Ars Technica (I love these guys) has a piece pondering the future of the Apple Mac mini.
I have one of the first generation G4 models given to me by a frustrated friend. It has never been a stable platform, and it seems to stem from inherent heat issues. I’ve not played with one of the newer Intel based Mac mini’s, so it’s entirely possible they have stablized and fixed the heat issue.
I have spent many hours working on documents and emails on my Mac Air, and have to learned to love the multi-touch trackpad and gestures. I am nearly as comfortable with my Air’s trackpad as I am with a traditional mouse and keyboard setup. This is a first for me, as I have always preferred my wired (battery life still sucks under moderate-heavy use for wireless keyboard/mouse combinations) traditional setup, however the Air’s flawless trackpad is winning me over.
All of which begs the question…when will an Apple-quality glass touchpad (USB or Bluetooth) for my desktop keyboard be available? I would snatch one up immediately and retire my laser mouse. Let’s get on this Apple, or Kensington, or Belkin or whomever. Not a cheap piece of plastic with limited resolution, but the full glass multi-touch trackpad, comparable to the new Mac Book Pro’s and Mac Air’s.
The first few days…
So far, so good. I was one of the early (stupid?) adopters of the 2.0 software release last Thursday (7/10/2008) and was the victim of a rebooting/freezing/freak of a phone. As Friday rolled around, and it was announced that the leaked version was 3G iPhone ONLY…well.. Guess it was a sign to invest a bit more time in the actual firmware upgrade. Shame on me for being impatient… I should know better…
Fast forward to Saturday, when I went through the fairly arduous procedure of resetting my phone, downloading the new software, reinstalling it… all while crossing my fingers, dancing around my chair 3 times and chanting a ceremonial chant. Everything seems to be kosher now, and after completing the AppleTV upgrade to 2.1, the new Apple Remote.app is working great!
Battery life seems to be a touch better. My phone is about 4 months old, and to gain battery life at this point of it’s life cycle is a nice benefit. The phone seems to navigate a bit faster, also. But, there are two shining stars of the 2.0 upgrade.
One is the long overdue update from .MAC to MobileMe.
After updating both my Mac Pro and Air with the MobileMe/iTunes/Quicktime update, everything seemed to sync more reliability. I haven’t noticed much of a speed bump, but having my iCal/Address Book and Safari bookmarks automagically push out to my iPhone over the air vs. USB docking/syncing is a VERY nice upgrade.
However, the biggest shining star is Apps! Apps! Apps! Some of the most useful applications in the iTunes - iPhone Apps gallery are completely free. I have had a few hiccups, such as when an iPhone .app simply returns to the Home screen randomly. In most cases, data is not lost and the app is smart enough to return me to where I was upon relaunch.
Overall, I believe the update is worth the hassle, that should be far less of a problem for those who wait on the official process to propagate throughout their setups. I am forgoing the upgrade to a 3G phone at this point, except perhaps a premature, catastrophic end to my current iPhone, as the new features haven’t been compelling enough to separate more money from my wallet…yet. As the GPS/Social networking apps gain more momentum, the more precise GPS may prove useful. However, until they implement copy/paste, or some other new functionality (3rd generation?), I will be skipping the 3G/2nd Generation iPhone. Pick a cheap 1st Gen up on eBay…better deal!
There are alot of articles floating around regarding the new Apple iPhone to be released on July 11, 2008. Here are a few of my favorites:
Looks like Apple is doing just fine, thank you very much. The old days of 4-6% market saturation are long gone.
Yet another final nail has been driven into the HD-DVD casket and frankly, I could care less. BluRay is emerging as the clear winner in this pointless format war reminiscent of the old VHS vs. Betamax wars. Just in time for well-done electronic distribution to kick the snot out of it. Well done, Sony!
From the article:
The nation’s largest retailer said Friday it has decided to sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware in its 4,000 U.S. stores and no longer carry rival HD DVD offerings.
The announcement comes five days after Netflix Inc. said it will stop carrying rentals in Toshiba Corp.’s HD DVD format and instead go exclusively with the rival Sony Corp. technology favored by five major movie studios.
In Mac related gaming news, the fine folks over at MacLife have sit down with Spore creator, Will Wright. I am looking forward to this release and hope it won’t suck the hours away from my life like some other games.
