[apologies to those tired of computer/Apple analogies. My last one - I promise!]
Some good points here, yet I still see some similarities.
Originally posted by rparmar Apple sold mostly to niche markets where they developed a lock. This too is not necessarily based on merit, but rather the common tipping point phenomenon about who gets there first. Apple had several innovations before other systems (notably the native graphical interface) that got them a lock in, say, the education market. Then people bought Apple for compatibility with previous products, long after it made far more sense to change.
Sounds familiar to where Pentax is now - a niche market based on real and perceived differentiators (in body IS, smaller than Canikon, weather-sealing, etc...) and lock-in (K-mount).
Originally posted by rparmar Later on, sales were based on style and exploitation of the "me-too" false exclusivity. That is indeed the model Pentax seems to be taking recently. And it's just as brain-dead.
I remember plenty of people loving the colored iMacs because they weren't intimidating, because they weren't designed for the "nerds" that were proud of the arcane knowledge needed to master a computer at the time (drivers and BIOSes and cryptic keypresses that would bring users to screens like this:
Or if you worked in an office...
The brilliance of Apple was in realizing that there was a large group of people that didn't want to become computer experts but did want to get stuff done with them.
Originally posted by rparmar I have nothing against Apple trying different things and pushing the envelope. I have quite liked some of their functional designs. For instance, I much prefer the look of the Quadra to any of the other systems you illustrate, which all look like toys for the crib. (No, not the gang hang-out, but the place where babies crawl.) Apart from aesthetics, the design of a machine where the monitor is separate, parts are user-serviceable, redundancy is reduced, etc. is demonstrably superior to the alternatives.
But you sound like an "insider", someone with extensive computer experience (an Amiga? Awesome!) and not afraid of dealing with the intricacies of them to get something done. You are not the target market. And even more critical - you are in the minority. When you look back to the original success of the original Mac, it's design said in so many different ways that this wasn't just another computer:
If anything, with each successive generation, Apple drifted away from the original premise of "unintimidating yet powerful" and back towards "computer-as-complex-sophisticated-tool-requiring-expert-knowledge". The colored iMacs brought them back to that friendly simplicity, with the color as the major visual cue that they were doing things differently.
To bring this back to cameras, there are plenty of people that want to take nice pictures - maybe for a mixed-media art project or for a craft piece or just nice shots of their family and vacations - but have no interest in becoming camera experts. This, in fact, intimidates them:
And so does this:
As photographers, we look at those pictures and think, "yumm, external controls of all the different settings and variables". The rest of the world thinks, "Oh my! I'm never going to learn what all of those buttons do!"
What's so wrong about trying to make it a bit easier or at least more approachable?
It's hard to say yet whether the K-01 will succeed, but I'm pretty sure that Pentax was targeting a group very different than the people on this forum.
I know so many people that feel that they've outgrown a P&S but are intimidated by dSLRs. They want better pictures but don't aspire to be photographers. One friend, a dancer, bought a K-7 against my advice. Two+ years on and she's still more or less a novice. Another, a banker, took my advice and bought the K-x. He's taken a class and his skills are improving, but even the K-x is still an arcane device to him. Another, a nurse, bought a D7000 a year ago. Carries it like a trophy, but too busy snowboarding and surfing to really learn the thing. Had they all asked me today what camera to get, I'd undoubtedly tell them to look at the K-01.
Originally posted by rparmar For the record, the model of a computer as a shiny glowing neon toy is dead in the water, a passing fad of those needing a fix of conspicuous consumption. The real trend is the growing invisibility of computers. You could say the same about cameras perhaps, though how it will all pan out is anyone's guess.
Good point. For most, the camera has been subsumed by the cell phone and the desktop is being replaced by the laptop, the tablet, and the smartphone. But even there people are adding their own backgrounds and silly apps and ring tones. At the end of the day, what's so bad about being less than perfectly rational? What's so wrong about adding some personality to our digital lives? Does it need to be dismissively labeled as "conspicuous consumption"? Can't it also be called "having a little fun"?