Posts Tagged ‘Apple’

The Apple Knee Jerk

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Image representing Apple as depicted in CrunchBase
Well another set of Apple announcements is now over. Here is my knee jerk reaction to the news.

  • iLife ‘09 – This actually looks interesting and any update to iMovie would be most welcomed. iPhoto integration to Facebook and Flickr make it worth it. Totally will upgrade.
  • iWork ‘09 – I don’t use iWork at all so I can’t really talk to the updates. Slides forced to iPhones looks like a cool but limited feature. If I did more presentations it might be worth it.
  • 17″ MacBook Pro – Let me just say, I am STILL incredibly happy with my MacBookPro and see no reason presented today to upgrade. I rarely use it on battery only mode so 3 hours of battery time is fine vs 8 hours. I am just not sold on the uni-body aluminum design. It has to be thinner and lighter which is a plus but the non-removable battery just doesn’t work for me. Just imagine the first time a system shut down hangs and you can not pop the battery out to force a shut down. Also, the price point is still way too high for only one spec model.
  • iTunes – The quick quiz on this one is how many songs that are currently $0.99 will be $1.29 by the end of the month? My prediction: ALL OF THEM! $0.69 is probably the first week of a new single. $0.99 is a “deal” price and $1.29 will become the standard price for all singles with albums going up too. So your 10 song $9.99 album just became a $12.99 album. DRM free music is cool but they have got to cost more than a DRMed version. Putting it on the 3G network is cool but only applicable for iPhone users which I am not (yet).

All in all it was interesting but just not exciting. I think there is very little in these announcements to get me to open the wallet wide and it will actually hurt consumers in the long run.

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Revising my Mac Book Pro remarks

Monday, October 20th, 2008

CUPERTINO, CA - OCTOBER 14: Members of the pr...

This past weekend I was able to get my hands on the new Mac Book Pro that was announced on Tuesday. After having a bit of hands on with it I have to revise my comments from earlier this week as the user experience is different than what I imagined.

  1. I need to take back my comments on the trackpad. Instead of it being an unresponsive flat pad you tap, I was surprised to realize the whole pad is actually a button. One big clickable button with the proper feedback as a normal button on a mouse. That totally negates my argument about tap clicking. Also, I found that 2 finger scrolling came naturally, 3 finger was ok, and 4 finger was just kinda annoying.
     
  2. I didn’t notice if this model had the keyboard mistake on it but I will definitely check next time.
     
  3. I have to add that the glossy screen is not my favorite. I could deal with it but I can see how it would massively annoy some people.

All in all still a good machine but I am much happier with what I have.

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Apple Notebook Event

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Today Apple hosted their long awaited event announcing updates to their Mac Book and Mac Book Pro notebooks. A friend of mine asked me if I was going to be pissed if they massively upped the ante on the performance and storage of the machine. I don’t think so but lets break down the updates and see.

  1. One thing I am happy about is that I got a system with the OLD keyboard on it. Having used the chicklet keyboard on the Mac Book and the Air I have to say it would quickly become the bane of my existence if I had it on my Pro.
    I do not like it here or there
    I do not like it anywhere
    I do not like the chicklet keyboard
    I do not like it, Steve I Am
     
  2. An advanced graphics card was expected and is only really put to the test while gaming or doing high end graphics. I don’t do either of these on a consistent basis so no huge loss there.
     
  3. Getting rid of the button on the track pad is something I HATE. The first thing I did on my old notebook was turn off the touch pad clicking feature so this is a huge win for the older model.
     
  4. By putting all connections on the side, they have actually reduced the number of devices you can connect. In the new version you lose 1 usb port, the firewire 400 port, and the DVI connector in lieu of the mini display port (Apple proprietary and will require an additional purchase for non-Apple displays).
     
  5. Being able to quickly swap the drive like you could with the MacBooks is a nice new touch.
     
  6. The new MBP can now have double the hard drive space, double the RAM, and 4X the graphics capacity of my current MBP. However, it is a good $700 more than what I paid for my MBP. Also, my model is a 17 inch display while the new models will only be 15.4 inch or 13 inch.
    UPDATE: In the QA session it was mentioned the 17″ model is being refreshed as well but no details on specs or price were given under the new design. At the Apple store the current 17″ model is still for sale but is unchanged in terms of specs, design, and the $2800 price tag. Roughly a $1000 more than what I paid for a refurbished model.

Bottom Line: I am far happier now than I was before the announcements. The new additions either don’t apply to me or I wouldn’t want them.

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Two Months Back Into Mac

Monday, October 13th, 2008
Photo Provided by http://flickr.com/photos/wicho/

Photo Provided by Wicho via Flickr

Well it has been a couple of months now since I have switched from using a PC Notebook to a 17″ Mac Book Pro and things are still going well. As I mentioned before I used to be a die hard Mac fanatic about 10 years ago but switched to PCs due to the lack of decent software on the Macs at the time. My recent switch back had to do with my desire to pick the right tool for the new media and technology development I currently do. As promised, here are my top of the head observations over the past two months.

