Macworld: 25 Years of the Mac

The Macintosh computer turns 25 on Saturday, January 24. Macworld celebrates this anniversary with an entire week of articles looking at the Mac’s past and speculating about its future. I’m particularly fond of John Gruber’s piece on lessons OS X could learn from the Classic Mac OS.



Ars Technica: Paradigms lost: The Windows 7 Taskbar versus the OS X Dock

I’ve seen some complaints from Mac users that the new Windows 7 Taskbar seems eerily similar to Mac OS X’s Dock. Ars’ writer Peter Bright does a nice job in this article deconstructing the separate design philosophies and functionalities between these two interface elements and comes to the conclusion that they are more different than alike. Good stuff.



CNET: Obama Wants to Know: Why Open Source?

President Barack Obama is a smart guy. Where others zig, he zags. It's perhaps not surprising, then, that he's been asking around about the benefits of open source, according to Sun Chairman Scott McNealy, who has been asked by President Obama to author a white paper on the benefits the U.S. government can derive from open source.

Despite my love for Macs, I’ve found myself quite the advocate for open source software in government. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.

Tags: apple inc, macintosh, politics, microsoft

Apple’s changes to OS X in Leopard affected more than the basic desktop experience. The aesthetic changes permeate the applications and utilities of the operating system. Even applications that aren’t written specifically for Leopard take on the new look-and-feel to some extent. Here is a brief tour, in pictures, of how some of the bundled OS X application changed between Tiger and Leopard.

The Finder

The first major difference in the Finder is the total absence of brushed metal. The new Finder looks more lightweight, and it fits in with the overall OS X aesthetic much more naturally.


The Tiger Finder


The Leopard Finder

I am not a fan of the new folder icons, but I wasn’t too fond of the old ones either. Fortunately, they’re easy enough to change. The overall look is better, and I think the new sidebar is an improvement over the former. There’s not much else to say beyond that.

iCal

iCal also receives some slimming in the window department as it too loses the brushed metal motif that once adorned it. Some elements, such as the day-week-month buttons, are moved around, and I think the new calendar pane is easier to read.


iCal in Tiger


iCal in Leopard

Editing events in iCal has always been a bit of a hassle with an Event Drawer that would pop in and out as you selected events to edit. Now iCal will pop an editing dialog right next to the event in question. This new approach, while only slightly varied from before, makes adding and editing events a much quicker process.

Safari

Safari hasn’t changed much, but it’s yet another application to lose brushed metal in its chrome.


Tiger Safari


Leopard Safari

Safari has also gained security features that check for possibly malicious sites, and the interface for that feature is pretty neat.

Printing

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the improved printing sheets in OS X Leopard. Historically, it’s been easy for developers to use OS X’s standard printing services, but the results were usually pretty sparse. The Leopard printing sheet is much more robust that its predessesor’s, and it even previews the document without having to launch Preview (a feature Microsoft and Adobe have been offering in their applications for some time).


Printing in Tiger


Printing in Leopard

This improvement may be late to the party, but it’s welcome nonetheless.

Conclusion

This is hardly a comprehensive look at the visual differences between Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard, but I hope it gives you a good idea of how Apple is improving the unified nature of the system’s user interface. It’s easy to pick nits over little details, but it’s obvious that Apple’s team has sweated the details when designing Leopard’s interface. It now feels like a unified system rather than a collection of utilities and applications. Hopefully, Apple will continue to prioritize the user experience as it continues to refine its operating system with the impending release of Snow Leopard next year.

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

As noted in the last post (which was longer ago than I care to admit), by the time Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was in the hands of users, the OS X interface had grown quite inconsistent. While not as glaringly distracting as the default Windows XP interface, it did seem evidence that Apple’s reputation as having an eye for detail was growing misplaced.

Leopard seeks to fix the growing divergence of UI elements, but some of the design decisions seem strange. Here are some comparisons and thoughts regarding some of the obvious interface changes between Tiger and Leopard.

The First Impression

For OS X veterans, the default Leopard desktop is immediately recognizable for it’s complete lack of blueness when compared to past OS X desktops.


TIger on my G5 and Leopard on my MacBook

Some of the change simply comes from the addition of a new desktop image, but other elements add to an altered user experience.

The New Dock

Tiger’s Dock


Leopard’s 3D Dock

The Dock has gone from a translucent rectangle to a glossy, reflective, three-dimensional plane. To me, it’s an extremely visually distracting piece of UI, and some icons don’t work well with this new Dock. (Read a detailed analysis of this issue here.) The Leopard Dock is a fantastic tech demo, but it fails from a usability perspective. Fortunately, a little command line work can restore the Dock to a more usable, two-dimensional state.


Leopard’s hidden 2D Dock. Much better.

The Leopard Dock also adds a new feature called Stacks, which bring their own share of positives and negatives to the OS X experience. I want to spend some more time of this feature, so I’ll be dedicating an entire post to Stack sometime later.

The Menu Bar

The menu bar in Tiger came under some criticism for its glossy appearance, even garnering some unkind comparisons to Windows XP. (Sorry if I’m criticizing XP too much, but I really don’t like its native UI.) The Leopard menu bar is a complete contrast to its former self.


Glossy and bright in 10.4


Translucent and subdued in 10.5

You can see the desktop through the menu bar with a slight Gaussian blur applied in Leopard. On the downside, while this menu bar is easier on the eyes, the translucency works better with some desktop backgrounds than others. Fortunately, you can make the menu bar opaque in the Desktop and Screensaver preference pane.

A strange side effect of this darker menu bar is that the menus themselves look out of place up against it.



The menus themselves look slightly nicer than in Tiger. The rounded edges are a nice touch, and the complete absence of pin-striping is welcome. I have to admit, though, that the slightly more translucent menus of earlier Leopard builds were even nicer. I know this seems to contradict my statements about the menu bar, but they were never quite that translucent.

Where’s the Love?

In the next post about Leopard’s interface, we’ll look at how some specific OS X applications have changed. It will be quite a bit more positive than this post, I promise. Windows and sheets have both been reworked in Leopard and with some very nice results.

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

In what is probably my latest OS X adoption ever, I finally picked up Mac OS X Leopard a month ago. As my Tiger overview demonstrates, I’m hardly a master at writing overly technical documents about a new operating system. However, I’m fascinated by some of the subtle and not-so-subtle user interface (UI) changes that have come with Leopard.

A Quick Retrospective

The interface of Apple’s Unix-based operating system has been in a state of constant flux since its introduction to consumers in 2001, and every release has seen changes to various parts of the UI. For some history, check out Steve Jobs introducing the new interface in Macworld 2000.



The bizarre thing about watching that video (outside of being reminded of what a pain dialog boxes used to be) is that OS X looks very little like that demonstration eight years ago even though many of the underlying principles remain intact. Take Mail and Finder, for example. Here’s how Mail evolved between OS X 10.2 and 10.4.


10.2 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.3 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.4 on my PowerMac G5.

Mac OS X 10.2 still looks very similar to Steve Jobs’ prototype of Aqua, but the interface begins to evolve in 10.3. Mail in 10.3 sports embedded widow controls as opposed to the floating jewels in earlier versions. Additionally, the pinstripes that once dominated OS X windows and menus are greatly subdued. Finally, Mail in 10.4 adopts an entirely new unified window style, loses the drawer, and sports a new style of pill-shaped toolbar buttons.

The OS X Finder has also seen its share of changes between OS X 10.2 and 10.4.


10.2 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.3 courtesy of GUIdebook.

If examining screenshots, I have to admit that I’d be hard-pressed to tell the 10.1 Finder and 10.2 Finder apart, much like Mail. However, the visual change to 10.3 is jarring. Mac OS 10.3 Panther marks the height of Apple’s infatuation with brushed metal, and metal windows seemed to randomly litter the interface. Again, note how widgets have gone from floating to embedded. In 10.4 Tiger (not pictured), the Finder retains the brushed metal look, but it’s slightly slimmed.

Where Is This Going?

By the time Mac OS X Tiger was released, the UI was an inconsistent jumble. While Apple had been slowly phasing out old ideas like pinstripes and drawers, several new interface ideas were being introduced – without a consistent pattern. With the introduction of unified windows in Tiger’s version of Mail and a dark version of the same window in iTunes 5, OS X apps could sport any one of four windowing styles. Combine this with a variety of toolbar options, a new HUD palette, and completely custom interfaces like those found in applications like GarageBand, and you have a system interface that is growing more and more fragmented.

In the second segment, we’ll take a look at how Leopard takes great strides in unifying the user experience of OS X as well as its share of interface oddities. Get ready for lots of pictures!

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

Apple finally turned their attention to my favorite part of their product line – the MacBooks. I’m always a sucker for the iMacs, but I’ve never owned one. iPhones and iPods are cool gadgets, but I have come to believe that laptops are the best things Apple does, so I was excited to see the news from Cupertino earlier today.

MacBook Air

image © Apple, Inc

The MacBook Air keeps its repuation for being an incredibly thin and light laptop while losing a few of the limitations of the previous generation. It’s still very short on connectivity, featuring only a single USB port, an audio-out port, and a Mini Display Port, which replaces the Micro-DVI port from the previous model. The new display port can support up to 2560x1600 pixels as opposed to the former 1920x1200 pixels.

Driving this new display port is a much more robust Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor which utilizes 256 MB of the systems 2 GB of memory. The internal processor has been largely unchanged, but internal storage has seen a massive boost over previous models. The last generation of the MacBook Air offered either an 80 GB HDD or a 64 GB SSD. Now it features either a 120 GB HDD or a 128 GB SSD. The new MacBook Air comes in $1,799 and $2,499 configurations with a few BTO options.

Update: I was wrong about the processors not being changed. While the clock speeds remain basically the same, the MacBook Air now uses Intel’s 45nm Penryn processor that runs cooler and has a faster FSB than the Merom processors in the older model. I apologize for the error.

MacBook + MacBook Pro

image © Apple, Inc

I’m combining the MacBooks with the Pro models because they are now so similar. What you see above is the new MacBook. The MacBook Pro is a bit wider and has visible speakers. That’s it when it comes to visual differences between the two models. The new MacBooks now feature the same embedded and backlit keyboard. They have new glass LED displays, and upgradeable components are now much more user-accessible across the board. The new MacBooks also feature a new glass buttonless trackpad that supports a variety of multi-touch and gesture commands.

Internally the MacBooks feature 2.0 or 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processors with the Pro models going up to 2.8 GHz. The MacBooks have 160 GB or 250 GB HDDs with 2 GB of memory standard. They also feature integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics processors with 256 MB of shared memory. The MacBook Pros have storage options of 250 GB or 320 GB with 2 GB or 4 GB of memory. The Pro models also come loaded with two Nvidia chips, one discreet and one integrated, that you can switch between depending on whether or not your MacBook Pro is plugged in. The discreet graphics card can come with 256 MB or 512 MB of dedicated memory.

Apple has dropped the matte displays, which was probably inevitable, but the head-scratcher is the lack of FireWire on the MacBook. The Pro model has a FireWire-800 port, but the consumer MacBook doesn’t even feature a FireWire-400. I find that odd. The new MacBooks and MacBook Pros run from $1,299 to $2,499. Also, you can watch a video detailing the design and manufacturing process of the new MacBooks right here. It’s worth watching just to hear Jonathan Ives pronounce aluminum.

Other News

• Apple has retained the white plastic MacBook for a $999 entry model. It features a 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo and 1 GB of memory. I’m guessing this will just be around until Apple can get the new manufacturing process cost-effective enough to drop prices on the aluminum MacBooks. Curiously, this model retains the FireWire 400 port.
  
  
• Also, Apple revved the 17-inch MacBook Pro with a stronger processor, more memory and storage, and an updated graphics processor. However, it retains the old casing, making me wonder if this model too might be on its way out.
  
  
• Finally, Apple made an addition to their Cinema Display lineup with a 24-inch model that takes on the industrial design of the new MacBooks and the iMac. This display is specifically targeted toward MacBook users with its standard MagSafe connector and Mini Display Port as opposed to more standard interfaces. This is the first Apple Cinema Display to use LED backlighting and to feature an integrated microphone, iSight camera, and speakers.

That wraps things up for this round of MacBook updates. Except for the lack of FireWire on the consumer MacBooks, I can’t find anything to gripe about, so it must be a good update!

Tags: macintosh

The iMac shipped for the first time 10 years ago today (well, actually yesterday by the time I finish writing this), and it quickly became the product that would define and reshape Apple. Since its debut, some products like the iPod and iPhone have eclipsed it in terms of mass appeal, but the iMac will always serve as an emblem of Apple's product philosophy. Here are some links celebrating the iMac's tenth birthday.

• Ars Technica: Hello (again): Apple's iMac turns 10
• Macworld: Eight ways the iMac changed computing
• Wired: 10 Years of Cuddly, Friendly iMacs

As sleek as the current iPhone-inspired design of the iMac is, I think the lampshade iMac G4 is still my favorite. It was charming in a way few technology products manage to be. I also liked the eMac despite (or perhaps because of) its shuttle-nose contours.

The iMac is the product that saved Apple when it was about to collapse in on itself, and it was the first Apple product I owned. Here's to many more years of great designs and great computers.

Tags: apple inc, macintosh

iTunes: The Official Barack Obama Video Podcast

Did you know Obama offers some of his speeches as free downloads through iTunes? I didn't.

The link opens in iTunes.



The Metal Gear Retrospective: Part One



GameTrailers.com is beginning a multi-episode look at the Metal Gear video game series as Konami readies the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. This video looks back at the MSX and NES days of the series and the birth of the stealth genre.



Davis and Company: The End of the Star Wars / Star Trek Debate

Well, I'm glad that's settled.

via John Gruber



YouTube: Apple Mac Music Video



Bizarre, but cool. via TUAW.

Tags: politics, video games, macintosh, silly

March 21, 2001 marked the official release of Mac OS X 10.0 to much fanfare and gnashing of teeth. Yes, I meant to write that. OS X was a milestone Apple achievement. It delivered on their long-term goal to finally deliver a next-generation operating system to their users. It was a complete break from the aging monolith that was the classic Mac OS. It brought new technologies and a new user interface to the Mac-faithful. However, there were some bumps in the road during those first few months of life.


