7 ms·

What point is the author trying to make in comparing the two iPhones? There was a setup but no payoff.

rozab 5y ago
As they say, it's the skuomorphism. The original iPhone aimed to replace various existing things - instead of TV, we've got YouTube! Instead of a notepad, we have the notes app! No need to carry around paper maps with charming little pins stuck in anymore! This is equivalent to dressing up nicely as one would for an in-person meeting and plonking oneself down in front of a laptop webcam, according to the author. In the newer iPhone, and in Bill Gates' setup, it is understood that the framing is the important part, it is not enough to pretend to be in a normal meeting. Of course the whole thing is a bit silly
- gumby 5y ago
  > of course the whole thing is a bit silly As goes with fashion as well. I’m not a practitioner myself (but married one, and am the parent of one) and I have observed that even the ones who take it seriously also treat it wil a sense of humor.
  - akarma 5y ago
    As someone quite into fashion (and worked in the space before), this is a very astute comment! Fashion trends in the past few years have often progressed increasingly into a level of irony. It's become about what level of craziness/funkiness you can pull off while making it look intentional and attractive. This includes hairstyles like dying your hair platinum blonde or purple and buzz-cutting it, or wearing loud, maximalist patterns, or even ironically wearing defunct fashion brands or cultural symbols opposite of your everyday life, like the popularity of Bass Pro Shops hats. The comeback of 'dad sneakers' and 'mom jeans,' while even retaining those monikers but in a positive way, are other good examples.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  It also demonstrated the almost limitless possibilities of the UI. Smooth scrolling textured windows! Tap a button and they curl over to reveal a new pane! And it comes with a UI that was designed, not thrown together by a coder!
pc86 5y ago
It this wasn't on substack I would have guessed someone paid to have this article written on Fiverr.
resonious 5y ago
I also felt like the article hit pretty weak in a lot of places. In the part where they compare Bill Gates to the Bloomberg anchor, it just says "Her self-presentation is overawed by Gates’ setup." with no clear explanation as to why. And it's not actually clear to me when I look at the pic. Maybe I just don't have the "technical expertise to understand how colour temperature, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO conspire together to form a beautiful picture".
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I suspect they could have found a better example, but Gates was clearly using a camera with a very wide aperture, giving a shallow depth of (focused) field, meaning his background wasn’t distracting. His lighting also had slightly less hot-spotting (you can see she’s using two main lights, but can’t readily ID Gates’ light placement). Given the disastrous video setups I’ve seen, I think the Bloomberg anchor’s setup was at least a 7 on the 10 scale (and maybe an 8), so hardly terrible. Side note: audio is a fraction of the effort and expense and IMO is more important.
  - Applejinx 5y ago
    If you mean to really REALLY push the quality, audio gets expensive. My video is in service of audio plugins so I have a motivation to do that: the reason my audio is strikingly good on my voice is, it is NOT done with plugins. It's done with a Roswell Colares (or a Sennheiser lav) a $1500 boutique mic inspired by $10,000 mics, into an API 3124 studio pre, directly into a MOTU 16A interface with no further processing. Room treatment also plays a part: the room has two large openings into other spaces and six large T-Fusor diffusors, painted to match the walls. A setup like that projects its sound character into the recording so strongly that there's nothing to fix: when the mics and things are high enough quality it's like the intention of the vocal performance comes through more powerfully in the first place, and this responds very well to digitization and compression.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Sure, getting to the 99.99th percentile of audio is incredibly expensive [just like anything else]. My comments were more directed at getting people into the 80th percentile level (decent mic on a boom, correctly placed and away from a built-in camera/laptop mic), but your point is correct for the absolute best 1-in-10000 level.

As they say, it's the skuomorphism. The original iPhone aimed to replace various existing things - instead of TV, we've got YouTube! Instead of a notepad, we have the notes app! No need to carry around paper maps with charming little pins stuck in anymore! This is equivalent to dressing up nicely as one would for an in-person meeting and plonking oneself down in front of a laptop webcam, according to the author. In the newer iPhone, and in Bill Gates' setup, it is understood that the framing is the important part, it is not enough to pretend to be in a normal meeting. Of course the whole thing is a bit silly

gumby 5y ago
> of course the whole thing is a bit silly As goes with fashion as well. I’m not a practitioner myself (but married one, and am the parent of one) and I have observed that even the ones who take it seriously also treat it wil a sense of humor.
- akarma 5y ago
  As someone quite into fashion (and worked in the space before), this is a very astute comment! Fashion trends in the past few years have often progressed increasingly into a level of irony. It's become about what level of craziness/funkiness you can pull off while making it look intentional and attractive. This includes hairstyles like dying your hair platinum blonde or purple and buzz-cutting it, or wearing loud, maximalist patterns, or even ironically wearing defunct fashion brands or cultural symbols opposite of your everyday life, like the popularity of Bass Pro Shops hats. The comeback of 'dad sneakers' and 'mom jeans,' while even retaining those monikers but in a positive way, are other good examples.
tinus_hn 5y ago
It also demonstrated the almost limitless possibilities of the UI. Smooth scrolling textured windows! Tap a button and they curl over to reveal a new pane! And it comes with a UI that was designed, not thrown together by a coder!

pc86 5y ago

It this wasn't on substack I would have guessed someone paid to have this article written on Fiverr.

resonious 5y ago

I also felt like the article hit pretty weak in a lot of places. In the part where they compare Bill Gates to the Bloomberg anchor, it just says "Her self-presentation is overawed by Gates’ setup." with no clear explanation as to why. And it's not actually clear to me when I look at the pic. Maybe I just don't have the "technical expertise to understand how colour temperature, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO conspire together to form a beautiful picture".

sokoloff 5y ago
I suspect they could have found a better example, but Gates was clearly using a camera with a very wide aperture, giving a shallow depth of (focused) field, meaning his background wasn’t distracting. His lighting also had slightly less hot-spotting (you can see she’s using two main lights, but can’t readily ID Gates’ light placement). Given the disastrous video setups I’ve seen, I think the Bloomberg anchor’s setup was at least a 7 on the 10 scale (and maybe an 8), so hardly terrible. Side note: audio is a fraction of the effort and expense and IMO is more important.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  If you mean to really REALLY push the quality, audio gets expensive. My video is in service of audio plugins so I have a motivation to do that: the reason my audio is strikingly good on my voice is, it is NOT done with plugins. It's done with a Roswell Colares (or a Sennheiser lav) a $1500 boutique mic inspired by $10,000 mics, into an API 3124 studio pre, directly into a MOTU 16A interface with no further processing. Room treatment also plays a part: the room has two large openings into other spaces and six large T-Fusor diffusors, painted to match the walls. A setup like that projects its sound character into the recording so strongly that there's nothing to fix: when the mics and things are high enough quality it's like the intention of the vocal performance comes through more powerfully in the first place, and this responds very well to digitization and compression.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Sure, getting to the 99.99th percentile of audio is incredibly expensive [just like anything else]. My comments were more directed at getting people into the 80th percentile level (decent mic on a boom, correctly placed and away from a built-in camera/laptop mic), but your point is correct for the absolute best 1-in-10000 level.