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Yes, yes. This distingushes the iPad and apple gear from all the other tech. For instance, the choice to use Linux has no such associations. Oh, wait: bring on the rebellious freedom fighters shoving it to the man. They're making entirely a rational choice.  

News flash: people identify with their choices and base choices fashion. You can't tease the whole thing apart (except for 16,000 a metre cables - clearly mad) because your own biases skew your analysis. I can say I use Apple stuff because I'm bored of fiddling. Other people would say I'm just a fanboi because they hate Apple stuff for other reasons.  

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 04:01:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
But magical device!?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 04:03:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Sufficiently advanced technology?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 04:05:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Marketing Fail.

If you have to - or try to - spell out the fact that something has manna and mojo, it brings the association into consciousness. Which is the best way to destroy the effect.

The association only works as long as it's unconscious. If people start thinking 'Hey - is that really true? What does that mean?' - pfft.

It's ironic because Apple are usually so good at marketing, and usually know how to create those associations without being so clumsy and obvious.

Perhaps uncoincidentally, the iPad reception has been lukewarm so far.

I think it's going to need some stand-out apps to regain teh sexey, and because it's a bigger, more time-consuming and more difficult platform to develop for, that's going to take a while.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 04:17:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think it's going to need some stand-out apps to regain teh sexey, and because it's a bigger, more time-consuming and more difficult platform to develop for, that's going to take a while.

I would have thought that precisely because it doesn't impose the constraints on a programmer that the iPhone does it's probably easier to develop for and much harder to write a really good app for. The iPhone forces designers to pare down to the essentials. The iPad has space for clutter.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 04:29:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'd still much, much rather have an ultrathin laptop with a swivel screen so that the thing has a keyboard but also can be closed as a tablet.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 04:14:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
ThatBritGuy:
If you have to - or try to - spell out the fact that something has manna and mojo, it brings the association into consciousness. Which is the best way to destroy the effect.

um, yes, but you underestimate just how dumbed down folks are these days, they need everything explained.

laboriously literal, matterbound, moribund.

reminds me of that classic bumpersticker i used to see everywhere in hawaii

'are we having fun yet?' back before 'cringe' became mainstream as it is now with 'the office', a harbinger, likw woody's neuro-whine.

first 4/4 was too complicated, then 2/4, now it's fascist machine stomp, 1/1...

people are really stuck, toys like this give a sensation of movement, but ultimately it's just a tool, like all apple products.

it's what you do with it that will be magical or not.

meanwhile, the sizzle sells the steak. the word 'magic' tickles some atavistic nerve, even if you've long forgotten what it meant!

these look fab'n'glam right now, in 20 years they'll be w-a-y kewler.

if the singularity folks are right and we do blend our consciousness with computer parts, i sure hope we can choose apple software, rather than ol' bill's.

(staggers into wall)... if you're gonna DRM me, at least make it work, lol!

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 05:26:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

magical:

  1. Of, relating to, or produced by magic.
  2. Enchanting; bewitching: a magical performance of the ballet.

You seem to be taking it in the first sense, while Apple clearly mean it in the second sense and they don't really think most buyers will assume it is powered by some kind of Harry Potter spells - but that, as a number of people who've handled one think, it is "enchanting" :-)

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 04:48:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
superior technology, artfully designed, is indistinguishable from magic.

of course the real magic is the vision and the ability to attract a level of skilled realisers of it.

i think steve has waited until he was really ready to do this.

now to see if his timing is on the money.

i guess yes.

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 05:09:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
No, it is NOT :-) - despite the popularity of the claim. "Undistinguishable" to whom ? Maybe it would seem so to Ethan Nicholas' mom - but not to him, and not at all to Jonathon Ive, who could describe the principal ways in which it works, perhaps in ways that Nicholas' mom could begin to understand.  

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 04:37:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
so define magic then!

one definition might be: so far ahead of your present understanding that it might as well have just landed from space

:)

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 07:23:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I have already cited two main definitions of "magical" above. As I just pointed out, it depends on who "your understanding" refers to. It's not either complete understanding or totally mystified; there are many stages in between. Of course most of us understand the need to recharge it, avoid dropping it, etc. I don't think even Christian fundamentalists believe iphones work through angel power :-)

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 09:09:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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