MW Jan '09

Yeah, not posting much recently. But my job on top of having our second child in September has really knocked me out. Stayed up late with Jason to catch Apple’s supposed “last” MacWorld conference in January and have been ruminating about Schiller’s presentation.

First, the coverage was fairly broad with all the usual crew sending feeds, along with newcomer gdgt (Ryan Block & Peter Rojas). Unfortunately, their feed bogged down totally about 30 minutes in and never recovered completely. Too bad for them, as they had the best photo shots, IMHO. The other feed we followed was Ryan & Peter’s old blog, Engadget. Their feed updated fairly regularly, though not with autorefresh. The other coverage we were following was MacRumors, which got hacked in the first 15 minutes and the feeds were full of bizarre things, including a claim that Jobs died (not funny) as well as some truly hilarious stuff which had me rolling on the floor. There was a column of ‘desu desu desu“, for example among other things. Some folks felt sorry for MacRumors, but I don’t particularly. Although they do have original content, on slow news days they simply parrot what AppleInsider publishes - often with identical headlines. I’m not saying they deserve the hacking, but it was comical. I don’t know what happened to other feeds.

Second, most folks were expecting actual Mac hardware products, not software, so I think overall people were disappointed. From what I can tell Wall Street was also disappointed as Apple stock went down a buck fifty. Given the real need for an updated MacMini, it’s surprising Apple didn’t do something more. Even the Engadget folks were quipping about how bored they were getting after an hour of iLife / iWork demos.

The only hardware introduced was the new ‘unibody’ 17“ MacBook Pro. Price is the same, but new aluminum enclosure, and option for matte screen (vs. glossy), non-removable battery, higher res screen. Given that this MacBook is not a huge seller, and has features better suited for a desktop - meh. It weighs in at a hefty 6.6 lbs, a decrease in 0.2 lbs. This isn’t as much as I would have expected from this new lightweight enclosure. However the 15” MacBook Pro ‘unibody’ actually gained weight, a tenth of a pound to 5.5 lbs. I can’t understand why Apple needs to make heavy notebook computers when they are already horribly behind on this feature. (Note: the unibody MacBook actually lost weight from its predecessor.) I’m guessing for the new 17“ MBP, most of the weight is in the new battery. Some Mac sites seem to be touting the new tech in this battery. The new tech, however, seems to be that the battery is actually larger than in previous 17” MBPs. Larger battery, longer battery life is what Schiller said. He left out “heavier”. I also found it laughable that Apple was proud its new aircraft carrier deck laptop was the thinnest in its class. Dude, if you are lugging one of these around, its thinness is the least of your worries. And with the extra graphics processor, your gonna need all the power you can get. My guess is that the Japanese market remains unimpressed by stats like this.

Most of the presentation was focused on Apple’s consumer software, iWork and iLife. This puzzled me because I’d always heard we shouldn’t expect Apple hardware announced at the developer conferences. Now we have a software (and not much hardware) focus at MacWorld. I guess this really shows Apple’s disdain for MW or indication that they would release stuff when they want and not when others expect it. Although the flashy features demo’d for iWork and iLife seem impressive, one word permeated my thinking: bloatware. The geotag and integration with GoogleMaps/Earth is nice, but the inflexible paradigm of organizing your photos pisses me off. I still use iLife '06 on my desktop Mac, because it allows me to organize by date in the side bar (best way to organize photos!) and it's enhance function works BETTER than that in '08  for underwater photos. I can rely on tagging  for my events, places, and people. Face recognition sounds good, but apparently isn't good enough to rely on completely.

OK, this is brief, but I finally published it! If MacJournal had allowed me to send the post from the app, I'd have had this up a month ago. Next up, my review of the EyeFi Explorer card.

