One-of-a-Kind Products Designed by Jony Ive and Designer Marc Newson Sold Off at (RED) Auction

[Rogifan]

You are right. Your government has done such a great job listening to you in the past and putting the money where you want it to go. Or was that where your neighbor wanted it to go. Wait, I think it was to where your political opponent wanted it to go. Darn, I am not sure. But thankfully you are.

So basically what they want is government bureaucrats deciding where money should go. Because they've done such a great job in the past managing the people's money.

 

[MacSince1990]

Only the stupendously wealthy can afford to spend cash like this to buy one-off trinkets to impress their friends.income.

Generally only the stupendously wealthy can afford to spend that kind of money on *anything*

I mean, you're not stupendously wealthy if you pay $1.9m for a home, but any item other than that....

Agreed, though.

 

[QCassidy352]

They donated millions and they get vilified. I guess no good deed goes unpunished. evil rich people

amazing, isn't it? There's a forum member here with a signature (I'm paraphrasing) that seems appropriate here: any fool can complain and criticize, and most fools usually do.

 

[MacSince1990]

Well let me guess what's next .."I've been an iPhone user since 2007 , lately I fell bla bla bla bla " this is for freakin charity man .. Would you feel bad if you raised that much money for products you made ? I didn't think so

2007 + 8 != 2013. Or even 2014.

He's mostly right, I don't know about what Jobs would or wouldn't have "allowed", but quality does seem to have gone downhill.

Dunno if he's necessarily been an iPhone user since 2007, though? Personally I've been using Macs since 1990 (I was three, but hey), but I've only been an iPhone user since 2012. *shrug*

Either way, Apple really has lost its soul.

 

[yeah]

Only the stupendously wealthy can afford to spend cash like this to buy one-off trinkets to impress their friends.
Good cause? Call me cynical, but isn't it the greed of the stupendously wealthy that causes the uneven distribution of wealth that leads to poverty and hardship in poorer parts of the world (devastation of rain forests for cattle raising, abuse of workers for cheap electronic manufacturing, private ownership of freshwater supplies etc).
The 'saintly' folk who bought these goods will no doubt get a massive tax break on these charitable purchases, and alleviate any guilty feelings (if they are indeed capable of such an emotion) connected with the origins of their income.

It's actually very kind of Sir Jonathan Ive and Marc Newson to perform this auction because, other than the fact that 100% of the proceeds go to fight/research and development of an AIDS cure, the wealthy are actually helping out.

Also, not all wealthy people are greedy. Just look at Bill Gates. He invested BILLIONS of dollars into helping poverty-stricken people around the world have one less issue in their lives.

 

[MacSince1990]

any fool can complain and criticize, and most fools usually do.

Isn't that what you're doing, too, though?

 

[QCassidy352]

Being a Billionaire for sure. No way got that rich within moral standards.

There are only two ways I can see to come to that conclusion. 1) you don't understand the free market. 2) you think having that much money is in and of itself immoral (because anyone with that much "should give more away"). I'm guessing both are at issue here.

----------

Isn't that what you're doing, too, though?

never said I wasn't a fool.

 

[Freida]

Do you work in banking, or do you think the system is just fine the way it is? At least you could try and justify your comment.

My comments can be justified through documentary evidence such as:
'A Place at the Table'
'Food, Inc.'
'King Corn'
'Hungry for Change'
'Tapped'
'Bottled Life: Nestles Business with Water'
'The Brussels Business'
'Surviving Progress'
and Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'.

Yes, I'm fully aware that there are wealthy philanthropists in the world, but I find it unlikely that those are the sort of people who would pay 1 million dollars for a red pedal bin full of microchips.

You can add one more. Inside Job (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inside_job_2010/)
And not only that it is great eye opener it also received Oscar for the best documentary.

 

[QCassidy352]

Also, not all wealthy people are greedy. Just look at Bill Gates. He invested BILLIONS of dollars into helping poverty-stricken people around the world have one less issue in their lives.

countdown until someone says that Gates still has tens of billions personally so all the good he's done doesn't mean anything...

 

[Rogifan]

amazing, isn't it? There's a forum member here with a signature (I'm paraphrasing) that seems appropriate here: any fool can complain and criticize, and most fools usually do.

Now I know why I never venture to PRSI (which is probably where this thread will end up).

 

[macpro2000]

With an abysmal administration like we have, you have to make the most out of deductions.

 

[gkroeger]

Not really

But everyone can deduct charitable contributions, not just wealthy people.

