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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: hishamk on September 23, 2014, 08:47:08 PM

Title: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: hishamk on September 23, 2014, 08:47:08 PM
"I'll miss the iPod. I loved it," says Fadell. "But you know, that's just how it is. I also loved my Apple II, and also saw it come and go. You can't get too nostalgic. I mean, there are people out there who still want the Commodore 64 or the Amiga to come back. That's cute, but time marches on. It's better to be excited for the future." - Tony Fadell, Father of the iPod

The interview over here (http://www.fastcodesign.com/3036035/ipod-mastermind-tony-fadell-on-the-death-of-the-ipod-you-cant-get-too-nostalgic).
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: klx300r on September 23, 2014, 11:00:09 PM
LOL 'come back', my C64 and Amiga are still here so they never left:lol:
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: trekiej on September 24, 2014, 12:15:52 AM
+1
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Tenacious on September 24, 2014, 12:51:58 AM
Why is the father of something perceived to have more wisdom than everyone else?.  "Ten billion flies can't be wrong, ............"  ;)
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: psxphill on September 24, 2014, 01:01:05 AM
Quote from: hishamk;773759
I mean, there are people out there who still want the Commodore 64 or the Amiga to come back.

I don't think anyone expects the commodore 64 to make a come back to the level it had in the 80's/90's. I think there are some people who think that AmigaOS or MorphOS could increase it's market share massively, but it isn't going to happen. It's not coming back, but sometimes things get released that allow you to pretend for a while that they never left.

Similarly there will always be people who own classic cars (when we run out of fossil fuels they will be powered with Mr Fusion). Sometimes the thing that makes it special is that there are fewer and fewer of them left every year.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Minuous on September 24, 2014, 03:48:17 AM
That article seems pretty silly, so I wouldn't give much weight to anything therein:

"His breakout success back in 2001 was the iPod, Apple's revolutionary digital media player"

Nothing revolutionary about it, there were (better) MP3 players long before then.

"Eighteen months after launch, the iPod owned the portable media player category, and for the next decade, it continued to do so."

They were quite popular with Apple fanboys, they hardly "owned" the category though.

"The iPod was one-in-a-million."

Yes, in the sense that there were a million other (better) MP3 players around...

"128GB storage, which is about the same amount of space the iPod Classic shipped with ...massive drive..."

Only 5Gb, actually...Plus 128Gb isn't massive, I didn't realize it was even possible to still buy drives that small these days.

"Using machine learning and AI to figure out context, so that the celestial jukebox knows the perfect song for every occasion."

Why would anyone want Apple to decide what songs they should be listening to!? I would think I'm much more likely to know what song I want to play than some AI.

"music in the cloud."

So to listen to a song 50 times means you have to download it 50 times...that's hardly efficient.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: warpdesign on September 24, 2014, 09:00:46 AM
I guess he meant some people want it to come back*commercially*. Aren't Hyperion & A-Eon trying to make it come back by trying to sell it ?

I guess nostalgia doesn't play well with a viable commercial product and that's what he meant. And I don't think it is that wrong...

Quote
"music in the cloud."

So to listen to a song 50 times means you have to download it 50 times...that's hardly efficient.
Heard about cache? It means it's accessible from anywhere you have a connection. Doesn't mean you have to download it each time. Hence the storage he was talking about.

Quote
"128GB storage, which is about the same amount of space the iPod Classic shipped with ...massive drive..."

Only 5Gb, actually...Plus 128Gb isn't massive, I didn't realize it was even possible to still buy drives that small these days.
Then I suggess you open your eyes: very few MP3 players have 128Gb today... Most mp3 players (those that are "better" than iPods got as little as 8/16Gb), and the only HD-based ones come with 128Gb only.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Minuous on September 24, 2014, 10:39:33 AM
>Heard about cache? It means it's accessible from anywhere you have a connection. Doesn't mean you have to download it each time. Hence the storage he was talking about.

I don't understand what you mean by this. The data it is either on the device or not. If you don't have to download it, it's being stored somewhere on the device, so not cloud-based. In which case why would you still need an Internet connection?

>Then I suggess you open your eyes: very few MP3 players have 128Gb today... Most mp3 players (those that are "better" than iPods got as little as 8/16Gb), and the only HD-based ones come with 128Gb only.

