8 ms·

Lenovo, Ashton Kutcher to Launch Line of Phones This Year

16 points by ZanyProgrammer 13y ago

chasing 13y ago
"Roman said while Kutcher isn’t actually working on any of the design circuitry, the user experience of the phones will very much be his." Sounds like he'll actually be a user experience designer, not an "engineer." Also, unless he's really doing the leg-work of user research, studies, interviews, and test sessions, he's not really a user experience designer, either. He's just a guy with some opinions.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  He's just a guy with some opinions And not even very good ones at that: http://www.businessinsider.com/ashton-kutcher-fires-back-at-woz-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/ashton-kutcher-fires-back-at-... He actually now has a colorful history of saying and doing douchey things like this. Edit: particularly the douchey thing here was him lying and attacking woz: ("He’s a brilliant man and I respect his work, but he wasn’t available to us as a resource, so his account isn’t going to be our account because we don’t know exactly what it was. We did the best job we could. Nobody really knows what happened in the rooms [...] Woz is being paid by another company to support a different Steve Jobs film."-- an outright lie; woz got back to them, and kutcher et al. didn't like making changes at odds with their preconceived narrative of how Jobs would be presented as the main hero as both a tech guru and frontman).
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> "an outright lie; woz got back to them, and kutcher et al. didn't like making changes at odds with their preconceived narrative of how Jobs would be presented as the main hero as both a tech guru and frontman" Source for this because unless that's true there's nothing particularly 'douchey' about his comments in the article you linked.
    - simplexion 13y ago
      Here is Woz explaining it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciNXc_4OQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciNXc_4OQ
  - deletes 13y ago
    Funny how he accuses Woz of supposedly being paid to promote some other film, while Kutcher himself was directly hired to star and promote his.
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      Isn't his accusation true? I think Woz is an advisor on the other Jobs film that Srokin is working on. That doesn't make Woz a bad guy.
- z3bra 13y ago
  "He's just a guy with some opinions." You mean someone like Steve Jobs.
  - 1337biz 13y ago
    You mean someone like your butcher.
    - z3bra 13y ago
      You mean someone like your barber.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Yes, but without his opinions being as informed or detailed, and without having built, run and/or sold 3-4 succesful billion dollar companies (Apple, NeXT, Pixar, Apple mkII) and involved in sucessful hundrends of million units selling products.
    - z3bra 13y ago
      Exactly, that was my point. Saying something like "is just a guy with opinions" is rude and who knows what could happen. You made a clear point of it.
- krick 13y ago
  He is just a guy with some opinions and famous name which can make that new product nice advertising among some people. I guess the latter is way more important. I mean, truth be said, we all know it is advertising, so it doesn't really matter how far from being precise these comments of Lenovo representatives are.
- seivan 13y ago
  Ashton Kutcher being a user experience designer. Pretty much sums up my thoughts on that field in general.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
I wonder how much input he's really going to have. His endorsement is probably going to bring them quite a lot of value (I used to watch Two and a Half Men and he was regularly using a MacBook - switch that for a Lenovo product and they're getting a lot of free marketing). I remember trying a Twitter client he was part of creating once and it was pretty bad.[1] [1] Someone else owns the domain now but I was able to find this: http://web.archive.org/web/20111011125847/http://www.aplus-app.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20111011125847/http://www.aplus-a...
- berrypicker 13y ago
  I wonder how much input Will.i.am has as the "director of creative innovation" at Intel. In general, are these just extended marketing schemes or do they think bringing actors/musicians in will be of any benefit to the products?
  - lhnz 13y ago
    It could be that actors and musicians are creative and innovative people. Or you could be right and it could all be schmarketing.
return0 13y ago
Let the guy have fun. Judge him in a year
sarreph 13y ago
I hope this whole thing is just a Punk'd episode.
ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
My impression of Lenovo products is that ThinkPads proper have gone downhill since the IBM acquisition, and they have a lot of lower end brands that are typical OEM garbage. I think they also have been using the TP branding on lower end products as well, IMHO. Not sure why Kutcher would want to latch onto them.
- lazyjones 13y ago
