I’ve always been an Apple user, and I love working with their technology - but I’ve noticed a worrying trend amongst some (very smart, very respected) Cocoa developers of late to excuse Apple’s every move, even when some of the moves are clearly a step backward. There have been some notable exceptions (which I applaud).
Steve Jobs compares the currently sprouting wave of “post-PC devices” to cars, and PCs such as they exist today to trucks. For most things most people do, you don’t need a truck, and it’s a lot of dead weight to haul around with you. I can see his point to a certain extent, but right now, the argument doesn’t hold.
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Some people will say “real people don’t care about the file system”. Well, okay, sure. Real people still group materials together from multiple applications into one folder for whatever project it is they’re working on. Real people still aren’t satisfied with a row of chronologically ordered, scrollable thumbnails where the only recourse for secrecy is removal, and the only recourse for reordering is frail and time-consuming and involves re-saving everything.
This was taken from waffle software’s “Redefinition” post, and I have to say this is one of the most succinct, straight-to-the-point pieces of writing I’ve read about the dumbing down of consumer’s perceived expectations versus their actual wants of technology. I’ll let Jesper speak for himself rather than reproducing the article here, but I heartily concur.