But if you read the article where it claims it is a "massive drive", it is talking about the latest iPhone 6. 128Gb is plenty for a dedicated MP3 player but not for a machine that tries to be taken seriously as a proper computer. They really are just toys not just in terms of being locked down but also in terms of specification. My low-end netbook that is years old and cost only a small fraction of the price of an iPhone has nearly triple this much storage.

More generally, Apple's dismissiveness of retrocomputing serves a convenient excuse for their atrocious lack of backwards compatibility, early abandonment of products and forced upgrades.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: warpdesign on September 24, 2014, 11:05:01 AM
Quote
If you don't have to download it, it's being stored somewhere on the device, so not cloud-based.
What if it was store on the cloud, but you're device downloaded it somewhere, and kept a copy there?

That's what I meant... So if you go into the train where there's no connection, well, you still can listen to your music.

And guess what? If you connect to a friend's computer, you can still listen to your music by connecting to the cloud... even though he doesn't have a copy of your music.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Jpan1 on September 24, 2014, 11:10:10 AM
I wonder - If think the design of the Ipod was inspired by those Braun products of the 1960's, I wonder if it is nostalgia for aesthetics inspired from the past, so it seems nostalgia retro is neccessary... and besides nostalgia is Fun! The more boring shiny-glassy-plasticy phone products that come on the market, the more desire there will be for nostalgic looking things.
I like the design of my Amiga 1200, maybe could be slimmed down a bit and have more rounded curves, but otherwise it's fine looking chunk!
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: psxphill on September 24, 2014, 11:53:54 AM
Quote from: Minuous;773790
The data it is either on the device or not. If you don't have to download it, it's being stored somewhere on the device, so not cloud-based. In which case why would you still need an Internet connection?

 Your hard disk doesn't disappear because your OS has cached some files.
 
 The internet doesn't disappear because your web browser has cached a web page.
 
 A cloud doesn't disappear because your device has cached a song.
 
 You don't need an internet connection, people demand an internet connection because it makes it more convenient. You get a cheaper and more rugged device and when you buy songs on iTunes you don't have to sync them to your iPod. Walking around with a magnetic hard disk that will die if you shake it too much or some immensely expensive flash based device that you have to manually sync with a PC, is just not attractive to modern users.
 
 A lot of these people will end up just having an iPod/iPhone/iPad and no computer, because that is what they want.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: danwood on September 24, 2014, 01:51:50 PM
Quote from: Minuous;773778
"His breakout success back in 2001 was the iPod, Apple's revolutionary digital media player"

Nothing revolutionary about it, there were (better) MP3 players long before then.

Were there?  Such as what?  I had a Diamond Rio mp3 player that held 64mb of songs, 2 albums at crap quality, AA batteries, a parallel port interface and fiddly UI.  Then the iPod came long with 5GB, firewire, rechargeable battery and the scroll wheel control, it was streets ahead of anything else I saw before 2001.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: tone007 on September 24, 2014, 02:10:57 PM
My first MP3 player was an Archos Jukebox released in 2000. 6GB drive, standard USB mass storage so all you had to do was drop your MP3s onto it, no dealing with iTunes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archos_Jukebox_series

Ugly as anything, but Archos always stayed ahead of Apple in terms of features (still have a 20GB Archos gmini mp3 player/camcorder that can run an NES emulator, long before any iPod had a camera.)  Prices were always better too.

Bonus, Archos also made some Amiga hardware.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Tenacious on September 24, 2014, 02:25:33 PM
Quote from: Minuous;773790
>

More generally, Apple's dismissiveness of retrocomputing serves a convenient excuse for their atrocious lack of backwards compatibility, early abandonment of products and forced upgrades.


Yes.

For me, the "cloud" is were computer development took a sinister turn for the worst.  I'm not surprised that a few powerful and rich companies want to convince the world that everyone's private data is safer, more secure, more private when moved from individual hard drives to the cloud.  (Only that data that needs to be shared among a separated team, has any reason to be moved to a cloud).

What is frustrating and shocking, is the way most of the world seems to have bought into this fallacy.  Smart phones have become the default data gatherers for every aspect of life (who are your friends, family, what are your assets, what do you and they look like, how predictable can you be, etc?) that, until recently, could remain anonymous and private.  

If the world is ever again seduced by another Hitler or Stalin, what becomes of these giant databases?  When technology becomes fashion, a consumer society becomes cattle.

