Steve Jobs Taking Medical Leave of Absence Until June

[kaldezar]

history repeats itself

And then there are those who stick their heads in the sand and pick and choose their statistics. I remember VHS fans making the same market share argument against DVD. What they foolishly ignore is growth and the trend. Like global warming chicken littles, they assume the current state is how things always were and how they always should be. They don't see a dynamic world.

From www.thedigitalbits.com:

Hey i didn't watch DVD's on my PC and I don't on watch them on my shiny new imac! BD only makes sense on Large HDTV's. As a storage and recording system BD is clumsy, much easier to use SSD's. Frankly i have no need for BD or DVD on a computer, they are merely sophisticated versions of floppy disks and remember what happened to them!










When THE hit movie comes out and 20-30% of the sales are on a new format, stand up and take notice, you're being left at the train station by the emos with eyebrow piercings at the Mapple store.

So clean the sand out of your ears. Waaah, my Mac doesn't support something, so therefore it isn't important, waaaah.

Yeah, I'd rather believe some wanker on a Mac forum (many of the Blu-Ray opponents have already been exposed as not even owning HDTVs, of course they wouldn't care, and so much for the whole Mac-buyers-are-affluent fallacy) who has never seen a Blu-Ray disc over The Digital Bits and Videobusiness.com, people who make a living covering the video
industry.

Hey i didn't watch DVD's on my PC and I don't on watch them on my shiny new imac! BD only makes sense on Large HDTV's. As a storage and recording system BD is clumsy, much easier to use SSD's. Frankly i have no need for BD or DVD on a computer, they are merely sophisticated versions of floppy disks and remember what happened to them!

 

[AidenShaw]

Hey i didn't watch DVD's on my PC and I don't on watch them on my shiny new imac! BD only makes sense on Large HDTV's.

There are many people here who can tell the difference that a BD makes, and who are buying BD movies. Just because you aren't, isn't a good reason for Apple not to give them the option.

We all know that a laptop isn't ideal for 1080p viewing - however there are two good reasons to have BD in your laptop if you want.

1. Downscaled 1080p looks a lot better on any laptop than upscaled 480i.
2. Many people do have a library of BD movies, and they'd like to watch them on the go. Should they buy a second copy in DVD to play on their Apple?

As a storage and recording system BD is clumsy, much easier to use SSD's.

You complain about the price of a BD, yet you say that putting a movie on a $150 SSD is better?

Frankly i have no need for BD or DVD on a computer, they are merely sophisticated versions of floppy disks and remember what happened to them!

Good for you. Why complain about people who do have a need for optical, though?

 

[sushi]

Regarding BluRay it will be interesting to see it's growth and adoption rate.

There seems to be one group who believes that BluRay is the wave of the future (and that something else won't come along soon). There is a second group who believe that DVD is good enough. There is also a third group who believe that BluRay will be superseded by something else in a few years so why spend the funds on BluRay now?

These groups do not take into account the download/rental/streaming folks. This market seems to be growing as well.

At first I found BluRay to be really cool and desirable. Now I am preferring renting or purchasing on line. With iTunes, seamless integration with iPods and the iPhone, and streaming to other devices in the home, convenience is winning me over.

I wonder what the "real" reason why Apple does not include BluRay devices. I am sure that Apple has made a very deliberate choice, after considering the options, not to include BluRay player/recorders in their computers. I would love to know the reason why.

 

[AidenShaw]

Regarding BluRay it will be interesting to see it's growth and adoption rate.

Here's a link to a post with some stories about the very strong holiday sales of BD movies and players.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7252115/

 

[xbjllb]

Regarding BluRay it will be interesting to see it's growth and adoption rate.

There seems to be one group who believes that BluRay is the wave of the future (and that something else won't come along soon). There is a second group who believe that DVD is good enough. There is also a third group who believe that BluRay will be superseded by something else in a few years so why spend the funds on BluRay now?

These groups do not take into account the download/rental/streaming folks. This market seems to be growing as well.

At first I found BluRay to be really cool and desirable. Now I am preferring renting or purchasing on line. With iTunes, seamless integration with iPods and the iPhone, and streaming to other devices in the home, convenience is winning me over.

I wonder what the "real" reason why Apple does not include BluRay devices. I am sure that Apple has made a very deliberate choice, after considering the options, not to include BluRay player/recorders in their computers. I would love to know the reason why.

