
The iMac and the Floppy Drive: A Conspiracy Theory (1998) - renaudg
http://www.osnews.com/story/18/The_iMac_and_the_Floppy_Drive_A_Conspiracy_Theory
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dexwiz
The big difference between the Floppy and the USB/3.5mm/whatever is that the
Floppy Drive was a device and these are ports. People might have been excited
about new peripherals that fill the vacuum created by removing the floppy. But
no one gets excited about having to buy a new dongle.

Going from wired to wireless is bigger than depreciation, because wires have
physical functions beyond transferring data (keeping earbuds together).

The thinner-Thinner-THINNER mantra sounds very much like applied to cellphones
in the pre-smartphone era. Which movie will make fun it in a Zoolander-esque
way? When will we snap back and realize usability trumps style in the end.

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renaudg
Critics were NOT excited about the loss of the Floppy.

Infamous 1998 Boston Globe review : “The iMac will only sell to some of the
true believers. The iMac doesn’t include a floppy disk drive for doing file
backups or sharing of data. It’s an astonishing lapse from Jobs, who should
have learned better… the iMac is clean, elegant, floppy-free–and doomed.”

