Word: seriousnesses
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Back to the Future Steve Jobs didn't invent the tablet computer. In the past 10 years, practically every serious PC company has shipped one. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, a man impervious to the lessons of history, arrived at the Consumer Electronics Show (the Comdex de nos jours) in January waving yet another Windows tablet, this one made by Hewlett-Packard. But nobody has ever gotten the marketplace to pay attention. The tablet computer is like a siren that calls seductively to computer engineers, only to wreck them fatally on the stony coast of our total lack of interest...
...without a manual - and if you don't look good using them - nobody cares. The iPad isn't wildly feature-rich. It doesn't run Flash, and the only browser it runs is Safari. Like the iPhone, it can't multitask, and it doesn't appear to have a serious file-handling system. I've tried its much ballyhooed full-size virtual keyboard, and it feels like typing with frostbite. It doesn't even have a damn camera. But you will care about it, because whoever designed its graceful lines and intuitive interface cared about you. (See a roundup...
...Nonetheless, back in those days the Mac was derided as a toy, a media poseur's plaything and a shallow triumph of style over substance by those with a belief that computers, as utilitarian tools performing serious functions for business, should be under the control not of the user but of IT technicians and systems engineers. Despite the PC's eventual adoption of a Mac-style graphical user interface with the release of Windows 95, the damage had been done to Apple. By 1997, the company was in deep crisis. Douglas and I got used to the gloating sympathy...
...might consider this: from the starting point of delight, detail, finish, polish and design come not, it seems, shallow high-end toys for the affluent but increasingly products that are ... well, awesomely functional. The iPhone App Store has certainly offered silly digital tchotchkes, but more and more serious professional tools are emerging for medical, military and industrial use too. The iPhone, like the Mac, was derided upon introduction as a plaything, but it transformed the smart-phone landscape, causing Apple's competitors to scramble out their own version of touchscreen phones and app stores with unseemly haste. If imitation...
...Pope perspective on the crisis. During a 30-minute interview in his modest, book-cluttered office just off St. Peter's Square, Lombardi stuck to the official line about Ratzinger's role in the Munich transfer, saying "it was normal" that the assigning of priests - even those with serious problems - was handled by deputies without the knowledge of the Archbishop. "I believe the communiqués from Munich are sufficient," he said, referring to the statements of the German church hierarchy...