longbow

I actually agree with you. I used the term fear in more of we've completely screwed up with people's perception of us sort of sense than a fear that we'll go bust next year. It'll be interesting just how quickly they do sort a 'just-enough' machine out.

I have the rx100v and love it. But as Hanriverprod suggests on its own it doesn't feel very durable in tough conditions. If you're dealing with water / humidity / mud etc perhaps consider some sort of housing? The sony rx100 in a housing still won't be massive. Ikelite have launched some cut down cheaper housings (called action housings I think) which might be what you need? Link here. These sort of things do often have a limit on what controls you can use though.

Interesting article on Macrumors - link... Also: Hmmm... Despite those fabulousIy amazing MacBookPro sales we were being lectured recently about by Schiller do I smell a hint of fear?

Sure, fair comment - I'm not trying to say its a bad machine but it's also a balance of usability / cost. When I specc'ed one up (16gb ram, 1tb drive, slightly better processor and video) I think I was looking at something a bit north of £3,000.

This is really welcome as I've been using Apple computers for work since 1989 and for the first time since a rough patch in the early 90s I've been seriously beginning to wonder about moving away from them. During that time I shudder to think how machines I've bought. There's been some real lemons (an Apple IIvx was probably one of my worst ever computer purchases) but also more than enough wonderful machines that paid for themselves many times over. However, its becoming obvious though that under Tim Cook that they've become a relatively risk averse mobile phone company to whom computers have become something of a distraction. The computers they do now make are targeted at either families (the iMac) or Apple execs (the new MacbookPro) who value light weight, battery life and never need to transfer anything much bigger than a financial report or a keynote presentation. The old joke that if all you have is a hammer then every problem resembles a nail couldn't be more appropriate to Johnny Ive's recent creations, his hammer is an odd obsession with looks, thickness and weight at the expense of the old it just works out of the box philosophy. (My current waste bin MacPro (6,1) doesn't just work without a really annoying mess of expensive external hard drives, dongles and third party cables. Its basically a souped up Mac Mini or a laptop without a keyboard or monitor) From my point of view the most worrying thing as a result of this change in attitude in the past few years is they've quietly dropped pretty much their entire professional line up and features. The Mac Pro as a modular machine, the 17" pro laptop, the Mac mini, X Servers, the 30" monitor, matt screens on iMacs and laptops etc etc have all gone. Software is being dumbed down for iOS - Aperture has gone and iPhoto is now the the iOS photo app. Keynote is a shadow of its former self. Even my spell checker on my Macs now seems to assume I'm on an iOS device and I'm never looking down at a keyboard and 'helpfully' inserts word changes without me realising. Agh! I thought they might turn things around with the new MacBook Pro and I was awaiting it with some trepidation as if it was a compelling graphics machine I'd have probably gone and splurged on it (that would have really dented my cashflow!). I needn't have worried though... What we got was a machine aimed at an exec to wave around on a flight or in boardroom or perhaps a senior software person. (Apple designing for themselves perhaps? Interestingly when I was chatting about it to an Apple bod in one of their shops he quietly confided that he was waiting for it too but had changed his mind and bought one of the previous models they still had in stock on the day of its release. (The previous models sold out pretty quickly after that!) I think the response to the MacBook pro has panicked them and suspect they've rushed out a speed bump to the MacPro ("Look, look we're doing something!) and have promised that professional iMacs(!) are imminent. But most telling is that they've pre-announced a new modular Mac Pro at least year in advance! Yes, pre-announced it! When has that ever happened before? (That'll kill even the new speed bumped MacPro stone dead!) That to me is a touch of panic.

I think its really hard to 'un-learn' such long standing lessons. Its almost as if experience can be a handicap these days. I suspect the problem with Canon is culture and Sony is able to make that up as they go along as they're a new entrant. I also suspect that Sony doesn't have lots of 'wise heads' cautioning against the cardinal sin of competing with themselves. (Would anyone else be comfortable at having 4 versions of their flagship compact on sale at all at once - even I'm a bit confused by that?) But in this age of near perfect customer information offering such an a la carte approach (rather than structered a set menu) its a really interesting idea that seems now to work.

Canon's attitude can be mystifying to people like myself, however, I do wonder if Canon's years of accumulated wisdom are holding them back. One thing that that often isn't mentioned is the trauma that film point and shoots put the industry through in the early 90's. A little anecdote below might be relevant to where this seemingly odd attitude has come from. My brother got a sales job at just this time with a big Japanese DSLR manufacturer (I won't say who but it wasn't Canon) just as all the companies were introducing point and shoots. Development was frenetic and for the customer very exciting. These smaller and much cheaper cameras proved to be massive hit - anyone could now get decent shots for a fraction of the cost of what was often a manual SLR. The problem though was that people just stopped buying SLRs - almost overnight! It got so bad that his company at times would only allow allow trade customers to order a point and shoot if they also bought an SLR body for stock. The thing was that this disruption wasn't caused by a sudden new entrant but that they out competed themselves. They wiped out their own market and Canon did the same thing as his company. It was a massive corporate trauma that they saw as self inflicted. Slow, steady non disruptive progression and clear product differentiation through pricing would appear to be the answer to such a lesson. (Which is fine until a new entrant / upstart like Sony comes along!)