soundproof wrote:

It's nonetheless a given that Apple will move into screen displays for movies, etc - they already have that, among young people, who don't see a difference between their Cinema Display or iMac and a television set, except for the fact that the television set does a lot less.

I think the whole story is in that last line. We've increasingly skipped right past the AppleTV to a Mac Mini as a video peripheral (scaling icons and text etc to look great on a huge TV set), and it leaves one stunned at the junk performance of a set top box. 

My only hope is that along with the sleek hardware, they manage to overcome some of the inherent problems of content being limited when not viewed on a traditional computer. With Hulu, for example, there are programs that are only viewable through a web browser and not through an "app"

I want to add something to the discussion.

What's the essence of B&O? When they're at their best, they simplify their users' lives, adding convenience and premium quality to the A/V experience.

It's in their very first product, where they liberated consumers from having to use accumulators when listening to their radios - they called that product "Eliminator". You could plug your radio into the mains.

And that was the essence of B&O for decades, and took them through an impressive series of brilliant products, created for discerning and demanding individuals who wanted oustanding A/V performance.

Then - in the 1980s - they made the erroneous decision to begin providing flash to the status conscious, and gave that priority over function and performance. It was a consequence of the Betamax debacle, and the company deluded itself into thinking that "magic movement" was enough, and that performance was secondary.
Also, instead of accepting the limitations of Masterlink, and moving on, they kept fiddling with it until it was years past its "Use before" date.

B&O began losing customers when they were no longer simplifying their users' lives - when, instead, they began complicating them.

Occasionally, the engineers are allowed to show what they can do - but management and marketing don't support them, and don't tell the B&O story, instead wallpapering the world with supremely boring product shots of home furnishing, and copy that would put a coffeine addict to sleep.

Imagine what could have been done of the Acoustic lens technology when it was launched, B&O were years ahead of where A/V is moving in sound propagation now. In 2003, when the BeoLab 5 was launched, it should have been supported for a year or two with the energy and vigour used for the launch of a major premium car. And it would have added tremendous cachet to the brand - but they pulled back from the magic they had created.

And it will remain an incomprehensible mystery that the company didn't promote - with campaign after campaign after campaign - that you can connect a pair of BeoLabs to your computer, and you're set to make music. B&O was so afraid of cannibalizing itself that it stopped trying to build markets.

The company could have hijacked the entire 18-35 market with active loudspeakers, connected through a B&O box that added convenience to getting sound and music out of your computer, whether fixed or mobile -- and that is precisely what it should have done. Now there are lots of active loudspeakers, most with ICEpower inside, of course. But back then there were only BeoLabs with a shape that fit together with the computer.

So, knees on the floor hands folded, here's to present and new management: go for it, it's not too late, but there aren't many second third fourth fifth chances left.

soundproof wrote:

Quite uninformed comment there, Jeff. You might want to code up your history quotient a touch. The Xerox Parc canard's getting boring - the real story is a lot more telling, and interesting.

Well, you might also want to not assume you know it all and lecture others based on things you read on the Internet, particularly a sycophantic history from Stanford.

My exposure to this story (which is indeed more complex than most realize) is from having worked with a Xerox PARC alumni back in the late 80's. He was also one of two such I interviewed for our team (and who was one of the best s/w guys, particularly at real-time code, I've ever worked with). But really, does that story from Stanford even make sense to you? The Apple engineers asked Jobs to go look at PARC because of what they were doing on Mac, but that means they didn't steal it from PARC?! I've been in this tech business for over three decades, and that's the most inane excuse I've ever heard. The only time you do something like that is if you have a tech licensing agreement with the other company and you want to look/show what they're doing because you think they or you are doing it better, particularly if your version of the concept isn't as far along and want to sell it to your management by showing what it can be not what you have at present. This is also particularly true if you nicked the idea, aren't as far along due to that, and want to sell it.

So please, don't lecture me about uninformed comments if you please. This constant polishing of Jobs apple gets old. He was a very talented person, and a deeply flawed individual, but he wasn't a god no matter what the fan club thinks. One of the things that constantly irritated my PARC guy was the fact that Jobs acted like he was original and innovative and slammed everyone else for copying stuff. He had far less heartburn with Gates because Gates mainly just got about his business of building stuff and didn't go out of his way to shriek that everyone was copying him. Both Jobs and Gates, while innovative game changers who altered the course of technology, both were also absolutely horrible to work for, but I'd still rather have worked with Gates than Jobs.