Cult of Mac

What is the Matrix, Morpheus? Nicely done, Jirbo.

YouTube – The Matrix for the iPhone
Via Digg.

Tags: matrix, iphone, screensaver

Nilay Patel at Engadget has a fascinating post about Apple’s $20 charge for Mail, Maps and a few other apps on the iPod touch, allegedly because doing otherwise would run Apple afoul of Sarbanes-Oxley Act accounting requirements. Essentially, the argument goes, Apple is required to charge for any “major” features that aren’t enabled upon shipment for any product that doesn’t have its cost spread across a recurring subscription business model, as the iPhone and AppleTV are.

Which sounds plausible, until you realize that Apple has enabled such features as podcasts, search games and others for the iPod without charging for it. Not to mention which, iTunes is perpetually upgraded for free, no matter what you’re installing it on, whether you even own an iPod or not. Patel puts it well:

iPod name or no, the iPod touch is essentially a little computer, and the whole purpose of software is to enable “significant unadvertised new features” on a computer. For Apple (or anyone) to say that a mail app is a “significant new feature” for a computer is pushing the line just a bit far, and it makes us wonder how the company accounts for new versions of iTunes, QuickTime, and Safari, each of which add new features to already-sold Macs — and how things are going to play out when the iPhone / iPod touch SDK is released next month.

Seriously. Something stinks in Cupertino. Why the heck should a consumer have to care whether the device they buy gets reported as subscription revenue or not? That’s a company’s problem, and it’s goofy to discriminate between products on an arbitrary basis. Just sounds like a way to get some extra bucks out of touch owners to me.

Via Engadget.

What? Those totally mean the same, don’t they? … OH! Oh, dear.

Stephen Carboni via Digg.

If you’re a Mac power user who would prefer a MacBook Pro over a MacBook Air for every reason save only the light device’s cool multi-touch trackpad, hold onto your seats. According to AppleInsider, the MacBook Pro line will soon sport the same trackpad, as the product category gets updated to Intel’s Penryn processor line in the next few weeks, in line with the rest of the computer industry.

This is an exciting development. The only thing about the Air that really intrigues me is the multi-touch capability, so I’ll be able to go Pro without regret if this rumor holds up. Penryn’s a processor with serious legs on it.

Though I’m happy enough with OS X Mail.app, I am always on the look-out for great new freeware mail programs for the Mac that can out-do it. The most intriguing new kid on the block is Correo, which promises to blend Mozilla’s Thunderbird mail client with the beautiful interface of Camino, my favorite web browser ever.

It’s definitely early in its development cycle, but I’m interested to see where this goes. I love the features of Thunderbird, but its poor performance on my computer and bizarre non-standard UI always kept me from switching fully. Correo definitely appears to address the second part of that problem, at least. Once it gets above 0.5, I’m going to give it a shop. Anyone else tried it yet?

Via Digg.

Gotta love that sky-blue. I know some people aren’t into the fatty nano, but I didn’t know they were especially prevalent in Thailand. Flickr user Mr. Neutron sets us all straight on that point.

Via BoingBoing

Word has just come in from UK iPhone carrier O2 that the company has missed its goal of 200,000 iPhones sold since Nov. 9. Apple managed to move 190,000 iPhones in the UK, and rumors and early reports suggest the iPhone has been slow to gain traction in Europe.

Which really isn’t too surprising. As much as some people in the U.S. have complained about a lack of tactile feedback on the iPhone’s keyboard, we’re novices in texting compared to Europe and Asia. People are so fast at T9 texting over there that many hardcore users are faster with a standard keypad than they are with a QWERTY thumbpad, let alone a QWERTY touchscreen.

Bruce Nussbaum over at BusinessWeek speculates that the iPhone’s weak texting capability might be to blame. Though iPhone software 1.1.3 now supports multi-user texts, it still doesn’t allow SMS forwarding, both of which are key features in the UK and especially in India. A co-worker of mine noted on Friday that texting is so prevalent in India compared to e-mail that people in India circulate lame jokes to their friends via SMS instead of e-mail. The lack of a physical keyboard will never fly over there.

The iPhone is far from in trouble in the U.S. – it could scarcely be doing better, but I do wonder about its long-term future overseas. Mobile phones play a very different role in Europe and Asia than they do here, and the iPhone will need to work harder to make an impact.

I love new technology, especially when it’s enhanced by really old technology. And that’s why I endorse Nanoscope, a bizarre mod of an early 1970s slide viewer that Mark Irwin dremeled down to make it an ideal iPod nano video expander. Pop it in, and you get a huge, beautiful picture — that just happens to be a little warped at the corners.