Jobs likes to service pirates (he's always believed and taken advantage of the fact that a huge segment of the Mac market sees absolutely nothing wrong with piracy and believes all content should be free, or at the very least, subsidized by the rich who can afford to pay the exorbitant price of software and other content to make up for the units stolen) and he's not interested in Blu-ray until someone cracks the DRM scheme.

Couldn't be simpler, or more boneheadedly morally wrong.

People who spend vast amounts of money to create content deserve to be compensated for it. Or they will stop and go on to something where they will be compensated.

 

[kaldezar]

Jobs likes to service pirates (he's always believed and taken advantage of the fact that a huge segment of the Mac market sees absolutely nothing wrong with piracy and believes all content should be free, or at the very least, subsidized by the rich who can afford to pay the exorbitant price of software and other content to make up for the units stolen) and he's not interested in Blu-ray until someone cracks the DRM scheme.

Couldn't be simpler, or more boneheadedly morally wrong.

People who spend vast amounts of money to create content deserve to be compensated for it. Or they will stop and go on to something where they will be compensated.

That's total rubbish Mr Jobs is the founder of Pixar and the single largest shareholder in Disney hardly advocates of piracy.

 

[MikeTheC]

While I agree that we will continue to migrate to larger and larger storage mediums, I am not entirely convinced the day of the optical disk is entirely over. I suppose one day all of this is going to become academic because we'll be using USB flash drives of fairly large capacities; but for the moment, I'm in no hurry to rush things. Besides, if we all gave up having optical drives, how would you plan on playing back CDs, DVDs or (gasp!) BDs?

I want an optical drive of some description for some time yet. I think I'm grown up enough to know when the time will have come to do away with them. The reason I feel that time is not yet upon us is that this whole notion that CDs/DVDs/etc. parallel floppy discs is not entirely accurate. Much of the optical media floating around out there is not taken up by simple data discs, but rather other materials which use the same medium.

If you put aside the Sony Mavica digital cameras for a moment, can you honestly think of anything that floppies used to be used for that wasn't computer-data related?

 

[michael.lauden]

While I agree that we will continue to migrate to larger and larger storage mediums, I am not entirely convinced the day of the optical disk is entirely over. I suppose one day all of this is going to become academic because we'll be using USB flash drives of fairly large capacities; but for the moment, I'm in no hurry to rush things. Besides, if we all gave up having optical drives, how would you plan on playing back CDs, DVDs or (gasp!) BDs?

I want an optical drive of some description for some time yet. I think I'm grown up enough to know when the time will have come to do away with them. The reason I feel that time is not yet upon us is that this whole notion that CDs/DVDs/etc. parallel floppy discs is not entirely accurate. Much of the optical media floating around out there is not taken up by simple data discs, but rather other materials which use the same medium.

If you put aside the Sony Mavica digital cameras for a moment, can you honestly think of anything that floppies used to be used for that wasn't computer-data related?

pish posh ditch i can't wait to ditch the optical drive in my unibody for a dual SSD set up around xmas time...

well either that or finish my sleeve... haha

 

[sushi]

Here's a link to a post with some stories about the very strong holiday sales of BD movies and players.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7252115/

Thanks!

It's interesting when I discuss BD movies with my friends in Japan. I assume the discussions are similar to those in other parts of the world.

The early adopters seem very excited about the new technology and have jumped in head first. Others, seem much more cautious or don't see the need.

I have heard rumblings of a BD successor from some fairly reliable sources.

As for me, I was there when tapes were introduced, LDs, and DVDs. I'll let the kiddies do the BD thing until the prices drop considerably.

Having said that, I may never go to BD because of on line rentals. With fast Internet, and reasonable prices, so far, it's been a good solution for me.

While I agree that we will continue to migrate to larger and larger storage mediums, I am not entirely convinced the day of the optical disk is entirely over. I suppose one day all of this is going to become academic because we'll be using USB flash drives of fairly large capacities; but for the moment, I'm in no hurry to rush things. Besides, if we all gave up having optical drives, how would you plan on playing back CDs, DVDs or (gasp!) BDs?

I believe that the days of the current sized optical disc are far from over. It has lasted over time while the data and format have changed. CDs were introduced in 1981. Purchased my first one in 1983.

As I mentioned above, there are rumors of a much better (larger?) format coming out with in a few years. Of course that remains to be seen.

Also, will flash memory supersede optical media? You can get a 64GB USB thumb drive for close to $100 these days. Prices continue to drop.

Let me throw this out. If I had a floppy disc collection, I could put about 500 floppy disc's content on one CD for backup and storage. Can you imagine being able to put that many CDs on one new type of optical disc storage media? That might be worth keeping optical discs around for a while. Who knows what the future may bring.

