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"I really don't understand the need to denigrate Apple." Me either, but I also don't really understand the need to sanctify them, and I don't see how anyone co

"I really don't understand the need to denigrate Apple." Me either, but I also don't really understand the need to sanctify them, and I don't see how anyone could read this article as a denigration of Apple unless they've already made them sacrosanct in their heads. Also, I don't think your history of Pixar is really correct. Lucas sold Pixar pretty much solely because he needed the money because of his divorce. It isn't that he thought Pixar making features was not viable, it is that he thought Pixar making features in 1986 was not viable, which clearly it wasn't. What makes you think he would have been opposed to them making features once the world was ready for it? George Lucas, for better or for worse, is one of the biggest proponents of all-digital movie making. One could easily make the case that Pixar features with Lucas as the CEO would have suffered from his meddling in ways they didn't with Jobs as the CEO, but that is purely speculation.

nirvana 15y ago
The answer to your question is a quote from Lucas that I read in a hardback book covering the history of Pixar from around that time. He essentially said as much. Also, at that time, Industrial Light and Magic was a practical shop, they were not doing "digital filmmaking" and Lucas wasn't yet a proponent of digital filmmaking, as this really didn't exist yet. So, Pixar was very much an odd duck there, they didn't have shared backgrounds with the other groups and operate in a way that was difficult for the existing management to manage. For the past 30 years I've been reading people denigrating Apple based on innumerable falsehoods and misrepresentations. Ever since the Apple II had competition, there have been fans of competing systems who felt the need to attack Apple, at that time, because it was the dominant system. During the windows era, because Windows fans felt vaguely insecure about the computer they were talked into by a salesman, and nowadays, by google fans because they want to believe that it is ok for google to rip off the iPhone and give away a counterfeit operating system. All of these people have both a motivation to denigrate Apple and, since they know that Apple is one of the few genuinely innovative companies in the industry, they end up having to make up stories to try and make Apple's innovations less significant than they are. One of the ways people denigrate Apple is to pretend like there is really no difference in usability or performance of Apple products, while also claiming that they are more expensive (even when they aren't) and thus that anyone who buys them is obviously a victim of a Reality Distortion Field. For these people they cannot debate the purely pragmatic reasons that people choose Apple products, and so they attempt to portray Apple users as part of a cult, and often speak using religious terminology. Ironically, it is those who talk about the "Reality Distortion Field" who have actually substituted ideology for pragmatism, otherwise they'd have pragmatic arguments to make.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  ...by google fans because they want to believe that it is ok for google to rip off the iPhone and give away a counterfeit operating system. Here you go too far. You don't have to like Android, MeeGo, or any other non-Apple OS, but calling any of them counterfeit is highly inaccurate. Google isn't stealing Apple's software and repackaging it as their own. In the form of the oft-used car analogy: you're accusing Hyundai of selling "counterfeit" cars because they slightly resemble a Jaguar.
  - nirvana 15y ago
    Google is, in fact, stealing Apple's patented inventions and repackaging it as their own. Hence the sudden flare up in "patents are all bogus and a bad idea" propaganda. Before the announcement of the iPhone the Android phones looked a whole lot like blackberries. Google didn't spend 7 years coming up with a multi-touch operating system, and the underlying technology. They spent one year copying what Apple did, right down to the icon placement, and then started licensing it to manufacturers who sell it to consumers who genuinely think they are getting iPhones. I know google fans don't like to admit this, and so they claim that because in the past there was a touch screen somewhere, therefore, Apple didn't invent anything, but the standards of law are much higher and disprove this claim.
    - MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
      Hi, welcome to the 90s, when patents were already "bogus and a bad idea." Remember GIF? JPEG? LZW? RAR? S3TC? MP3? MPEG-2? AAC? MPEG-4? h.264? I'll understand if you've forgotten all of these. After all, when a software patent only inconveniences people making Free Software, it doesn't really count as "bogus and a bad idea," right?
      - nirvana 15y ago
        I'm always at a loss as to whether I should try to parse thru these snide comments to try and figure out what the argument you're trying to make is, or if I should just ignore them. At the very least, your putting words in my mouth so I don't have to defend them.

nirvana 15y ago

The answer to your question is a quote from Lucas that I read in a hardback book covering the history of Pixar from around that time. He essentially said as much. Also, at that time, Industrial Light and Magic was a practical shop, they were not doing "digital filmmaking" and Lucas wasn't yet a proponent of digital filmmaking, as this really didn't exist yet. So, Pixar was very much an odd duck there, they didn't have shared backgrounds with the other groups and operate in a way that was difficult for the existing management to manage. For the past 30 years I've been reading people denigrating Apple based on innumerable falsehoods and misrepresentations. Ever since the Apple II had competition, there have been fans of competing systems who felt the need to attack Apple, at that time, because it was the dominant system. During the windows era, because Windows fans felt vaguely insecure about the computer they were talked into by a salesman, and nowadays, by google fans because they want to believe that it is ok for google to rip off the iPhone and give away a counterfeit operating system. All of these people have both a motivation to denigrate Apple and, since they know that Apple is one of the few genuinely innovative companies in the industry, they end up having to make up stories to try and make Apple's innovations less significant than they are. One of the ways people denigrate Apple is to pretend like there is really no difference in usability or performance of Apple products, while also claiming that they are more expensive (even when they aren't) and thus that anyone who buys them is obviously a victim of a Reality Distortion Field. For these people they cannot debate the purely pragmatic reasons that people choose Apple products, and so they attempt to portray Apple users as part of a cult, and often speak using religious terminology. Ironically, it is those who talk about the "Reality Distortion Field" who have actually substituted ideology for pragmatism, otherwise they'd have pragmatic arguments to make.

nitrogen 15y ago
...by google fans because they want to believe that it is ok for google to rip off the iPhone and give away a counterfeit operating system. Here you go too far. You don't have to like Android, MeeGo, or any other non-Apple OS, but calling any of them counterfeit is highly inaccurate. Google isn't stealing Apple's software and repackaging it as their own. In the form of the oft-used car analogy: you're accusing Hyundai of selling "counterfeit" cars because they slightly resemble a Jaguar.
- nirvana 15y ago
  Google is, in fact, stealing Apple's patented inventions and repackaging it as their own. Hence the sudden flare up in "patents are all bogus and a bad idea" propaganda. Before the announcement of the iPhone the Android phones looked a whole lot like blackberries. Google didn't spend 7 years coming up with a multi-touch operating system, and the underlying technology. They spent one year copying what Apple did, right down to the icon placement, and then started licensing it to manufacturers who sell it to consumers who genuinely think they are getting iPhones. I know google fans don't like to admit this, and so they claim that because in the past there was a touch screen somewhere, therefore, Apple didn't invent anything, but the standards of law are much higher and disprove this claim.
  - MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
    Hi, welcome to the 90s, when patents were already "bogus and a bad idea." Remember GIF? JPEG? LZW? RAR? S3TC? MP3? MPEG-2? AAC? MPEG-4? h.264? I'll understand if you've forgotten all of these. After all, when a software patent only inconveniences people making Free Software, it doesn't really count as "bogus and a bad idea," right?
    - nirvana 15y ago
      I'm always at a loss as to whether I should try to parse thru these snide comments to try and figure out what the argument you're trying to make is, or if I should just ignore them. At the very least, your putting words in my mouth so I don't have to defend them.