Not really. You can only deduct charitable contributions if you itemize deductions. These days, unless you have a very large (or new) mortgage, or very high state income taxes, you take the standard deduction instead of itemizing. In that case, you can't deduct your charitable contributions; they are assumed to be small enough to fit into the standard deduction.

 

[bbeagle]

With an abysmal administration like we have, you have to make the most out of deductions.

Sigh.

Another one of these people who cries victim. It doesn't matter who is in power, YOUR paycheck is YOUR paycheck and only YOU can get a better job, start your own business, whatever, and make more money. Don't cry if you're not making enough - the person in power has nothing to do with anything significant in your life, regardless of party.

 

[QCassidy352]

Now I know why I never venture to PRSI (which is probably where this thread will end up).

Same - I used to go there, but no more, precisely because of threads like this. It's amazing how some people can take literally any topic and turn it into fodder for their own personal crusade. If you ever really want to be horrified, look at the CNN comment boards. It doesn't matter what the initial topic is - I mean literally, it could be a new panda cub at the zoo - and someone will make it about how Obama has failed or republicans hate minorities.

This article is a nice little story about how Ive and some other guy designed some interesting products and got way more than expected for charity for them. Instead of talking about the products - which I actually don't much care for, but that's just me - or how amazing it is that the prices so far exceeded expectations, we get angry rants about "the 1%" from the "Occupy" folks. Truly baffling.

 

[the8thark]

All the auction bidders heard:

"Blab blab blah Jonathon Ive blah blah". And they had to have each item.

 

[Kissaragi]

Same - I used to go there, but no more, precisely because of threads like this. It's amazing how some people can take literally any topic and turn it into fodder for their own personal crusade. If you ever really want to be horrified, look at the CNN comment boards. It doesn't matter what the initial topic is - I mean literally, it could be a new panda cub at the zoo - and someone will make it about how Obama has failed or republicans hate minorities.

This article is a nice little story about how Ive and some other guy designed some interesting products and got way more than expected for charity for them. Instead of talking about the products - which I actually don't much care for, but that's just me - or how amazing it is that the prices so far exceeded expectations, we get angry rants about "the 1%" from the "Occupy" folks. Truly baffling.

I agree completely, Its just appalling. I don't know why I'm surprised anymore really.

Mods should probably just lock the thread before it gets any worse.

 

[Freida]

Is being rich sin? - no its not, if its hard work and its deserved then its a great award

BUT

If we look at the situation in the world where massive corporation are exploiting workers in china just to get is as cheap as possible (even Apple was under pressure for this) then it is a "sin". Have you guys seen the documentaries or even pictures of those working conditions or how the exploited chinese workers live?

So if a company (lets call it A) makes money by abusing this system and then the CEO gets filthy rich and goes to one of these auctions and buys something with the "good cause" for charity, is it REALLY a good thing? If A exploited the system and workers, wouldn't they create more problems then this one item the CEO bought would fix?
Its not just China. Look at Dubai and the exploitation or other parts of the world. And its all about profit and money for those 1% elite people.

So, now that we have a "vicious circle" would you like to open your eyes and ask yourself again if these kinda charities actually work considering all thats going on. And if you need to reconsider something, please watch the movie inside job (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inside_job_2010/) which is another angle of how flawed the system is and how "profit" is so greedy that only a financial meltdown stopped it for a while.

I'm all up for a charity, I have friends that travel to Africa and build houses, instal water filter etc. I just hope that one day the flawed system will change so that everyone can have decent life. Rich will always be rich and thats ok but if rich is rich only by making the lower class and middle class struggling to go by then something is not working and needs changing.

Or are you all currently happy with the way things are?

 

[proline]

There's way too much self-congratulatory attention to Apple design the last couple years. I think Steve must have kept a lid on things and now that he is dead people have been taking a lot of liberties. Apple doesn't have the class that they once did. The design of their products has gone downhill a lot. iOS7 would have never been approved by Steve. None of the current iPods would have been approved by him. The quality of OSX has even gone downhill, as I have had far more issues with it on my Retina MBP in 1.5 years than I did in all the rest of my 8 years of using Macs put together.

It's all just very disappointing. Seeing a company lose what was great about it. All for ego. That's how things appear, at least. This "Designed by Apple" and all the talk about the individual people who work within the company. It's just low class. The products aren't as good as they used to be, yet instead of working on that, you've got all this other kind of famous celebrity brand name designer crap.

Apple, get your act together if it's at all possible. Maybe it isn't without Steve. Maybe you guys needed him to make the right decisions. But you gotta try, because things are coming apart.