The fun thing about technology is that we as consumers, only see what makes it to market. HD-DVD was a good option compared to BD but look were it is today. Many early adopters were burnt for going with HD-DVD.

Regardless of the technical reasons, I bet Blu-Ray won out simply because it was too hard to pronounce HD-DVD.

Fun times!

 

[Sehnsucht]

Also, will flash memory supersede optical media? You can get a 64GB USB thumb drive for close to $100 these days. Prices continue to drop.

Mark my words, in 10 years there will be 128 terabyte solid-state drives, which will utilize some not-yet-invented-ridiculously-faster-than-SATA interface. And my Mac Pro will have several of them.

 

[xbjllb]

That's total rubbish Mr Jobs is the founder of Pixar and the single largest shareholder in Disney hardly advocates of piracy, Please engage brain before making such stupid and ill conceived statements.

I do engage my brain. That's how I know he's always been an advocate of foiling rights protected content, to the point of making it easy to pirate even Apple software. De-dongling Logic just for one example.

2+2=4 no matter how many movie studios' boards you might sit on.

And quit reacting like we both work for Apple. I don't so I can speak the truth.

 

[kaldezar]

I do engage my brain. That's how I know he's always been an advocate of foiling rights protected content, to the point of making it easy to pirate even Apple software. De-dongling Logic just for one example.

2+2=4 no matter how many movie studios' boards you might sit on.

And quit reacting like we both work for Apple. I don't so I can speak the truth.

I don't work for apple but please read my post, Mr Jobs is the largest shareholder in a company that is dedicated to preserving it's intellectual property wether it is films or music. This is evidenced by it's membership of IFPI. RIAA and the MPAA. He is also an advocate of selling products without draconian rights protection because DRM inconveniences many customers who are not pirates. Now that itunes is DRM free has the world stopped? Has itunes stopped making Mr Jobs and the various record companies huge amounts of money through the sales of music? I don't think so. Do we need DRM to enforce copyright? More to the point is DRM or dongles effective? The answer to both questions is no! because 2+2=4 despite your ability to read Mr Jobs mind?

 

[kaldezar]

Cost of SSD's

I agree that BD is much higher quality than a DVD, but i can download HD content without the need for BD. My point is that proprietary formats such as BD are going the way of floppy discs, it's only a matter of time.

The cost of SSD drives are too high I agree but they will come down, I can remember circa 1991/2 a 1GB hard drive would have cost about £2000, a 1 GB memory stick can now be bought for a few pounds or given away as a freebie when you buy petrol! The pace of technological change continues to accelerate which is why BD is doomed. Oh and by the way just on a practical side, Discs can get scratched etc very easily, making them pretty frisbees. Also recording and erasing are much more complex with BD than any HD, solid state or not.






You complain about the price of a BD, yet you say that putting a movie on a $150 SSD is better?




Good for you. Why complain about people who do have a need for optical, though?[/QUOTE]

 

[sushi]

Mark my words, in 10 years there will be 128 terabyte solid-state drives, which will utilize some not-yet-invented-ridiculously-faster-than-SATA interface. And my Mac Pro will have several of them.

Like you, I would expect to see much higher capacity SSD type devices within 10 years.

...and Microsoft Office will still talk a huge chunk of that storage space.

In 10 years, as laptops become more common, I expect that we will see a new form factor for SSD type devices. Maybe something that has a bigger height and width, but much thinner approaching the thinness of the SATA connection. Who knows? But one thing is for sure, capacity will be going up.

One question I do have is when will the BIOS, RAM, VRAM and HD all become one? In other words, one type of memory device used for all three purposes.

Even if we see a huge increase in SSD devices, I don't believe that will mean the death of the optical drive form factor. In the next 10 years, I would expect to see a new format that will hold much more data.

The advantage of optical storage over others is that you can archive data. You cannot archive data on HDs or SSD type devices because the data can be changed. Many companies today still use tape backups for archiving purposes.

 

[illegallydead]

Jobs likes to service pirates (he's always believed and taken advantage of the fact that a huge segment of the Mac market sees absolutely nothing wrong with piracy and believes all content should be free, or at the very least, subsidized by the rich who can afford to pay the exorbitant price of software and other content to make up for the units stolen) and he's not interested in Blu-ray until someone cracks the DRM scheme.

By that logic we should be seeing Blu-ray drives in macs come WWDC (heck we should have seen them @ Macworld). Blu-Ray DRM has been cracked, and has been for a while. DRM simply does not work, period. People WILL find a way around it!