It looks like there is finally some open source competition to Parallels Desktop and VMWare’s Fusion…innotek GHmB’s VirtualBox has arrived. Considerably smaller in footprint and with a end-user price point that will make the others scramble, VirtualBox provides a low cost alternative to running Windows/Linux virtual machines on your Mac. Ars Technica (Love those guys!) has a good article with some of the current limitations and features detailed.
From the article:
VirtualBox is an excellent alternative the two more well-known options, and for personal use comes in at an unbeatable price: free. With Sun’s Tuesday announcement that they have acquired innotek, the company could suddenly become a force in the Mac VM market.
Since I maintain a Windows XP laptop next to my Mac Pro, I haven’t found a whole lot of use for visualization of this type. However, if you are trying to win a corporate platform battle, this may be one more feather in your cap to prove there is not much downside to running Mac’s…even in the Enterprise.
The folks over at iLounge have done a preliminary comparison between Apple TV, Blu-Ray and Cable HD picture quality. I’m surprised the Apple TV fared so well and can’t wait to try it out for myself. The update finally came through last night and so far I like what I see.
From the article:
If you’re using a TV without the ability to display 1080p video—especially if you don’t have a receiver capable of decoding the Blu-Ray Disc’s DTS-HD signal—an Apple TV rental will be an almost complete substitute for renting the Blu-Ray.
Sometimes the smallest things end up being the biggest deal.
Steve Jobs of Apple dropped a small bomb at the end of his keynote this week, and it has become perhaps the biggest story of the week. If you were one of the loyal (yet perhaps a bit naive) Apple early adopters, you might be a bit pissed to learn that the 8Gb iPhone has dropped it’s price $200 barely 2 months after it’s much-hyped release. Happy 2-month Anniversary!
I, Cringley weighs in with a rather optimistic view on why this occurred, but I tend to agree with the NY Time’s view…the iPhone isn’t selling like they thought it would. Don’t misunderstand what I am saying, I am a COMPLETE believer in the iPhone’s leap in technology and the revolution it presents to the woefully behind U.S. Cellular companies. Wake up Guys! However, Apple is attempting to do what even the federal government has failed to do; change the beast that is AT&T. I wish them all the luck in the world. Shift happens, however slowly.
The big winner in this weeks keynote was Starbucks, who has just vaulted to the front of the class of promising 21st century music store concepts. This may really take off in dense urban areas. Generating revenue by selling products with no inventory and/or supply chain costs, and suddenly you give Starbucks a chance to recover the (surely) massive losses incurred by the terrible Pay as you go WiFi access they have been trying to sell for years.
Along with the iPhone price drops, there were new iPod Nanos, iPod Shuffles and the iPod Touch. However, the Apple Hi-Fi was not as lucky.
Wouldn’t it be cool to see a new Wi-Fi enabled Hi-Fi (A Wi-Hi-Fi?) that works within the iTunes framework, maybe with remote control abilities via Apple TV and iTunes! It could integrate into your home Wi-Fi network. Now you’re talking! While the Airport Express with AirTunes (Remember those products, Apple?!?) gather dust on store shelves, perhaps a combined update would be nice medicine for iPod sales come Christmas time. I’m sure Steve will fix this once he reads this article. 
Cool new hack will allow you to play NES games on your Apple iPhone. Cool stuff.
Well, at least Apple fared better than Gwen Stafani’s did in this weeks fashion reviews in New York City. Oh well Gwen, we still love you!
02/11/2008 Update: Looks like Starbuck’s is finally getting the free wifi they should have offered since the beginning.
Like any good, rabid Apple mac fanboy, I am eagerly anticipating tomorrow’s MacWorld from Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Think Secret has a good wrap of various possible announcements. I hope the iTV concept becomes reality, as I think that is a revolutionary concept and certainly is a disruptive technology for current content distribution models.
Think Secret - Eve of Expo: MWSF Rumor recap
Technorati Tags: apple, video, mac, media
While playing around with Tiger and Safari 2 today, I ran across how Safari 2 handles RSS feeds.
When you see a blue RSS button like this one in my address bar, simply click it to reveal a rendered version of the RSS feed.
As always, simply drag the feed icon (The little box next to “feed://” above) to the bookmark folder you wish, and the feed will always be up to date when you click on it. Very slick!
This is a much simpler way for the everyday user to make use out of RSS feeds. The rendered RSS feed looks better than any other implementation I have ever seen. If you have Tiger and Safari 2, be sure to give this a try!
