News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Steve Jobs would probably very upset with what Apple has ... by heisenbit on Monday October 31, 2016 @02:25PM (#12839552)
"While Jobs was explaining why he thought old tech giants had fallen from grace, he probably wasn’t thinking about Apple at that time. "

I doubt that. Just read Ed Catmull's "Creativity Inc." (highly recommended) and all his thoughts that went into making Pixar (Steve's other company) sustainable and returning a fallen Disney animation around. The question what went wrong elsewhere is central to that. Also there are the early years of Apple where Apple fell from grace. Steve was acutely aware of the fragility of his businesses and wanted to protect them.

Steve knew about the critical importance of culture. The spaceship follows his earlier work on the Pixar building. Enabling people to come together and build something great, insanely great.

Apples products tended to deliver value seen from the customer perspective. Proper waterproof phones is a step forward that does not look great, is hard to do, is hard to charge for but delivers value every single day. The "insanely great" perceivable customer value was missing in the presentation of the last macs for a lot of reasons (memory, keyboard, cable integration with iPhone out of the box, mag-safe, extension cord, higher price etc.).

Re:Steve Jobs would probably very upset with what Apple has ... by SocratesV on Monday October 31, 2016 @02:32PM (#12839620)
For me knowing that soon, once peripherals makers and also cable makers catch-up, I'll be able to use just one type of cable to connect to anything (and I'm assuming cable makers will stop doing sub-par ones and just stick to Thunderbolt 3 capable), is probably a huge win. No more USB/HDMI/MagSafe mix (with the different ports on the peripheral side to increase complexity).

After that, wireless.

Re:Steve Jobs would probably very upset with what Apple has ... by erichocean on Monday October 31, 2016 @02:35PM (#12839646)
> I'll be able to use just one type of cable to connect to anything

If you're talking about USB 3, sorry to burst your bubble, but you won't. There are a lot of different varieties of USB 3 cables.

You're thinking of "connector", and yes, the USB 3 connector is now used for wildly different things. Cables are different even though they have the same connector.

Re:Steve Jobs would probably very upset with what Apple has ... by SocratesV on Monday October 31, 2016 @03:04PM (#12839879)
Please read my comment again, I did say:

> I'm assuming cable makers will stop doing sub-par ones and just stick to Thunderbolt 3 capable

Re:Steve Jobs would probably very upset with what Apple has ... by erichocean on Thursday November 03, 2016 @03:59AM (#12862264)
> I'm assuming cable makers will stop doing sub-par ones and just stick to Thunderbolt 3 capable

Thunderbolt 3 cables are expensive (just like regular Thunderbolt cables), and there's no chance that cable makers drop cheaper cables. None, zip, zero.

Furthermore, all it takes is one manufacturer making the non-Thunderbolt 3 cables to make things as I described…and remember, using the "wrong" cable can hurt your machine.

The situation with USB-C isn't good and it's very likely that many machines will be damaged as a result of not using unique connectors for unique capabilities/requirements on the cables themselves.

Re:Steve Jobs would probably very upset with what Apple has ... by SocratesV on Thursday November 03, 2016 @04:31AM (#12862365)
What's the market share for USB-C compared with USB-A/B?

Would hope that as it passes USB-A/B, it becomes as cheap as, or at least close to.

Also people will start to name & shame bad cable manufacturers, both when they are the ones not reading the cable specs (in which case it will alert people to do so) or when the cable specs do not match the actual cable capabilities (in which case the cable manufacturer is liable).

The other thing is as mobile phones/tablets change, you'll also get cables bundled with the device, which will probably be of a decent quality at least (they don't need to be Thunderbolt 3, just not fool the devices by violating USB-C specs).

Re:Steve Jobs would probably very upset with what Apple has ... by endemic on Monday October 31, 2016 @03:52PM (#12840288)
> The "insanely great" perceivable customer value was missing in the presentation of the last macs for a lot of reasons (memory, keyboard, cable integration with iPhone out of the box, mag-safe, extension cord, higher price etc.).

Exactly this. For the past few years I've been an Apple apologist in regards to the "overpriced hardware" argument: it was nigh-impossible to get a well-built laptop with comparable specs from a PC OEM. But the new MBP costs more while delivering less.