On our unhealthy obsession with features
In the wonderful world of electronics, consumers seem to have an obsession with features - “on paper, this thing is awesome!” I think it is encouraged by the producers of electronics who can then very easily show comparison charts of how they have more features than their competitors. This in turn, encourages consumers to start evaluating everything on a feature list. So… a vicious cycle.
“But, Felix”, I know you’re asking, “more is better!” And I completely agree with you! More is better! I live in America, that’s been taught to us since birth and who am I to go against the teachings? :) But there’s other things that are also better, intangible things and sometimes while more is better, it isn’t actually that much better.
The example that affects me the most is the megapixel escalation happening in the digital camera world - I’m talking about point and shoots. For me, I pretty much topped out at 5 or 6MP and really that’s all most people need. 99% of the picture taking world, doesn’t shoot raw, doesn’t crop pictures, doesn’t print them out poster sized, they take them, make some slide shows that they show on the computer and upload some to the web. 10MP is actively bad - it makes less pictures fit on the card (of course, this helps sell increasingly larger memory cards, hm….), takes up more disk on the desktop and webservers (of course this helps sell increasingly larger hard drives, hmm…) but worst of all it actually degrades the pictures.
The sensors on these point and shoots are at best 1/1.8″ and more often 1/2.3″ or smaller. Cramming all those MP’s onto such small “film” is difficult and degrades the ultimate quality of the picture. Browse through the forum on the new Ricoh Caplio R8, a camera I might otherwise have wanted to get. They cranked the MP’s up and the picture quality down on this. On my own Lumix LX2, which is awesome on paper and has great ergonomics - it takes a few seconds to write the picture to my memory card when I’m shooting RAW so now I can’t shoot RAW because I want to shoot 5MP and RAW is, obviously, only for the full 10MP.
Consumers would benefit in many ways if the MP wars weren’t in full effect and the camera makers kept the sensors at a nice 5MP or 6MP. (I know, I’ve complained about too many megapixels before.)
Or take a look at subnotebooks. A topic near to my heart - these little notebooks never really caught on here (although they’re big in japan) because on paper they were always much less computer than an equivalently priced or even cheaper regular laptop. But here’s the thing… it’s a situation where most people don’t need the fastest CPU to do their work. Most of the world, runs some office programs, email and browses the internet. They have no need for massive RAM and the baddest CPU on the street, it simply doesn’t do them a whit of good - what would do them good is saving their shoulders from toting 3 pounds more than they otherwise would have.
The latest victim of the stat wars is the Macbook Air. Everyone’s all - this thing is slow. The benchmarks suck. Sure there’s people for whom this isn’t the computer - graphics and video professionals, gamers and what not. But there’s a whole hell of a lot of people who could very happily use it for their main computer. Take a look at these two reviews one from 37signals and one from delicious monster. These guys are computer professionals, a class you might think would be excluded from being able to use it as the primary. They got nothing but love.
There’s intangibles that matter - but there is hope. Remember the iPod? Yeah, that didn’t do anything, people panned it for its cost and lack of features, sometimes they still do. But they just work better. Sure it’d be nice to have a couple more bells and a few more whistles, but it’s really great having a beautiful and extremely easy to use device. Same thing with the iPhone - on paper it doesn’t do a 10th of the things that the Palm does or Blackberries, but what it does do it does awesomely. And people respond to that. Here’s to hoping that a camera maker takes a cue and works on the functionality of their cameras instead of blindly trying to cram more MP’s onto the sensors. I know that’s what I’m hoping for. Anything else bug you? Or is it crazy to wish an end to these crazy arms races?
February 20th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Yeah I don’t think you’ll be seeing 5-6MP sensors again until they show up on cellphones. I’m hoping that the cam companies will shut down the MP race now at the 8-12 range and work on getting better quality out of the sensors. I’ve been using dSLRs for so long now that I don’t even know what a good P&S photo looks like anymore. Those sample ISO100 Ricoh shots look not so hot and that’s at ISO100 fer cryin’ out loud.
As for the MBA, I think the general problem is mistaken expectations. The last couple of products Apple has released has been aimed squarely for the consumer market, the everyday schmo (or the has-a-bit-more-spending-money-than-average everyday schmo to be more exact). Then when word got out that Apple was going to be releasing an ultraportable, I think everyone was expecting something along the same line. A cool ultraportable for the masses. Unfortunately, ultraportables never were for the masses to begin with (at least for the past decade and the present). And to tell you the truth it does puzzle me a bit that they did release something like the Air. The possible market just seems too small to be worth it. It almost seems like they released it just to say that they have the world’s thinnest laptop. The Air is like the laptops I used to drool over at dynamism.com every now and again. Sexy as hell but in no way justifiable unless I suddenly morphed into a high-powered jet-setting executive. Even if the base model is cheaper than the ones at dynamism.
If you’re saying that the Air is going to revolutionize the ultraportable market and bring ultraportables to the masses like the iPod brought way-too-much-music-in-one-device-than-any-person-not-a-DJ-would-
know-what-to-do-with to the masses, I disagree. If you’re saying the Air will/should succeed because it’s trimmed down on unnecessary features, eehh….. that’d still be a hard sell.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
It’s sad about the MP’s. The Ricoh and the LX2 would, I strongly suspect, take really nice photos if they were 6MP cameras. Sigh. Alas, although, if I had a 3MP iPhone that took half decent shots with a teeny bit of zoom, I would *not* complain. :)
As for the Air, I’m saying not quite either of your options. The Air is not for the masses - not in the same way that iPods are - no Apple computer is really for the masses. But I do believe that there is a reasonable segment of the market that is the coffee house/travelling segment that is well served by this and arguments about power and expandability are not significant factors for them (although they may be swayed by them).
The Air is clearly more niche than MBP or MB are - and maligned for it’s cut corners. But I think that there are many who will buy one an MB/MBP w/out even considering an Air because of the spec sheets and the benchmarks and what not, and I think that’s a real mistake. It shouldn’t succeed *because* it trimmed down on features, it should succeed because it’s enough computer for most people and it’s half the weight, with a reasonable screen and keyboard. It’s also cheap - relative to most other subnotebooks.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Non-Apple phones have apparently hit 5MP already in the past year. I should take a look to see how photos from those things actually look.
I know what you mean about not buying the MBA based on the posted benchmarks. Our IT guy cancelled his order because of it. He’s probably better off with the next MBP anyway, just got caught up in the RDF and all.
A reasonable segment of a niche market is a pretty darn small market and I gotta think Jobs had to know that when he ok’d this thing so I don’t think he’s overly concerned with having the Air be a huge seller. I think your coffee house/travellers would tend to be those who would more likely settle for the Dell M1330 than the MBA. The MBA does have one thing going for it; it’s the only game in town if you want a ultraportable Mac so it’ll rack up buyers from that alone.
February 20th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Yeah, I don’t think anyone thinks it’s going to be a gigantic seller. Hopefully, though, it’ll start opening the ultraportable segment here. I mean, the typical ultraportable is less good and more expensive. But I disagree with coffee house and travellers, when I see people with laptops around town and at the airport, more and more they’re Apple laptops.