I’m in. Who else wants one?

YouTube – Introducing Nanoscope
Via Gizmodo

Tags: hack, hardware, nano, ipod

Though we’ve all ranted and raved about the MacBook Air since Tuesday’s launch at MacWorld, i think we’re not getting any closer to a final decision. Many people see this incredibly thin machine as an ideal travel laptop, while I think Apple got so caught up in its focus on thinness that sacrificed far too many other features. Some argue that this is a typical Apple move to kill off unnecessary features ahead of the rest of the industry, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. There’s a lot on my mind, but I’ll use some reader comments to get into it.

Brendan West: But if they had a super-thin bezel, the edges of the computer could not reach that mythical 0.16″³, you see. The thinning of the shell means the still-pretty-bulky-for-its-size-LCD screen has to stop at a certain thickness.

With the MacBook, the bezel was so thick (I think) because of the emerging magnetic latch tech. With the MBA, it’s because (I think) they just couldn’t do it, cap’n.

That’s all true, but why does going down to 0.16″ matter? Any laptop is going to take up as much space as its thickest component. Apple couldn’t have gotten 0.25″ and gotten a better-looking bezel and bigger screen in the process?

Anon: “It’s still bigger than a 12″³ Powerbook.” And not just a little bigger. It’s two inches wider. I just measured, it won’t fit in the laptop bag that totes around my four year old Powerbook. I agree with all the Air’s compromises (speed, ports, I can even live with the integrated battery.) But the huge footprint is probably a dealbreaker. It means the Air’s thickness and weight is more about looks then portability. I’ve had one Powerbook after another for the last 15 years, but I’m worried: I don’t see my next machine in Apple’s lineup.

You and me both.

Bone: Hey, Pete”¦

When you get that masters in product design / mechanical and electrical engineering maybe you can explain to Apple’s designers/engineers how to fit an 8mm thick 1.8 HD where a 5MM thick version probably barely fits and keep the thing just as thin. Same goes with the bezel.

So long as they can tell me why shaving off that 3mm is more important than providing an $1800 laptop that would have as much storage as a $349 portable media player, I’m ready to have that conversation. Three millimeters is 0.11 inches. Oh noes! The MacBook Air might be 0.76″ in more places than its hinge! Call the cops!

Ian: I also looked at my kids needs. We have wi-fi at home and they mostly use their Mac now for iPod and Thumb drive. The last time my kids listened to a CD or watched a movie on the Macbook was an age ago. They don’t know what a Firewire cable is and so will not miss it. So I think this is a great product for students as well. It is targeted at a different market”¦

An interesting perspective. I can’t say I disagree.

Greg Baines: It is no doubt a beautiful machine. But I was just looking at the Hong Kong apple site, and I worked out for around the same price as the air I could buy an iMac, Apple TV, and an iPod touch.

If I really needed a portable and walked intot he Hong Kong store with the money for an air, I could by an iBook, an iPod touch, an iPod classic, and an Apple TV for the price of an air.

I’d love to buy one, but it just costs too much. What a shame. With all these really decent low cost machiens coming out (but poorly designed), why couldn’t apple also bring something simple and beautifuly designed that people actually need? What about the education market?

Maybe we should all boycott the Macbook Air- it is no doubt the most beautiful computer ever made, but why do we get pushed overpriced products all the time?

That’s a bit extreme, but I agree in part. What about the education market?

Finally, I wanted to take quotes from two celebrity commentators on the MacBook Air: Wil Shipley, founder of Delicious Monster, and Steve Jobs himself. They’re both fans.

Shipley: I don’t buy a laptop because I want to replace its drive in a year. I buy it because it seems great and meets my needs today. If my needs magically morph over the coming year, I guess I’ll sell it on eBay. Or pay Apple to throw in a different drive, or something. Honestly, I think we need to admit that just because machines get faster every year, doesn’t mean that the majority of people need faster machines.

In two weeks I’ll be writing Delicious Library 2 on a MacBook Air, every day. Because it’s simple and beautiful, and I crave those things.

Well, obviously, Wil, but my 12″ Powerbook G4 is nearly five years old, and I don’t think Apple is interested in putting it back on the market as an executive laptop. Besides, people do constantly need more data storage as video editing, photo editing, podcasting and other kinds of creativity got democratized — mostly thanks to Apple’s iLife suite. I have a really hard time believing that your Air isn’t going to spend most of its time at home hooked up with either a server or NAS, Wil. Right now, 80 gigs isn’t enough for anyone really interested in maintaining a big iTunes library and adding TV and movies into the mix, as well. It just isn’t. There’s no getting around this issue. And ordinary people don’t have external hard drives, home servers or other such solutions.

