Thoughts
I watched the Apple iPhone event this afternoon and found all the emphasis on the cameras to be over the top. I know that Google has received praise for the cameras in the Pixels so I get that Apple wanted to proclaim loudly they have the best camera. I am not a camera nerd, all I want is the camera on my phone to take decent pictures, which it does. I don’t care about all the whizzywigs, and I wouldn’t buy a smartphone because it has the best camera. It feels like Apple is still playing the features game to convince people to throw down $1k on their phones, case in point, the portion of the event that got into the details of the A13 processor.
When I look at this comparison of phones, I am drawn to the Pixel 3A XL because it has enough features for the lowest price.
I wonder if I am the only person who thinks Apple should do the same thing they did with the iPod and make the Apple Watch work standalone or with Windows? The tie to iPhone constrains sales, in my opinion. The iPod didn’t really take off until it started working with Windows, and if Apple really wants to sell watches, they need treat it like a standalone product.
Journalism Yes, Media No
I have been reading Dave Winer’s writing for a long time, and a common theme of his writing is journalism. My translation of what he has been saying is that news has become a platform, and as such anyone can do it, and those who are employed as journalists need to shift from being gatekeepers to being participants. True platforms route around gatekeepers.
The reason why this message is not well received by journalists is obvious, it’s because what they hear is that you no longer have a job. Staying employed is important to these people and you cannot blame them because it is how they support their families.
When the constitution was written people like Benjamin Franklin viewed journalism as a vocation because frankly the idea of a “job” didn’t really exist. When vocations became professions, a shift in priorities took place, with maintaining employment moving to the top. When journalism transformed to media thanks to corporate consolidation, the move to journalism being about money became complete.
The honest question that has been avoided ever since is, is what we have, journalism as media to make profits, consistent with the “fourth estate” established by the First Amendment? If the prime objective of the Consitution, of which the First Amendment is a part, is to be the United in the United States of America, then today’s media is not that which the first amendment refers to because there is more profits generated from disunity than unity.
Citizens instinctively know that the profits that corporate ownership demands is corupting, and therefore they do not trust media because they know there is a bias towards making money over telling truth.
Of course Fox News is giving their viewers what they want to hear, that is how they make money! Of course MSNBC is giving their viewers what they want to hear, that is how they make money! Of course the New York Times is giving their readers what they want to red, that is how they make money!
On and on it goes. It is another example of how hyper capitalism is destroying republican democracy and thus destroying our country.