  Have a look at their Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro series notebook/tablet combos. They are currently the overall most attractive Windows notebooks in my opinion. As a past ThinkPad (720C!) owner I would have expected Lenovo to do a much worse job than they actually did and I believe their surprising commercial success underlines this too. Sure, IBM's ThinkPads were much better (with some exceptions like the X21), but it's hard to say how they would look today if IBM had kept the brand (my guess is: not better than Lenovo's).
  - ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
    I was seriously tempted by the Yoga (and ended up going the MBP route). My biggest concern, basically my only concern, was the hinges (were the hinges?). I kept thinking that they'd wear out quickly, and that you'd be left with a laptop with a screen that wouldn't stay up. That's sorta my biggest beef with high end Windows 8 hybrids-too many moving parts that can break.
    - zeckalpha 13y ago
      I'm on a 5 year old MacBook Pro and it needs new hinges. Again. That being said, I'll still likely get another one. On the other hand, if the Chromebook Pixel had a bigger SSD...
ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
From the article "Kutcher studied biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa before leaving school to pursue a modeling career. " Just like I'm a mathematician because I took vector calculus as an undergrad!
- wslh 13y ago
  I played the flute in elementary school. It seems nobody listened...
- foobarqux 13y ago
  You mean just like you dropped your vector calculus class.
pekk 13y ago
Lenovo hired Ashton Kutcher as a human face for the brand. This isn't news.
- coldtea 13y ago
  The news is that somebody thought hiring a not that succesful an actor like Kutcher would be good for the brand.
ryguytilidie 13y ago
I thought he was hired as a PM, which basically means "dude you can bounce ideas off". To call this an engineering role is pretty charitable.
artursapek 13y ago
lol
k-mcgrady 13y ago
I'm no Ashton Kutcher fan but the elitism in this thread is pretty disgusting.
- Jugurtha 13y ago
  The first step to wisdom is calling things by their proper name. This is not elitism, simply stating facts. He wouldn't be called "Surgeon" if he were to advise a manufacturing company on how their tools should look nicer. What you're witnessing in this thread isn't elitism as much as it is people who've ruined their eyes wanting to set the record clear. Furthermore, that "Jobs" movie will probably appeal to most people because it's probably not accurate. It's probably a movie that will portray Steve Jobs as that genius who knew the future before everyone else, who've seen how Apple would be 20 years before everyone else. Anyone with more than 2 neurons knows it's a bunch of crap. You can't know how the end result will be designing a really small thing, let alone an empire. In addition, it's "Cinema", not History nor Journalism. Want to read a good book? Read "Masters of Doom". That's how you get multiple opinions from people involved in the story, not some kind of lame movie based on the only authorized biography of a person, as brilliant as that person may be. And lastly, come on, attacking Woz? If someone manages to get the respect of Engineers, you can be sure it's not because of his wits or Reality Distortion Field. Last time I checked, this is Hacker News. If there is any place elitism is the de facto constitution, it's in the Hackerdom.
coldtea 13y ago
Does Ashton Kutcher thinks he is some kind of big name people would care to buy phones he is associated with? Beats by Dr. Dre I can understand, but I don't see any point in Kutcher's moves. If he just wanted to VC, he could have done that without anyone knowning. It's not like his name offers anything to the brand.
- evanmoran 13y ago
  I don't know what people's impression of him are, but he is #34 in twitter followers: http://twittercounter.com/pages/100/30 http://twittercounter.com/pages/100/30
pasbesoin 13y ago
As I said a few weeks ago, RIP Moto X and G and their line. I was about to pick up an X; I'm left wondering whether I can now count upon a couple of years of good support. -- P.S. I see the article mentions Kutcher having signed on in October. If so, that would be at a point where the generally unliked ThinkPad redesigns were already done and locked, I'm guessing. If so, then I don't want to unfairly blame him. If you're reading this, Kutcher, please spend some time looking over comments here and on Reddit (amongst others) about the dissatisfaction with what has been happening to this line that has been a longstanding mainstay of many developers and other technical people. If you want our trust, maybe your celebrity can gain enough attention from Lenovo management to at least consider keeping one or two lines of "traditional" ThinkPad design. Those of us who really want/need it will pay something of a premium for it. It might not be a big revenue line, but it should be capable of remaining net positive. And it would gain back a lot of good will from people you seem at least in your words to value.

