International Mac Podcast

If the Hollywood rumour-mill is to be believed (and it never should), there will soon be more movies about Steve Jobs than there are about Dracula. It is in one sense bizarre to have so much interest in single person, but Hollywood has never been shy about jumping on trends, and Steve became, particularly in the last few years of his life, just as high-profile a celebrity as the musicians and artists he admired.

It’s inevitable that there will be a few films made of his life and influence, but the two highest-profile at the moment are the mainstream Hollywood one, and one indie flick starring Ashton Kutcher.

In the case of the first, I think it’s pointless to start speculating yet. All that we know for certain is that the rights to the Isaacson biography have been sold. Yes, some people have expressed an interest in writing, directing and acting in it (including Noah Wyle, who played Steve in the entertaining Pirates of Silicon Valley), but Hollywood is in a lot of ways a ponderous beast, and the screenplay will have to go through many treatments and drafts before the film is even greenlit, never mind cast. It’s also worth remembering that for a big budget film like this one will be, crew – even the director – can be subject to change right up to and after the last minute. Just look at Guillermo Del Toro’s involvement with The Hobbit – he was set to direct for years before he was bumped out at the last minute and filming began.

The second, with Ashton Kutcher, seems like it could be interesting, though. Some people have objected to the casting of Kutcher, suggesting that he may not have the chops to play a serious role. I’m not familiar with Kutcher at all, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. We can all think of actors – particularly comedy actors – who we’ve seen deliver excellent performances in serious roles: Jim Carrey in The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for instance, or Will Ferrell in Stranger than Fiction, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Brick and Inception. We’ll see how challenging a role is written for Kutcher, and how well he fills it, when the film comes out.

Having established that speculation is pointless, I’m now going to engage in some. Here is a list of actors who may (or may not) be able to pull off the part in a big Hollywood movie.

Noah Wyle: He’s already done it once, and done a good job. He’d have more information to work with this time, and might be able to give a more rounded performance. His age could be a problem, but as Bart suggested on the last show, that could easily be fixed with a liberal application of make-up or (more likely) CGI. He’s an unlikely choice for the studios, though – when have you ever know one person to get the same part in two different, unrelated movies? He’s also got no experience leading a cast in a big-budget movie. Odds: 15:1

George Clooney: He’s already expressed an interest. True, he looks and sounds nothing like Jobs, and he’s more saturnine than mercurial (spot the reference?) – less inclined to blow up at small slights, and his voice is more inclined to calm people than rouse them. So basically he could play Steve if Steve were nothing like Steve. Hm. Moving on. Odds: 25:1

Christian Bale: Unlike Clooney, we know Bale has the temper for this. Having previously reduced some anonymous crew member and the director of Terminator: Whatever The Last One Was Called to gibbering wrecks, Apple employees should prove no challenge. Sure, he doesn’t have Steve’s build, but for The Machinist he showed a willingness to lose a dangerous amount of weight in order to fit a role. Actually, now that I think of it, Bale might really be a runner. Can we agree right now, though, not to let McG direct? Odds: 10:1

Johnny Depp: Like Wyle, Depp seems immune to the aging process. I’m also convinced that no-one is really sure what he looks like. Depp may not know himself. He might be an alien, which would explain a lot. Does he look like Jobs? Probably not. Could he be made to look like Jobs? Certainly. Could he be strong enough to hold down a solo lead in a major film? Well… Odds: 20:1

Woody Allen: Ok, I’m casting very much against type here, but bear with me on this one. Some actors can embody their opposites amazingly well. Jim Henson was famously the calmest person in the world – he would only explode in temper as Kermit. Or if it doesn’t work, at least think of Allen delivering some of Jobs’ famous presentations. “A phone. An iPod. An Internet communications device. A phone. An iPod. An Internet communications device. Aren’t you getting it? Oh, my therapist told me this was a bad idea…” Odds: 80:1

Cate Blanchett: While we’re on the unlikelies, Blanchett has a bit of experience in the field of film biography, having played Irish journalist Veronica Guerin, Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare’s Dark Lady and – here’s what gave me the notion – Steve’s hero Bob Dylan. So she definitely has the talent, but would a studio take the risk? Odds: 100:1

The Rock: Dwayne Johnson has been called Franchise Viagra for his ability to revive franchises which have, er, flopped. Yes, he’d be totally inappropriate, and, yes, it would make for an extremely lousy film, but the studio would love it! So why do I include him in this list? Two reasons: 1) in as cynical and unimaginative an industry as today’s Hollywood is, if the market were to be flooded with Jobs pictures, audiences could become jaded and he might be seen as the solution; and 2) I’m running out of ideas. Ho hum. At least we know he’d be worse than Kutcher. Odds: 1000:1

So who have I missed? Drop a comment below, or send a mail to haveyoursay@impodcast.com if you’d like it read out on the show.

