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Computers = Trucks?
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[Brian Mulligan] “Prius = iPad or iPhone.”
Got ya!
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Now THAT is cool. And, with the price of gas where it is, my idea of an overpriced status symbol.
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I have to agree, the Prius is not a good analogy: not overpriced and not a status symbol. I think the VOLT would be more along those lines, at this point, anyway.
If anything, the ipad will come around to being more like a computer in years to come ie: faster, (maybe) more in/outputs, larger versions for professionals. And cloud technology will do away with any need for storage drives. They just need to get that holographic keyboard thing to become reality, too 🙂
Dave J
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As for “the next big thing is always beneath contempt,” let’s not forget the way Jobs said the Segway would be as big a deal as the PC (in spite of his disgust for its overall appearance when he first saw the prototype). Remember the rumors flying before the release of Ginger. It would be awesome, it would be amazing, even an announced cure for cancer (if there was one) would have to wait on the day the Segway was announced. Heck. If the Segway had been announced at NAB, it probably would have disrupted whatever was going on there too. But last I checked, it’s still a somewhat contemptible piece of mall-cop gear, unless you need to play polo, and find horses just a little too complicated and old fashioned.
Most people will recognize that you can make a better living with a truck than with a compact, if you can find the work that needs that truck.
I can imagine, before long, we’ll be editing for laser projectors with holographic projection using content acquired from 3 laser-scanned sources and 6 synced cameras, using computers that can reconstruct geometry and texture the live action in realtime for a 180 degree holographic display.
I doubt the systems used to help assemble that content will be pitched based on your ability to “create on the go.” Whatever that’s for . . .
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[Scott Sheriff] “It’s a ’68 Parcel Delivery van. Grumman made the aluminum body, and it’s on a Ford 1 ton commercial chassis.”
Cool ride, but hardly a common one. Do/did you know anyone else tooling around in three-decades-old light commercial vehicles as daily drivers? It’s got to be really rare. Like millions to one ratio rare. Easily rare enough that I stand by my generalization.
Best,
Andy -
[Glen Hurd] “Most people will recognize that you can make a better living with a truck than with a compact, if you can find the work that needs that truck.”
Well yeah, that’s the whole point of the analogy. Work is the case where you need a truck. The last time PCs were used predominantly for work, DOS was the dominant OS. The PCs as Trucks analogy holds that the vast majority of PC use cases for the vast majority of PC users can readily be tackled on an iPad. Specialized work requires a conventional PC just as the UPS guy or the tow truck guy drives a specialized vehicle.
[Glen Hurd] “I can imagine, before long, we’ll be editing for laser projectors with holographic projection using content acquired from 3 laser-scanned sources and 6 synced cameras, using computers that can reconstruct geometry and texture the live action in realtime for a 180 degree holographic display. “
Yes, the tiny handful of people crating the bleeding edge of entertainment media (or doing aerodynamic simulations, or designing skyscrapers, or creating blockbuster video games, or decoding a genome, or capturing an MRI) will need powerful, bleeding edge, specialized computers that the average joe would find ridiculously overspec’d and overpriced for their web browsing, Facebooking, tweeting, photo tweaking and sharing, email sending, and blog (or forum) posting. Just like today.
Best,
Andy -
[Andrew Richards] “[Glen Hurd] “Most people will recognize that you can make a better living with a truck than with a compact, if you can find the work that needs that truck.”
Well yeah, that’s the whole point of the analogy. Work is the case where you need a truck. The last time PCs were used predominantly for work, DOS was the dominant OS. The PCs as Trucks analogy holds that the vast… “
In the world’s larger reality, the “better living” is far more likely to be made those not in trucks or compacts at all, but in chauffeured limos. So this analogy starts out broken, IMO.
And wasn’t eliminating the need for “trucks” one of whole points of Job’s vision of migrating IP sales onto the App store? You only need trucks if you have boxes, cases of boxes, pallets of cases, and truckloads of pallets to shuffle.
At some point an internet grows up and changes everything, and you can make billions in a system where “trucks” are barely incidental to the process.
We’re discussing video production here. And increasingly there is no physical “thing” being sold in our industry any more. We all know we’re selling customized arrangements of bits and bytes and that’s all.
And it’s indisputable that as the power to manipulate those bits and bites migrates from computers in rooms, to computers on desktops, to computers in hands – the game will continue to change.
I appreciate that many, many of the readers here absolutely require a “big iron” strategy to compete at the level that differentiates them.
But to ignore the fact that the rising tide of technology is making it possible for more and players to chip away at the worlds “video to-do list” – while using less and less expensive tools to do it – is to ignore a trend that’s both clear and unstoppable.
I’ll say it again, access to tools and/or specialized information are less and less a differentiator of anything these days. The tools are readily accessible, the knowledge available on your iPad if you’re interested in looking for it.
I suspect the differentiators between “video content vendors” will less and less be the experience and knowledge of how to push the buttons – thats getting more automated and easier to do every year.
So what will remain? Probably just experience figuring out how to use any and every tool you can wield to provide solutions to the needs of your clients and customers.
That and perhaps early spotting of trends amidst constant change are perhaps going to be the key games in the modern era.
(And why we’re all spending time hanging out here, basically!)
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Andrew Richards] ” Anyone familiar with my posts around here will rightly surmise that I tend to agree with his sentiment.”
Where can I get my Mac Pro 14 wheeler, and does this mean I will have to join the teamsters?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
>>”Prius = iPad or iPhone.”
Having driven a Prius since 2006, I would equate the Prius with a MacBookPro.
>Yes, all three are overpriced status symbols
I suppose any car over $20,000 or so is an overpriced status symbol. That said,…
I thought the same of the Prius, until I test drove one. Very comfortable and well designed; no abnormal maintenance issues in six years. There is a premium over an equivalent non-hybrid Toyota. But with the price of gasoline the way it has been I paid that premium off long ago.
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[Glen Hurd] “Remember the rumors flying before the release of Ginger. It would be awesome, it would be amazing, even an announced cure for cancer (if there was one) would have to wait on the day the Segway was announced. Heck. If the Segway had been announced at NAB, it probably would have disrupted whatever was going on there too. But last I checked, it’s still a somewhat contemptible piece of mall-cop gear, “
Its funny. This brings back many memories. I was one of those people who knew what Ginger was because I was cutting video for the early promotion packets. The frenzied speculation about just what Ginger was was truly ridiculous, but you can’t blame Dean Kamen for that. Its actually a very nifty device, and I think it would have had greater impact had history not intervened. Its the job I did not go into work on on Sept. 11, 2001. But that wasn’t the actual event that derailed its introduction. That happened a week later, with the anthrax. Kamen had been in advanced negotiation with the US Postal Service to convert the on-foot postal delivery in number of east coast cities to Segway delivery. It was a huge contract. Billion plus. My understanding is that the cost of decontaminating the Postal delivery facilities after the Anthrax attacks directly killed the project. I was certainly out of work fairly quickly. Of course, I never had any direct knowledge of the actual negotiations, so I could be wrong, but I remember that being the understanding at the time amongst my co-workers out here in Calif. There weren’t a lot of people we could discuss it with because of the mountainous NDAs. Ah, memories.
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