Off topic warning!
> >>> >> >> Exactly why would anyone expect Apple to still support seven-year-old >> machines? > > To most people, the web is a utility. Until the digital switch two years > ago, a TV that was 50 years old would still receive contemporary shows fine > (modulo color, of course, but the image and audio were still perfectly > legible), and even the digital switch required only a $20 add-on > "accelerator" to keep the old set serving well. I have 50-year-old dial > telephones that continue to serve me fine every day, and a 50-plus-year-old > radio that still receives radio broadcasts. Heck, email clients that work > the same way they worked 20 years ago still process email just fine. > > The difference is, the web is being treated as something that exists to > benefit the ego of the information provider, instead of the convenience of > the consumer. Off topic warning! The difference is amount of complexity and it in turn comes from information handling. You choosed an example very well suited to enlight this. The relative complex internet conected computer is so complex compared to the TV that it acctually incorporates it as a small but very important part of it's design. A part that isn't considered nearly as complex as the parts handling the digital information. A hint, compare the number of transistors in a computer to the number of components of all sorts together in a TV. The attitude towards what goes on web sites and not is reflecting this complexity. We are intuitively accepting more faults were things are more complex and also when it is new unproven ground. It is actually rational to accept more faults were the underlying stuff is complex and here it is a show case for the amazing stuff we can do today. You can take the evolution of life as a good comparison. It was not until the processing of information got a more important roll things escalated and put as on a good lead over the rest. And we got here relatively fast and we would have to learn a lot from scratch if we were beamed just 1000 years back in time. We are not compatibel with the life from the past one could say. // John Stalberg_______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
