Apple's attitude to photography ... 'Stop learning, we'll do the work for you!'

[zauhar]

Dear Randy,

It was? Apples have been used in publishing and graphic arts (famously refuges of the technologically challenged) for as long as I can remember personal computers (as distinct from PCs) being in use.

Cheers,

R.

Dear Roger,

My European colleagues in the past reported near-impossibility in using Apple machines. I think this was more a cost issue than OS, since they had no trouble using any variety of UNIX.

By the way, my REAL bias is this: if you don't know UNIX, you don't know how to use a computer.

Actually, I think that older Windows users who grew up with DOS are more proficient than Windows OR Apple users today. That is a key point I feel you are missing. Young people who use Windows are no more likely to understand how to navigate a file system than Mac users.

And, if you can't even locate a file on your machine, I am really not sure how much you can do with it, aside from maybe typing a letter.

Randy

 

[benlees]

Geez, everyone knows what hotdogs are made of! Get over it!

Everyone knows Apple devices are more expensive! Save $30 and get a Samsung! If you want to play with your computer in a nerdy way then go for it! Does a PC let you do it better for $1000 cheaper? Great! Pitter patter lets get at 'er!

Now lets get back to discussing 50 F2 lenses that cost more than $50.

 

[j j]

I just can't see why Apple users are so defensive about their idiosyncratic, expensive choices.

Cheers,

R.

Swap the word Apple for the word Leica. It's much the same issue.

 

[Ansel]

Dear Roger,

My European colleagues in the past reported near-impossibility in using Apple machines. I think this was more a cost issue than OS, since they had no trouble using any variety of UNIX.

By the way, my REAL bias is this: if you don't know UNIX, you don't know how to use a computer.



Randy

You do realise that Apple's OSX is UNIX underneath, and its predecessor NEXT, was used to invent the WWW?

 

[daveleo]

Most people have very limited personal experience so they tend to derail easily.

I have never understood it at all, I just use what I like or need. I love DOS games so I run it. I like OS X apps so I run it. I used to have to test Win apps, so I ran it. Ignorance really gets people riled up.

I started on an IBM 360, that I found boring, the graduate students would not let us even load our own cards.

You're making me nostalgic for my ancient Unix workstation which my son has now. There was a magic in writing your own scripts (actually typing commands 😱) to ask the computer to do something for you.
I'm getting all weepy now.

 

[zauhar]

I am glad that all of us can get worked up over our OS and smartphone choices!

Let's us stop thinking about how the American government is maintaining a continuous unencrypted record of all we emit online. Michael, Roger, I suspect that includes you guys as well, with the full cooperation of your government.

Randy

 

[Roger Hicks]

You seem to be confusing hardware and software. Apple computers are PC's, and always have been. Some Apple computers are Macs, older ones are not. . . .

Not so much confusion as sloppiness. You are of course quite right that Apples are PCs, and that older non-Apple PCs didn't use Windows, but like many people, I sloppily conflate the hardware and the OS.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Swap the word Apple for the word Leica. It's much the same issue.

Not really. I don't pretend that my Leicas produce better pictures than DSLRs. Just that I find then easier to use and that therefore I get pictures I prefer. As I keep saying, I have no doubt that Apple users may find the same. But to pretend that Apples are in some way inherently superior to other PCs is simply feeble-minded.

Cheers,

R.

 

[zauhar]

I know several very high proficiency inDesign users who have depended so long on the techies around them, that they do not actually know where their files are. But since they have people who do final production, and people who maintain the servers, they have no incentive [reason] to learn. Ditto with video editors.

I knew a very talented writer/curator who just could not understand the concept of an alias, and had zillions of copies all over her desktop and drives.

I think as professors we tend to forget how fragmented and specialized the work environment really is. I took me some time to understand that most design studios hire a production professional.


WHAT WAS THIS THREAD ABOUT ANYWAY?

I can fully believe what you are saying, but how on earth did they work on multiple projects? Did everything go in the Documents folder, and then they relied on file names to tell things apart?

How does someone that clueless make it through a photoshop tutorial?

Believe me, I see students with the same level of expertise. And the popular press provides breathes reports on how "competent" they are with digital technology!

Randy

 

[zauhar]

WHAT WAS THIS THREAD ABOUT ANYWAY?

It is about how sh-tty Apple is. It was started by some Aussie who at the moment is drinking a beer and laughing at us.

Randy

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Roger,

My European colleagues in the past reported near-impossibility in using Apple machines. I think this was more a cost issue than OS, since they had no trouble using any variety of UNIX.

By the way, my REAL bias is this: if you don't know UNIX, you don't know how to use a computer.

