>> But I'm a geek. At what cost have we dumbed-down the computer
>> so that nearly anyone can use it? And are you aware that in
>> the minds of marketing people, the market is *far* from
>> saturated, as there are still lots of people who never use
>> them and don't have them. So you can expect another order of
>> magnitude of dumbing-down...
>
>It is not hiding information that is the problem, it is
>locking the knowlage it in a safe, throwing away the key
>and dumping in the sea.
This is why I think OS X will be favorable with many "geeks". Apple is
AOLizing the UI so that people that currently are still afraid of a
computer, will be willing to use it. Apple is dumbing it down as much as
they can (just look at the colored buttons for close, minimize and
expand).
BUT... Apple is leaving all the hard core tools there. They aren't
stopping anyone from using them. They are just providing pretty front
ends to the most commonly needed and wanted tools.
Basically, Apple is trying to make OS X a "magic toaster oven"... for the
computer afraid, all they have to do is walk up and press a button, and
get their toast. But for those that want to, they can press that button
on the side, and watch the toaster change into (insert Transformer OO EE
OO AA AA noise here) a microwave, or dishwasher, or rocket car, or
anything else you darn well want it to.
MS seems to want you to buy the toaster, and they will bundle a mop &
bucket, light bulb, step stool, and oil filter wrech. All of which will
just cause the toaster to suck up enough power to trip your fuse box
every few uses. And later, if you decide you want to microwave some
popcorn... well, you have to buy the microwave attachment, which won't
fit quite right, and will most likely cause your toaster to burn out. But
the microwave will be bundled with a lint brush, wrapping paper, bug
guard, stapler, and three Mortal Combat action figures.
And when you decide you want to use the toaster as a rocket car... well,
MS will tell you you can't do that... for that you need to buy "Toaster
2k Pro" and none of the current add ons you bought are legally
transferable, so you need to repurchase them and reinstall them from
scratch. Oh, and with Toaster 2k Pro, each person that wants to make
toast now has to have a seperate permission slip to do so, at $80 a pop.
-chris
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Received on Tue May 07 2002 - 11:57:59 BST