It must be a dark and gloomy world you live in with a perspective like that. Apple promotes their other executives a lot these days because of all the crap out there that Steve Jobs was the only one who invented anything. They need people to see that they still have lots of talent- indeed most of the same talent they had under Jobs.

Speaking of which, they released a lot of crap under a Jobs. From the impractical and overpriced cube that they took a huge bath on, to the iMac mouse, to the original OS X, to Ping, to Mobile Me, Apple routinely FAILED under Jobs and often because of him. There were also frequent recall and warranty extension programs on most Macs. That doesn't in any way detract from his genius and his great successes, but the reality is that he wasn't perfect and success often involves risking failure.

Mavericks is by far the most solid X.0 release OS X has ever seen. The current MacBook Airs are FAR better than the crappy, overpriced ones that Steve once sold. iCloud is a lot more functional than mobile me ever was. If you can't acknowledge these points then you are nothing but a troll. Sadly, MacRumors has pretty. Much been taken over by such.

 

[Rogifan]

Same - I used to go there, but no more, precisely because of threads like this. It's amazing how some people can take literally any topic and turn it into fodder for their own personal crusade. If you ever really want to be horrified, look at the CNN comment boards. It doesn't matter what the initial topic is - I mean literally, it could be a new panda cub at the zoo - and someone will make it about how Obama has failed or republicans hate minorities.

This article is a nice little story about how Ive and some other guy designed some interesting products and got way more than expected for charity for them. Instead of talking about the products - which I actually don't much care for, but that's just me - or how amazing it is that the prices so far exceeded expectations, we get angry rants about "the 1%" from the "Occupy" folks. Truly baffling.

Comment boards on most websites like Business Insider, Yahoo, cnet etc. just prove how awful the education system is.

 

[tai.michael]

Speaking of which, they released a lot of crap under a Jobs. From the impractical and overpriced cube that they took a huge bath on, to the iMac mouse...

Hey, wait a minute! These were the offspring of your favorite design guru, Jony Ive! Explain yourself.

 

[69650]

Only the stupendously wealthy can afford to spend cash like this to buy one-off trinkets to impress their friends.
Good cause? Call me cynical, but isn't it the greed of the stupendously wealthy that causes the uneven distribution of wealth that leads to poverty and hardship in poorer parts of the world (devastation of rain forests for cattle raising, abuse of workers for cheap electronic manufacturing, private ownership of freshwater supplies etc).
The 'saintly' folk who bought these goods will no doubt get a massive tax break on these charitable purchases, and alleviate any guilty feelings (if they are indeed capable of such an emotion) connected with the origins of their income.

I'm sure you're right but at least the charity gets a load of money to spend on life saving drugs. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Sad but true. I wish it was different but what can we do when the political system is morally bankrupt and wholly corrupt.

I doubt very much these people are buying these goods out of altruism. They are making an investment and will probably sell the goods on for a tidy profit in a few years time.

 

[kerryb]

I wonder...

I wonder what a red Dell could fetch?

 

[mpantone]

I doubt very much these people are buying these goods out of altruism. They are making an investment and will probably sell the goods on for a tidy profit in a few years time.

Maybe, maybe not.

There's no guarantee that the value of these goods will go up. Chances are they will, but one never knows for sure until the auction hammer comes down again.

That said, a lot of these high-end auction items are bought by collectors, and do not appear on the market again within their lifetimes. These one-of-a-kind items are coveted by those collectors, who just want to be the owner of something original and genuine. And these particular buyers have auction fever, something many others do not have.

Much of this stuff just disappears after the limelight of the auction house, hidden away in the owner's private secure showing room or vault, only auctioned off by the estate's trust after the owner's death.

From an investment standpoint, it's better to invest in the market (stocks, bonds, futures) anyhow rather than diddle with auction items.

 

[Mums]

Not at all. It's absolutely true. Enslaving the working class and looting the world's natural resources to become obscenely wealthy is disgusting. Tossing a few coins back at charity auctions does not absolve the injustice.

Absolutely right. Anyways, the world's currencies are going to *****, so all these big numbers don't mean what they used to..

 

[9947273]

Not at all. It's absolutely true. Enslaving the working class and looting the world's natural resources to become obscenely wealthy is disgusting. Tossing a few coins back at charity auctions does not absolve the injustice.

You don't even know who bought it, yet you are trying to explain how the way they made their money was wrong and it is a bad thing that they donated some of it to charity. What is wrong with you?