Jobs: “I’m going to be the first one in line to buy one of these,” he said. “I’ve been lusting after this.”

Yep. Just as I suspected. Steve made a machine for himself, as ever. It’s just a shame that this time his view of the world was so vastly different from the realities most of us have to deal with. He lives in Palo Alto, where WiFi is ubiquitous, so forget about a 3G modem on the Air. He has a million external data storage options and more powerful computers at his disposal, so keep the hard drive tiny. He won’t buy the one with a regular hard drive, so throw in a slow, unreliable iPod hard drive instead of a real one. The rich people like Steve will all buy the one with the SSD in it, so who cares about the low end?

At the end of the day, this is my take on the MacBook Air: Gorgeous design solving a questionable goal of ultimate thinness. The model with the SSD is a dream secondary computer for the rich and famous. The other one is going to be unsatisfying to a lot of people. Most importantly, it’s just not small enough. Who decided that thin was the only way to go about making a full-featured laptop that doesn’t weigh much? And the 12″ Powerbook still hasn’t been topped as a design triumph at Apple. Period.

Apple has launched another of its ingenious “Get a Mac” banner ads on the New York Times front page. As Mac and PC chat in a sidebar, a seemingly unrelated ad up above becomes a topic of discussion and then manipulation.

Pretty brilliant — PC “correcting” a “typo” in a Wall Street Journal review so it says “Leopard is better and faster than Vista – NOT!” Nicely done. And now to correct the rest of the Internet, indeed.

The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Via TUAW

Tags: advertisingapple internet getamac

So I’ve been tossing the MacBook Air’s (de)merits around in my head since about 10:30 this morning, and I’ve reached some conclusions. Some good, some bad. It’s not the machine I’m looking for (I still want a small form-factor MacBook Pro), but it’s got some pluses to go with the minuses we’ve already called out. Your comments would be appreciated.
Pros:

• Dude, it’s like totally thin.
• Multi-touch track pad.
• Seriously thin.
• No, it fits in a manila envelope.
• MANILA.
• ENVELOPE!
• And it weighs three pounds.
• It’s faster than the first Core Solo Intel Mac mini that Apple released.
• The hidden port hatch is pretty darn cool.
• Overall design is absolutely gorgeous. Very few people change their laptop batteries on the fly, so I appreciate a nice, cohesive frame that hides the internals.

Cons:

• Super-minimal I/O. What, 4-pin FireWire was too bulky for you? Someone tell Sony that FireWire doesn’t work in an ultra-compact laptop!
• MacBook-sized footprint. This thing is only thinner, not smaller. It’s not taking up less of your lap, and it’s still bigger than a 12″ Powerbook.
• Giant bezel around the screen. If you’re stressing how small this thing is, shouldn’t you build in design elements that stress how much you’ve packed into such a tiny package? A 1″ border on a 13.3″ screen is available on the MacBook. How exactly does this stress professional needs and storage considerations?
• I can buy an iPod classic with a 160 gig hard drive for $349, plug it into a MacBook Air and TRIPLE its storage capacity. The fact that I can’t put the same hard drive into a MacBook Air is ridiculous. There’s no excuse for an 80 gig ceiling, no matter how thin the box is.
• No mobile broadband built-in. Kind of makes the whole “Air” thing moot if I need to find a hotspot to crank this up.
• Multi-touch on a trackpad is nowhere near as nice as multi-touch on an iPhone or iPod touch.
• Apple made a sacrifice of functionality in pursuit of a goal that might or might not be the most important virtue. Sure, thinness is a nice-to-have. But isn’t weight and overall size more important for the sub-compact market?
• MacBook Air? More like Err.

Thanks for the link, Nalts.

Steve Jobs’ much-ballyhooed movie rental service looks all fine and dandy, but the question in my mind is: “How long will it be before the service offers a single decent movie to rent?”

At present, the movies on offer are even shittier than the local video store, or those available on-demand from my cable providor, Comcast, which utterly stinks.

It’d be depressing if all Apple offered was popcorn garbage. Surely the service is serving the wrong demographic. Early adopters, the kind that run out to buy an AppleTV box, are surely more interested in less mainstream fare. How long will it be before there’s some independent movies, classics, artsy fartsy foreign stuff, and genre titles?

Eagle-eyed readers of Think Secret may have noticed that the site is still publishing.

Many assumed that Think Secret would cease publishing after the site’s owner, Harvard undergrad Nick Ciarelli, reached a settlement with Apple in December concerning Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit, and Ciarelli’s first amendment countersuit. (For which Ciarelli was rumored to have received a low six-figure sum from Apple).