Apple gave the world the first real look at OS X when they released the $29 public beta in August of 2000. I was an early adopter, and ordered the beta almost the moment it became available on Apple's website. As soon as the software arrived, I performed a clean install on my PowerBook G3. There would be no reverting to Classic for me – it was OS X or bust! (I should mention that my iMac DV retained OS 9 for quite some time, so I did have a serious safety net.)

Those early days – while problematic at times – taught me about one of the most valuable resources Mac users have: independent software developers. In the early days of OS X, the shareware and freeware developers moved more quickly than the corporate giants in bringing their products to OS X. As I browse my Applications folder today, more of the programs contained within are from independent developers than corporations. To this day, those independents, by and large, make software that better integrates with OS X and feels more Mac-like than anything Adobe or Microsoft puts out.


With the release of OS X 10.2 Jaguar in August of 2002, my iMac upgraded to Apple's new operating system. By now, I was more comfortable in OS X than OS 9, and all of the applications I regularly use had OS X-native versions. In fact, many had dropped support for OS 9 by now. System 10 was the unequivocal future of the Macintosh operating systems, and there was no more point in holding onto the past.

10.3 Panther would be the last version of OS X for my aging iMac. By the time Tiger was released, we had a PowerMac G5, but we still had the PowerBook G3. I upgraded the PowerBook to Tiger, but quickly returned to the previous system when it became obvious that OS X 10.4 was jut too resource-intensive for my old laptop. It's still running Panther in my classroom, keeping all of our textbook music in iTunes. It's not many laptops that can say they are still in active service after eight years of use!


I haven't upgraded to Leopard yet. I'm guessing the PowerMac will stay on Tiger, but the MacBook Pro seems to be ready to move on. Things like Time Machine, Quick Look, improvements to Preview, Cover Flow, Stacks, and many other small touches are compelling. Apple really have brought OS X a long way since those first feeble steps seven years ago, and I'm excited to see where things go next.

Tags: macintosh, software, os x

Kotaku: No Gods or Kings: Objectivism in BioShock

I'm beginning work on a post about video games that maturely tackle serious subjects, and BioShock is one of them. Any video game that aspires to incorporate the philosophies of Ayn Rand into the game world is going to be heavy fare, and BioShock does not disappoint. In fact, it delivers in spades!



Daring Fireball: The Appeal of the MacBook Air

John Gruber writes about what makes the MacBook Air an attractive machine despite its obvious limitations. From the article:

What struck me regarding Macworld’s MacBook Air benchmarks wasn’t how much worse the Air performed than the standard MacBook or MacBook Pro, but how much better it performed than their baseline notebook, a 1.67 GHz 15-inch PowerBook G4 — the fastest Mac notebook you could buy two years ago, and the very computer I still use every day. That the Air isn’t as fast as a regular MacBook does not matter because the Air — for most people and most tasks — is clearly fast enough.

The more I look at the MacBook Air, the more taken I am with it. In all honesty, how often do I use all of these ports on my MacBook Pro? I seldom even use its optical drive...



Signal vs. Noise: The MacBook Air could easily be the only machine

Adding to the praise heaped upon the MacBook Air by real people, David at 37signals writes about his experiences with it, and he believes the Air could serve perfectly as the sole computer in many households.

via Daring Fireball



BusinessWeek: Building the Perfect Laptop

If you like the MacBook Air but absolutely need Ethernet, two more USB ports, and a standard DVD drive (oh, and Windows), the new Lenovo X300 might be for you, but watch out. It's base configuration is $900 more than the standard Air model! Still, if I were a Windows or Linux user, this machine would be tempting.

Tags: video games, macintosh

Okay, I tried posting this last night, but three-quarters of the entry just outright disappeared upon export. Here's take two.

Tuesday's Macworld keynote speech by Steve Jobs was interesting and exciting in many ways. Unfortunately for Apple's stock, it seems investors were really hoping for a 3G iPhone. However, iPhone was hardly mentioned Tuesday, and the Mac took center stage. Perhaps this was Jobs' way of making up for last year's iPhone-centered keynote. Here's a quick rundown.

iPhone + iPod touch

iPhone and iPod touch both received software updates that can be downloaded through iTunes. iPhone received some GPS-like functionality to Maps, customizable home screens, Web clips (like in the Leopard Dashboard), song lyric support, video chapters, and multi-person messaging. The iPod touch receives Mail, Maps, Weather, Notes, and Stocks – bringing it to surprising parity with iPhone. The only downside of the iPod touch upgrade is a $20 fee.

A part of me still covets an iPod touch, and the new features make the device even more desirable. Now, if only they would release a 32 GB version at the price-point of the current 16 GB model...

iTunes + Apple TV

The big iTunes news is movie rentals. Rentals ring in at $2.99-$4.99 depending on definition and release status. Once a movie is rented, a user has 30 days to begin watching the film and 24 hours to complete a film once it's started. The 24-hour viewing window seems stingy, but I understand it's in line with comparable services. In addition to the movie rentals, Apple has signed a deal with Fox in which new Fox DVDs will also contain an iTunes-friendly version of the film on the disc. This is an interesting way to circumvent the whole DVD-backup issue. I wonder if other studios will hop on board with this initiative.



By focusing on movies, Apple has also made Apple TV a more competitive product. Once tethered to iTunes, Apple TV now has its own interface with the iTunes Store and can even download higher-resulution movie rentals (720p) than iTunes on Macs or PCs. The new user interface is very nice, and the pricetag is even nicer. A 40 GB model is available for $229 and a 160 GB model for $329.

If we watched more movies and TV shows, this might be a no-brainer, even with an XBox 360. Quite simply, iTunes has more content than XBox Live Marketplace and that content is priced better. Also, XBox Live Marketplace gives you a smaller window in which to begin viewing rented material. Out of the product announcements today, Apple TV may actually be the most competitive. (Here's a comparison of XBox Live Marketplace and Apple TV.)

Time Capsule

Time Capsule is the child of a high-capacity wireless hard drive and an AirPort Extreme base station. It's designed to compliment Leopard's Time Machine backup solution. Featuring a 500 GB or 1 TB hard drive ($299 and $499 respectively), this is an interestingly positioned product. Quite honestly, if I were to pick up an Airport Extreme and a decent 1 TB external drive individually, it would come up to about $500 dollars. For that same amount, here's an all-in-one solution. Seems like a winner to me even if it does target a niche audience.

I even like the name.

MacBook Air

The most attention-grabbing product announced was the MacBook Air. Closed, it's 0.76" at it's thickest point, and it weighs only 3 pounds. Check out the commercial for a good illustration of just how small this thing is. The thing looks amazing at first glance and comes packaged with some truly innovative technology, but I don't know if it will actually be a success.

Much is riding on its appeal as an ultra-light notebook and its stunning looks. Other appealing features include a gesture-sensitive trackpad and an amazing technology called Remote Disc. In a shell, Remote Disc allows the MacBook Air to wirelessly read discs inserted in another computer! This is quite important as the MacBook Air has no built-in optical drive. (However, Apple does sell a $99 USB Superdrive for the MacBook Air.)

Unfortunately, the limitations of this product relegate it to a solely secondary computer position, which is unfortunate considering its price. MacBook Air starts at $1799 with a SSD version available for $3,098! Not only is it bereft of an optical drive, but the hard drive itself is pretty small. It has few ports, excluding even an ethernet port, and the battery is not user replaceable. Fortunately, if you purchase the $129 battery through the Apple Store, installation is free, but this still costs convenience.

I am enamored by the looks and some of the technology in the MacBook Air, but I don't really see its value over Apple's other laptops. Now if Apple released a MacBook or MacBook Pro with a similar form factor and multi-touch trackpad, I might be interested. On the other hand, it's not wise to try to predict the failure or success of an Apple product, and they may have a success on their hands here. One never knows.

images courtesy Apple, Inc.

Tags: apple inc, macintosh, macworld, iphone, itunes/ipods

So I'll get to writing another real post before long. Until then, more links!

Apple – Mac Pro

The Mac Pro received a substantial update yesterday. The standard configuration comes with a whopping eight cores of processing power, but if you need to pinch those pennies, you can save $500 by settling for a measly four cores! In related news, the XServes saw a comparable upgrade.



Newsgator: NetNewsWire 3.1

NetNewsWire is free as of today. It was formerly $30. If you are a Mac user, this is a great application, and I recommend you give it a try.



Indexed: Even Grandpa Was a Punk Kid Once

This post is so very true. It's amazing what you can communicate through a Venn diagram and an index card!



Whatever: Why It Won't Work

John Scalzi on Sony's, um, brilliant (cough) new way of selling DRM-free tracks. I think he nails it on the head. From the article:

So to recap, what you’ve got here is a system that makes people leave their house in order to download music at their house, and makes them go to a store to get music that they could get at the store, somewhere else.

via Daring Fireball

Tags: drm, macintosh, software

I like Paul Thurrott. Really. However, his recent post regarding some users having installation issues with Leopard is just unfortunate. In it, he begins by taking Apple to task for an unwise icon choice for representing PCs in Leopard.

"Apple is so lame and so childish that the icons it uses in Leopard for networked Windows PCs are CRT displays with a Windows blue screen of death. Normally, I'd see this for what it is--typical juvenile stupidity from Cupertino..."

He goes on to point out that some users are experiencing installation issues that also results in a similar blue screen.

"You see, Leopard has its own blue screen of death. And it's happening to an alarming number of people who buy the new OS and install it on their Macs...Have fun with those blue screens, Apple. My advice: Describe this as feature number 301. Heck, you might be able to wrangle 3 or 4 new features out of it."

The problem I have here is that he is acting every bit as childish and immature as he claims Apple is being with this icon (which I'm sure few users will ever even see). He also foregoes any fact-checking as to the root causes. He just reinforces bad stereotypes of Mac-bashers, a stereotype he usually doesn't fit. This tirade is below him.

Fortunately, John Gruber comes along to straighten the facts out regarding the mystery of the blue screen:

"But, as far as I can tell, there is no mystery involved. There is one and only one known cause for this problem: old versions of Unsanity’s Application Enhancer, a.k.a. APE."

There are some exceptions to this statement (which Mr. Gruber admits to in his write-up). However, by and large, this problem is created by Application Enhancer, which is used for unsupported system modifications. The problem turns out to be that several Logitech mouse users may have an old version of APE on their systems without knowing it.

"Logitech Control Center currently installs APE 2.0.3, but previous versions of their installer used older versions of APE, which versions render Leopard unbootable. This is particularly pernicious given that most people installing Logitech’s software have never even heard of APE or Unsanity, let alone realize that Logitech is installing it on their system."

Most Unsanity customers would disable APEs without prompting. We know we are messing with the untold depths of the system and need to undo it all before performing a major upgrade. However, the story is different for someone merely buying a mouse. The issue here is not how Apple let this flaw exist in their software. The issue is why in the world a respected company like Logitech relies on an unsupported system hack to make their hardware work with Mac OS X.

Just for fun, here's the controversial icon:


I include this for a couple of reasons.

1. So you can see what all the fuss is about if you don't happen to be a Mac user with Leopard installed and sharing Windows PCs.
2. Just to demonstrate how huge Leopard icons are. Yes, this is the actual icon.

Irony or potential humor aside, this small problem has gotten too much attention. Maybe if Windows included something silly like this, I'd be on the other side of the fence, but I'd like to think not. Anyway, the Leopard BSOD can be prevented by having the latest version of APE on your system or by disabling it altogether before installing, and I bet that icon will change within the first couple of point releases.

After all, this is nothing. Does anyone remember the Panther File Vault bug that would eat your Home folder? Now that was worth writing home about.

Tags: macintosh, software, apple inc

The month I bought my first Mac was in one of Apple's last 1,000,000 unit quarters for a while. After the stagnation of the G4 and the relatively cautious adoption of OS X, Apple began to see its Mac sales drop into six figures again. As of Q1 2001, Mac sales dropped to around 660,000 units. Sure, they would later begin hovering around 800-900,000, but that was a strong psychological barrier. Even the spike caused by the introduction of the iMac G4 (still one of my favorite Mac designs) did not last. As the G4 chip barely broke 1 GHz, x86 processors soared up to and beyond 3 GHz, and Apple's machines were offering less and less value and performance for their prices. Even the release of the PowerMac G5 (which offered tons more performance than the G4) initially did little to spur demand.

FInally, Q1 2005 saw the first quarter in nearly five years where Apple broke the 1,000,000 mark with Macs – driven largely by sales of the iMac G5 introduced the previous fall. From here, things began to look up, and Apple announced its new partnership with Intel that same summer. Mac sales continued to grow through 2006 as Apple's computers became more desirable. Finally producing performance that lived up to the hype, Macs began to attract more users. Now, Apple has seen its first 2,000,000 Mac quarter.

While it's easy to point out that Dell or HP sell over two million units in a matter of weeks, remember that two years ago, Apple was struggling to keep above 1,000,000 units a quarter, and, prior to that, the Macs future was really beginning to look grim. (Let's not even drudge up 1997!) Furthermore, John Gruber notes that this success comes right before a new OS release – typically a time when people put off major hardware purchases. It will be fun (in a geeky kind of way) to see if Apple can maintain this momentum into next year. Who knows? Perhaps I'll be blogging about Apple selling 3,000,000 Macs during a quarter sometime soon.

Tags: macintosh, apple inc

Some of the visual asthetics of Leopard bother me in the screenshots. It's the way I am. I'm a UI junkie, and, while I like visual flair, I grow annoyed if the eye candy begins to detract from the experience as a whole. Once I get to use Leopard, I might change my mind, but right now I'm not sold on the new menu bar, the new Dock, or the way stacks fan out. Well, strike that last one. I gained some appreciation for that interface nuance earlier today.


image from apple.com

I always disliked how the stack curved slightly to the right, until I was working this morning and I noticed how my mouse hand drifts to the right when I try to go straight up. In fact (and I tested this against an enlarged screenshot, so you know its scientific), my hand drifted along basically the same arc the stack has!

In other words, this interface element that looks like useless eye candy actually has purpose. It's easier to intuitively navigate than a straight column. Once again, Apple shows its attention to detail even with an interface element that most users won't give a second glance.