OK, that's the end of my rant.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Darth_X on September 24, 2014, 03:04:22 PM
Quote from: psxphill;773776
I think there are some people who think that AmigaOS or MorphOS could increase it's market share massively, but it isn't going to happen.

There are 7 billion people in the world, so there's no reason why we have a nice new Amiga like platform come back with 5-10 million people. ;-)
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Oldsmobile_Mike on September 24, 2014, 03:25:05 PM
Quote from: warpdesign;773787
Then I suggess you open your eyes: very few MP3 players have 128Gb today... Most mp3 players (those that are "better" than iPods got as little as 8/16Gb), and the only HD-based ones come with 128Gb only.

 Memory is so cheap today, I don't understand this logic at all.  My 3 year old Galaxy Nexus phone has 32GB, and it seems like that's still near the high end for most phones.  Only the iPhone 6 and a handful of others have more.  You'd think by now every phone would have at least 256GB.  The push to the cloud is just an excuse so manufacturers can skimp on hardware.  :(
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on September 24, 2014, 03:58:59 PM
That is a funny way to look at the future. Perhaps computers will run everything with no people involved.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Minuous on September 24, 2014, 05:17:18 PM
>when you buy songs on iTunes you don't have to sync them to your iPod

I think you mean "if" not "when". (Why buy songs there, that seems a very expensive way to do it when they are freely downloadable elsewhere...) The part about syncing effectively means, basically, that it doesn't actually give you the file (ie. download it to your device) until you play it. You just have, effectively, the right to download it. Which means that you would have to make sure you have an Internet connection available when you play it (as well as when you bought it), and would also have to wait for it to download before you could play it. That doesn't seem advantageous.

>You get a cheaper and more rugged device and when you buy songs on iTunes you don't have to sync them to your iPod. Walking around with a magnetic hard disk that will die if you shake it too much or some immensely expensive flash based device that you have to manually sync with a PC, is just not attractive to modern users.

iPhones are about the least rugged devices out there, a drop of approximately one foot is sufficient to break the screen and render it unusable. That seems to be the most likely point of failure, the ruggedness of the storage is secondary.

>And guess what? If you connect to a friend's computer, you can still listen to your music by connecting to the cloud... even though he doesn't have a copy of your music.

If you have all your files on your device there is no need to use the cloud. You could copy all the songs from your device to your friend's device, and vice versa, faster than downloading them all from a cloud account (not to mention data caps). Cloud-based storage might be useful for backing up unimportant files to, but another hard disk would generally be better for various reasons (cost, speed, security, etc.).
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: jj on September 24, 2014, 06:12:40 PM
Quote from: Minuous;773809
>when you buy songs on iTunes you don't have to sync them to your iPod
 
I think you mean "if" not "when". (Why buy songs there, that seems a very expensive way to do it when they are freely downloadable elsewhere...) The part about syncing effectively means, basically, that it doesn't actually give you the file (ie. download it to your device) until you play it. You just have, effectively, the right to download it. Which means that you would have to make sure you have an Internet connection available when you play it (as well as when you bought it), and would also have to wait for it to download before you could play it. That doesn't seem advantageous.
 
>You get a cheaper and more rugged device and when you buy songs on iTunes you don't have to sync them to your iPod. Walking around with a magnetic hard disk that will die if you shake it too much or some immensely expensive flash based device that you have to manually sync with a PC, is just not attractive to modern users.
 
iPhones are about the least rugged devices out there, a drop of approximately one foot is sufficient to break the screen and render it unusable. That seems to be the most likely point of failure, the ruggedness of the storage is secondary.
 
>And guess what? If you connect to a friend's computer, you can still listen to your music by connecting to the cloud... even though he doesn't have a copy of your music.
 
If you have all your files on your device there is no need to use the cloud. You could copy all the songs from your device to your friend's device, and vice versa, faster than downloading them all from a cloud account (not to mention data caps). Cloud-based storage might be useful for backing up unimportant files to, but another hard disk would generally be better for various reasons (cost, speed, security, etc.).