Every time figures are released about sales of PCs these days, they come with the caveat that they either do or don’t count tablets generally and the iPad in particular as PCs. In general, if tablets are counted, then Apple is one of the best-selling PC-makers in the world; if they aren’t, then Apple is one of the lowest. But as the tablet market finally gets around to meaning something other than “just the iPad market, really”, some other devices start to be considered (or not) as well. In particular, in recent figures, the Kindle Fire has come into question.

It’s certainly true that the original Kindle couldn’t in any sense be counted as a PC. Even when it expanded to web-browsing, its functions were very limited, and it was really just an ebook reader plus. In a similar vein, the original iPod was just a music player, and even when it started playing video and games, and letting you browse your photos, it was still a music player plus. But the iPod Touch? Not so much. It’s certainly not an equivalent to the PC on your kitchen counter, but I think most people who own one think of it and use it far less as a media device and far more as a pocket computer.

I think the same will be true of the Kindle Fire. Amazon has, as far as I can tell, been the first company apart from Apple to have a more long-term approach in terms of their device philosophy. Their takeover of the book market (some would say “liberation”; others “domination”) has been hugely similar to, and probably modelled on, Apple’s takeover of the music market. But, as Apple gradually extended the abilities of the iPod, so Amazon are doing now with the Kindle. It’s even implied in the name: from this little device, we’ll start something huge. The new Kindle Fire (again, the name is significant), like the iPad, is too large to be a pocket computer, but for many people far too small and lightweight to be a PC.

But I think it’s time we start to rethink what we mean by PC. The only (working) computer that I own that definitely counts as a Personal Computer is my MacBook Pro, which has three user-accounts – for myself, my girlfriend and my brother. So not exactly “personal”. People use PCs at work and at home, but I think it’s very rare – and going to get even rarer – that any PC is used by just one person. Meanwhile, tablets are almost invariably devices which are absolutely exclusive to the user. And it’s not just the fact that they don’t have room for more than one account; they really do feel more personal. A PC is a device you work on; a tablet is a device you work with.

I think at this stage it’s becoming better to think about two different levels of computer: the work or home computer, and the personal computer, and it’s seeming more and more like the personal computer will be that little tablet we carry around with us – the computer that’s personal. So we aren’t moving into a post-PC era. In a certain sense, we’re moving into a true PC era, where everyone has their own device, which they have with them everywhere, and each device is connected both to the hub of the home and/or work computer (I had to resist typing “PC”), and to the cloud. The technology that allows this to work is just coming into fruition now.

The problem these days is that the words personal computer have come to be almost totally removed from their original meaning and context. The computer has evolved so much over the past century that the connection between the advanced number-crunching machines used in, say, World War II and those used now is almost invisible. Show someone today an Enigma machine and they see a relic (albeit a beautiful, astonishingly well-crafted relic). But take an iPad back in time to someone from that era and they would see magic. Computers compute, at their core, but that’s not what we think of them doing any more. We think of computers as devices for keeping in touch with friends, for editing photographs, for making and watching movies, for playing games. The fact that they are doing complex mathematics in order to perform all of this isn’t relevant to most of us.

Equally, describing a computer as personal was originally a way to suggest that it wasn’t for laboratories or hobbyists, but for “the rest of us.” Here was a computer that the whole family could use, not just the geeky cousin. The PC was friendlier and more useful for more people than the computers that preceded them. And if they weren’t really personal, well…it wouldn’t be the first time that a word was misused for simplicity’s sake.

But now we’re seeing real personal computing. Within the next few years, most people will have some kind of tablet device, and that will take the place of most of the stuff that they carry around with them. These devices are genuinely personal, a fit for the owner. They’re also gong to be the only computers that a lot of people need. (I know plenty of people who are going to get a tablet, but balk at the idea of owning an Apple product and so are waiting for a viable competitor.) It’s likely that there will still be room for what we now think of as PCs, but they will be just home computers, or work computers, used for bigger tasks, larger storage, and as a hub for our personal devices.

I don’t think that in that time we’ll switch to calling tablet- and smartphone-type devices PCs, and PCs home or work or hub or whatever computers – language doesn’t work that way. After all, people still dial phone numbers, even though phones haven’t had dials for decades; people still watch films, even though they’re not usually shot on film any more; people still read novels, even though it’s been a couple of hundred years since the novel was just a novel diversion. I just find it interesting to think about language, and how, as John Gruber said, it’s a pity that the term PC was already used before the iPad was launched.