Technorati Tags: apple, mac, social
I finally got around to upgrading my 17″ PowerBook this weekend to Tiger (OS X 10.4). After making a complete mountable image of my laptop on an external drive, I reformatted my laptop harddrive and went through the complete installation process without a single hitch. After copying key Applications back over and along with their corresponding /Library/Application Support directories, I was back up and running inside of an hour. Not bad. I didn’t even loose a single Firefox extension.
Some more tidbits regarding Tiger:
This article describes 15 uses for RSS feeds and how it can make your life better.
Regarding the recent screaming from the right regarding judicial nominations and the threat of the “nuclear option”, please keep this in mind. Recent Republican attack ads have claimed courtrooms have sit empty due to the Senate confirmation process being slowed by the Democrats. However, the fact is there are now half as many vacancies as when President Bush took office, and cases are typically being decided more quickly now than they were in 1999, when it was the Republicans opposing Bill Clinton. However, the Republican sure know how to whine and bitch louder. Here’s an idea, shut up and sit down. The system is working exactly as it should. Better yet, keep making fools and continue to marginalize yourself. The polls are reflecting exactly what the majority thinks about this. Hopefully, so will the next election.
Have a good week! Pacers play Detroit tonight in Game 1 of the East Semi-finals.
Technorati Tags: osx, apple, social
This past week has been interesting, to say the least. Rarely do so many events take place in such a compacted period of time that have such a profound effect on my life. Perhaps, none as much as the latest release of Apple’s newest operating system OS X v10.4. Affectionately known as Tiger, well at least by most (SCREW YOU TIGER DIRECT.. *ahem* sorry…).
One could argue that turning 35 this week would be a bit more of a milestone, but I’ll reserve my more darker thoughts regarding this subject to my written (and well hidden) journal. Suffice it to say that I do feel twice as old as I did when I was 17.
Anyway, if you have some time to kill and are have an interest in the Unix-y stuff in Tiger, this article by John Siracusa is highly recommended.
Have you ever wondered why your neck hurts after sitting at a computer for hours upon hours reading such articles? From time to time, I will read an occasion article regarding workspace ergonomics to reinforce good habits. This one was a bit more detailed than most.
For those BitTorrent fans out there, this site is an excellent resource. Shhhhh
The Aardvark Firefox Extension is absolutely essential for anyone doing web development. The ability to quickly see what tags are associated with what element is a wonderful thing. Kudo’s to the Aardvark team! Excellent work. Another extention that I use is the Tidy HTML Validator. Excellent tool, also. I realize I sound like a CD stuck on repeat, but if you are not using Firefox as your primary browser. Do yourself and your computer a favor, and go there now. You will not regret it.
My friend Kent introduced me to some new music this week and I am really starting to dig it. You may want to check out the Kaiser Chiefs yourself.
Of course, the Indiana Pacer’s took quite a beating last night from the Boston Celtics. Maybe they will choose to show up and play for Game 5.
That’s about all I have right now. Everyone have a good week!
Technorati Tags: personal, mac, bittorrent, apple, p2p
Apple announced new iMac’s this week. They may not be as innovative as the “Lamp” iMac’s, however people need to remember that this is a revision, not a new product line. Overall, the new design is radical and the small footprint is very desirable. Besides, how cool is the VESA mounting ability?
Apple also announced an iTunes Affiliate Program. I wonder how long before some internet radio station makes use of this.
The 9th annual Indianapolis Rib America Festival is this weekend. This is always a GREAT time, and integrates the “REAL” 97.1 SkyConcert this year as well. It just won’t be the same this year, since it’s being held in a different venue. Evidently, whiners at Riley Towers complained enough to force the RibFest to be moved from the Murat Theatre parking lot to Military Park, near IUPUI. White River Park is a great venue, however it will never match the convenience of walking across the street in past years.
This week, I switched my multi-instant message client from Fire to Proteus, and am loving it so far. While Fire is a great client with hardworking and responsive developers, Proteus has clearly surpassed Fire in functionality and features. Not to mention, the highly customizable user interface, which can act just like iChat if you so choose. Overall, I would rate Fire a high B, and give Proteus an A. iChat continues to hover around a low B, and seems to have stagnated a bit since Panther’s release. The new iChat AV that will be released with Tiger seems to be very promising, especially the multi-video conference ability.
Technorati Tags: apple, social, mac
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