  • When I bought the Mac I knew I was going to be running certain PC software and games. I started to go down the path of using Parallels but found that transferring my XP license off my existing notebook would basically make it impossible for me to sell it as a low end PC. After a month I broke down and bought CrossOver instead. CrossOver is the OSX port of WINE which does not require that you have a full version of XP/Vista to run your software. You will need a Mac with an Intel chip to run the software properly. All of my PC games run flawlessly under it and most of my PC software runs as well. Unless you absolutely need XP on your machine for some obscure reason like your network doesn’t play well with Macs, I would opt for CrossOver first for any windows software emulation.
  • I am just amazed by how much free software is out there to help make a transition between PC and Mac easy. I did break down and buy some tools I use all the time like the Adobe Suites. However, things like NeoOffice, FireFox, AppFresh, QuickSilver, and TweetDeck have become invaluable tools. Even the free Apple software like Safari, Mail, and GarageBand have revolutionized how I use the notebook.
  • One thing I forgot about Macs and missed was that things just work. I plug a microphone in, it recognizes it and records from it. I plug a camera in, it finds it and lets me control it from the software. I want to record a video, iSight comes on with the mic and just records without a loss. On the PC side you can make things work but it takes time and is never 100%.
  • My co-workers often complained about how they HAD to be PC based for all of the development they do. After a bit of searching I found that the Mac could do all of the things my PC could do for development and more. It was just a matter of taking the time to seek out a solution for a specific problem. For example, I thought I would be totally at a loss for remote desktop connections to PCs until I found that Microsoft wrote a RDC client for OSX. It’s not widely publicized but if you look for it, you can find it. Major problem solved.
  • Web development is like night and day. On the PC I got into the habit of developing code and pushing it to a testing server. On the Mac, everything was not only included but pre-installed. Apache, PHP, Virtual Hosting. All on my box and ready to roll. The only thing I needed to add was MySQL and that was very easy. Granted I will need to break some old development habits but given the fact I can now test and code anywhere without having to be dependant on a connection is just amazing.
  • Slowly over this time I have noticed something very significant for me. I haven’t turned on my notebook in the past 2 months at all except to transfer a file or two. I am significantly using my desktop PC less and less. The Mac has actually help me do things like rebuild my 9000 song music collection, clean out software I don’t use, and make it easier for me to backup my work and life.

Do I regret the purchase? Absolutely not! Apple has come a long way to address software, hardware, and just confidence concerns. Under Steve Jobs this company has finally moved forward enough to really be the company they always should have been. I understand why so many people are converting now. This is one seriously sexy and powerful piece of kit. Apple also puts so much information online and makes it so easy to just find things like software and solutions that I can’t imagine going back to the “pay for everything” world of PCs. And it looks like things are only going to get better with the Apple announcements tomorrow.

I do need to break some old habits like calling it a Mac when I am talking about OSX. I also know I am grossly underusing the machine’s true power. But that will come with more time. I am just incredibly happy with this rather expensive purchase and can see getting a lot of use out of this machine for a very long time.

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Rejoining the Cult of Mac

Monday, August 18th, 2008
Image representing Apple as depicted in CrunchBase

Many many moons ago when I was in college in high school I got my first exposure to Macintosh. Our school was lucky enough to get a grant from New York State and our school picked Apple as the provider of choice for all our computer labs. The Macintosh Classic confused me at first and the lab teacher thought I may break it for not being “trained” how to use it. A thought that amuses me to no end even to this day seeing how my school let me take a TRS-80 II home when i was in Junior High.

I won’t say that I fell in love with the Mac at that point because it wasn’t until my mom helped me buy a Classic II for college that I grew to just enjoy it. Easy to use, portable for moves, powerful, and connected with ease. My love grew with my understanding of the system so much that when I went to work for Computing Services at the university my areas of expertise for support were the CMS Based Mainframes and Macintosh systems. Many would say they are polar opposites in the computing work but I knew better than to classify any computing system to people.

Syracuse University Quad - Spring 2005As I left college my Macs came with me. Classic giving away to an LC II, LC II giving away to a Power Macintosh. Then something happened. I took a good long look at my Mac and came to a hard decision. While I still loved the system, I couldn’t find software for it. That’s not to say it wasn’t there but I hated the feeling that I couldn’t walk into the local computer store, pick up software, and just install it on my Mac. Remember, this is pre-1998. No Apple Store, no deal to put Mac products in CompUSA, no Steve Jobs. I wanted to game more and work more and the Mac was just not where it was at.

I made the shift, turned in my Apple stickers, got my tatoo removed and bought my first PC. It was fun, crazy, and a bit of a relief. I bought software galore. Fell in love with PC gaming (specifically Grim Fandango) and enjoyed being able to just pick up software and go. A couple of years later I built my first desktop PC and have upgraded it to the current machine I use. But something about Mac has always lingered for me.

That something is the hardware. It has always just worked. Plugin a camera, Mac recognizes it. No drivers, software, or fuss. Need to sample video? Plug and play without needing to do massive configuration. Wanna make a radio show? Plug in a mic and start recording. That is something the PC side of me has never been able to fully achieve. I have produced full radio shows on the PC but to get it to the point of quality production is always a pain. Then if I author a DVD, I have to reconfigure all my audio hardware to shift back to radio production. Not so on the Mac side.

Recently through the shifts that Jobs has implemented, the Mac has one again become the powerhouse of a machine it always should have been. Software is more prevalent and true windows/Mac OS compatibility has been achieved. While still pricey, the Mac is worth every dollar and has a high resale value even after five years. Cross machine folks like myself can choose where they want to be at any time (BSD, Mac, Windows, etc). Acceptance in the mainstream has also resurfaced and developers are adopting the open mentality that is driving Apple.

So last night I bit the $2K bullet and bought a MacBook Pro to rejoin the cult. The PC desktop isn’t going anywhere but the PC notebook and I will be parting ways. It won’t be a sad goodbye because all the PC goodness will be transfered to the Mac and will live on. This kind of full circle is good for me to reassess what places computers hold in my life. Maybe I will go back to serious video production. Maybe programming in open source realms will happen more. Maybe I will just pet the 17″ inch monitor and coo “pretty”.

In any case, it’s nice to feel like I am coming home to Mac and Apple. We both seem to have tread down the path of growing up into what we should have always been. Hopefully my old friend and I will meet and create some more while sharing the things we have learned along the way.

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