basta sólo mencionar su buscador, que incluso ha creado hasta su propio verbo, "gogglear". Y, aunque eso sería más discutible, en mi opinión ha cambiado nuestra percepción de la información. Pero también han creado Gmail, fueron de los primeros en apostar por el "cloud computing", democratizaron la publicidad (Adsense y Adwords), etc.

Entonces, ¿por qué hay quien ha llevado flores a las tiendas de Apple en memoria de Steve Jobs? Mi opinión es que llevamos flores a las personas que nos hicieron felices. ¿Ha hecho Steve Jobs más feliz a la gente que le lleva flores? Sí es así, tendríamos motivos para preocuparnos.

La razón real es que Apple se ha convertido en una religión y Steve Jobs era su profeta. Y eso es el clímax del capitalismo.

Lo analicemos como lo analicemos Steve Jobs sigue siendo un genio, pero que haya quien lleve flores a las tiendas de Apple es una muestra de la deriva moral de nuestra sociedad.

Como apunte personal, sólo ha habido dos "personas" (a las que no he conocido) que han influido en mi vida lo suficiente para plantearme llevarles flores: Cristo y Dostoyevski.

PS: Un poco más sobre el lado oscuro de Steve Jobs y Apple, en "The Other Steve Jobs: Censorship, Control and Labor Rights".

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Apple Commercial 1984

Apple releasd in 1984 this commercial, clearly inspired by George Orwell's book "1984". The Big Brother was suppossed to represent IBM, one of Jobs' obsessions. But don't you think that Apple has become the Big Brother?

PS: Android Forever!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

To Google or not to Google

There has been for a long time now a growing controversy wether which big technological company is the worse, which is the "big demon". Some say it is Microsoft, others that it is Apple and the last ones that it is Google.

I don't think that any of these companies is to be blame of all the disasters of the world (as it seems listening to some people) but I do have preference for Google.

Why? Mainly because it has given us the best searcher of the web (www.google.com), the best e-mail (www.gmail.com), the best web based navigation (maps.google.com) and many other great services. Google Docs (docs.google.com) or Google Reader (reader.google.com) are other great services from Google.

They have plenty of information about my work, my tastes, my hobbies, even some secrets (Do you always sign out from your Google account when you surf?) but it is information that I wanted, or accepted, to give them. They haven't placed a virus in my computer, I have allowed Google to have this info. You can argue that most people are not aware of all the information that Google has of them, but it is not the company's fault, but their own, for not caring enough of their privacy.

It is all a question of trust. There is many other places and professionals who have secrets that you don't want to become public (banks, doctors, etc.) so it is not like Google is the first company to have our secrets.

While Microsoft create products in order to satisfy everybody's desires (and sometimes fail -Vista-), and Apple creates products to satisfy their own desire, Google has produced some of the most helpful and efficient tools of the internet to make our life easier.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

La manzana prepotente

"Pero las cifras confirman que el iPhone 4 es el mejor teléfono inteligente del mundo y el problema se solucionará si logramos enseñar a la gente cómo sujetar el teléfono sin cubrir la antena." Steve Jobs, presidente ejecutivo de Apple. [El País]

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The history of the 'mouse'

I have always been fascinated by the history of 'mouse'. It is undeniable that computering, as we know it, it is a consequence of the invention of the 'mouse'.

But also, it is interesting, that the case of the mouse exemplifies perfectly how one amazing invention can pass totally unnoticed until someone sees its potential.






Referring to the 'mouse', it was invented by Xerox in 1971, but it was Apple who saw its commercial potential:

"In 1970, Xerox opened the Xerox PARC (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) research facility. The facility developed upon many modern computing methods such as the mouse and graphical user interface to create the paperless office. From these inventions, Xerox PARC created the Xerox Alto in 1973, a small minicomputer similar to a workstation and personal computer. The Alto was never commercially sold, as Xerox itself could not see the sales potential of it. In 1979, several Apple Computer employees visited Xerox PARC, interested in seeing their developments, including Steve Jobs. Jobs, and the other Apple employees, saw the commercial potential of the GUI and mouse, and began development of the Apple Lisa, which was eventually introduced in 1983 for US$10,000, it was a commercial failure."

Font:AllExperts




Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Apple Saturation

It's a long time that I've been thinking that the public (the potential buyers) are becoming saturated of the apple brand.

Years of elitism have been swept away by a decade of massification of their products (since the launch of the iPod, more or less). No mather how good (even magnificient their products are, the iPod is the best example) people begin to feel that one Apple product is not out of reach of anybody's possibilities, and that -and that is the worst point- maybe the latest beautiful toys with the apple logo are nothing really outstanding.

I've been reading lately "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and (although the book is really enjoyable) the constant references to Apple products (iBook, PowerBook, iPhone... almost all appear) are a little boring.

To tell the truth I am totally proud of my iPod; I think for music lovers there has never been such a tool to help us enjoy our little jewels.

But when it comes to talk about computers, for me, there is nothing so reliable like a Toshiba. Maybe 20 years ago one Apple laptop could beat any PC in the design oriented software field, but at this moment, there is no real difference (only in the minds of the Apple fans).