Monthly Archives: March 2015

The Apple Watch

March 11, 2015iPhoneThomas Pindelski

Ooops!

Google famously continues to waste its shareholders’ funds on quixotic efforts like YouTube and Google Glass. The last takes some beating. Maybe its key supporter, Mr. Brin, spent too much time in Russia as a youth, but a moment’s thought might have convinced him that the Average Joe did not want to walk around with a camera stuck to his glasses, looking like nothing so much as Homo sapiens cyborg. At least not in the free West. The wearer of Glass made the paparazzo with his 1,000mm spy lens look a positive model of integrity by comparison.

And speaking of homo, Apple has decided to mirror Google’s failure with one of its own, the Apple Watch.

The $10,000 version.

While none other than Tim Cook has pointed out the failures of Glass, he has failed to realize that like accusations are equally valid when it comes to the Apple Watch (no, I will not drop the preposition – the Queen’s English is spoken here). The very idea of speaking into your wrist suggests the speaker is connected with some nefarious organization, be it CIA, FBI, NSA, Secret Service or private dick. All that’s missing is one of those silly coiled cords from ear to shirt collar to complete the picture.

But, OK, you say, I’m not going to talk into my watch. I want fast access to things on my iPhone. Well, let me assure you, access will not be fast. There is no pinch-to-zoom function on the watch so you resort to the crown and buttons. The screen is tiny, and navigation will be slow. And the functionality Apple displayed at its recent hypefest? Why hailing Uber cabs and tracking your heart beat. These are things only nerds do, and the Apple Watch reminds me of nothing so much as this:

Nerd Special – the Casio Calculator watch.

Apple has managed to upgrade the Nerd Special to the touch screen age. I mean, have you ever seen a person using one of those Casios? Trust me, it’s not pretty.

But there are tons of other reasons the Apple Watch will fail. This is not the iPod (“A thousand tunes in your pocket” – Jobs’s genius at its best) or the iPhone (“An iPod, a Phone and an Internet Commmunicator” in the great man’s words). Simply stated, it’s a solution looking for a problem. Let me list the reasons it will fail:

A minimum of $350 for a gadget which will be obsolete one year hence.
You want Mickey Mouse you can get a Timex for $20, every bit as accurate (What was Cook thinking of boasting of the watch’s accuracy? Doesn’t everyone – other than a Patek Philippe owner – assume that to be the case for the last half century?)
You already carry your iPhone with you at all times. Is it that much harder to remove it from your pocket than to glance at your wrist, only to have to futz with small buttons and a knob?
You want to talk into your Apple Watch and look like a jerk, or do you want to talk into your iPhone and pass unnoticed?
One more gadget to recharge daily with minimal value added. No way on earth that this thing will run 10 hours with any serious use. On the road? Oops, too bad you left the charger at home.
Needs lots of iPhone programming to make operation as simple as in the hypefest.
Remote garage door opening because the little one has lost her key and you are in Namibia at the time? Fughedaboutit. Your home will be hacked and burglarized by your local Russkie before you know it and Namibian wifi will be down in any case. No need for an Apple Watch to help with that.
Oh, but it’s such a great fashion accessory! Rot. It’s thick and ugly. Get a Patek if you are into fashion, or a Rolex if you want to emulate Apple’s poor taste in watches. (“Rolex. The watch for fat people” has a certain ring to it).
The $10,000 option in Real Gold? So now a company which has famously eschewed elitism – an iPhone is an iPhone is an iPhone – has decided to sell the same innards for $9,650 more than you paid? Eh? Come again?
Cheap or gold version, it’s so gauche.
An on and on.

One sign of Apple’s desperation was the inclusion of a famous model – Christy Turlington – in this week’s roll out. (“See, even a woman can use it”). Putting aside how much she was paid to hug Cook not once but twice, it remains unclear what her use of the watch in her recent half marathon in some African hell hole actually did for her. This was not disclosed. She did look great, though.

