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Did Steve Jobs work at Leica?


57guy

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Just finished the new book on Steve Jobs. He must have had some input to Leica managers.

My X1 looks and feels like he designed it. Simple, quality and beautiful.

 

But unlike Leica, he released an improvement every 6 Months to a year.

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dont you think it is more like Steve Jobs wanted that his products are like Leica Cameras? Makes more sense because Leica is a bit older then Apple. I own the Iphone4 and Steve Jobs said a year ago that the IP4 is like an old Leica camera.

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My iPhone4 and iPhone4s doesn't remind me of a Leica camera, like the M4's I had or the X1 I have now. Those cameras remind me of something with a lot of hand-work and attention to quality. The iPhones remind me of items produced by highly automated processes - very slick and perfect, high quality, but no suggestion of hand workmanship or a really "special" quality as compared to the best competitors. But I'll give Steve one big plus vote - he made a lot of enemies with his hard line on quality and perfection (more or less). But he also made Apple #1. I do however have one electronic product at home that I can relate to my Leica X1 in terms of quality and hand-made workmanship: My Grado PS-500 stereo headphone, hand made in Brooklyn USA.

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If he did, he worked in the pricing department. Every Mac is at least three times more

expensive than an equivalent PC. Sound familiar?

 

May be true with lower end models. But, for maxed out laptops, for example, the price gap narrows dramatically. And, of course, let's not forget that Macs tend to work while ...

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Don't know anything about building a Camera, but seems to me that it makes marketing sense to update your product at least every year. After buying my X1 two years ago, my money (Leica camera money) has been setting in my pocket. If they came out with a new updated X1, they would get $2-4 thousand more dollars of my money.

I don't buy the statement "we are selling everything we can make now"

In todays environment and technology, you can always build more if there is a market.

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Just finished the new book on Steve Jobs. He must have had some input to Leica managers.

My X1 looks and feels like he designed it. Simple, quality and beautiful.

 

If you read the book, like myself, you would see the name Jony Ive pop-up. He is the Chief of Product Development and it seems invented/developed many of the products Jobs takes credit for, even to the point of instilling his own patents on the devices. Simplicity and elegance.

 

He is one of the few that only answered to Jobs himself.

 

Ive shoots with a Leica M9.

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Don't know anything about building a Camera, but seems to me that it makes marketing sense to update your product at least every year. After buying my X1 two years ago, my money (Leica camera money) has been setting in my pocket. If they came out with a new updated X1, they would get $2-4 thousand more dollars of my money.

I don't buy the statement "we are selling everything we can make now"

In todays environment and technology, you can always build more if there is a market.

 

Time to break out the fire-proof suit.

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Just finished the new book on Steve Jobs. He must have had some input to Leica managers.

My X1 looks and feels like he designed it. Simple, quality and beautiful.

 

But unlike Leica, he released an improvement every 6 Months to a year.

 

No way! Apples are culty mass market products. Leicas are hardly mass market. I have several Leica products, but would never buy Apple goods. Different world! Leicas a

re for those who like individuality and quality. Apples are for those who like to be trendy mass market followers. John

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Apples are for those who like to be trendy mass market followers.

Seems you have missed a lot of Apple history. "I was a Mac user when Apple was doomed."

 

(While on the whole, Apple users are still a small minority amongst computer users, the Apple Macintosh is extremely popular with photographers.)

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Apple products become obsolete in a two years

 

If you mean by that that you can't buy the same product after two years: there are no other manufacturers of computers, mobile phones, music players or indeed any consumer electronics with product cycles which are markedly longer.

 

If, on the other hand, you mean that the products can be used for two years only: that's clearly not the case. Both my wife and I used several products by Apple for at least five years, each.

 

and are made by cheap labor in a highly polluted country, China.

 

It's neither fair nor useful to single out Apple. All major computer manufacturer outsource their production to China; none can really guarantee that production standards are even remotely comparable to those enforced in their home countries. That's why they outsource production.

 

We all know where Leicas are made.

 

No, I, for one, do not know where Leicas and their many parts are made.