"Roman said while Kutcher isn’t actually working on any of the design circuitry, the user experience of the phones will very much be his." Sounds like he'll actually be a user experience designer, not an "engineer." Also, unless he's really doing the leg-work of user research, studies, interviews, and test sessions, he's not really a user experience designer, either. He's just a guy with some opinions.

selmnoo 13y ago
He's just a guy with some opinions And not even very good ones at that: http://www.businessinsider.com/ashton-kutcher-fires-back-at-woz-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/ashton-kutcher-fires-back-at-... He actually now has a colorful history of saying and doing douchey things like this. Edit: particularly the douchey thing here was him lying and attacking woz: ("He’s a brilliant man and I respect his work, but he wasn’t available to us as a resource, so his account isn’t going to be our account because we don’t know exactly what it was. We did the best job we could. Nobody really knows what happened in the rooms [...] Woz is being paid by another company to support a different Steve Jobs film."-- an outright lie; woz got back to them, and kutcher et al. didn't like making changes at odds with their preconceived narrative of how Jobs would be presented as the main hero as both a tech guru and frontman).
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "an outright lie; woz got back to them, and kutcher et al. didn't like making changes at odds with their preconceived narrative of how Jobs would be presented as the main hero as both a tech guru and frontman" Source for this because unless that's true there's nothing particularly 'douchey' about his comments in the article you linked.
  - simplexion 13y ago
    Here is Woz explaining it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciNXc_4OQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciNXc_4OQ
- deletes 13y ago
  Funny how he accuses Woz of supposedly being paid to promote some other film, while Kutcher himself was directly hired to star and promote his.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    Isn't his accusation true? I think Woz is an advisor on the other Jobs film that Srokin is working on. That doesn't make Woz a bad guy.
z3bra 13y ago
"He's just a guy with some opinions." You mean someone like Steve Jobs.
- 1337biz 13y ago
  You mean someone like your butcher.
  - z3bra 13y ago
    You mean someone like your barber.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Yes, but without his opinions being as informed or detailed, and without having built, run and/or sold 3-4 succesful billion dollar companies (Apple, NeXT, Pixar, Apple mkII) and involved in sucessful hundrends of million units selling products.
  - z3bra 13y ago
    Exactly, that was my point. Saying something like "is just a guy with opinions" is rude and who knows what could happen. You made a clear point of it.
krick 13y ago
He is just a guy with some opinions and famous name which can make that new product nice advertising among some people. I guess the latter is way more important. I mean, truth be said, we all know it is advertising, so it doesn't really matter how far from being precise these comments of Lenovo representatives are.
seivan 13y ago
Ashton Kutcher being a user experience designer. Pretty much sums up my thoughts on that field in general.

k-mcgrady 13y ago

I wonder how much input he's really going to have. His endorsement is probably going to bring them quite a lot of value (I used to watch Two and a Half Men and he was regularly using a MacBook - switch that for a Lenovo product and they're getting a lot of free marketing). I remember trying a Twitter client he was part of creating once and it was pretty bad.[1] [1] Someone else owns the domain now but I was able to find this: http://web.archive.org/web/20111011125847/http://www.aplus-app.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20111011125847/http://www.aplus-a...

berrypicker 13y ago
I wonder how much input Will.i.am has as the "director of creative innovation" at Intel. In general, are these just extended marketing schemes or do they think bringing actors/musicians in will be of any benefit to the products?
- lhnz 13y ago
  It could be that actors and musicians are creative and innovative people. Or you could be right and it could all be schmarketing.

return0 13y ago

Let the guy have fun. Judge him in a year

sarreph 13y ago

I hope this whole thing is just a Punk'd episode.