It’s hard to disconnect Steve Jobs from the company he founded. Throughout its lifetime, all of Apple’s successes have been Jobs’, and nearly all of Jobs’ successes were at Apple. Yes, it’s true that he after being forced out of Apple in 1987, he went on to found NeXT, and NeXT made great products, but they were unpopular and expensive, and only really found their home when they were bought by Apple in 1996. And yes, Pixar has been a blinding success, but I think, while Jobs’ hallmarks of stylistic beauty and fun have always been evident in Pixar’s films, he generally kept himself back from the creative process there and allowed people like John Lasseter and Brad Bird to go about making great films (and boy, did they).

So, what of Apple now that he’s really gone? If Apple’s successes are Jobs’, then what will happen to the company now? After Steve resigned as CEO, John Gruber wrote that possibly his greatest creation was not any particular product, but Apple itself. Apple now is a very different company than it was when Steve returned to it fourteen years ago. It is a company utterly steeped in his philosophy – that a great user experience should come first, and all other considerations are secondary; that a single success is no reason to stand still; that to innovate you must be willing to be different, and to embrace change. I think that over the next few years we will see a very different Apple — different how, I can’t say, but difference is Apple’s lifeblood. It’s Tim Cook’s Apple now, and he’ll do things his way, and I’m quite sure that’s what Steve would want. Steve ensured that Apple knows how to pick great people, and even without him it will continue to do that. Steve ensured that Apple will always have its eye on the future, to both predict and to shape the technology that will be part of our lives in the years to come, and so his legacy will last well beyond the couple of years’ product line-up that Apple no doubt has prepared.

Steve Jobs could do something which ought to have been impossible in a technology company: he could think long-term. There is video of him in 1997 talking about what we now think of as cloud computing, and describing how his life revolved at the time around what is now very similar to iCloud. A caller to Mac OS Ken Live last week described how Steve, over a decade ago, was thinking of something conceptually very like the iPad – a theoretical impossibility at the time; now an everyday sight. Almost the entirety of Apple’s output since his return was focussed on his idea of the Digital Livingroom, which used the PC as a hub to which all other devices were connected. I have difficulty predicting what computers will be like in two years, but I think Steve would have had a good idea, even at the time of his passing, what they’ll be like in twenty.

Ten years ago, the iPod was first released. Four years later, it had become the most popular music player in the world. At the time, I had been working in Argos at Christmas in my first post-college job, and I had never heard of the iPod – that will give you some idea of my technophobia at time. Since then, I bought my first iPod, and that led to an iPhone, which was followed by two Macs and an iPad. The experience I’ve had using them has been miles from any of the reluctant struggles I suffered with technology before that. A PC was always something I used, but my Apple devices are genuinely part of my life. My experiences of the world are different because of Steve Jobs.

Shortly after finding out about Steve’s death (via a text to my iPhone) and checking for confirmation at apple.com (on my MacBook Pro), I decided to send an email of condolence to the email address that has been set up for the purpose, rememberingsteve@apple.com. I gave a little thought to what I wanted to say, about my experiences as a user of Apple products, and about his influence on my life, and about my conversion from technophobe to heavy computer user, but I couldn’t sum up my thoughts in a way that didn’t feel self-centred. So after a little while I just decided to try to sum up as well as I could what I felt set him apart both as a business leader and a thinker. In the end, I sent the following two-sentence comment. I hope Steve would have admired its brevity.

Someone once said that technology is just the name we have for stuff that doesn’t work yet. The remarkable legacy of Steve Jobs at Apple is a computer company that doesn’t make technology.

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Connor P was able to attend Macworld Expo 2010 and spent a fair amount of time on the show floor talking lots of great people about their products and services, oh yeah and he recorded it too!

So enjoy these little bites from Macworld 2010

NeatCo

Thanks for your continued support of IMP, we hope you enjoy the show! We’d love to hear from you so send your email / audio clips to haveyoursay [at] impodcast [dot] tv.

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UPDATE:  It would seem that Stu’s friend Lee should never be left unattended with an open IMP WordPress login…. ever again

Hi all, it’s me, Matt Rhinesmith, back with another post, after a “short” delay. This time, I’m posting a little tidbit I found about overclocking ANY sub-533 MHz G3 or G4 Mac to 533 MHz. I have tried this personally on both my iBook and iMac G3, and I’ve definitely noticed improved performance. For example, as I write this post in Safari 4.1.1 with 3 tabs open, I also have Mail and Twitterrific open, and DVD Player open, paused.

While it definitely helps that I have the maximum of 567 MB of RAM installed, it would choke long before this at 366 MHz. These instructions are courtesy of Mark Sokolovsky, a netizen of LEM’s G3-5 List. You will want to print these out, since they’re not easy commands to remember. Also, where it says ” <something>, there is a space in between ” and <something>. That tripped me up when I first tried this. Anyway, here they are, exactly as he posted them to the list: (more…)