Tags: macintosh, software, technology, os x, leopard

TUAW Exclusive: Pixelmator in-depth screencast

This app is just looking cooler and cooler. My wallet curses these awesome Mac software developers and their great products!



Ars Technica: Report: Gamers largely clueless about next-gen console media capabilities

Considering how insanely expensive these new consoles are coupled with the fact that 2/3 really need a HD-capable TV to show off their capabilities, this is truly surprising.



FatBits: Stuck on the enterprise

John Siracusa on Apple's focus on consumers:

Still holding that thought about the Intel stickers? Listen again to Steve's final words on the subject. "We put ourselves in the customer's shoes and say, what do we want?"

This is why Apple does not compete in the enterprise market in the traditional sense. This is why no other company created the iPhone. This is why most desktop PCs are pieces of crap. When you don't focus on the user, the user gets shafted.

Tags: macintosh, video games, software, apple inc

Presentation Zen: Steve Jobs and the art of the swordsman

This is a good post by Garr Reynolds about the Art of Steve when it comes to presentations. Good stuff.



Ars Technica: Adobe, Microsoft accused of infringing on browser-related patents

Here we go again. All I want to know is why this company was awarded this patent years after this specific interface paradigm was already in use.



Apple – QuickTIme – Apple Special Event – August 2007

If you want to watch Steve Jobs' presentation from yesterday, it's right here. A fast connection is recommended.



Apple – iWork – Trial

If you have a Mac, you should download the trial version of iWork '08. It's only a 469 MB download!



Wired: Aug. 7, 1991: Ladies and Gentlemen, the World Wide Web

The "tubes" went public, and the world began to change.



Engadget: Apple calls multitouch Mac a "research project"

Sounds like Apple is still considering adding multitouch support to Macs. Chances are, this will show up in notebooks before desktops. I was not suprised that yesterdays announcements did not include a multitouch Mac.

Tags: powerpoint, microsoft, software, macintosh, apple inc, browsers, adobe

Apple's press event today contained virtually no true surprises, but that doesn't mean there isn't some good stuff here for any tech enthusiast to get excited about.

New iMac

The new iMac is very similar in form to its predecessor but just a tad sleeker. They took a good design and made it better. Just for reference, here's a picture of the previous model and the new side by side.



I'm not too sure what else to write about this upgrade. The specs are nice, and the prices are even better than before – especially on the higher end models. I've already written a bit about the new keyboard. I like the looks, but I'd definitely want to get my hands on one before purchasing. (But it would look nice attached to my old but reliable PowerMac G5...)

The only weird bit is the wireless version of the keyboard. It has no number pad. It's layout is basically that of a laptop keyboard – which is what I primarily use. However, some consumers and business folks might not like that.

the wireless keyboard

iLife '08

This came as a surprise to me because I really wasn't expecting iLife to be upgraded until Leopard came out this October. Among other improvements, iPhoto has gained the ability to automatically show or hide given photos in your library. It has a new organization option called "Events," and it has gained the ability to publish to a [dot] Mac web gallery with some sleek effects.

iDVD has received some new themes and better encoding while iMovie looks like a whole new application (with a new icon even). It can now manage videos (a la iPhoto) as well as create. iMovie integrates with [dot] Mac and YouTube, and it features a retooled interface for making movie creation even easier. I guess Apple felt like they needed to do something new with this app since Windows Movie Maker was so capably aping it!

iMovie

iWeb has seen some basic improvements in theme handling, and it now supports personal domains. It features Google Maps and Adsense integration as well as Web Widgets – showcasing content from other sites like Twitter, Flickr, etc. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the blogging component has received much attention based on the website. Finally, GarageBand comes with new arranging and automation capabilities as well as a new visual equalizer. Magic GarageBand is a new mode that allows you to quickly experiment with and create new music.

In all, the upgrades are pretty small, but the enhancements to iMovie seem worth the price alone.

iWork '08

This was another upgrade that I thought would not be coming until after Leopard (and one I'll be posting some more on after I finish downloading the 469 MB demo). It turns out, according to John Gruber, iWork installs the Leopard ImageKit for Tiger users. I wonder if any other apps can take advantage of ImageKit once it's there.

Keynote features new path animations (huzzah), new text effects, transitions, and themes, and it has a new feature called Instant Alpha that is supposed to remove the background from an image. I'm assuming the background needs to be solid, but I'll find out when I start playing around. Pages seems to have borrowed a trick from Microsoft with contextual toolbars. It also features separate modes for word processing and page layout, and its tracking feature is now compatible with Word.


the new contextual toolbar

The big news in iWork is a new spreadsheet application called Numbers that claims Excel compatibility. It features the same simple interface as Keynote and Pages, and it offers flexible ways to analyze variable in your data to see instantaneous results. I'm going to be doing a lot of spreadsheet work this coming school year, so this application really intrigues me.


Numbers

Other Updates

A few other products got quiet upgrades today. The Mac mini was boosted to Core 2 Duo processors and 1 GB of default memory. Airport Extreme received gigabit ethernet. [dot] Mac storage was bumped to 10 GB (from 1 GB) with 100 GB of monthly data transfer as well as new web gallery support and server-side spam filtering, which should make some iPhone users happier. Finally, the MacPro gets a new PCI RAID option for those of you with an extra $999 laying around.

All in all, it's been a busy day in Apple product news. My favorite bits are the iWork upgrade and the new iMac, but I'm also happy about the bumped [dot] Mac storage. I'll be back on in a couple of days with some iWork '08 impressions!

all images in this post are courtesy Apple, Inc.

Tags: macintosh, opinion, software

In 1999, Apple released a humble product called Mac OS X (pronounced "ten") Server 1.0. In look and feel, the operating system was very similar to Mac OS 8 (and 9), but, beneath the interface, the system contained some drastic changes that would eventually revolutionize the entire Macintosh software line. It eschewed the classic Mac OS nanokernal for the NEXTSTEP hybrid kernel, and it contained a hybrid of classic Macintosh features and NEXTSTEP features – even requiring an emulation layer to run classic Mac OS applications. This Mac OS was unlike anything that had come before it. In fact, it was really Mac OS in name only.

A Little Background

In 1986, two years after the introduction of the Macintosh and and the Mac OS, Steve Jobs found himself ousted from the company he helped create. Ever the entrepeneuer, he quickly launched into two new ventures – one was an unwanted animation studio that would become Pixar, and the other was a new computer company called NeXT.

NeXT computers were technnically advanced for their time. They were released in 1990 with 25MHz processors, 8 MB RAM, an ethernet port, 256 MB storage, and a 1120x832 display. In contrast, typical machines of the time would have had 16MHz processors, 640 kb RAM, no networking, 10-40 MB storage, and 640x350 displays. NeXT Computer is considered a pioneer in brigning networking to desktop computers. The first email programs and web browsers were developed for NeXT. Unfortunately, the NeXT hardware was doomed to failure (mainly due to prohibitively high costs), but the operating system would live on.

NEXTSTEP was released in the days of Windows 3.1 and Mac OS 7, and it stood out from its competition both visually and in capabilities.



Mac OS 7, Windows 3.1, and NEXTSTEP. These screenshots are all courtesy of Wikipedia.

NEXTSTEP was based on the Mach kernel and BSD. It featured object-oriented programming based on the Objective-C language. It was meant to be viewed on higher-resolution displays, and it included many software tools for networking and collaboration. Additionally, NEXTSTEP was the first general operating system to handle color standards, advanced sound processing, modern typography, and internationalization. It's interface featured real-time scrolling and window dragging as well as window notifications and transparency. Again, this was all in the early 90's, well before the world would be captivated by Windows 95.

NEXTSTEP faded into obscurity after the mass adoption of Windows 95, but it would find a strange rebirth in 1996 when it was acquired by Apple, and Steve Jobs returned to the company that had rejected him ten years prior.

Reinventing the Mac OS

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple through the NEXT acquisition, Apple had already put massive efforts into overhauling the Mac OS through the Copland and Taligent projects (though some Copland features were eventually incorporated into OS X). Both of these systems were laid to rest in the late nineties in favor of Rhapsody, an operating system based primarily on the OPENSTEP (neé NEXTSTEP) operating system. Rhapsody eventually became Mac OS X Server 1.0 which would lead to the public beta of Mac OS X.


OPENSTEP and Rhapsody (both courtesy GUIdebook) side by side

Though called Mac OS, system 10 shared little in common with the previous Mac operating systems outside some superficial interface elements. Like NEXTSTEP, Mac OS X is based on the Mach kernel and BSD Unix. They are both object-oriented environments based on the Objective-C programming language. Both feature a dock, system services, managed memory, and preemptive multitasking. In fact, if you crack open the UI of most Mac OS X applications, you will find files with the extension ".nib" contained within. NIB is short for NeXT Interface Builder.

Like Mac OS X Server 1.0 and the Rhapsody developer builds, Mac OS X is incapable of natively running applications written for previous versions of the Mac OS. These applications were relegated to a "blue box" called Classic, and they could not take advantage of Mac OS X's more advanced features. The Classic layer, effectively the final vestiges of the original Mac OS, lost support with the recent Intel-transition of Macintosh computers, placing the final nails in the coffin of the system that served Apple since 1984.


System 1.1 (from GUIdebook) next to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (from Apple)

As John Siracusa wrote last year (on the fifth anniversary of Mac OS X), "The Mac is dead. Long live the Mac." OS X is Mac OS in name only. Truth be told, Mac OS X is the never-released NEXTSTEP 5, for the system shares much more in common with that legacy than with the Mac OS legacy. Apple took a daring move with Mac OS X in that they completely pulled the rug out from under their current OS foundation and replaced it with something entirely new – a feat that other OS vendors have been reluctant to attempt.

As Mac OS X becomes a more mature product, it resembles NEXTSTEP more and more while retaining the style and simplicity Mac users have come to expect. NEXTSTEP and the classic Mac OS were products doomed to failure – the former for being too far ahead of the times and the latter for being to far behind – but Apple has created a powerful and stable operating environment from the ashes of both, similar to each but ultimately original and innovative.

Tags: software, macintosh, leopard, os x

Ars Technica: 15-year-old parallel processing patent threatens Sony, PS3

Seriously, what is the deal with these obscure companies that come out of the woodwork waving patents that they have never done anything with? Is patent-squatting some kind of new national pastime?



Infinite Loop: Apple schedules Mac event for Tuesday, August 7

Hmm, Apple is making it clear that this is not an iPod or iPhone related event. I know I'm interested.



Eureka Alert: Test scores slow under No Child Left Behind reforms, gauged by states/federal assessment

From the article:

The share of fourth-graders proficient in reading, based on federal NAEP results, climbed by one-half a percentage point each year, on average, between the mid-1990s and 2002. But over the four years after the legislation was passed, the share of students deemed proficient declined by about one percent.

The annual rise in the percentage of fourth-graders proficient in mathematics improved slightly in the same 12 states, moving up from 1.6 percent per year before ‘No Child’ was signed to a yearly growth rate of 2.5 percent following enactment of the law. This is the one out of six federal gauges where a post-NCLB gain was observed by the research team, tracking NAEP results.

Wow. NCLB is correlated with improvement in 1/6 of measured standards. Of course, NCLB really has little to do with what's best for children as much as it is about what's best for the perception that politician's care.



Infinite Loop: Eminem publisher sues Apple over iTunes downloads

The way I read the article, it sounds like this is really a dispute between Eminem's publisher and Universal Music. Anyway, Eminem's stuff has been on the iTunes store for how long now? Way to take initiative guys...

Tags: macintosh, education, video games, itunes/ipods

A couple of interesting images related to forthcomeing Apple products have been floating around this week. (Well, they're interesting to me at any rate, so you get to hear about them.)

The first image that struck me was in Engadget's report on a new keyboard for the upcoming iMac revision. This falls firmly under the "rumor and speculation" category, but it seems inline with Apple's current design philosophy. One item of debate, though, has centered around the apparent removal of the apple logo from the cmd keys on either side of the keyboard. See the comparison shots below:

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photos courtesy of Apple and Gizmodo respectively

Whether or not the second image is real, I'm surprised this cosmetic change hasn't already been implemented. Apple documentation seldom (if ever) refers to an "Apple" key while "cmd-" is commonly documented. Furthermore, Andy Hertzfeld writes about Jobs' intense dislike for the keyboard Apple logo on folklore.org.

From the article:

"There are too many Apples on the screen! It's ridiculous! We're taking the Apple logo in vain! We've got to stop doing that!"

After we told him that we had to display the command key symbol with each item that had one, he told us that we better find a different symbol to use instead of the Apple logo, and, because it affected both the manuals and the keyboard hardware, we only had a few days to come up with something else.

Therefore, if future Apple keyboards eschew the use of Apple logos on the cmd keys, it should really come as no surprise.

The second thing to pique my interest came way of Think Secret's posting of some recent Leopard screenshots. In the shots was a picture of the Finder's new Path Bar:


photo courtesy of Think Secret

I don't find this interesting because of a similar Windows Vista feature. Rather, it's significant because this is another NEXTSTEP feature to reappear in OS X. (Really, one of these days I'm going to write a very long-winded post about why I view Mac OS X more as NEXTSTEP version 5.x more than Mac OS 10.x.)

In order, the shots below represent OPENSTEP 4.2 released in the late nineties, two developer previews of Mac OS X, and the public beta version of Mac OS X released in 2000. Note that a path bar is visible in all screens except the Mac OS X Public Beta, where it suddenly disappears.

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these shots are all courtesy of GUIdebook

The new Finder Path Bar is definitely more minimal than those previous incarnations, but I think it is yet another indication of the influence Mac OS X's NEXT roots has on its continued development. Also, as Mac OS X continues to evolve, I think we're going to see a lot more small but welcome enhancements like these slip in under the radar. Now, if only they would fix the weirdness that is the Leopard dock...

It often strikes me as fascinating that so many advances at Apple owe so much to their roots, even as far back as the development of the original Macintosh more than twenty years ago.

Tags: technology, macintosh, leopard, os x

Steve Jobs outlined some more info about Leopard during his Keynote speech at this years WWDC, and Apple's website has even more. Here are some of the overall impressions I've gained.

