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Stephen Fry on Apple's mobile device competitors

So long as the way they crack Apple is to learn from Steve Jobs that style matters, that beauty matters, that joy, simplicity, elegance, harmony, charm, wit and quality matter – well, I don’t care which company has the best stock market capitalisation.

And in one sentence, that really does sum up what's important.

I am not an Apple computer user at present. I have an iPhone and several iPods. My Macbook and Bondi Blue original iMac are relics of the past, but I cannot deny that the philosophy underlying the product line has always, it seems, been firmly pointed at "great product and the hell with everthing else". Success stemmed from that in the end but it could have been oh so different.

Everyone else: stop being so fucking beige.

Quote from here

posted @ Friday, October 7, 2011 2:53 PM

 
 
 

Comments on this entry:

# Indeed

Left by Dave The Happy Singer at 10/7/2011 6:03 PM
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And the first firm that adds 'freedom' to that noble list of qualities will get my cash by the bundle.

I'd be delighted if it were Apple.

# re: Stephen Fry on Apple's mobile device competitors

Left by The Vicar at 10/8/2011 1:15 AM
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PC manufacturers have long since stopped trying to do anything innovative and focussed on price; they survive by imitation and cutting each others' throats. (And that's why the US PC manufacturers like Dell are all in trouble -- they can't compete on price with firms which do everything in China, as opposed to merely importing parts.) In this they are fairly justified -- most PC users, whether they run Windows or Linux, pay no attention to the quality of the hardware or the design and are obsessed by the purchase price. (The same thing has happened with printers, which is why HP, for example, now makes printers which are themselves more disposable than the ink cartridges with which they print.)

After all, none of the things Apple makes which are runaway successes would have been impossible for anyone else to make -- the necessary pieces were always at least "in the air" at the time. (One of the biggest whines of the anti-Apple crowd is persistently "we could have done that earlier if we wanted to" -- which invites the question "why didn't you?") There were Windows tablet PCs in the past, but none of them were the iPad because none of them were tablets ONLY; having a mouse mode available means that no developer will bother making the apps touch-compliant, and no company would take the risk of making hardware which wouldn't run existing Windows apps.

Oh, and to the guy wanting "freedom": then buy a Mac. The App Store is optional, and you can install whatever you like. As for the iPad/iPhone/whatever, I have yet to hear any argument from you "freedom"-loving people that a touchscreen device is an appropriate mechanism for software development, and that's the only content creation that iOS doesn't do. You can write and draw and record video to your heart's content.
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