Geek porn – taking painstaking photos of every step of the unboxing progress – has been around for just a short while on the Internet. It’s so recent in fact, that it didn’t exist when the Apple //c was brand new. Fortunately, there are still unopened Apple //c’s out there in the world, and Flicker user Dansays found one on eBay. And because he’s a contemporary geek, he documented every step of the process. Fascinating reminder of just how completely Apple went design in the mid-1980s. Frog Design’s Snow White language is still as sophisticated today as it was then. And the intricacies of the packaging! It’s like looking into the future – 20 years ago. Make sure to click through to see many, many more images.

Flickr via Boing Boing via Andre Torrez’s notes.

The iMac is a beautiful all-in-one desktop solution capable of handling most every need. But it’s also a bit pricey, especially compared to the dirt cheap Mac mini. Jon Doty decided to do something, fusing a Mac mini with a commodity LCD monitor to create a homemade iMac that I can only describe as…elegantly janky.

Make sure to check out the gallery – the whole process is detailed to a charming degree.

Via Digg.

Mike Beauchamp’s iPhone has been through hell and back – and it’s still working. He tells the story in graphic detail at Flickr.

As the last pair of headlights approached, the semi got over to the far outside lane because he saw me standing on the side of the road. I knew this was trouble. As I watched helplessly from the shoulder, the semi plowed my phone at full speed, throwing it to the ditch on the other side of the highway. At this point, I figured I’d retrieve it just for the purpose of seeing the crushed iPhone in disarray, mangled and crunched lifeless in the grass.

Much to my surprise, as I approached, I heard the familiar sound of my ringtone — the iPhone was alive and ringing! As I picked it up and cradled it gently in my hands, I saw the screen displaying my caller ID — the screen still worked! I slid my finger gently over the answer slide and paused as I held the tattered and torn device to my ear — my heart must have skipped a beat when I heard my mom’s voice at the other end of the phone — the phone still worked!

Glorious. Apple should hire him.

Via Daring Fireball

Nine months after initial reports emerged suggested that iPods and other portable media players might have the potential to disrupt life-saving pacemakers, a further study from the FDA suggests that the risk of harm has been over-stated.

“Based on the observations of our in-vitro study we conclude that no interference effects can occur in pacemakers exposed to the iPods we tested,” they concluded.

Previous studies focused on the risks to pacemakers associated with keeping an iPod two inches from your chest. All that makes me think is that the people conducting the study aren’t too clear on how to use an iPod. Why would you strap one over your heart? And how?

Reuters Via Gizmodo.
iPod Heart Attack image from Global House Price Crash

In a clear sign that everyone is really frantic to get Super Tuesday over with already, the New York Times has published the article contrasting Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the world wasn’t waiting for. Noam Cohen has the temerity to ask: Is Obama a Mac and Hillary a PC?

I started cringing before I even started reading. Essentially, it comes down to the idea that Obama’s website looks like Apple’s (it doesn’t – looks more generic Web 2.0), and that Hillary’s looks like a typical business-solutions provider (maybe? I’d say it looks more like Foxnews.com). Some of the quotes are quite hilarious.

With Obama’s site, all the features and elements are seamlessly integrated, just like the experience of using a program on a Macintosh computer,” said Alice Twemlow, chairwoman of the M.F.A. program in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts (who is a Mac user).

And what does this mean for those of us voting on Tuesday? Absolutely nothing. The story doesn’t even bother to mention if either Obama or Hillary use Macs. Seems like that might have proven relevant…

On a more relevant front, I’ve reposted the Hillary 1984 video after the jump.

Though it’s actually a slightly older commercial, I was struck during the Super Bowl pre-game today by Dell’s ad for the XPS-One, the Austin PC-maker’s all-in-one iMac competitor. The commercial is nothing but 30 seconds of vanilla PC box destruction. Exploding. Getting hit with wrecking balls. And then the (semi) attractive XPS One pops out. The tagline: “Dell – now available in beautiful.” I was so shocked that I rewound it and watched it again. Does Dell hate itself this much?

While Dell, HP, and Gateway’s increasing focus on industrial design (only 15 years after Apple and IBM) has made some serious progress toward getting ugly beige boxes off of the desks of America, it’s disturbing to me how much Dell’s approach to design is an attack on itself. Those weren’t just generic PCs – they represented the former soul of the Dell corporation. And while the former Dell corporation made bland, bottom-feeding PCs, at least the company’s point of view on what a computer should be. Now, its designs evoke where Apple and Sony were about four years ago. Is it not possible to make more attractive computers without trashing yourself?