Eye Candy Is Important

One of the big changes (improvements may be debatable) in Leopard is in the visuals. Everything seems geared toward visual impressiveness. This user interface (UI) is intended to make people look at Vista and think it looks clunky.

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all images from apple.com

I've read many power-users bemoaning the fact that visual flair is becoming too emphasized in modern operating systems, and it doesn't look like that trend is reversing anytime soon. Personally, I like visual enhancements so long as they do not come at a cost to usability. The only complaint here is in the menu bar. The menus look out-of-place when invoked.


it's translucent now

iTunes = Mac Experience

Apple wants iTunes users to feel right at home in the Leopard UI – iTunes being the only Apple interface many potential users have daily contact with. As a result, the majority of the system resembles iTunes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the revamped Finder.


image from apple.com

From the window design to the sidebar to Cover Flow, the Finder basically recreates the iTunes experience in file management. The message: "If you enjoy using iTunes, you will enjoy using a Mac."

Organize Your Way

Stacks, the Dock, smart folders, Cover Flow, Quick View, Spaces – all of this gives the user greater flexibility in how he or she uses a Mac.


a stack of documents (from apple.com)


Quick View in Time Machine (from apple.com)

It's all about giving you greater flexibility and more options in how and where you access your files, media, and applications. Content is king, and Apple is giving us many ways to experience, organize, and access that content.

One Size Fits All

Steve Jobs made a joke during his talk that Leopard will come in three editions – Basic at $129, Premium at $129, and Ultimate at $129. He thinks most people will buy the Ultimate Edition. The simple fact is that you don't have to worry about which version of the OS to upgrade to because there is only one. Ease-of-use is a hallmark of the Macintosh experience, and that simplicity begins with the purchasing process.

Personally, I can't wait to get my hands on Leopard in October.

Tags: software, opinion, macintosh, leopard, wwdc, os x

The Nation: Senate Begins Real Push on Habeas Corpus

This directly challenges principals set forth in the controversial Military Commissions Act of 2006, which basically allowed for the Geneva Conventions and habeas corpus to be ignored in the case of suspected terrorists and war criminals.

I just hope Senate has the guts to get this processed untarnished.



Infinite Loop: Mac vs. PC Prices

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Mac prices are competitive when compared to similarly equipped machines – especially MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and iMacs. The perceived price gap comes from the fact that Apple chooses not to compete in the bargain-basement department, allowing them to remain insanely profitable.

Also, like people who prefer buying organic foods at Wild Oats rather than Meijer, there's something to be said about paying for the experience as well.

Tags: politics, macintosh

Ars Technica: Product loyalty: consumers mistake familiarity with superiority

Basically, this article states the obvious point that we value familiarity in products we use. However, I think our tendency toward "Cognitive Lock-in" makes leading technology companies wary of truly innovating.

From the article:

Overall, the results suggest that all the years of arguments over the relative merits of things like the Mac and Windows user interfaces were a waste of time: we're generally convinced that whatever we're familiar with is the best.

Apple – MacBook Pro



Faster processors, faster buses, more default memory, faster burners – what's not to like? Oh, and the 15" uses an LED display resulting in some better battery life.



OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X

As excited as I am about this project, I think I'll wait to download until the list of known issues stops saying things like, "You cannot print" and "OpenOffice.org will crash after quitting."

Another thing: does anyone else find it strange that they refer to the application as OpenOffice.org rather than just OpenOffice? Seems odd to me...

Tags: macintosh, software

It's been a busy week in the world of indie Mac developers. Instead of creating several tiny links to these products, here's a quick look at some of the bigger releases in the past week:

Panic – Coda
From the site:

So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler.”

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Coda is simply a one-stop solution for individuals who like to hand code their web sites. Right now, it's a bit over my head, but I'll keep revisiting it as my coding skills improve. John Gruber has some interesting thoughts on the product right here, and I was also pointed to this post on Upstart Blogger with thirty tips and tricks for Coda.

Coda is a very accessible application, and the UI is gorgeous. The price is a bit steep, though, at $99. However, Panic is offering Coda for $79 right now.

MacRabbit – CSSEdit 2.5
This is another product aimed at web developers, and it is specifically designed for editing CSS stylesheets. It is a very nice-lloking application. The feature-set is good, and the price of $30 is not bad at all for the functionality it offers.

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CSSEdit is especially handy for tracking downs specific elements you might want to change, and you can preview those changes live. This application just keeps continuing to impress me. I've had some experience manually tweaking CSS stylesheets, and this product is just fantastic for that.

Peter Borg – Smultron 3.0
Smultron is a free text editor that is aimed at beginning and advanced coders. It supports syntax coloring (for several different programming languages from .ASP to Fortran to Ruby to Lua), split window editing, line numbers, Java compiling, code validation, and may other advanced features. Is it as comprehensive as something like TextMate? I don't actually know, but it's pretty good, and the price can't be beat if it meets your needs.

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Rogue Amoeba – Fission 1.5
Like many great applicaitons, Fission is a very simple tool. It's aimed at editing and converting audio files losslessly. You can copy and paste audio files, split long files into shorter segments, cut unwanted sections, or tweak volume levels. The interface is clear and accessible, and, as an added bonus to Rogue Amoeba fans, the applications integrates tightly with Audio Hijack Pro.



Fission costs $32, but owners of Audio Hijack Pro 2 or higher are eligible to buy it for $18.

Freeverse – Periscope
Periscope is a utility from Freeverse software that is intended to make life with your webcam a little simpler and more fun. It allows you to set your webcam to capture images when certain criteria are met. You can add text, logos, or timestamps to the pictures taken, and the application makes it easy to share your photos via .Mac, email, Flickr, iPhoto, etc.



The only bone I have to pick with this application is that it is kind of ugly. It does not use standard OS X widgets, and the window behavior is ... odd. It just does not feel like an OS X app, and, for $30, it should. I don't think it offers enough functionality to justify the price tag, so a little more polish would go a long way in making that price easier to digest.

Acqualia – Picturesque
Picturesque is a very simple image editor aimed at dressing up your pictures for websites. It's opening interface is very reminiscent of AppZapper with the user dragging an image into the empty application window. Once you open an image, you can add shadow, glow, reflection, curved corners, or edges. A background color can be specified, and the image can be resized using a simple slider.



It's functionality is pretty limited, but it performs its purpose. I do have one little gripe though. Where can I specify what percentage of the actual size I'm viewing the image at. That seems like a setting I should be able to change. Picturesque is $20.

Acqualia – Soulver
Soulver is, in fact, pretty cool. The concept is simple but unique. Make a calculator that lets you enter equations as plain-English phrases. This allows you to think of math in more practical terms that we usually would using a standard calculator.



The problem is that the language you use has to be pretty specific (as the screenshot above illustrates), and this limits the real-world usefulness of this product. I especially had a hard time getting subtraction to function reliably. Still, it's a great concept, and I hope the developer keeps working on improvements. Soulver is $18.

I've probably missed more great software releases, but these hopefully provide some good highlights. Most of these are probably being overshadowed by the release of Coda, but if you are a Mac user in search of a few good downloads this weekend, there is some good stuff here.

Tags: macintosh, technology, software

Way back in January, we picked up a shiny MacBook Pro to replace my aging PowerBook G3. I finally managed to get ahold of my wife's digital camera to take some quick pictures comparing the two laptops. The quality of these pictures is evidence as to why the wife doesn't let me touch cameras often...



First up, here we have the two laying right next to each other with lids closed. Even in its old age, the PowerBook has some nice curves going for it. By the way, if you look closely, you'll see that the MacBook Pro is facing the opposite direction! I made this mistake because...



... the PowerBook's logo is upside down when opened! Incidentally, my model of PowerBook was the last laptop Apple built with the "flipped" logo. Also, you can see that the PowerBook has a much taller screen, and the MacBook Pro's hinge is flush with the bottom of the computer.

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Stacked atop the MacBook Pro, the PowerBook exceeds the depth of the former but is not quite as wide. In the close-up of the hinges it's easy to see how much thinner the MacBook Pro is – only about as thick as the bottom portion of the PowerBook. (And the PowerBook is slimmer than many other laptops around!)

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The MacBook Pro's screen is much brighter and crisper, and the illuminated keyboard is great for working in low-light environments. Unfortunately, this picture doesn't quite show off the keyboard as much as I would have liked. Additionally, if these pictures were larger, you would be able to see damage on the PowerBook down by its smaller track-pad. (It took seven years for the case to finally begin to crack!)

That wraps up this picture post. The amazing thing about the PowerBook G3 is that I'm still using it to manage audio files for my music classes, programs, and choir. I wonder if my new MacBook Pro will still be useful that far down the line!

Tags: home, technology, macintosh

This is a quick update to my original series of posts looking at NeoOffice 2.0, a free suite of office applications based on the OpenOffice project. If you missed the initial overview, the original series is listed below:

NeoOffice: Writer First Impressions • NeoOffice: Look + Feel • NeoOffice: Impress First Impressions
NeoOffice: The Rest of the Package • NeoOffice: Wish List • NeoOffice: Final Thoughts

Last week, NeoOffice recieved an incremental upgrade to version 2.1. Notable new features include support for Office 2007 OpenXML Word documents with support for Excel and PowerPoint OpenXML in a future release. Support for Excel VBA macros is reaffirmed – important because this will be the only tool on the Mac with this feature once MS Office 2004 is discontinued. The default icon set is now Akua, and version 2.1 gains more support for native Aqua widgets.

The first thing I noticed is that NeoOffice 2.1 launches in about one-quarter the time version 2.0 did on my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, the application is still modular with no way to select which module opens upon launch. I'm poking through the application package to see if I can find an easy workaround for this. I'll make a new post if I can come up with a solution! OpenOffice for Windows is treated like a suite of applications, so this derivation should be able to emulate that feature.

As advertised, NeoOffice looks much more like a Mac OS X application upon launch, and the Akua toolbar icons look right at home.



The close widget still does not behave correctly when a document has unsaved changes, though, and dialog boxes as well as contextual menus still look like the are emulating aqua. They are close to being right, but the difference is noticeable. (This is true for drop-down menus and tabs too.)

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so close yet so far...

Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents all seem to import just fine. The only problem I've had with opening Word documents is if the document uses non-standard bullets. With PowerPoint files, sometimes image formatting and transitions may be lost or altered. I haven't been able to test macro support as I have no documents requiring that feature. As far as Open XML Word documents go, I've downloaded three sample documents and none of them have opened correctly. However, like Excel macros, this may not be a feature I'll use often enough to miss.

Overall, this update does little to make NeoOffice 2.1 more compelling than version 2.0. It's still as reliable as it ever was, but it still feels slightly out-of-place on Mac OS X. That said, it does make for a compelling (free) alternative to MS Office 2004, and the performance gains alone should be enough to encourage existing users to upgrade. Especially if you are an Intel Mac user tired of Office's Rosetta-dependent performance lag, download NeoOffice, and give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Tags: software, macintosh, neooffice

Apple – Dashboard Widgets – Kuler



This is a really neat widget from Adobe that will display the newest, the highest-rated, or the most popular color schemes form the kuler website.

via TUAW



Apple: Mac Pro

Wowza! That's a lot of cores! The 8-core option will set you back $1500! On the other hand, Cinema Displays have all received price drops. The 20" is $599; 23" is $899; and the 30" is $1799. Whenever we upgrade the desktop for my wife, I'm thinking a Mac mini and a 23" display will suit her well.

Tags: software, macintosh

If you're attending online courses, there is a pretty good chance you've had to use Macromedia Breeze Meeting at some point (Now Adobe Acrobat Connect). The most recent version of the software supports Intel-based Macs, but all previous versions are PowerPC only.

"No problem," I hear you say. "Apple's Rosetta technology should do the trick." And you would be right if Breeze functioned as a standalone application, but it does not. It is a browser plug-in. Safari runs natively on the x86 processors, but this requires any compatible plug-ins to also be developed as Intel binaries. (This same issue faces Photoshop users. PPC Photoshop plug-ins will not work in the Intel-native Photoshop CS3.) This presents a problem if you ever have to present in Breeze.


On an Intel Mac, you will likely get stuck right here.

Fortunately, there is a workaround for this issue, but it will slightly slow down the browser you are viewing Breeze in. Simply find your browser in the Applications folder. Press command-I or choose "Get Info" from the File menu, and select "Open using Rosetta" in the info pane.

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Now, when you visit your Breeze session, the plug-in will load correctly. I recommend using this trick on a secondary browser if possible. That way your everyday browsing habits are not slowed down by the Rosetta layer. My daily browser is Safari, but I use Camino (a Firefox based browser) for Breeze meetings.

Tags: macintosh, software

We just purchased a new MacBook Pro today! I don't have any unboxing pictures, but I will post some comparison shots in a couple of days. In this post, take a look at the difference seven years makes. In the middle column resides the specifications and price of my PowerBook G3 back in 2000. The column on the right reflects my new MacBook Pro.

I have to admit that I will miss the possibility of using both bays for batteries, but that's a small price to pay. What I can't get over is how different the prices are. Even if I had bought a top-of-the-line MBP, the price would have been $700 less! I wonder where laptop prices will be when it's time to replace the MacBook Pro in a few years (hopefully fewer than seven).

Disclaimer: I did not pay full price for either machine. Also, my PowerBook G3 has been upgraded to 512 MB of memory and a 30 GB hard drive.

Tags: technology, macintosh

The Macworld Keynote this morning was definitely an interesting one. The Mac seemed to be oddly absent in the presentation, and Steve Jobs really only focused on two products the entire time (though a third was updated today withoout fanfare).

Apple TV

The product formerly known as iTV made it's official public appearance. Baasically, this device acts as a bridge between the media on your computer and your TV. Of course, iTunes is at the center of this media ecology, but, for photos, Apple TV supports iPhoto on the Mac and Adobe Album and Photoshop Elements on Windows. The current model natively supports 480p and 720p TV resolutions. It has a built-in 40 GB hard drive, and it connects to the television using HDMI or componant cables. It can network with your home computer via ethernet or wireless network (including 802.11n).