New Mac Stuff - No Ultraportable Again :-(

Well, last Tuesday, you probably all know, Apple had a press event and released all kinds of goodies. I somehow stayed awake for most of the blog feeds, despite lengthy feature demos with little or no running commentary. MacNN and Engadget had the best live feeds, with Engadget's photos giving it the crown. MacNN's started well and updated more frequently initially, but it pooped out halfway and had to be manually refreshed at one point. For whatever reason, MacRumors didn't do a live blog this time. I'll review what was announced, and give you my take:

1. New iMacs

The good - Thinner screens, new keyboards, more ecofriendly glass front and aluminum covers, new slim keyboards, same price.

The bad - No info on whether these use less electricity, wireless versions of keyboards are MORE EXPENSIVE ($79 vs $49) and smaller because they LACK A NUMBER PAD. WTF. The 17" iMac is now gone (bad for some folks), and the new low end iMac is more expensive. Also, I read on TUAW that the Apple remote no longer clings to the side of the iMac.

The ugly - I'm sorry, but the new black border around the screen is butt-ugly. It makes the screen appear smaller for some reason. Plus, these iMacs still retain the wasted space below the screen with the Apple logo, whose only purpose seems to be for the attachment of postit notes.

2. iLife 08

The good - Highly anticipated update to the package, enhanced .Mac integration (along with .Mac giving you a whole 10GB now) enhanced iWeb features, completely revamped iMovie that is much more user friendly, improved iPhoto.

The bad - New iMovie lacks much of the advanced features of iMovie HD 06. It is so late in coming that the package has to be renamed '08 instead of '07.

The ugly - They are still trying to use iLife to justify the existence of .Mac.

3. iWork 08

The good -  Pages gets reworked and becomes more modular to separate word processing from page layouts, NEW NUMBERS spreadsheet (!!!) actually justifies the 'work' part of the application name, can import the new Windoze Office 07 .docx and other lame MS formats, improved Keynote, still very affordable at $79, smaller install size than iWork 06.

The bad - Numbers has problems importing many Excel files, in part because it lacks a third of Excel's advanced functions, no HTML export from any of the iWork apps.

The ugly - Not confirmed, but the delay of the new version of MS Office for Mac announced a few days prior is suspicious. It begs the question of whether MS will ever finish development of it.

4. .Mac

The good -  More space (10x more at 10Gb), better interaction and more functions with iLife.

The bad - 10Gb is still very small and free services give you a better value.

The ugly - not enough of a refresh for the service, still too tied to iLife for my tastes.

5. New MacMinis

The good - kept the same price points but bumped up the processors to 1.83 and 2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo, plus bumped up base RAM to 1 Gb (woohoo!), sticks it in the face of those morons anticipating the Mini's demise.

The bad - kept the same enclosure, while a nice form factor it is a bitch to open.

The ugly - Steve didn't have the balls to mention this during the actual presentation, only during the Q&A session after. Lame Steve, lame.

6. Overall Presentation

The good - Apple hasn't forgotten its Mac side and seems to be continuing development of new technologies and style.

The bad - the emphasis on integration with the iPhone is pathetic, given it's only available in the US and will only be available there for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, not everyone wants a freaking iPhone. Steve perpetuates sales problems in Japan (it's bad here again), by not giving us a freaking real portable MacBook. FIVE POUNDS doesn't cut it here, Steve!

The ugly - The continued lack of a replacement for the 12" PowerBook is pathetic. The "rest of us" here in the world's second biggest consumer market deserve better.  

WWDC 07 Keynote - more detailed comments

Like many, I was very disappointed in Jobs keynote address, and not surprised that Apple's stock prices dropped. The lack of hardware was depressing.

But Jobs did introduce many 'amazing' features for Leopard, and announced a competing browser for Windoze users. I'll briefly comment on what he presented.