ZanyProgrammer 13y ago

My impression of Lenovo products is that ThinkPads proper have gone downhill since the IBM acquisition, and they have a lot of lower end brands that are typical OEM garbage. I think they also have been using the TP branding on lower end products as well, IMHO. Not sure why Kutcher would want to latch onto them.

lazyjones 13y ago
Have a look at their Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro series notebook/tablet combos. They are currently the overall most attractive Windows notebooks in my opinion. As a past ThinkPad (720C!) owner I would have expected Lenovo to do a much worse job than they actually did and I believe their surprising commercial success underlines this too. Sure, IBM's ThinkPads were much better (with some exceptions like the X21), but it's hard to say how they would look today if IBM had kept the brand (my guess is: not better than Lenovo's).
- ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
  I was seriously tempted by the Yoga (and ended up going the MBP route). My biggest concern, basically my only concern, was the hinges (were the hinges?). I kept thinking that they'd wear out quickly, and that you'd be left with a laptop with a screen that wouldn't stay up. That's sorta my biggest beef with high end Windows 8 hybrids-too many moving parts that can break.
  - zeckalpha 13y ago
    I'm on a 5 year old MacBook Pro and it needs new hinges. Again. That being said, I'll still likely get another one. On the other hand, if the Chromebook Pixel had a bigger SSD...

ZanyProgrammer 13y ago

From the article "Kutcher studied biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa before leaving school to pursue a modeling career. " Just like I'm a mathematician because I took vector calculus as an undergrad!

wslh 13y ago
I played the flute in elementary school. It seems nobody listened...
foobarqux 13y ago
You mean just like you dropped your vector calculus class.

pekk 13y ago

Lenovo hired Ashton Kutcher as a human face for the brand. This isn't news.

coldtea 13y ago
The news is that somebody thought hiring a not that succesful an actor like Kutcher would be good for the brand.

ryguytilidie 13y ago

I thought he was hired as a PM, which basically means "dude you can bounce ideas off". To call this an engineering role is pretty charitable.

artursapek 13y ago

lol

k-mcgrady 13y ago

I'm no Ashton Kutcher fan but the elitism in this thread is pretty disgusting.

Jugurtha 13y ago
The first step to wisdom is calling things by their proper name. This is not elitism, simply stating facts. He wouldn't be called "Surgeon" if he were to advise a manufacturing company on how their tools should look nicer. What you're witnessing in this thread isn't elitism as much as it is people who've ruined their eyes wanting to set the record clear. Furthermore, that "Jobs" movie will probably appeal to most people because it's probably not accurate. It's probably a movie that will portray Steve Jobs as that genius who knew the future before everyone else, who've seen how Apple would be 20 years before everyone else. Anyone with more than 2 neurons knows it's a bunch of crap. You can't know how the end result will be designing a really small thing, let alone an empire. In addition, it's "Cinema", not History nor Journalism. Want to read a good book? Read "Masters of Doom". That's how you get multiple opinions from people involved in the story, not some kind of lame movie based on the only authorized biography of a person, as brilliant as that person may be. And lastly, come on, attacking Woz? If someone manages to get the respect of Engineers, you can be sure it's not because of his wits or Reality Distortion Field. Last time I checked, this is Hacker News. If there is any place elitism is the de facto constitution, it's in the Hackerdom.

coldtea 13y ago

Does Ashton Kutcher thinks he is some kind of big name people would care to buy phones he is associated with? Beats by Dr. Dre I can understand, but I don't see any point in Kutcher's moves. If he just wanted to VC, he could have done that without anyone knowning. It's not like his name offers anything to the brand.

evanmoran 13y ago
I don't know what people's impression of him are, but he is #34 in twitter followers: http://twittercounter.com/pages/100/30 http://twittercounter.com/pages/100/30

pasbesoin 13y ago

As I said a few weeks ago, RIP Moto X and G and their line. I was about to pick up an X; I'm left wondering whether I can now count upon a couple of years of good support. -- P.S. I see the article mentions Kutcher having signed on in October. If so, that would be at a point where the generally unliked ThinkPad redesigns were already done and locked, I'm guessing. If so, then I don't want to unfairly blame him. If you're reading this, Kutcher, please spend some time looking over comments here and on Reddit (amongst others) about the dissatisfaction with what has been happening to this line that has been a longstanding mainstay of many developers and other technical people. If you want our trust, maybe your celebrity can gain enough attention from Lenovo management to at least consider keeping one or two lines of "traditional" ThinkPad design. Those of us who really want/need it will pay something of a premium for it. It might not be a big revenue line, but it should be capable of remaining net positive. And it would gain back a lot of good will from people you seem at least in your words to value.