The list of supported video formats is pretty limited (basically only anything iPod plays), but that shouldn't be too much of a problem if you use the device as intended. It's billed as an HD device, but it does scale down the content if hooked up to a standard TV. I imagine that, like iPod HiFi, Apple TV isn't going to be a runaway success, but it will carve itself out a healthy niche. It'll be interesting to see what future versions bring to the table. The Apple TV is available for $299.

Apple iPhone

I have to admit, after the Other iPhone came out, I was expecting something like "iPod cellular," but the name isn't the only surprise in the iPhone. The touch screen interface is just plain elegant in the demos, and it supports multi-touch input – a first for this kind of device. Also, the screen is crisp and clear, and the sensors which detect the device's orientation are a very nice touch.

The fact that this device is also the first to run a mobile version of OS X is also notable. It makes me wonder if Apple has any other devices in the "pipeline" that will make use of this slimmed down version of their operating system. The iPhone comes with 4GB or 8BG of internal flash memory, a 3.5" 320x480 screen, and it supports all modern wireless technologies (except 3G). The iPhone will be carried by Cingular and will carry a price-tag of $499 or $599.

Check out the official product page. The iPhone is beautiful, and I am not one to gush about cellular phones. I was seriously skeptical about this product, but Apple has really brought a unique offering into the crowded cell phone market.

The Undercover Updates

• Airport Extreme was updated today with a new form factor (think Apple TV) and support for 802.11n. I'm also pretty sure it's cheaper now at $179.
• Airport Express got a price drop. It's now $99.
• All Core 2 Duo Macs and the Mac Pros can take advantage of 802.11n. Via TUAW.

What Wasn't Announced

Where was the updated look at Leopard? I thought for sure we would get a tour of more new features and perhaps a new interface. iWork and iLife were totally neglected in this keynote, but these may get released alongside Leopard with some cool Leopard-only features to attract potential users. In fact the whole Mac part of this Macworld keynote seemed lacking. Okay, actually it was nonexistant. Regardless, I expect we'll be seeing some further announcements and product updates coming from the Mothership over the next few days and weeks.

Finally, as food for thought, did anyone else notice the Beatles albums in Steve Jobs' demos?

Tags: macintosh, technology, macworld, iphone

Those of you who have been with this blog for a while know about my trusty PowerBook G3 that has been serving me since 2000. Six years is a long time to keep a laptop, but its been a hard worker. I also have some sentimental attachment to the machine due to it being the first Macintosh computer I ever owned. Unfortunately, I fear it's life of usefulness is coming to an end.


It all started about four years ago when my laptop shorted out due to a damaged power converter. Actually, it kind of fried. If you've ever smelled the lovely aroma of burnt electronics, you know what I mean. Strangely enough, the machine booted up about an hour later, but, with no power converter, its usefulness was obviously limited. We talked about replacing it that night, but all we could have afforded was an iBook G3 – not much of an improvement.

Instead, we bought a new power cord and converter. Shortly after this, we bought a new battery because I was only getting about 45 minutes to an hour of battery life at a time. We never did replace the laptop. The iBooks moved from G3s to G4s. PowerMac G5s were released (which we got one of). The Intel transition was announced and completed, and my PowerBook G3 kept chugging along as it passed its sixth birthday and approached its seventh.

In the last couple of months, though, things have been going downhill quickly. My PowerBook has been regularly locking up while running Pages, forcing me to change my workflow to include MS Word on my desktop, so I can be reasonably sure I can work on my laptop on a document if I need to. Keynote is basically inoperable, and PowerPoint runs with all the speed of a snail caught in molasses going uphill. To top things off, I'm only getting about 30 minutes of battery life per charge, and the battery monitor doesn't seem to know exactly how much charge its carrying.


Apple's current laptops look very tempting, but I'm much more interesting in the MacBook Pro end of the lineup due to the inclusion of dedicated graphics cards (which I think could make a big difference within the next couple of Keynote releases). Unfortunately, my wife is adamant that there is no way we can afford a new laptop at this time. It's possible that I could bump the memory in my G3 to 1 GB, and we could get another new battery, but that's $300+ spent on a machine that probably wouldn't fetch that amount on eBay.

Last year, I lucked out on a big presentation I gave downtown, but I've been having to rely on luck or borrowing other people's laptops (which brings up a whole separate set of issues) for too long. I don't want to spend any more money on maintaining my G3 at this point. I don't even know if those purcahses will really help the problem, but I don't see what choice I have.

In the face of so many global problems and issues I know others are dealing with, I know this must seem insignificant, but it does matter to me that my laptop is quickly becoming essentially useless – especially given the amount of public speaking I'm going to be doing in the coming year. Oh well. Here's hoping that some more luck rolls this way in 2007.

Tags: macintosh

This is going to be my last post fawning over the new iMac, I promise, but I wanted to elaborate on the iMac price versus the Dell XPS 410 price two posts ago. Here's a table of the exact specs I chose for the Dell when compared to the iMac. Please note that I've highlighted where one machine has a clear advantage over the other.



Some notes to finish up with: There are intangibles involved. For one, the included software on the Mac is certainly more diverse, but what comes on the Dell is pretty necessary. In fact, the lack of any permanent Office software on the iMac is a gaping hole. Also, I included power consumption because that does have an effect on one's electricity bill. Furthermore, I just like products that require less power. (As an aside, the wattage on the Dell does not take the monitor into consideration.)

To address some of the Mac's apparent shortcomings, on the Apple Store, I added Apple's USB modem, iWork (for text and slide editing), and a 256 MB nVidia GeForce 7600 GT, and the price came to $2,252 – only $14 more than the Dell.

Yes, you can still get cheaper computers than Macs, but when it comes to spec-by-spec comparisons, Apple's prices actually are competitive for what they offer. No, they still do not compete in the bargain-basement market, but the price-to-performance ratio is much definitely more attractive than it once was, and the iMac is a great example of that improvement.

Tags: macintosh, technology, dell

Yesterday's post about the iMac got me playing around, and I thought I would post a quick comparison of the iMac with other all-in-one desktop computers (and one "deskbook" computer) just to see how things shake out. This is not a comprehensive comparison, but it is kind of fun.

The Apple iMac

iMac comes in stock variations from $999 to $1999. Processors are Core 2 Duo across the board, 1.83 GHz up to 2.16 GHz. The base model has 512 MB DDR2 memory, and the others have 1 GB. Hard drive capacities run from 160 GB to 250 GB. The base model has an Intel GMA 950 video processor with 64 MB of shared memory; the middle models feature ATI Radeon X1600 cards with 128 MB, and the top model has an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 128 MB. Except for the base model, all come with 8X CD/DVD burners. (Please note I am excluding BTO options.)

Every iMac comes with Mac OS X + Front Row, an Apple Remote (except the base model), an optical mouse, and a keyboard. Each is packaged with iLife and a variety of other software titles, and they all feature built-in Bluetooth (except the base model) and Airport (WiFi). Screen sizes come in 17, 20, and 24-inches.

Gateway Profile 6

The Gateway Profile comes in one stock configuration with several upgrade options. The stock Profile has a 3 GHz Pentium D processor and 512 MB DDR2 memory. It has a 160 GB hard drive. Graphics acceleration comes from an Intel GMA 950 with up to 224 MB shared memory, and it has a 16X CD/DVD burner.

The Profile ships with Windows XP Home, Office Basic 2003, Acrobat Reader, and six free months of AOL. It comes with an optical mouse and a keyboard. No wireless connectivity is built in, and it has a 17" screen. The Profile sells for $1,199. (Oh, and the Profile is really ugly.)

Sony Vaio LS1

Other than the iMac, the Vaio is probably the nicest looking machine in this post. The Vaio sports a 1.83 GHz Core Duo processor and 2 GB of DDR2 memory. It's hard drive is 250 GB, and its graphic acceleration is provided by an Intel GMA with 128 MB of shared memory. It also has an 8X CD/DVD burner.

The Vaio includes Widnows XP Media Center 2005 and a TV tuner. It comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse (RF), and it has 802.11g wireless networking. Software-wise, the Vaio comes with a lot of Sony's own digital creation software as well as Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements. It also comes loaded with trial-period software including MS Office and MS Works demos. The Vaio has a 19" screen and costs $2,099. There seem to be no BTO options.

Dell XPS M2010

I will be first to admit that this is not entirely fair, but it's the closest thing Dell has to an all-in-one, so I'm going with it. While technically a laptop (at 18 pounds!), it is considered a desktop replacement. The M2010, comes in three stock configurations with several BTO options. Those models all have 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processors with 1 GB - 2 GB of DDR2 memory. Each has an ATI Mobility X1800 with 256 MB and an 8X CD/DVD Burner.

The Dell comes with Windows XP Media Center 2005, some anti-virus software, and MS Works. It has an integrated keyboard, trackpad, and camera. It offers wireless networking, and each model has a 20" display. Prices range from $3,499 to $4,050.

Conclusion

When it comes to the all-in-one design, Apple seems to have set a bar that is difficult to match. The Sony here is the most compelling Windows alternative, but I can't help but be surprised how difficult it was to find other all-in-one computers. Really, the Dell doesn't count because it is a "laptop," so I could only track down two other currently available alternatives easily. When it comes down to it, Apple has defined all-in-one design with the iMac, and it's easy to see why that computer has become the machine most people define Apple by.

The new iMac is a competitive machine, and I hope people can get around their Mac-predjudices and give it a whirl. Even if you end up hating Mac OS X after a few months of ownership, remember Macs can now run Windows, and it's not like the iMac commands a premium over similar computers. I love all-in-one designs myself, and I was sad that I had to pass up the G4 iMac as my current desktop. (I ended up with a Rev A PowerMac G5 instead.) Fortunately, with the direction Apple is taking their consumer flagship, I have no doubts that I'll be able to return to my favorite Mac in the future.

Tags: macintosh, technology, dell

Pretty much out of left field (and on a Wednesday at that), Apple has announced a couple of upgrades to their product lines.


First up is the ever adorable Mac mini. The only real change here is that you can now choose between 1.66 GHZ or 1.83 GHz Core Duo (Yonah) processors. The previous generation had 1.5 GHz Core Solo and 1.66 GHz Core Duo respectively. Prices haven't changed, but Apple now offers a 160 GB hard drive as a BTO option. I guess that's all there is to say about the mini.


Here's the real upgrade of the day. The iMacs have moved from Core Duo (Yonah) to Core 2 Duo (Merom) chips, and Apple has added to the low and high ends of the iMac lineup.

At the entry level, we now have a $999 iMac that has a 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo. The big sacrifices here come in the fact that the $999 model does not come with a remote (only a $29 add-on but still a bit of a bummer) and Intel integrated graphics. I think this machine is best suited toward someone thinking about a mini but can't BYODKM (Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, & Mouse). For those who have been keeping track, yes, this is basically identical to the previously education-only model.

At the high end, we have a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo (upgradeable to 2.33 GHz) with a 24" screen. Even the rumor sites missed this one by one inch! (To their credit, the iMac does share screen resolution with the 23" Cinema Display.) Another improvement is the addition of an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics card with 128 MB (upgradable to a 7600 GT with 256 MB), and the new iMacs can hold up to 3 GB of memory and 500 GB of storage.

Now, for fun, here comes the interesting math. Take a Mac mini; spec it as close as you can to an iMac; add a 23" Cinema Display. What does it cost? $2,073, and the 24" iMac will still have better graphics and a larger hard drive. For more fun, a similarly equipped Dell XPS 410 with a 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo processor is $2,238 (but it does have a faster optical drive and better video card to be fair). The 24" iMac is $1,999.

The Mac mini upgrade may be a simple step, but this iMac upgrade is very compelling – so much so that I could see it cannibalizing Mac Pro sales to some extent, but, honestly, the Mac Pro has moved to an entirely different tier of computing. As for me, I can't wait to get into an Apple Store to try one of these out!

Tags: technology, macintosh

Some pretty neat stuff came out of WWDC 2006's Stevenote today. I didn't get what I wanted to see (Merom-based MacBook Pros), but the announcements today made for a good show.

The Completed Transition

Apple's new workstation is a powerful machine. It contains two dual-core Xeon 5100 processors (a.k.a Woodcrest) in speeds of 2.0 GHz, 2.66 GHz, and (finally) 3.0 GHz with a 1.33 GHz frontside bus. It ships with 1 GB of memory, expandable to 16 GB, and 250 GB of internal storage, expandable to 2 TB. We have an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT PCI Express graphics card with many upgrade options, and the the option to have dual optical drives.

On the education store, I was able to strip one down to $1,962 USD (not including a display). On the other end of the spectrum, if you go for all the bells and whistles, you'll be out over $11,000 UDS (still not including a display). From what I hear, the pre-configured $2,499 model is pretty competitive, but it is definitely out of my pricerange!

Along with the Mac Pro comes a Xeon-based XServe, making for a speedy update to Apple's server solutions.

The New Cat In Town

The Steve also had a sneak-peek at Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on display. Many of the features demoed were far from Earth-shattering, but they do go towards making the Mac experience more fun for us veterans and more familiar to Windows converts. The updates to Mail, Dashboard, iCal, and iChat are evoutionary enhancements (except I think the backdrop thing in iChat is pretty cheesy).

The exciting stuff here is in Apple's implementation of virtual desktops, known as Spaces. I really didn't think this feature would be included. Sure, there are a few third-party solutions for virtual desktops, but, by and large, I doubt many people know what these are. Time Machine brings a much-needed backup utility to Mac OS X with the usual Apple flair, and Core Animation will make it a bit easier for developers to add some eye candy to their apps.

I can't say I'm excited about Leopard yet, but this was just a limited preview. In the future I'm sure we'll see resolution independence as well as a refined interface along with some features that aren't being talked about yet. Still, the Intel transition is complete. Leopard is progressing toward a Spring 2007 launch, and Apple is continuing to make being a Mac user an exciting experience.

Tags: macintosh, technology, wwdc, leopard, os x

Sheesh. How long has it been now since the MacBooks were released? Why haven't I posted about them yet? The truth is out there somewhere, and I think it lies in the land of laziness!

The Basics

The MacBook is a nice little machine. You can choose between a 1.83 GHz or a 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. Models ship with either a 60 BG or 80 GB hard drive, and you can custom order up to 120 GB. Each ships with 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 2 GB. The base model has a Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW), and the others have a basic Super Drive (DVD±RW/CD-RW). The MacBook has a built-in iSight, a 13.3" widescreen display, the usual array of Apple ports, and Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics.