Apple is a one product company if your focus is the bottom line – it’s called the iPhone. The concentration of profit from this one device has gone up steeply under Cook’s leadership and while I have no issue with them milking it for all it’s worth, sooner or later they will stub their toe and come out with a stinker. Or some Chinese fellow will make something as good for 90% less. The Apple Watch is not the diversification savior they are searching for and Cook is a stranger to innovation.

The Apple Watch will sell a few million to more breathless hype from Apple (“Our biggest new product launch ever. Even Putin the Impaler has one!”) but once every nerd has one sales will cease and the product will be quietly removed from the product line.

Want a watch? Get something to aspire to that makes you feel good every time you check the time. And that’s all you can or should check on your wrist. OK, that and the date.

Neither ugly or nerdy.
So what if it’s off a minute or two?

Climbers

March 10, 2015PhotographsThomas Pindelski

Certifiable.

Our Yosemite tour guide assured us that some of the ledges are as wide as a bus and a climb can take 2-7 days. Just don’t roll over in your sleep ….

Panny GX7, 45-200 Panny zoom at 200mm. Snapped by my son because I could not make them out!

The Ahwahnee

March 9, 2015PhotographsThomas Pindelski

Magnificent.

The United States can lay claim to some of the finest interior spaces in the world – Grand Central Station in New York, many old line Wall Street houses, Hearst Castle in California. The Ahwahnee Hotel in the heart of Yosemite National Park ranks right up there.

On a recent trip to Yosemite, a four hour drive from home, my son and I stayed at the Ahwahnee and I could not but help wonder at the magnificence of the interior common spaces of this magical place. Completed in 1927, it is a masterpiece, integrating commerce with the world’s greatest landscape setting.

No, I am not about to publish images of Yosemite itself, as futile an experiment as I can conceive of. All that has been said about this place has been said a few billion times, and you can revel in the work of modern masters or, if you like ‘HDR garish’ with the color removed, Ansel Adams is your man. But the Ahwahnee bears dwelling on.

These were snapped during tea time on my son’s Panasonic LX100, mostly underexposed a stop or two to control the highlights (a process made surpassingly easy by the over/under exposure thumbwheel whose effect is instantly visible in the EVF), with shadows restored in LR5 using that wonderful ‘Shadows’ slider, with a touch of Luminance noise reduction added where appropriate. I find the LX100 exhibits quite a bit more luminance noise than the GX7 and typically dial in correction of 35 in LR5.

The LX100 with its wide and fast 24-75mm lens excels at this sort of thing and all were hand held at ISO400. Trust me – these will print as large as you will ever want. The one iPhone 6 image is identified below.

The Great Lounge. A magnificent space.

Looking toward the solarium.

The Great Lounge.

My son Winston in the solarium, behind the Great Lounge.

The period photographs on the walls add immeasurably to the spirit of place.
You are immediately transported back to a time before tattoos and boorish behavior.

Behind the Great Lounge.

The technique to secure the very wide dynamic range is described above.

The main lobby is spacious and American Indian motifs abound, as they do throughout the hotel.

The setting is one-of-a-kind.

The granite stone walls are built on a steel I-beam frame.

A little imagination transports you back 90 years to proper attire and slimmer waistlines.

Some eschew the afternoon tea for Chopin, emanating from one of the two Steinway grands.

A place for contemplation. At 70mm and f/2.8 the LX100’s lens renders pleasing OOF backgrounds.

A place to enjoy.

In the spirit of the surroundings. The walls are textured, stained concrete, imitating redwood.

The 24 feet tall windows in the dining room are a stroke of genius.

The 34′ high cathedral ceiling in the dining room is breathtaking. Dress code is still enforced for dinner. iPhone 6.

In the Mural Room.

OK, just one shot of Yosemite proper. Taken by my son Winston:

Waterfall, granite and jet.

Book for the winter or early spring. The place is hopelessly crowded at other times of the year.

The Ahwahnee is extraordinarily expensive, the room service is some of the best I have enjoyed and I wish it was twice as costly to keep couples with 2 year-olds away.