But on Tuesday, Think Secret published a story and two galleries of photos from Macworld. On Monday, the site briefly published a pre-Macworld rumor, but quickly withdrew said item without explanantion. (There’s a screengrab here).

The site’s last day of publishing will be February 14, 2008, according to Dave Hamilton of BackBeat Media, Think Secret’s advertising partner.

“The last day that BackBeat Media-brokered ads will appear on Think Secret is February 14th, 2008, and content will be posted on the site regularly at least until then,” writes Hamilton.

When asked about the situation, Ciarelli sent a note pointing to Hamilton’s blog post, but declined to elaborate further.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

The Steve Jobs/Bill Gates lovefest that first became apparent at the WSJ’s D conference in the summer continues in the Times today. At the end of an post-keynote interview, Jobs said Gates should get a medal for his work at Microsoft! The Times’ Bits Blog reports:

Jobs saved his greatest compliment today for his former archrival Bill Gates, who has now largely retired will retire from Microsoft this summer.”Bill’s retiring from Microsoft is a big deal,” he said. “It’s a significant event, and I think he should be honored for the contributions he’s made.”

Jobs never praises Microsoft or Gates in public. There must be something afoot: A business deal, perhaps? Or maybe Jobs wants to give the Gates Foundation a few billion, but he feels they should first be billionaire buddies, like Warren Buffet?

It looks like there’s a mini backlash brewing against the beautiful but pricey MacBook Air — online at least.

Over at MacRumors, a “first impressions” gallery of the new sub-notebook is drawing far more negative reader comments than positive ones.

Yes, Mac fans like the Air’s thin profile, but there’s a lot of bitching about its limitations — the price, soldered ram, non-replaceable battery, and paying extra for an ethernet port or DVD drive.

“It’s an expensive, disposable toy,” says one MacRumors reader.

Matching Wired’s leaked inside information to a T, Steve Jobs closed this year’s MacWorld keynote by unveiling the MacBook Air, the company’s first true subcompact since the PowerBook 2400. Weighing just 3 pounds and tapering from .76 inches down to an astonishing .16 inches, this is a dreambook. Absurdly light. Full 13.3 inch screen. Astonishing multi-touch trackpad with gestures borrowed form the iPhone. Available with SSD options. Starts at $1799.

Unfortunately, it’s not for everyone. I won’t be buying one, much as I would like to. Its processor is fairly slow, 1.6 Ghz or 1.8 Ghz. It is a Core 2 Duo, but not up to the kind of performance leap I want. The ram is soldered at 2 gigs. The hard drive is 80gigs or a 64 gig SSD. No other options. I want at least the storage of the biggest iPod classic, whose hard drive should fit in this thing. Its trim size is no different from the existing MacBook, which means a large bezel that just reminds how much more room could be used for a larger screen. This is perfectly set up as an executive’s stylish laptop for the web, watching rental movies from iTunes, and e-mail. Beyond that, it would mainly frustrate for what it won’t do. I guess I’ll be getting a MacBook Pro once the Penryn models (please have multi-touch, please have multi-touch) are announced. I guess we’ll continue without a true compact MacBook Pro.

Anyone up for it? It kind of seems like a MacBook that Steve Jobs would use — I don’t know how many others will.

Apple – MacBook Air

Tags: macbook, apple, macbook air, steve jobs, keynote

Edit: New AppleTV is $229, a price cut. Additionally, all of the new features are available on the old version as a free software upgrade. Available in two weeks. Nice.

Conceding that its foray into movie download sales on iTunes has failed to meet expectations, Apple has announced the launch of iTunes Movie Rentals, featuring the films of all major movie studios. By the end of February, more than 1000 films will be available. Older titles are $2.99, new ones $3.99. You’ll get a 30 day window to watch, but just 24 hours to finish once you start (so forget about watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy all at once).

There is some really cool stuff here, however. Movies will start playing within 30 seconds of starting to download. You can transfer the file to an iPod or iPhone while watching it on a computer. It runs on Mac, PC, iPods, iPhones, existing AppleTV and an all-new high definition AppleTV. The new AppleTV can sync files from its hard drive back to your computer. That said, it’s a true stand-alone solution. No computer required.

Intriguing. Still not sure the AppleTV will ever take off. Still no price announcement. Will update when it gets posted to Wired.

Liveblogging the 2008 Macworld Steve Jobs Keynote | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Tags: appletvitunes apple keyntoe macworld

Steve Jobs’s Macworld keynote is underway, and the most significant announcement thus far is what he hasn’t announced: Any upgrade to the iPhone. Though offering a new version of Google Maps for the device that provides GPS-like functionality (though nowhere near as accurate; Steve says it works “pretty doggone good.”).