In addition to the computer itself, the MacBook comes with the snazzy little Front Row remote, the iLife suite of applications, a nifty program called Comic Life, Freeverse Big Bang Board Games, Photo Booth, and Omni Outliner.

Prices range from $1,099 to $1,499.

The Surprises

The base price of the MacBook is up $100 from the iBook which started at $999. However, even the base MacBook is a much more full-featured laptop than even the $1,499 iBook was. For those who like more display real estate. The resolution of the MacBook display is 1280 x 800 as opposed to the iBook's 1024 x 768. The horizontal pixel gain is quite noticeable. Furthermore, in the display department, the MacBook supports extended desktop mode up to 1920 x 1200 (or a 23" Apple Cinema Display) and lid-closed mode up to the same resolution. The iBook only supports video mirroring.

Another nice addition came in the form of an optical digital input/line in. The audio port that used to be reserved for PowerBook G4s when they came out has finally filtered through the whole line. The lack of any audio-in port on the iBook used to be a major factor in me never considering one as a potential replacement for my PowerBook G3.

Finally, there is no Core Solo version of the MacBook. Because the entry level Mac mini features a Core Solo processor, I think most figured the MacBook would have one as well. In the end, I'm glad that the Core Duo made it in to these machines. Other nice features include the magnetic latch and the included Sudden Motion Sensor Technology. (Ooh, and the Front Row remote works with Keynote presentations. I know because the lady at the Apple Store let me try!)

Oh yeah, and it can come in black.

The Sacrifices

Where are the cuts that keep these 'books from being the Pro models? First of all, there is the graphics card – or lack thereof. The MacBook sports an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 64 MB of shared memory. Yes, this means the graphics chip siphons off of your system memory. The solution? Buy more RAM! Ordering a MacBook with 1 GB of memory instead of 512 MB only costs $90. Modern games will not perform well on a machine with integrated graphics, but the MacBook runs Keynote presentations as well as H.264 high definition movie files like a champ.

Problematic for few, the MacBook (like its Pro counterparts, iMac, and Mac mini) has dropped the internal modem. If you need a modem, Apple sells a $49 USB modem. It's not ideal, but it's not a deal-breaker either. The only other cutback I found is in the fact that no Mini-DVI to Anything adapter is included, meaning presenters will have to spring for a $20 adapter before hooking their MacBook up to an external display. Really, at $20, Apple could have at least tossed in a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter.

Hands-On

I made a quick visit to our local Apple Store to give one of these a spin, and my first impressions were quite good. Launching applications and resizing windows felt snappy. Various H.264 QuickTime movies played very smoothly (and this is a file format that gives me headaches on my PowerMac from time to time). Photo Booth is a fun little application. Finally, Keynote, an extremely important application to me, worked smoothly and flawlessly.

From a hardware point of view, I still prefer the classic white model over the more expensive black design. The magnetic latch works well, and the MagSafe power cord functions exactly as expected. The redesigned keyboard is firm and responsive, and the scrolling track-pad is neat. I especially like the functionality that allows you to use the track-pad for both left- and right-clicking. Furthermore, the glossy display is fine. The colors are crisp, and there was hardly any glare on the screen in the Apple Store (which is a very brightly lit environment).

Conclusion

Overall, I am impressed with MacBook. Apple has done a nice job of balancing form and function as well as features and price. It's a very unique product in its own way, and I'm glad for the improvements Apple has made over the iBook line.

For more reading, see Ars Techica's review of the MacBook (9/10), Time Magazine (Gadget of the Week), PC World's review (4/5), and MacWorld's review (4.5/5).

Tags: technology, macintosh

Okay, seriously, in case you have been living under a rock lately, Apple has become much more competitive in their product prices since the switch to Intel processors (Mac mini notwithstanding). Although it may be an extreme example, this computer reviewed on C|Net is a great example of that.

Dell XPSM2010
Processor: 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 1 GB
Display 20.1" 1680 x 1050
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 256 MB
Hard Drive: 80 GB
Optical Drive: DVD-ROM DVD±RW
Weight: 18.3 pounds
Price: USD $3500

Apple MacBook Pro
Processor: 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 1 GB
Display: 17" 1680 x 1050
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256 MB
Hard Drive: 120 GB
Optical Drive: DVD±RW (Dual-Layer)
Weight: 6.8 pounds
Price: USD $2800

Note that the MacBook Pro, while sporting a slightly smaller display, uses the same resolution – producing a crisper image. Furthermore, Apple's laptop has a faster processor and more storage as well. Really, the only advantage this Dell has is in its graphics card. Atop these advantages, the MacBook Pro has other features such as a sudden-motion sensor for the hard drive, a magnetic power cord, and a backlit keyboard, not to mention that the Dell seems to be missing any burning capabilities. Correction: It has a DVD burner – just not dual-layer.

If I go to Dell's store and custom order the XPS with the same hard drive size and processor speed as the MacBook Pro, its price raises to USD $3925! I'll concede that you can get laptops cheaper than anything Apple has to offer, but, if you are looking for a machine with comparable specs and design, Apple's prices suddenly become very competitive.

Tags: macintosh, technology, dell

May is the long dark tea time of the soul around here, resulting in the site pretty much going dormant for a month. Well, that is all over, and it's time to write about this year's DVD created for our fifth grade's completion ceremony.

The Process

Just like last year, no souls were tortured with Microsoft products throughout the duration of this project. Well, that's not quite true. I tried to burn a photo CD at work, but the computer kept crashing mid-burn. I still think the paltry 256 MB of memory on those things is the root of all evil.

• All photographs of teachers and children were dumped into iPhoto where they were organized and enhanced. This year's school album contained over 600 images at one point.
• The slideshow of images was assembled in Keynote and exported as a QuickTime file.
• All music was handled by Sibelius 3.
• The children were recorded using Audio Hijack and organized in iTunes.
• Everything gets put together in iMovie.
• iDVD finished everything up.

The Good

iPhoto never missed a beat, and the new editing features (coupled with Keynote 3's image enhancement options) allowed me to entirely remove Photoshop Elements from my workflow. Furthermore, with all of my media being stored in iPhoto and iTunes, nothing was more than a click or two away thanks to the Media Browser built into all of Apple's iWork and iLife applications. Have I ever mentioned that I love Keynote?

Sibelius 3 worked very smoothly this time around. Christine's emotional melodies once again provided great inspiration, and I was able to create more original content to compliment her material.

iMovie HD was great to work in, and it saved my bacon too. (More on that later.) Finally, iDVD was as simple and intuitive as ever. The Drop Zones Editor was a great addition to the interface of that product.

The Scary

iDVD (surprise) did cause one scary moment when it repeatedly crashed while encoding audio. Fortunately, I went back to iMovie and saved the whole package as a self-contained QuickTime file. With that done, iDVD had no problem burning the final DVD.

Life Lessons

Again, I allowed things to get rushed because I wanted to include some school functions that were just a couple of days before the completion ceremony. Consequently, I couldn't finish up the music until I knew for sure how long the slides were going to last, and I allowed myself no time to account for major glitches like the one I experienced. Because of this, I had no copies of the DVD to sell at the completion ceremony, and I had to take orders instead.

Furthermore, music composition became a frenzied process at the end, and the music did not quite match the visuals. There is one particularly apparent moment of awkward silence where I ran out of music. Fortunately, I was able to correct this for the DVDs that parents will be receiving.

The moral of the story? I need to set a date I want everything compiled by so I can enter into the duplication process with less time pressure. The final step is always where things go wrong. As a result, this is where I need to allow myself the most time. Anything that falls after that date will just not be included in the DVD.

The Conclusion of the Matter

Overall, the DVD went well. There was one major snag, but it was easily resolved. Time is my biggest enemy every year, and I just need to realize that I do have control over that variable. I was my own worst obstacle when it came to time, so that's something I can learn to work around.

Product Links

Apple iLife – includes iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, GarageBand, and iWeb.

Apple iWork – includes Keynote 3 and Pages 2.

Sibelius – great composition software. It's now up to version 4.

Audio Hijack Pro – nice little recording app.

Tags: work, macintosh

Okay, so here are the (slightly truncated) system requirements for Office 2004 and iLife '06, respectively.

Office 2004

• Processor: G3 (Mac OS X compatible) or higher
• OS: Mac OS X 10.2.8+
• Memory 256 MB

iLife '06

• Processor: 500MHz G4 or faster, G5, or Core processor
• OS: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or 10.4.3+
• Memory: 256 MB (512 MB recommended)
• Video: 32 MB

So, my PowerBook has a 500 MHz G3 processor, Mac OS X 10.4.5, 512 MB RAM, and an 8 MB video card. For a recent slideshow I created to help my kids memorize words to their program songs, which application do you think ran more smoothly – PowerPoint 2004 (from Office 2004) or Keynote 3 (form iLife '06)?

If you guessed PowerPoint, you are WRONG.

As long as I used simple transitions, such as appear or dissolve, Keynote transitioned between slides much more smoothly than PowerPoint. We're talking multiple second delays in PowerPoint whenever I would tap the spacebar to change slides while Keynote was near instantaneous. (Again, I had to watch what I was doing.) Even when editing the slides, Keynote felt slightly snappier.

Look back at the system requirements now. My machine doesn't even meet iLife's base specifications while it exceeds Office's! Try to figure that one out...

Tags: macintosh, technology

... To post about Tuesday's Apple media event.

To put is succinctly, Apple's announcements were, in the words of Steve Jobs, "medium-scale." There is nothing terribly exciting here, nor did the Steve, who appears much more subdued and laid-back in this presentation, make any pretense that the products announced were much more than evolutionary steps of the Apple product matrix.

The iPod Hi-Fi

Mr. Jobs probably put the most emphasis on this product, mainly because this is the only completely new product introduced Tuesday. In truth, despite my musical background, currently I know little about frequencies. All I know is that my music, from Dave Matthews Band to the Beatles to Mahler to Glass, all sounds fine in iTunes, so it would probably sound dandy with these speakers. I imagine this is a nice accessory, but at $350, it's a bit pricey – and that's coming from a die-hard Mac fan.

Regardless, it does fit the Mac aesthetic quite well. The fact that it works with the Apple Remote is welcome. Also, it does feature audio-in, possibly placing it in a position to be an add-on for someone wanting to get a Mac mini as a media center.

Intel Mac mini

I like the Mac mini. It's cute and functional, but I'll probably never own one myself. (However, I wouldn't mind pairing one up with a Smart Board in my classroom!) This Mac mini boasts some new features, most notably two extra USB ports, built-in Bluetooth and Airport, Gigabit Ethernet, a SATA hard drive, and Front Row/Apple Remote support. The downsides are a $100 price hike and an integrated video processor which will eat off system memory. Of course, buying more RAM when you order will alleviate this problem.

On the whole integrated graphics issue: first, there appears to be little room for a dedicated graphics card in this thing. Since Apple seems to be pretty strict about maintaining form factors lately, integrated graphics may have been the only option. Furthermore, it seems that this is still a significant upgrade to the G4 mini's graphics system despite the fact it isn't exactly geared toward high-end gaming. I'm interested to mess with one of these in our local Apple Store.

I imagine we'll see some new products in a few more weeks as April draws close. I'm personally hoping for some revved iBooks. (The MacBook Pro is way out of my league.) However, I do hope future iBooks – or will they be MacBooks? – do have a dedicated video card and not some integrated system.

Tags: macintosh, technology

Well, perhaps that is an overstatement, but I can't remember feeling so giddy during a SteveNote presentation since the PowerMac G5s were unveiled at WWDC 2003 (and I tend to get slightly giddy during any presentation given by Steve Jobs).

First, I like the iLife and iWork updates. Sure, there is still no dedicated spreadsheet application in iWork, but the additions to Pages and Keynote look great. As far as iLife goes, iPhoto has me the most interested, though the enhancements to the other apps – particularly iMovie and iDVD – will be welcome, especially since I haven't updated iLife for two years now.

The new Intel iMac is cool. I like the current form factor, so retaining it wasn't a bad thing. However, it would be nice if there was some way of distinguishing it from the PowerPC iMac other than the specs on the box. Regardless, it seems to be getting quite the performance boost for no more cost. No complaints from this gallery.

What really floored me was this:



Say hello to the MacBook Pro. Alright, so no points for the name, but a hundred points for the computer itself. Don't get me wrong, I fell in love with the PowerBook G4 long ago, but this thing just stole my geeky heart. 1.67 or 1.83 GHz Intel Duo processor, 667 MHz frontside bus (as compared to 167 MHz on the G4), Mobility Radeon X 1600, optical audio, dual-layer DVD burning, built-in iSight, backlit keyboard – I could go on and on.

It's everything the PowerBook was plus one important factor: Power.

Questionably, Apple has removed the FireWire 800 port, which strikes me as odd, and, according to this Infinite Loop post, battery life is somewhat disappointing. It is worth noting, though, that these machines do not ship until February, and progress could be made on the battery front between now and then.

Regardless of these apparent shortcomings, there is little to complain about here. This is one nice laptop, and it is easily the most competitive laptop Apple has released in a while. Sure, a Dell would be still cheaper, but it just wouldn't be a Mac. Congratulations, Apple, the Intel transition is underway. Here's to hoping the next several months go smoothly!

Tags: macintosh, technology, macworld

I promised this post months ago, but I just haven't had the time to hash it out. Now seems as good of a time as ever since at least one of my grad classes is mostly caught up for the moment! This is by no means a comprehensive review of Mac OS X 10.4, but I hope it provides a decent overview and a good perspective on one person's experiences using this product.
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Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was released on April 29, 2005 to wide acclaim and wide criticism. As per Apple's recent tradition, the product was $129 ($69 for educators). There was much ado over "200 New Features" from Apple's PR, and there was general complaint and mockery regarding a $129 fee for a "point release" from the critical. The truth of Tiger is somewhere in the middle. You have to pick some pretty fine nits to find "200 New Features." On the other hand, Mac OS 10.4 is more than a general "point release."
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An OS By Any Other Name...