Actually, I think that older Windows users who grew up with DOS are more proficient than Windows OR Apple users today. That is a key point I feel you are missing. Young people who use Windows are no more likely to understand how to navigate a file system than Mac users.

And, if you can't even locate a file on your machine, I am really not sure how much you can do with it, aside from maybe typing a letter.

Randy

Dear Randy,

Where and when? Apples (specifically, originally, Macs) have been commonplace in publishing and pre-production as long as I can remember desk-top computers being in use -- but of course, this is a specifically NON-technical market.

The first word processor I ever used was an ICL dual 2903: as far as I recall, three million quid or $5,000,000, in the late 70s. It was no better than the first machine I owned in the early 80s which used 5-1/4 floppies and used DOS.

Later in the 1980s I recall an argument with someone in a computer shop. He was telling me that I needed this, that, and the other thing. the argument was resolved with the following conversation:

Me: "What do you use your computer for?"

Him: "Everything! Games, you name it."

Me: "Ah, well, all I do with mine is earn a living."

UNIX? Never went further than BASIC. But then, for me, a word processor is a jumped up electric typewriter and I'm quite happy to "black box" Photoshop and Lightroom.

Cheers,

R.

 

[zauhar]

Dear Randy,

Where and when? Apples (specifically, originally, Macs) have been commonplace in publishing and pre-production as long as I can remember desk-top computers being in use -- but of course, this is a specifically NON-technical market.

(snip)

UNIX? Never went further than BASIC. But then, for me, a word processor is a jumped up electric typewriter and I'm quite happy to "black box" Photoshop and Lightroom.

Cheers,

R.

Dear Roger,

Apologies, I was talking about universities. I can believe that publishing houses in Europe stuck to Apple, clearly a niche market.

I also use the computer for a living, in my case it would take a lot of space to list all I use. Suffices to say I need UNIX and I need productivity and graphics applications, and I need scientific applications, and currently OS X handles all of that nicely.

Randy

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Roger,

Apologies, I was talking about universities. I can believe that publishing houses in Europe stuck to Apple, clearly a niche market.

I also use the computer for a living, in my case it would take a lot of space to list all I use. Suffices to say I need UNIX and I need productivity and graphics applications, and I need scientific applications, and currently OS X handles all of that nicely.

Randy

Dear Randy,

No apology needed! I was merely seeking to clarify what I took to be your point.

As for the "for a living" part, all I meant was that there is often a gap between those who earn a living with their computers and those who don't (and of course the gap was much bigger 25 years ago). You and I need different things. I wonder how many home PC users need anything more than fast internet/e-mail access (assuming, of course, that they actually need that).

Cheers,

R.

 

[Scrambler]

I can fully believe what you are saying, but how on earth did they work on multiple projects? Did everything go in the Documents folder, and then they relied on file names to tell things apart?

How does someone that clueless make it through a photoshop tutorial?

Believe me, I see students with the same level of expertise. And the popular press provides breathes reports on how "competent" they are with digital technology!

Randy

I agree re (in)competence of "digital natives" at anything other than working the surface of the software.

And Apple are tapping into that approach with comments about photography. We here are the descendents of Wozniak, not Jobs. I can program in three languages and I haven't done a minutes formal IT study since high school. Like my cameras I have usually bought used computers because I'm prepared to open them and work on them.

That said it's amazing what you can get apps for now (actually for quite a while now)

http://www.tanygraig.force9.co.uk/John/volt/form.htm

 

[lewis44]

F##K Apple

(sent from my iPhone)

 

[Scrambler]

I know many who dig very deep, and just understand apps, I have no real idea of how their brains seem to see through the eyes of the original developers, but they do. In particularly find it true of those who use Illustrator, in ways no manual has ever proposed.

I know a few programmers who learn new computer languages as fast as some children learn new spoken languages.

It is an interesting difference between brains.

Indeed: and of course its an over-generalisation on my part. Back "in the day" the tech was simpler but nearly everyone knew that to use tech you needed to get it. Now someone can laugh at people who don't use tech but not get it themselves. I hate the use of "digital native" for people that can't make the tech, can just use it.

 

[Pioneer]

Wow!
After page 4 this could have been two entirely different threads. 🙂

 

[msbarnes]

Have you met that other 26 year old in California who doesn't own a smart phone? 😀

haha very very few. I can't name anyone at the top of my head.

 

[Keith]

Oh yeah the guy with the "hat." What a troublemaker! 😀

Like I said ... I have no real feelings about this.

But I damned well knew everyone else would ... great reading and no blood has been spilt! 😀

 

[Keith]

F##K Apple

(sent from my iPhone)

Brilliant ... 😀