I have dropped my iphone loads of times form 4ft or more, still in one piece.  Most modern phones are not ruggard.  The samsungs are terrible. Its not just iphones
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Thorham on September 24, 2014, 06:50:44 PM
Quote from: Darth_X;773801
There are 7 billion people in the world, so there's no reason why we have a nice new Amiga like platform come back with 5-10 million people. ;-)
The problem with that is that Amiga started out as a hardware platform. How on earth are you going to do something in the spirit of the Amiga in today's world? You probably aren't, and certainly not on a small budget.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: kickstart on September 24, 2014, 08:01:27 PM
Why is importat the opinion of this guy? he just made a mp3 player.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: psxphill on September 25, 2014, 09:54:42 AM
Quote from: Minuous;773809
iPhones are about the least rugged devices out there, a drop of approximately one foot is sufficient to break the screen and render it unusable. That seems to be the most likely point of failure, the ruggedness of the storage is secondary.

A hard disk will fail before an iPhone screen is dropped. But if you do kill your iPhone then at least you just buy a new one and type your details in and all your music is back again.

Quote from: Minuous;773809
If you have all your files on your device there is no need to use the cloud. You could copy all the songs from your device to your friend's device, and vice versa, faster than downloading them all from a cloud account (not to mention data caps). Cloud-based storage might be useful for backing up unimportant files to, but another hard disk would generally be better for various reasons (cost, speed, security, etc.).

So every time you buy music you have to go to your friends house to back it up? Music is unimportant, you got the copy from them in the first place and they'll give you the same one again. The only important thing is to keep track that you bought it.

I don't use it myself, but I understand why people love it enough to pay for it.

Quote from: Minuous;773809
I think you mean "if" not "when". (Why buy songs there, that seems a very expensive way to do it when they are freely downloadable elsewhere...)

Illegally downloading music isn't free. It takes time, electricity, bandwidth etc. You should treat it like a job, with the cost of the music minus your expenses as the pay. If you can make more money doing something else then buying the music is cheaper, which for a lot of people it is.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: stefcep2 on September 25, 2014, 01:41:10 PM
Quote from: kickstart;773835
Why is importat the opinion of this guy? he just made a mp3 player.


What made it special was the simplicity and usability.

I still recall the posts on this site about the iPad thinking it was another Tablet PC:

-  "LOL Another Tablet PC, but even worse it doesn't have a KEYBOARD"
-  "I can just see someone coding on this or typing up a document or photo-editing"

Didn't seem to occur to people that the iPad is a content-consumption device, and touch interface changes the way the thing is used.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: warpdesign on September 25, 2014, 02:41:02 PM
Quote
Why is importat the opinion of this guy? he just made a mp3 player.
Maybe because it was great? And the first easy to use player? Maybe because it was a huge commercial success? He did what Commodore failed to do: sell to the mass.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Pyromania on September 25, 2014, 02:52:19 PM
Unless Tony has personally owned and enjoyed an Amiga he should refrain from commenting on it. Doubt he ever had once since he grouped it with the C64 in his comnent. The iPod was cool but it's no Amiga.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: mrmoonlight on September 25, 2014, 08:18:27 PM
Quote from: danwood;773796
Were there? Such as what? I had a Diamond Rio mp3 player that held 64mb of songs, 2 albums at crap quality, AA batteries, a parallel port interface and fiddly UI. Then the iPod came long with 5GB, firewire, rechargeable battery and the scroll wheel control, it was streets ahead of anything else I saw before 2001.

 I will tell you what was better, my Sony Minidisc player it would and still will knock spots off the other crap for shear quality ,granted there were many problems which Sony should have sorted, but still the best by a mile.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: Darth_X on September 26, 2014, 06:24:59 AM
Quote from: Thorham;773820
The problem with that is that Amiga started out as a hardware platform. How on earth are you going to do something in the spirit of the Amiga in today's world? You probably aren't, and certainly not on a small budget.


Raspberry Pi is doing OK.
Title: Re: On being too nostalgic: Tony Fadell mentions Amiga
Post by: warpdesign on September 26, 2014, 09:37:34 AM
Quote from: Darth_X;773926
Raspberry Pi is doing OK.
Amiga "spirit" is selling an over priced outdated and huge motherboard with a non finished closed source OS (why opening it?) for $2000+ ;)

It has really nothing to do with the Pi which is $35 an outdated (but not meant to be kick ass) tiny board with a non-finished (hardware accel was missing for X11,...) open source OS...

If the guys at the head of Pi were giving an interview, I guess you could listen to them as much as you could listen to Tony even though they may never have used an Amiga.