Couldn't be simpler, or more boneheadedly morally wrong.

People who spend vast amounts of money to create content deserve to be compensated for it. Or they will stop and go on to something where they will be compensated.

I know that this is a completely different argument than this thread was ever supposed to have, but let's face it, DRM is not effective in the slightest and Apple is realizing that. They have recently been banking on people being moral about their software and AV stuff, and they seem to be doing quite well.

And as for the argument about people creating content being compensated... PLEASE! Do you have any idea how much of the money you spend on a DVD/BD/CD goes to the people who actually created the content? Very little. Most of it goes to the labels and studios, who are just the people with money looking to make tons more money. Most of the reason that people pirate is because of the fact that media is not priced fairly. We are paying obscene prices to fund the big-wigs, not the artists. We are paying for the very lawyers who attempt to sue our pants off for exercising OUR rights backing up OUR media!

Anyway, there's my 2¢. Just dipped in to see what this thread was still going on about (would have thought it would still actually have to do with Steve Jobs and his leave of absence like the title suggests, but apparently not )

 

[WeegieMac]

As many have said here, some believe Blu-Ray to be the "future of home entertainment", while others are convinced that Digital Distribution will be the way forward.

Personally, as a Blu-Ray user (first on PS3 and then via standalone player), I believe Blu-Ray is a somewhat overhyped and overpriced technology. The whole HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray "war" was a farce from the word go, with money contributing to the outcome with Blu-Ray the "winner".

Sony used the PlayStation brand to enforce Blu-Ray and the movie studios involved could not hide the number of PlayStation 3 consoles out there which, to them, were Blu-Ray players in peoples homes.

Yes, Sony used DVD in the PlayStation 2, but Sony and the PlayStation 2 did not make DVD a success on it's own. To suggest or believe such is somewhat glorifying the PS2. I adopted DVD when it launched in the States, while it was still being waited on in the UK. In fact most hardcore home cinema buffs were still using LaserDisc openly when DVD hit the US. My first two movies, which came with the player bundle I opted for from the importer, was The Fifth Element and Face/Off.

I still remember telling my friends to come over and see this superb quality movie on a disc the size of a CD. Some of them even laughed about how, "It couldn't be that much of a leap over a good VHS player". I still smile today when I think of their reaction to seeing Nicolas Cage and John Travolta battle it out on DVD.

Anyway, Sony's use of DVD differs entirely to it's motives for using Blu-Ray, a technology it has invested in heavily and has more interest in the success of. DVD was used in the PS2 because it was a new technology, but with Blu-Ray it was Sony Corp who insured Sony Computer Entertainment used Blu-Ray in the PS3, using the PlayStation brand to carry Blu-Ray.

Unfortunately, as great a games machine as the PS3 is, using Blu-Ray has hindered it with slow load times and mandatory installations. And, while the PS3 can have it's BD firmware updated via online downloads, there are now cheaper standalone players with comparable, if not superior performance and the same connectivity for firmware updates.

And, add into the mix the fact that Toshiba has launched a new range of Super Upscaling DVD players, the real "war" for Blu-Ray is now more apparent. HD-DVD was a distraction, it could easily be the choice format right now had the studios backed it instead of Blu-Ray, but the HD format's biggest battle is not even against Digital Distribution, but against a humble format known as DVD.

Personally, I would rather spend £9 on the DVD in Tesco than up to £10 more for the Blu-Ray when I can simply use even an older Samsung upscaling HDMI DVD player. Only the BIG movies are bought on Blu-Ray, but for anything else I go with the good old DVD.

 

[xbjllb]

Personally, I would rather spend £9 on the DVD in Tesco than up to £10 more for the Blu-Ray when I can simply use even an older Samsung upscaling HDMI DVD player. Only the BIG movies are bought on Blu-Ray, but for anything else I go with the good old DVD.

Anyone can READILY see the difference on a 65" plasma, and I bet even slightly smaller screens as well.

 

[xbjllb]

I don't work for apple but please read my post, Mr Jobs is the largest shareholder in a company that is dedicated to preserving it's intellectual property wether it is films or music. This is evidenced by it's membership of IFPI. RIAA and the MPAA. He is also an advocate of selling products without draconian rights protection because DRM inconveniences many customers who are not pirates. Now that itunes is DRM free has the world stopped? Has itunes stopped making Mr Jobs and the various record companies huge amounts of money through the sales of music? I don't think so. Do we need DRM to enforce copyright? More to the point is DRM or dongles effective? The answer to both questions is no! because 2+2=4 despite your ability to read Mr Jobs mind?