I've often said that Apple sells itself short in the nomenclature used for it's "X" systems. To illustrate this, some history:
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(At this point, some of my more tech-savy readers should skip ahead.) Mac OS X, pronounced "Mac Oh-Es Ten," is not really the tenth version of the Macintosh Operating System. The original Mac OS died with the passing of Mac OS 9. The current system is based on UNIX, and it is a marriage, sometimes inelegant and sometimes uncomfortable, of the Classic Mac OS and another OS project that was called NeXTSTEP. As such, Mac OS X 10.1 was really version one of a new product. (No, I refuse to count Mac OS X 10.0 as anything else than an expensive beta.)
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With each successive release, this product has matured considerably, so much so that screenshots of Mac OS X 10.1 look very foreign to someone used to working with Mac OS 10.4. In fact, these two systems look about as similar as Windows 98 and Windows XP. However, public perception can be that progress has been minimal because of how Apple has chosen to name their new operating system. It would be more accurate to view this product as Mac OS X Version 4 than as a simple point release.
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Installation and First Impressions

My system disks were of Mac OS X 10.4.0, and installation was breezy. It took a little over 20 minutes to install on my G5, but it took quite a bit longer on my PowerBook G3. After rebooting, there was some performance lag as Spotlight indexed my hard drive, but that was quickly resolved. I quickly played with as many toys as I could including Automator, Dashboard, Spotlight, and the snazzy new screen-savers! Everything worked as expected.
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My G5 seemed noticeably faster overall. I'm continually impressed how each Mac OS revision seems to make that machine snappier (even though it's a 1.8 GHz SP, which is supposedly adversely affected by 10.4). Startup time is also speedier. On average, my G5 takes roughly 30 seconds to boot. Unfortunately, Mac OS 10.4 has had the opposite affect on my PowerBook G3, and the poor thing seems to struggle under this system's weight. I guess I should have known I was in trouble when my old PowerBook was not on the initial list of supported hardware. (It appeared a few days later.)
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What about stability? So far, there have been no kernal panics. Actually, I have been fortunate enough to never have had one of these, and I have been an OS X user since the Public Beta came out. My PowerBook began my OS X experience, and my old Graphite iMac DV joined the X era when Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" came out. In addition to the lack of kernal panics on either my G5 or my PowerBook G3, I have experienced no system freezes, and the only application to "Unexpectedly Quit" has been Microsoft Word 2004 on my laptop. My desktop has had absolutely zero flakiness ... outside of some that was my own doing.
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My only real complaint is the fact that 10.4.1 and 10.4.2 (as well as some other miscellaneous updates) had already been released prior to my purchase of Tiger in late August, but the boxed version I got did not contain these updates, so both my desktop and my laptop had to download those updates after installation. I had kind of expected those updates to be "in the box" by then. For reference, 10.4.1 had been released May 16, and 10.4.2 had been released July 12. My purchase of Mac OS X 10.4 was on August 20.
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New Features

Dashboard: Dashboard is the flashiest of the new features, and it is the feature that will probably remain most associated with Tiger. Dashboard is a compnant of Exposé, which was introduced by Apple in 10.3 "Panther." Dashboard is a separate layer from the desktop that runs mini applications callsed "widgets." These widgets are one-trick ponies that can do things like track shipments, monitor the weather, control iTunes, convert measurements, and act as a calendar. There are thousands of widgets freely available for download on the Internet, and there are a few more sophisticated ones that cost a few dollars. Fortunately, Apple has included an interface for installing and managing widgets as of the 10.4.2 update.



By in large, I find Dashboard pretty useful. I used to run Konfabulator strictly in Konsposé mode, so Dashboard offered little adjustment for me. The screenshot shows my most frequently used widgets, and they all do the job well. My only gripe is with the general laginess of Dashboard when you open it the first time after login. Personally, I have to recommend a tiny app called Dashboard Starter if you think you'll use Dashboard a lot. All it does is launch Dashboard on login, thereby making the widgets more responsive once you are ready to use them.

Spotlight: Spotlight is the integrated system search feature of Mac OS 10.4. You can envoke Spotlight by clicking on a magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen or by using the keyboard command Command-Space. Spotlight searches while you type, which is fine on fast systems, but I wish there was the option for it to wait for you to hit Return on my slower G3 system. Most of the time, if I lose something, Spotlight can find it for me. However, on my PowerBook G3, I've noticed that about half of my documents never get searched, and I'm not sure how to correct that situation. I'm a pretty organized person and seldom lose track of where I have information stowed, but Spotlight has come in handy during those times I have lost track of stuff.

Here's what a Spotlight window looks like if you ask it to show you all results from the Spotlight menu. Could this be the future of the Finder?



Automator: Automator may be one of the cooler new features that few will discover and even fewer may use. I can't comment too much about Automator because I'm still learning about it. Basically, Automator is designed to bring one-step goodness to repetitive tasks. For example, you could apply a sepia tone filter to multiple photographs at once. You may want to assign Spotlight Keywords to multiple items, or you could name several files sequentially (August 01.pdf, August 02.pdf, etc.). There is a learning curve involved, but Automator is a nice example of how Apple sometimes succeeds in thinking outside the box. I think I'm going to really like Automator once I get used to it.

Here's a screen capture of one of Automator's sample workflows. You can add and rearrange steps using simple drag-and-drop.



Other New Features: QuickTime is now at verison 7 and supports a new high-definition codec. Unfortuantely, QuickTime 7 does not seem to be as responsive as QuickTime 6 was when viewing .mpg videos in a browser window (Safari or Firefox). Some new Finder features include Burnable Folders and Smart Folders. Both are quite useful, especially the Burn Folders, which allow you to set up a burn session without a CD or DVD actually being inserted in the drive. FIanlly, the built in RSS support in Safari is cool, but if you are used to a dedicated RSS aggregator (like NetNewsWire), Safari probably won't offer enough features to make you switch.

There are plenty more little touches that separate Mac OS X 10.4 from previous releases, but this gives an overview of some of the most obvious enhancements.

Under the Hood

More important than the superficial enhancements are the "under the hood" improvements to Mac OS X 10.4. These are the changes that most will never see or know about but that affect how the system and applications work. Apple refers to these as "key technologies," and they include such elements as H.264 support, Core Image, Core Data, and Core Audio. Core Audio was introduced in either Jaguar or Panther, and it created a robust set of integrated audio functionality right into the operating system that any application can potentially have access to. Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro is a good example of an application that takes advantage of Core Audio.

New to the Core Foundation Technologies are Core Image and Core Data. Core Data is over my head, but it meant to improve the data-model framework used by applications. Core Data is important to Spotlight's functionality, and it uses database concepts to organize and manage data from any application built to utilize it. This, like other Core Foundation Technologies, is aimed squarely at developers and making Mac OS X as attractive of a development platform as possible. Furthermore, Core Image, like Core Audio, provides developers with a respectable palette of image tools that can be seamlessly integrated into their application. Image Tricks by BeLight Software is a nice utility that is built entirely around the Core Image filters.

What does this mean to the end user? It means future Mac OS X applications can take advantage of all sorts of great technologies that would formerly have had to be integrated manually. Imagine a presentation application that could apply audio effects to sounds and music in the presentation, that could manipulate images right in the application by applying Gaussian blur and sepia tone filters without having to rely on a separate image editor, all while indexing every bit of content in your presentation for easy searching later. An application like this would be very possible utilizing Apple's Core Foundation Technologies (which makes me wonder what new features we'll see in Keynote 3). I don't understand half of the technical documentation regarding Core Foundation, but I do know that I've been impressed more than once by applications that make good use of these technologies.

Dashboard and Safari RSS are nifty and fun. Core Foundation Technologies are the stepping stones that will build the future of the Macintosh platform.
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The Interface.

See that cool screenshot? Yeah, Mac OS X 10.4 doesn't quite look that good. That screenshot is actually the product of two different interface modifications (iTuno and SmoothStripes Sunken Mod if you must know). Don't get me wrong, I really like the Aqua user interface, and I am a big fan of the new "Unified" look that Mail 2 sports. I just don't like how every other application seems to have a different version of Aqua applied to it. The Finder, for example, still looks basically like it did in the days of Jaguar, while iTunes has a drastically different appearance using similar elements, and don't get me started on GarageBand.

Aqua has evolved greatly since the days of Mac OS X 10.0. It is much more subdued than it used to be, and pinstripes are pretty much gone. However, it seems that Apple has been improving the interface in bits and pieces. Unfortunately for users, this results in a very inconsistent visual experience. On the other hand, this may be intentional. Software developers seem to be moving to having different applications having distinct looks and feels (Windows Media Player and Office 12 anyone?). It's just not my cup of tea. Fortunately, applications like Unsanity's ShapeShifter make modifying the systems appearance fairly painless.

The Kitchen Sink & Conclusion

I know there are many aspects of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger I have failed to overview in detail. For example, I haven't talked much about H.264, nor have I said anything about the new metadata features that have worked their way into Tiger. iChat AV has gone untouched on my computer, so there was no use in even mentioning it, and accessibility features as well as the new parental controls are absent from this overview. 10.4 is a huge system filled with features, and there is no way I'm going to be able to cover all of them.

Tiger is another step toward making Mac OS X a more robust and feature-rich environment to work in. Some features like Dashboard are very visible while others, like Automator, may seem more daunting to the average user. Some features have been left strangely hidden, like the Finder's Slideshow functionality, while many of the other enhancements are at the system level, invisible to most people. Overall, I'm glad we bought Tiger, and I'm really looking forward to the enhancements and changes that will be brought by Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in late 2006!

Tags: macintosh, software, opinion, tiger, os x

The first order of business is to wish my wonderful wife a very happy birthday!!!

I know I'm a bit late posting about the latest Apple media event. There's really not much to say. I can't comment on Aperture because that application is way out of my league. However, I do think it's interesting that Apple is trying to distance it from Photoshop as much as possible. As far as I can tell, the two applications have little in common. I imagine many people who invest a great deal of time in one will also find the other valuable. If you are curious for more info on Aperture, visit Apple's product page. It's a neat looking web page.

PowerMacs

My 1.8 GHz PowerMac G5 looks positively anemic next to these beasts. Like the iMac, we have moved to DDR2 SDRAM, though the PowerMacs remained at the same 533 MHz memory the iMac has instead of being bumped to 667 MHz. Sometimes I think Apple is going all conservative on me. In addition to the new memory, the PowerMac has adopted PCI-Express as well as some serious graphics cards, including (finally) a professional level card with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500. The dual ethernet ports are also worthy of note for anyone wishing to turn a PowerMac into a server.

The big news, of course, is dual-core. Some early reports are indicating that the dual-core 2.3 GHz model is slightly faster than the previous generation dual processor 2.5 GHz machine. (The previous machine had two single-core processors in it.) I'm sure the many variables listed above were also contributors to this performance gain, but it is promising. I was perplexed when I saw the "new" machines were running at a slower clock-speed than the previous generation, but it seems the machines still have quite a boost in performance. (Incidentally, this is not the first time a "MHz regression" has occurred. According to MacTracker, the final G3 PowerBooks were running at 500 MHz, but the first G4 PowerBooks came out at 400 MHz.)

In all, the new PowerMacs are a very strong lineup. If Apple's claims are true about performance gains, then Macintosh-based professionals may want to snatch one of these up before "the Switch" if their current machine is growing long-in-the-tooth.

PowerBooks

Um, were these updated? Seriously, I like the new screen resolutions. Hopefully, the future onset of resolution independent user interfaces will allow them to pack the pixels even denser in the future. The product line has also been simplified. All PowerBooks have DVD-burners, but only the two larger models get dual-layer burning. Both larger models have 128 MB dedicated graphics memory, backlit keyboard, and optical audio. Truthfully, the 15-inch model seems to offer the best value, especially at my educator discount.

Are these updates exciting? No. Did I expect more? A little bit. Regardless, my PowerBook G3 has seen better days, so I might be trying to justify getting the 15-inch model. We'll see... I feel myself being swayed by Apple's beautiful product pictures...

Tags: macintosh, technology

Apple's media event on October 12 was something else. A new generation of iPods, a revision to the iTunes Music Store to support video purchases, and a revised iMac made for quite the event.

iMac Media Edition

My first impression: "Wow. It looks even sleeker!" I have been in love with the iMac G5 since it was introduced, and this package is just great. The processors are 1.9 GHz and 2.1 GHz for the 17" and the 20" models respectively. These machines are the first in Apple's lineup to support DDR2 SDRAM and PCI - Express graphics. This provides a clear indicator of the direction Apple will be taking with the future Intel - based Macintosh computers. I'm interested in seeing how the Radeon X600 XT (in the 20") performs, but, in all, the new iMac should completely smoke my current PowerMac G5.

The integrated iSight with PhotoBooth is cute. I imagine PhotoBooth will ship with all new iSights once those are revamped. (According to Steve Jobs, the iSight in the new iMac is somewhat better than the iSight you can buy off the shelf.) It's a cute add - on, but it's nothing that would sway me as a consumer one way or the other. Still, PhotoBooth does stand out as another app that shows off the versatility of Apple's Core Image technology.

Front Row is very intriguing. Now please take notice, Front Row is the name for the media software, not the remote itself (which is available as a separate purchase for use with iPods). Front Row seems superficially inspired by Windows Media Center Edition, but I won't be drawing too many comparisons as I've had little to no "hands - on" experience with either product. As far as Front Row goes, I was impressed with how seamlessly it integrates with the core operating system. I liked the simplistic interface and the simple remote. This stuff has great potential.

How do I rate the new iMac? Let me put it this way: I need a new Apple laptop, but I want one of these iMacs.

It's True!

So here is the much anticipated iPod Video. I like that it is just called iPod. For a while, the iPod line was getting too confusing, but now it's pretty simple again. Simply put, this is an iPod first and a video player second. The screen, though larger than the previous iPods, is still pretty small, and battery life with video playback is pretty abysmal. Still, it's a first step that's bound to gain momentum with time.

iPod nanos and iPods now mach as far as styling goes. The new iPod is even offered in black (which i am the only person on Earth who thinks this thing looks terrible in black). Even the Shuffle fits in visually, but one could easily be confused for the new remote Apple is bundling with the iMacs. The new iPods are somewhat thinner than their predecessors, but the sacrifice is loss of FireWire support. We should have seen that coming a mile away, but it's still a little disappointing.