Leopard Overall

I have to say that most of what was demo'd was visually appealing, but not particularly practical. It gave me the impression that Leopard will be the OS for people "who don't care about getting things done". I also suspect much of the animations in folders, docks, and file sorting will mean alot of demand on your processor, RAM, and maybe HD space. It wouldn't surprise me at all if you had to have an Intel Mac to use Leopard. Waiting until October makes this more digestible for Mac users. By that time, the number of Intel machines used by consumers may exceed PowerPCs in use. Furthermore, PowerPC Macs may have started to reach their EOL by that time.

New Desktop

Meh. I don't use the dock much. It stays hidden. So all of these tricks and gimmicks on the dock seem like wasted processor cycles. I look forward to minimizing my mouse use in my computer experience, not increasing it. 

And, I actually like brushed metal looks.

Stacks

These are sets of files you make for certain tasks. I like the idea of putting all my image processing apps in one stack, and molecular biology apps in another stack. This seem better than trying to remember the name of little used apps or what you have available. The problem I have with the Stacks concept is the need to use a mouse to browse them. Maybe Quicksilver can be integrated with this. But maybe QS can already do this.

Network View/Back to My Mac

I'm all for making my files available to me everywhere and having fast network browsing. But I have two problems with this idea. First, you need to keep your freaking machines ON all the time to take advantage of this. Maybe you can't even let them sleep. What a waste of electricity! The second problem is that it seems you'll need a .Mac account to make use of it. Is this a way for Apple to push its much maligned internet service? I think we need to get away from .Mac, not become more dependent on it.

Coverflow for File Browsing

Yuck! I don't use coverflow now with iTunes. Seeing an Album's cover doesn't make me want to play a song from it. So why would I want to use coverflow with the finder? Flipping through file icons or previews isn't really an efficient way to get at my files. Sure, their may be times I want to browse stuff, but mostly I know what I want.

Quick Look

Sounds like a nice way to browse the content of files you browse with coverflow. And certainly for images it could be very useful if you don't want to look through a host of thumbnails. But I would bet not all apps will be adequately supported for QuickLook.

64 Bit

So... will this work on all Macs? I somehow think you'll need a fast Intel machine to really take advantage of it. We'll have to see how it actually works.

iChat

C'mon Steve. The rest of the world (>93%) is using either Skype or MSN for chatting, particularly video chats. That's a lot of 'heartwarming' opportunity lost by iChat users. This means despite how nice iChat is, I can't use it to do vid chats with my Mom or most of my family. So, despite the holograms and so forth - the focus needs to be on true interoperability - not features.

WebClip and Dashboard

Again, I rarely use Dashboard. It's a memory hog and doesn't sit on my desktop unless I install some doodad that lets me do so. In fact the most common Widget I use is "Stop Dashboard".

How about fixing the problems with processor load before bloating this feature? The ability to clip part of a web page and have it dynamically update as a widget sounds nice. But I can't imagine it would be useful to me during the work day.

Boot Camp

Wow - having Boot Camp built in sounds nice. But I didn't really understand the part about how Parallels and vmWare are both excellent alternatives. Seems like Apple's move puts them in a spot. What we really need is a BootCamp for Windows laptops so I can use MacOS on them.

Hmmm....

TimeMachine

We saw this the last time, and it looks very useful. I still question the HD and RAM assets you'll need to have available to use it effectively.

Spaces

Also saw this last time - a 'Virtual Desktops' ability for OSX. If you didn't use the shareware/freeware versions of this now, you won't use Spaces later.

Safari on Windows

Ummm... why? Apple can't even make Safari work effectively on a Mac. I mean, I can't blog on Blogger with Safari now, or use our university's online content services (e.g., Moodle, WebTycho). Why would porting this experience to Windows users be a selling point? This kind of pisses me off, as Apple hasn't taken care of its own flock yet. Yes, Safari is great for many things and has fantastic feature. I really like the way it handles RSS feeds. But if it can't handle secure access points now,  I don't want to see Apple waste time on making it available for Windows users. Pointless exercise.

OK - there's my slant. Hopefully I've spurred folks to look differently at Steve's reality distortion event. 

