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08/04/09
I wonder how bad it is to hold a Blackberry shaped camcorder to make those movies.
But well, since it has a tripod mount, we could probably make some DIY magic with a bike grip or something...
04/27/09
But I agree that a scattershot pattern of function-stuffing can end up with a product that aims to be a Jack of all Trades, yet is lackluster at any single task. A good example are the extremely cheap iPod knockoffs you see on ebay. They claim to support more formats and have more functions built-in, but that hasn't stopped them from being some of the poorest pieces of shit ever.
04/27/09
When companies were all packing cameras into their phones, RIM kept a few models without a camera. Companies and government agencies with security concerns gravitated to those models.
I don't want a dSLR with video recording capabilities. I want a dSLR that focuses on still photography. If I want to shoot vid, I'll use a videocamera that is designed to shoot video.
04/27/09
04/27/09
04/27/09
I have a phone that plays music. I also have a music player. I use the phone to make calls and the music player to play music.
04/27/09
04/27/09
Additionally, there are other examples like the iPod shuffle (modeled on the phenomenon where people put their iPod on shuffle mode to rediscover old music that they had), bare-bones cellphones aimed at either parents (phones that will only call a set number of people) or older users (fewer features and a large keypad), or text-only plans for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
04/27/09
also, other companies will do it for many reasons. video card companies come to mind first. hardwarde essentially the same, but drivers slightly different. a tweak and a mod and you have one card performing just as well as it's twice as costly big bro.
04/27/09
04/27/09
04/27/09
04/27/09
04/27/09
04/27/09
04/27/09
tv's? i'd say we've already hit that stage, with all the cheap generic brand tv's like vizio selling like hotcakes. people don't care about build quality or contrast ratios, they just want the HD's
how about cars? things like the tata nano might be a big hit if they ever made it over to the united states (and could make people feel safe about them)
04/27/09
04/27/09
But, I do agree on the cellphone thing. More people want smartphones that can do more than just answer calls.
04/27/09
04/27/09
The appeal of the iPhone is that it is a laptop replacement. It does what 90% of casual people would want to do with a laptop on the go. And the app store fills in a lot of the gaps that the core functionality lacks. As a reason to not buy a laptop, an iPhone is "good enough" for mobile connectivity.
04/27/09
04/27/09
04/27/09
ipods are "good enough" mp3 players with a shiny package.
04/27/09
04/28/09
I'd have to agree there. Digital music players were meant to replace the portable cassette and CD players, both of which were extremely simple to operate. It's ideally supposed to be about listening to music, not screwing around with the interface. You want something different, go buy something different, and stop whinging about all the people who don't. And if it's got everything you want, there you go.