You Can’t Touch This

Dumb Blog of the Day:
Guy Kewney on the iPhone

It’s a curious thing but Apple really bring out the stupid in people.

I’m not talking about the fanboys. We know about them. I mean the knockers too.

Not that there’s anything wrong with knockers. Hell, no. I like knockers. Just not dumb knockers.

I imagine there’s a whole lot of dumb going on out there about the iPhone (Technorati currently lists about 5000 iPhone entries) but who has the time. I’ll just point at Guy Kewney and laugh for a bit.

He kicks off his analysis with a curious ad hominem. He compares Jobs with Saruman, presumably because this is his only frame of reference for dealing with charisma. But then he appears to get a bit confused and thinks Jobs *is* Saruman. He proves the folly of criticising Jobs by using a quote from Tolkien rather than, say, an example from The Real Worldâ„¢.

Whatever. That’s not the issue.

The really actually worrying thing is just how much he missed the whole point of the new iPhone touch screen interface. However, it does make it easier to understand how a random person from the Congo could have been used to comment on Apple instead of him.

Ignoring all the new (at least allegedly) revolutionary user interaction in the iPhone, Guy is solely concerned, maybe even disorientated, by the lack of the iPod scroll wheel.

How will we, The Public, cope? How is it even possible to consider browsing a music collection without a scroll wheel? Even on the iPod shuffle, “Apple decided people wanted the scroll wheel.”

Except of course that

  • the Shuffle didn’t actually have a scroll wheel
  • Apple didn’t really have the choice of implementing a touch screen UI instead

But let’s say Guy was right. Let’s say that maybe maybe maybe people really can only use the scroll wheel now. However, Guy comprehensively demonstrates that he really doesn’t get it with his closing words.

“This time next year, we’ll have to see if they decide to launch a version 1.5 with the scroll wheel on the back…”

Sweet Teen Bejesus. They spend millions developing a virtual touch screen interface that can be programmed to act as any 2D UI imaginable, only to be told that they should stick a physical scroll wheel on the back.

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January 11th, 2007 | Dumb Blog of the Day | No comments

Get Back In The Box

Dumb Blog of The Day:
Dave Taylor on Vista Laptop Giveaway

As Pratchett apparently said, “I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.”

But thinking in the box, or just plain straight, doesn’t a guru make. Nope. Far better to pick up your axe first and then find something to grind it against.

“And so, the question that I’m amazed that no blogger seems to have asked is why didn’t they send out the OS and let us install it on our own computers?”

Rather than contemplate the possibility that Microsoft gave away a laptop with Vista pre-installed because:

  • being given big, shiny things makes people more predisposed to you
  • people don’t just install a new OS on their computer (except Mac users who are just soooo excited about Parallels still) to see if they like it and therefore the bloggers would never actually get around to trying Vista

…Dave exclusively reveals the reason using only the power of his MBA *and* MSEd. educated super brain:

“The answer, once you think about things this way, is obvious, and that’s the real story here:

Microsoft Vista is in fact a bear to install and has prohibitive hardware requirements.”

The faithful are grateful that he is humble enough to share his unique thinking with them:

“That’s really an excellent point, Dave, and I agree that it’s surprising that it hasn’t been made up till now. I’ve mostly dismissed the whole discussion as a rehashing of the PayPerPost debate, so I’m guilty of not really thinking it through, too. Thanks for the illumination of common sense.”

It’s all a bit odd really as he then goes on to make the other uniquely insightful observation that people don’t like upgrading their OS.

I guess the strain of being published over 1,000 times and frequently appearing in podcasts can get to you.

Or maybe you need to troll to get traffic to your blog so you can slip into italics at the end and and subliminally suggest somebody from Apple send you a brand new MacBook Pro for being such a good boy and Thinking Differentâ„¢.

January 5th, 2007 | Dumb Blog of the Day, Meh | No comments