Is there an Intel Mini in the house? Part I

About a month ago, I decided I would finally get myself an Intel Mac, mostly because I needed a reliable computer in the DNA lab to run some molecular analysis apps via Windoze. But I admit having Intel Mac envy that I couldn't quite satisfy with an overweight MacBook.

I had gone back and forth trying to decide between a 17" Intel iMac and the Mini. I felt the new 17" iMacs were a better deal, given the faster Intel chips and the built in monitor. However, my desk space in the lab is very limited, and there is already a monitor I could switch to the Mini when needed. I also felt better about spending under $1000 US on a Mini, with the idea of getting a truly compact MacBook Pro in the coming months. Now the problem became getting one in Japan for a decent price.

Apple refurbs in Japan are tough to come by. If you check the Apple Japan refurb page often, you'll see jack shit there 99% of the time. They usually have a MacBook or two, but only once int the last 6 months have I seen anything else offered. And those disappeared quickly. I also considered purchasing a used Mini (or even iMac) from the retailer SofMap. But the problem there was the lack of more than a month's warranty on anything bought used.

So, I asked my brother in the US to order a refurb Mini from the US Apple store and send it to me. At that time, they had plenty - but I knew supplies were limited. My brother checked with a MicroCenter near his work place, and found that they had a 1.83Ghz Intel Mini for a comparable price as from the Apple store. Apparently, it was a return, but it came with a full warranty and was supposedly 'complete'. They also gave us a good price on upgrading the RAM (to 1.28 Gb total). He bought the Mini and was able to send it quite quickly to me via my APO address.

When I brought the Mini home and unboxed it, I was amazed at the small size of the CPU, but a little dismayed at the size of the power brick. ('Brick' is appropriate in this case, BTW.) I was also disappointed that the MicroCenter people forgot to include the DVI to VGA adapter - so I couldn't use it out of the box on my spare VGA monitor. Strike one. I wasn't able to get a replacement adapter for another couple of days, due to my work schedule - so I had to wait further. After getting an adapter, I hauled it all to the lab and happily set it up. I really enjoyed the looks from my lab mates when they saw it set up and running next to their boring Epson desktop machines.

Unfortunately, I became aware that something was wrong... namely, that the freaking fan was constantly on. I downloaded all the OSX updates, including a firmware update for Intel Macs.
No change. I followed the instructions to reset the hardware manager (shut down and unplug everything for a few minutes). No change. I then came to the conclusion that something was very wrong - and began to worry I and my brother had been hosed with a lemon Mac.

At home, I found no evidence of a warranty for the Mini in the box, further increasing my stress. And a quick search on the internet for fan problems with the Mini suggested all kinds of horror stories. However, one article on MacWorld's site struck a chord. The venerable Chris Breen had taken apart a Mini and reassembled it, but forgot to connect a cable correctly. He found that reseating it completely solved the fan noise problem that appeared after he had upgraded the RAM. Breen went so far to say that anyone who got their RAM upgraded recently with fan problems should check out this cable, and even shows the location of the plug. A quick peek through the vents of the Mini and poking around with a dissecting probe (I'm a biologist...) showed me that, sure enough, this cable was not connected.

So, these idiots at MicroCenter didn't do their job. They closed the case without connecting the plug. Is this what we should expect from Apple certified techs? Strike two.

Now the problem was opening the case. The Mini is not supposed to be opened by customers, only by Apple service people. So, all RAM upgrades have to be done by service people. In fact there aren't any screws or bolts to open the case. When I started reading about how to crack open a Mini, I saw all sorts of horror stories about dinging up the case with the recommended case opener - a PUTTY KNIFE! This didn't sound good at all. Without a clear warranty, I was reluctant to take the Mini to a Japan Apple store. Yet I didn't want try this procedure myself
and mess up any chance at having any warranty. I had almost decided to pack the thing up and send it back to the US for a refund.

Then, a Pizza cutter changed everything. Continued in part II.