That said, the iPod touch will be brought up to par with the iPhone in terms of available applications. For a $20 download on iTunes, anyone can now load Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes and Weather on their Touch. I don’t like the tendency as far as the potential prices for third-party apps, but let’s hope for the best.

Liveblogging the 2008 Macworld Steve Jobs Keynote | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Blogged with Flock

Tags: stevenotemacworld jobs

Gadget Lab got a hot tip from an “Apple insider” this afternoon about the much-rumored “MacBook Air,” purported to be an ultra-light laptop that relies primarily on wireless technology instead of cables. Though the renderings in this post are merely clever photoshops (pretty clearly based on the new Apple Bluetooth keyboard), our friends at Wired say it sounds real:

An Apple insider told Wired today that the company’s new ultraportable, expected to be seen in public for the first time tomorrow, has an extremely thin profile and is shaped like a teardrop when closed thicker at the top behind the screen, tapering at the bottom behind the keyboard.

“It’s unbelievably thin,” said the source.

The device is made of aluminum and glass, and uses the same design language as recent Apple consumer products: black on silver.

The tapering is an interesting strategy. All of the tapering laptops I can think of are incredible fat at the hinge before getting somewhat thin at the edges. If it got no thicker than existing MacBook Pros and got thinner still? That would be hot. I don’t buy the inductive powering rumor, though. Though seemingly elegant, it would require a charging station, which seems pretty anti-Apple. Still, only 12 hours to go! Anyone else got a crazy rumor for the mill?

If anyone is planning to get married at Macworld this year (like Shawn and Lesa King last year), we’d like to hear your story for Wired.com.

Ditto if you are flying in from New Zealand to attend — or any other far-flung place.

We’d also like to hear from anyone who’s taking their work vacation to attend Macworld.

Please contact Wired.com reporter Jenna Wortham or send an email to me — [email protected].

Our pals over at Wired Gadget Lab point us toward these humongous banners that Apple has positioned throughout Moscone Center for this year’s Macworld, reading “There’s something in the air.” (They’ll be live-blogging Tuesday — check it out!)

As you might expect, this has led to rampant speculation around the Internets, including the idea that Apple’s new ultra-light and -thin MacBook would adopt the surname “Air,” an idea popularized by the occasionally reliable and occasionally crazy 9to5Mac and MacRumors.

Everyone agrees, however, that this probably has something to do with wireless networking, either the arrival of WiMax on the Mac platform, or (more likely) the availability of HSDPA (3G) networks for new iPhones, true mobile broadband at last. I think the latter is much more likely, if only because the most enthusiastic proponent of WiMax is Motorola, and Steve Jobs absolutely hates Motorola.

After going back and forth, I’m making a very conservative forecast for this year’s Macworld. We’ll see Penryn-based MacBook Pros for sure, maybe Penryn MacBooks (could wait until February), Penryn iMacs, an announcement of new iPhones with more data and 3G (for delivery in the spring), and a thin-and-light MacBook Pro. But nothing with SSD, no multitouch for Mac, and no tabletMac. I think Apple has so many incremental upgrades to perform this time out that there won’t be much room for a huge, earth-shattering kaboom like last time around. I’m certainly hoping to be proven wrong, though.

The guys and gals of KathArt Interactive, a Danish interactive design firm, have put together a fun Steve Jobs keynote-eve game that puts you in charge of sneaking top-secret Apple product concepts to Macworld SF. It’s a lot like the game Adventure for Atari, only with 3-D graphics and 3G iPhone prototypes. Definitely worth a click, and the Danish-ness of it gets a bonus endorsement from me.

Via Engadget.

Great new “Get a Mac” spot from Apple last night showcasing the Mac OS X Leopard back-up utility Time Machine. A dozen Justin Longs as Mac — I don’t know whether to cheer or run screaming. Highly effective explanation of the technology, though. And it’s nice to see the campaign get kindler and gentler again after the Vista-attack ads.

Via TUAW

I love the creativity of Mac users. Marcelo, a reader of Lifehacker, put together a great DIY laptop stand he cobbled together from an IKEA paper towel holder. He’s got tips for how to do it, but you really do need some serious hardware:

This was made from some plexi and an Ikea paper towel holder that I had laying around. I drilled some holes in the stainless steel crosspiece (don’t try this without a drill press and graduated high speed bits).

Gorgeous. Totally matches the aesthetic of the MacBook Pro. More pics at his Flickr stream.

Via Lifehacker.