Straw man arguments. My point stands.

 

[Sehnsucht]

Like you, I would expect to see much higher capacity SSD type devices within 10 years.

...and Microsoft Office will still take a huge chunk of that storage space.

In 10 years? Micro-what?

Even if we see a huge increase in SSD devices, I don't believe that will mean the death of the optical drive form factor. In the next 10 years, I would expect to see a new format that will hold much more data. The advantage of optical storage over others is that you can archive data. You cannot archive data on HDs or SSD type devices because the data can be changed. Many companies today still use tape backups for archiving purposes.

No, certainly not. Optical media will be the first to hit the petabytes (even though I can't imagine anybody needing that much space, unless you're that 13-year-old kid from Connecticut who won $10,000 in iTunes credit.)

Also, as SSDs become more common, I do hope they'll improve something in the area of shielding the chips from static...I think few companies would want to have all their data stored on massive SSD-servers that could be taken out by one guy wearing a nylon windsuit over a polyester shirt.

 

[WeegieMac]

Anyone can READILY see the difference on a 65" plasma, and I bet even slightly smaller screens as well.

I've never said you can't see the difference, but that's the point ... High Definition was created, in the main, for BIG screens so that the image clarity was not lost the bigger the screen size used.

I only buy the real big movies on Blu-Ray (The Dark Knight, Transformers, etc). Will I rush out to buy Sex and the City movie for my wife on Blu-Ray?

Of course not, not when Tesco sell it for £7 and I can upscale it beyond "normal" DVD quality.

I found that I only really noticed the difference between upscaled DVD and Blu-Ray on a screen of 37" and above ... on a 32" screen it was negligible, to my eyes anyway. Then again, we ALL see things differently, which is what makes this "argument" somewhat pointless!

 

[sushi]

In 10 years? Micro-what?

Apple what?

Seriously, I wonder how long Apple and Microsoft be around?

No, certainly not. Optical media will be the first to hit the petabytes (even though I can't imagine anybody needing that much space, unless you're that 13-year-old kid from Connecticut who won $10,000 in iTunes credit.)

A few years ago, mini CDs, credit/business card CDs, and others were introduced. Today, you hardly see them. But you still see the traditional sized optical disk.

Yep, it will be around for a while.

Also, as SSDs become more common, I do hope they'll improve something in the area of shielding the chips from static...I think few companies would want to have all their data stored on massive SSD-servers that could be taken out by one guy wearing a nylon windsuit over a polyester shirt.

A few years ago, I saw a presentation concerning bio-memory chips and crystal memory storage devices. Who knows what the future holds? It will be fun along the way.

 

[DMann]

A few years ago, mini CDs, credit/business card CDs, and others were introduced. Today, you hardly see them. But you still see the traditional sized optical disk.

Yep, it will be around for a while.


A few years ago, I saw a presentation concerning bio-memory chips and crystal memory storage devices. Who knows what the future holds? It will be fun along the way.

GE has recently taken a large leap forward with the development of holographic storage - 1/2 terabyte per disc. Within a year to a year and 1/2, we will witness 3D storage become the next generation of low cost storage - .10/gigabyte vs. Blu-Ray's $1.00/gigabyte. This ought to keep optical discs around for quite a while: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/technology/business-computing/27disk.html?_r=1&hpw

 

[sushi]

GE has recently taken a large leap forward with the development of holographic storage - 1/2 terabyte per disc. Within a year to a year and 1/2, we will witness 3D storage become the next generation of low cost storage - .10/gigabyte vs. Blu-Ray's $1.00/gigabyte. This ought to keep optical discs around for quite a while: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/technology/business-computing/27disk.html?_r=1&hpw

Cool!

Sounds like optical media will be around for a while.

 

[pprior]

According to this article: http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/04/29/lawyer-steve-jobs-too-weak-to-attend-long-town-meeting/ Steve is "too weak" to attend a meeting.

Love to hear the "he's doing fine" crowd explain away that one.

 

[Eric S.]

According to this article: http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/04/29/lawyer-steve-jobs-too-weak-to-attend-long-town-meeting/ Steve is "too weak" to attend a meeting.

Love to hear the "he's doing fine" crowd explain away that one.

I'm not one of the "he's doing fine" crowd, but I'm not sure how much we can read into that. I doubt that attending a Woodside town council meeting is something Jobs looks forward to, and this could just be an excuse to have his lawyer appear for him.