In this regard, Apple will never be in trouble. With Steve Jobs in charge, the company’s identity is rock solid, as its perspective on what technology should be. Every Apple shareholder is thankful for that.

The tinkerers at iFixit have taken apart the MacBook Air to discover:

• The battery isn’t hard to remove, but it isn’t something you’d do mid-flight when the battery dies.
• Most of the internal volume is taken up by the battery.
• The logicboard is surprisingly small: it looks like something out of an alarm clock, not a reasonably-powered laptop.
• The touchpad uses the same hardware as the iPhone and iPod Touch, which may allow Apple to add new multi-touch gestures via software.
• The hard drive is the slim 80-Gbyte model, not the chubby 160-Gbyte drive found in the iPod Classic. Unfortunately, 80-Gbyte is the maximum capacity of drives this size (5mm deep).
• It’s held together by 88 tiny screws.

The MacBook Air is starting to reach customers, and early reviews of the Apple’s thinnest laptop is starting to trickle down the wire. None trickles with as much force as Jason Snell’s astoundingly thorough dissection of everything about the Air, from software to hardware, from connectivity to battery life and more. I highly recommend the review (which is positive, but laden with caveats). I think it might be the most even-handed review of the Air so far. I mean, who knew that its headphone jack was as wonky as the iPhone’s?

And, as a rebuttal to the rebuttal. the folks over at apcommunity have created the MacBook Paper. It really is the thinnest laptop ever!

YouTube – MacBook Paper – Print your own!

Tags: macbookair, paper, thinnovation

Point well made, Rodrigo. Still, did Apple really need to make the single USB port on the MacBook Air so recessed that you can’t plug in a 3G radio adapter?

Via Digg.

During Macworld, Steve Jobs told the New York Times that Apple will not make an e-book reader like Amazon’s Kindle because Americans don’t read any longer.He cited a specific number: 40 percent of Americans read a book or less a year, he said.Jobs may have been referring to a November report from the National Endowment of the Arts, To Read or Not To Read, which found that nearly 50 percent of 18-24 year-olds do not read at all for pleasure. Described as the most complete survey of reading trends, the report says Americans aged 15-24 spend two hours a day watching TV, but only 7-10 minutes reading. This includes reading for school or college.”The story the data tell is simple, consistent, and alarming,” wrote Dana Gioia, Chairman of the NEA.The decline of reading has considerable social, economic and civil consequences, says the NEA, and coincides with the rise of TV and the internet.

Picture: Malabooboo

The tech press is missing the boat with the MacBook Air.

All the grumbling about the price, the absence of an optical drive, the irreplaceable battery, shows that the technical minded misunderstand the machine.

Of course it’s not practical, it’s a fashion computer.

But it seems the target audience — fashionistas — are taking note. A quick Google shows that fashion blogs are raving about the Air.

Coquette, a blog about ‘digital fashion and style by natalie zee drieu, raves about the Air’s potential as an accessory: “This little thing is ready to tote around in your Balenciaga or Gucci bag,” it says. “I’m so getting one!!!!!”

Judging from the comments on those blogs, lots of their readers are bonkers for it too.

Compared to a $1,800 Prada handbag, the MacBook Air is a steal.

Expect long lines at the NYC Soho and Meatpacking stores.

Via Carl Howe at Blackfriars: The MacBook Air is an ideal product — in the right market

This afternoon’s stock sell off after Apple reported some amazing Christmas numbers was initially puzzling. Apple had its best quarter ever — selling a record 2.3 million Macs — yet Wall Street dumped the stock in after hours trading.

Initial reports blamed the sell off on Apple’s cautious guidance for the current quarter. Plus there’s the receding economy, which will put a pinch on Americans’ gadget buying habits.

But here’s the reason: the iPod’s amazing growth has finally slowed to zero.

For the first time in six years, Apple’s key product saw no growth year-to-year in the crucial Christmas period. And there’s only one way to go form here: down.

Looks like the iPod gravy train is finally slowing, and from here on in, we’ll see declining year-on-year sales of Apple’s key gadget.

Chart: Silicon Alley Insider

Via: Infectious Greed

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.