 

Apple products fit well into this new disposable world we live in.

 

As I said before, our household uses (some) Apple products and uses them for quite some time. The "disposability" issue does not lie with Apple. it lies with the consumers who insist on always using the latest and shiniest.

 

I see no marked difference beween Apple users and Leica users. They also buy new Leica models as soon as they become available, if not before.

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If, on the other hand, you mean that the products can be used for two years only: that's clearly not the case. Both my wife and I used several products by Apple for at least five years, each.

 

True and good for you. However, some of us who have, for example, somewhat earlier Mac Pro (towers) found that it was not Apple but Adobe who obsoleted our computers because to take full advantage of their new features we needed a graphics board which was not supported by Apple. You can imagine the fight between Adobe and Apple.

 

What is worse, when you research the issue Apple says that the new graphics card "will work" but upon deeper research you find it will still not support the Adobe features. IOW, it is a waste of money.

 

So it's not all about Apple, but the software vendors - the two push and pull. We are the losers.

.

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If you read the book, like myself, you would see the name Jony Ive pop-up. He is the Chief of Product Development and it seems invented/developed many of the products Jobs takes credit for, even to the point of instilling his own patents on the devices. Simplicity and elegance.

 

He is one of the few that only answered to Jobs himself.

 

Ive shoots with a Leica M9.

 

Do you know that for a fact? If so, so interesting, and this thread addresses something that's been on my mind. Yes, just finished Walter Isaacson's book, and I could not help thinking throughout that if you are a Leicaphile, you feel at home with Apple products, and vice versa. DSLRs with multiple menus are to the M9 as Windows is to OS X.

 

But that news about Ives is fascinating.

 

Do you remember when the iPhone 4 was released, Jobs made reference to its classic design, "like a Leica " !

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So it's not all about Apple, but the software vendors - the two push and pull. We are the losers.

.

 

True. However, I haven't made up my mind as to whether to find this good or bad.

 

Ever since computers have become small, light and inexpensive enough for use in households there have been makers of software who built their products for the leading edge of the hardware market while others built for the peak or even the tail.

 

Adobe and indeed almost any PP software aimed for obvious reasons towards the leading edge. Hence, you just had to factor in the costs for both the hardware and the software if you wanted to use the latest software models.

 

The same used to apply for some programming languages such as Smalltalk or - more importantly - Java. This had a rather severe impact on the users of all applications which used such languages.

 

Ditto for web sites burdening their pages with slowly executing scripts.

 

And on and on.

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Apple products become obsolete in two years

In my experience, Apple computers have a useful lifespan of four or five years. For most of this time they will be ‘obsolete’ insofar as in the Apple Store they will have been succeeded by newer, faster, and generally more capable models. If that is somehow bothering you then computers, whether Apple’s or anyone else’s, are clearly not for you.

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Perhaps it is not so unlikely that Steve Jobs actually had a secret extra job in Leica.

Perhaps it was he who actually decided that Leica should cease the R10 camera and discontinue the entire R line?

 

Currently there are quite hefty rumors on various threads in other forums that Apple is going to discontinue the entire production of the Mac Pro computer.

If the rumors are true, the decision on this most likely has been taken by Steve Jobs himself before he died?

 

If this proves to be true, it is a disaster.

 

Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line? - MacRumors Forums

The End of Apple's Professional Presence Is Here - MacRumors Forums

Want to save the Mac Pro? Send Apple your feedback! - MacRumors Forums

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I still have and use a 1st Gen MacBook that is 6 or 7 years old. No it cannot run lion (it is a core duo not a core 2 duo) but I can remote into my new macmini from it. It is perfect for quicken email and usenet downloads.

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No way! Apples are culty mass market products. Leicas are hardly mass market. I have several Leica products, but would never buy Apple goods. Different world! Leicas a

re for those who like individuality and quality. Apples are for those who like to be trendy mass market followers. John

 

The mass market uses PCs running Windows. Macs are the choice of most creative people I know. Solid, stable, elegant OS and well made.

 

Edmond

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