Personally, I feel no motivation to purchase one of these as a video device. Although I might investigate how well one might handle an interactive QuickTime movie. As a potential first-time iPod buyer, though, these are make a compelling upgrade to the previous generation, and I may beg for one of these come Christmas instead of a Nano.

Video in iTunes

Of course, this is just amazing – not so much as it is now as much as what it could become. Right now, you pay $2 USD for a low - resolution video of a music video, Pixar short, or ABC/Disney television episode. However, this has amazing potential. First, there's the whole deal that you can download the most recent episode of a show they sell the next day after broadcast. Second, there is a serious potential to revolutionize media distribution should we see higher resolutions and more content creep in over time. Right now, the video component of iTunes is pretty bare bones, but the potential present is amazing. Remember how small the iTunes Music Store started out? I'm no TV fan, but it will be interesting to watch this grow.

Conclusion

I'm personally most excited about the new iMac. That machine is just great, hands down. I like the new iPod, but the video aspect bears no weight in my like or dislike of the product. It's just a cooler, higher capacity iPod to me. Video is just some nice icing on the cake, but that's okay to think. After all, at least a couple of times in his speech, Steve Jobs referred to the video functionality as a "bonus." Video in the iTunes Music Store has amazing potential, but it will take time to be realized. This is only the beginning for legal online video distribution.

Most intriguing product? Front Row. Where is Apple going with this? Where can they go with it? Right now, it is tied to the iMac, but the key there is right now. "At this time, its only on the iMac," Apple's Greg Joswiak said in a MacWorld interview. Front Row may eventually become a standalone product, or it may eventually be integrated with all copies of Mac OS X. With this new media center software, will we be seeing Macs with TV - tuner capabilities in the future? Will these changes affect the features built into Apple's displays? Only time will tell.

Tags: macintosh, technology

... For brushed metal windows, that is. Perhaps I'm jumping the gun a little bit here, but the first thing I noticed about iTunes 5 is that it no longer sports a brushed window. It looks mildly like the unified approach that Mail 2 sports, though considerably darker. Still, it proves that there is hope for Apple and their windows yet.



Now mind you, I don't overly dislike brushed metal windows. In fact, Max Rudberg's Brushed theme for ShapeShifter used to get pretty frequent use from me. I just don't like the inconsistent use of brushed metal through Apple's applications. Hopefully, this is evidence that Apple is heading toward a more consistent Aqua interface in future OS releases. (Come on, you know you want to kill the brushed metal Finder, Apple!)

By the way, the iPod nano may just become my first iPod. That thing is (cue East Coast accent) wicked cool!

Tags: software, macintosh

Okay, this will be quick and dirty. I never thought to mention this in my previous article because this issue never crossed my mind.

Using Intel processors will not open Macintosh computers up to waves of viruses, malware, or spyware. The vast majority of malicious software you hear about in the news targets Windows. Stated even more clearly, these viruses and such attack the software, not the hardware. Therefore, as long as you do not install Windows on your shiny new MacTel (which would be silly), you should be no more prone to virus attacks and such than you are right now.

Feel better? Good. Now go take some deep breaths; play some Katamari Damacy, and don't worry about Macintosh security. It's still there.

Tags: security, macintosh, opinion

Now that I've had a couple of days to digest the information, I thought I'd post a few thoughts about the PowerPC to x86 transition Steve Jobs announced at this year's World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC).

Weekend Jitters

The weekend before WWDC, rumors were spreading around the Internet that Apple was in talks with Intel, and these talks were going to lead to an announcement that Apple would be abandoning the PowerPC architecture for the x86 architecture. Sure, these rumors had been around for years, but this time it was different. Publications with more clout and reputation at stake were reporting these rumors as solid fact.

The Macintosh community was abuzz with discussions. Forum topics would surpass a thousand posts in under an hour, and the debate kept returning to the same basic theme: Could this be for real?

I have to admit to being a nay-sayer. I thought Apple was going to use Intel's ARM processor in future mobile devices. I even agreed with Daring Fireball's article that speculated (far-fetched as it may sound) that Intel had wooed Apple with its own variant of the PowerPC architecture. Perhaps they could provide the speed in the PowerPC that IBM had so far failed to deliver. The thought that Apple would take an undertaking this large seemed unrealistic, especially after the rocky OS 9 to OS X shift.

The Announcement

Incidentally, I had been preparing some thoughts about how Apple had grown content with its current position in the market and how it seemed to be a company that was finished, for the time being, with going out on limbs. I knew just how wrong that line of thinking was when the headline came up on MacCentral reading: "The Rumors Are True."

What was most surprising wasn't the shift itself, though. What was surprising was how Steve Jobs made it seem like this was not a big deal, and developers would be able to easily take this shift in stride. More so, he even had demonstrable evidence that this was the case. Rosetta will be able to run PowerPC compiled apps on the x86 processors (with some caveats we'll explore later). Mathmatica was recompiled for x86 in about two hours, and the new version of XCode can dual-compile applications, so a developer can ship software that can run on both architectures on the same disc.

"Impressive. Most impressive."

The comprehensiveness by which this transition is being handled should not, in retrospect, have been so surprising. After all, Apple is a company that thinks and plans before it acts. Additionally, Apple had already weathered a substantial platform transition in recent history from which they could learn. As it turns out, Mac OS X has been running on x86 machines practically from Day 1. In fact, its BSD core makes it inherently portable. Some saw this day coming. Fortunately, Apple had planned well for it.

The Timing

One of the arguments against this dramatic change happening now was the fact that the OS 9 to OS X migration was really only just settling down, even though it has been five years since the introduction of OS X. Why would Apple force its users and developers through another tectonic shift in such a short amount of time? Furthermore, such a shift would require time, and PowerPC Macintosh sales will surely take a hit with the promise of an entirely new architecture.

Right now, Apple is a strong company, both in public perception and financially. Possibly, Apple's executives see this as a good time to undertake this task for precisely that reason. PowerPC was putting Apple's lineup (especially the expensive stuff) in a precarious position, and the performance gap between high end Macs and PCs had ceased to narrow. In time, it may have even begun to widen again.

As a side note: Remember the days of the G4 towers? Back when they were introduced, everybody still measured processor speeds by megahertz. As Intel moved past the 1 GHz barrier, Motorola was still providing Apple with G4 chips running at about 600 MHz. Until the introduction of the G5, Apple's high end lineup was looking very weak. It looks like this time, Apple is trying to avoid history repeating itself.

Yes, Macintosh sales will drop off for a couple of quarters. Hopefully, iPod sales will help offset that. We may even see some price-cutting on PowerPC-based Macintoshes in order to get them out of the warehouses. Fortunately, Apple will be taking these lumps from a position of strength. Had they waited another couple of years, the outlook may have been more grim.

Fear and Paranoia

Of course, there are some who proclaim this as the Death of Apple. (In fact, I wonder how The Mac Observer's Apple Death Knell Counter is doing right now.) The biggest fear is, of course, that people will widely adopt Window's emulators for their Macs and the need for Macintosh software and game development will come to a screeching halt. This reasoning is a load of dingo's kidneys. Emulators are a pain. They also rob you of the Macintosh user experience, and some can even leave you vulnerable to viruses and malware.

Take X11 for example. Every Macintosh user has X11 available to them to provide a graphical interface for UNIX based apps (which are all free, I might add). Now raise your hand if you know what X11 is. Keep it up if you have installed X11 onto your Mac. Okay, now keep your hand up if you regularly use X11. Alright, I see about three hands, and mine is not one of them. I messed with X11 some and decided it was too much of a pain. Thanks for the option, but I'll stick with my native Mac OS X apps.

Mac OS X is a fully independent platform. Most users will not want to bother with emulators or virtual machines, and those hardcore geeks or gamers who do will be a vanishingly small percentage. Mac developers will still be needed, and the market is not going to vanish simply because of an architecture change.

The Trade Offs

There are definite gains in switching to the x86 architecture. Mac users will probably see more rapid adoption of PC-first technology alongside Apple's innovations. Macintosh ports will probably take less time in the long run. Speed will be a definite gain, and we will hopefully see more and better updates to Apple's laptop line (which used to be the strongest aspect of their product matrix). It's very likely that there are even more advantages I haven't even thought of yet.

However, there are some trade-offs. The mystique and elegance of the PowerPC architecture will be a thing of the past to Macintosh users. Sure, Macs will finally have performance parity, but there will no longer be that hope of one day PowerPC Macs will speed past WinTel systems. From a subjective standpoint, the switch to x86 makes Macs a little less special now. (See this article for more.) I just hope those "Intel Inside" stickers don't get plastered all over the hardware!

(Is this a good point to mention the whole frontside bus issue? Sure, we'll be seeing 3.2 GHz Macs soon, but their FSB will drop to 800 MHz. In fact, I could not find a single Intel processor with a FSB that surpassed 1 GHz like the G5s do. I wonder how that will affect things. It's weird to think that my 1.8 GHz G5 has a faster bus than a 3+ GHz Pentium 4.)

Additionally, software will be spotty for a while – even with Rosetta. Apps that require a G4/G5 processor do not seem to work. AltiVec instructions will be lost, and Classic apps will not work. Actually, the whole Classic thing doesn't bother me in the least, but it might affect someone. Hopefully, companies will release patches for existing products (if that is possible). However, I bet that if I want an x86 native version of Sibelius for the Macintosh, I'm going to have to save my pennies for a new version. Just like the migration from OS 9 to OS X, there are going to have to be some major software purchases.

Conclusion

I was dismayed at first to read the news that Apple would be switching to the x86 architecture, but now I am cautiously optimistic. The road will be a bumpy one, but at the end of it, I will still be a Mac user. After all, it's really the operating system and the software that makes a Mac what it is. Furthermore, I'm sure Apple will retain its great industrial design (and PowerMacs will hopefully get to shrink some now). Everything that makes an Apple an Apple will still be in place, and I guess that's all that really matters.

Tags: intel, opinion, macintosh

I can never figure out why people spend so much money to make their desktop computer into a gaming rig. It's an exercise in futility at best. (And, yes, I know this slightly contradicts an earlier post, but I reserve the right to contradict myself any time I want to.) Half Life 2, Doom 3, the upcoming Unreal Tournament 2007 – all of these are games that people will upgrade their computers for. Even if we upgrade only one component, maintaining a desktop as a gaming solution can get spendy. Chances are, every time a new generation of graphics engine, a gamer will want to buy a new graphics card. Now take the ATI X800 for example. It's not even the best card out there, but it sells for about $300 – the price of and XBox and a PS2 combined.

To illustrate: My first-generation PowerMac G5 struggles to run Halo smoothly at high settings. (Granted, here is one advantage the desktop gamer will point out to the console gamer. Playing Halo on my Mac, I have the option to run at higher settings. THis point will be rendered moot a little later on.) If I wanted to get a mid-range Macintosh G5 graphics card, say a Radeon 9800 Pro SE, I would be set back between $230-$250 dollars. Again, this is not even the best card I could get, but it would do the job. Still, when UT 2007 comes out, it would be officially obsolete. Chances are, I will need a whole new tower to handle that monster.

Gaming can be very expensive.

Alternatively, though, lets assume we can forgo the graphics card upgrade (and whatever else could fall short – CPU, memory, hard drive space, etc.) and follow a cheaper alternative. How much would a new XBox be? On Amazon.com, I would be set back around $150. Along with this, I would now also be able to play Halo 2 and Doom 3, neither of which would have been viable with my previous solution because Halo 2 is not available for the Mac and the 9800 would most likely be scared of Doom 3 at anything but low settings.

Now that E3 has completed, console developers are even more attractive. The games demoed (and yes, I understand some pre-rendering was going on) were breathtaking. The FF VII demo, MGS 4, Killzone 2, UT 2007, Quake 4, Alan Wake, Project Gotham 3...Wow! And HD quality will be a given. This means that these games will look as good on your (nice) TV as they would on your (nice) computer screen.

This leads to another interesting point of discussion, though. None of these consoles (assuming Revolution has similar specifications) are particularly earth shattering. Sure, XBox 360 has 3 CPU cores, but, outside of that, you have your standard 3.2 GHz processors, 512 MB RAM, 500 MHz graphics card, nothing out of the ordinary. Despite this, these consoles will produce visuals that will trump similarly spec'd desktops. Yes, the whole machine is geared to be an efficient gaming powerhouse, and that explains some of the performance, but I think the rest of the credit belongs to the good console developers.

Take the current de facto console leader for example, the PlayStation 2. It has a 300MHz processor, 32 MB RAM, a 150 MHz graphics card with 4 MB VRAM and a 4x DVD-ROM drive. This thing is comparable to a second generation G3 iMac, but I dare any 400 MHz PC or Mac to successfully run Burnout 3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, or Star Wars Battlefront. It would never happen. RTCW requires a 500 MHz processor on desktops and Star Wars Battlefront wants a 1GHz processor (not to mention 256 MB of RAM and 64 MB of VRAM). Even the XBox has a mere 733 MHz processor.

Again, the culprit is code. Console developers have a set overhead they know they have to work with. The parameters are immobile, and they have to squeeze as much power out of those concrete specifications as humanly possible, and may developers (Criterion, Naughty Dog, Square Enix) do a fine job of doing just that. Graphical disasters like Enter the Matrix are often the result of coders who cannot seem to respect those parameters well enough to stretch them to their limits.

On the other hand, PC-centric developers can often be guilty of creating resource-hungry monsters. (Although I have to hand it to Valve for the scalability of HL2.) Returning to Star Wars Battlefront, why do the specs more than double from the PS2 to the desktop? There has to be some jump, of course. The PS2 isn't running Windows XP or Mac OS X along with the game, but it seems that the real problem is that desktop developers have grown comfortable with the fact that their target audience's machine are upgradable. Therefore, they do not spend as much time and effort optimizing the code to run on a 400 MHz machine.

The moral of the story after this insanely long post? If I'm that desperate for a Halo or Doom 3 fix, I'm getting an XBox. (Although, by now, I might as well wait for the XBox 360.)

Tags: video games, macintosh