These are my predictions for today:
I’m going to get some heat for this, but I really think Derek Powazek has hit the nail on the head. If the Apple Tablet is able to provide a magazine experience that is similar to what is demonstrated by Time Inc., shown below, then the world of print media has something to celebrate.
…why do most CFL bulbs…those high efficiency ones that are going to save the world…come in non-recyclable packaging?
I’m watching the election results on msnbc.com and they’re actually putting the full 16:9 aspect ratio to proper use. Most of the time they shoot things in widescreen but virtually all shots are framed to fit the older 4:3 format. Along with election results msnbc is showing poll closing data on either side of the screen. While the data isn’t extremely useful it is nice to see the space is getting put to use.
I don’t typically blog about where I work but I will say that I’ve changed where I work. With this change may come a small shift in focus on what I write about. My new job brings me back into the Linux world whereas my previous one saw me doing Windows 90% of the time (though you wouldn’t have known it from what I wrote about). This does mean however that I won’t be writing about OpenSolaris as much unless something changes with how my home setup is done.
Some comments I made on the an apple discussion website has made the geek news. http://tinyurl.com/4ueslk The comments by miniconvert are from me.
A number of people have pointed out that newer camcorders don’t use firewire anymore. That’s cool, but the issue isn’t just camcorders (though for me it primarily is). Others have pointed out that Apple likes to lead the way, they dropped the floppy first as well as PS2. At the time, very viable solutions existed, it was time for these interfaces to go away. When Apple introduced the iMac it lacked PS2 ports (or really, the Apple keyboard/mouse ports) but it didn’t really matter. That new computer came with a USB keyboard and mouse. By removing firewire they’ve left a lot of potential customers in a bit of a conundrum. What to do with those peripherals that are based on firewire?
How Apple reacts to this backlash will be very interesting. I’ve always understood why people dislike Apple products, this is one of those reasons but in this case I think they’ve gone too far too fast. I do of course realize nobody is forcing anybody into buying a Macbook. It’s just that, when you want to live in the Apple world you choices are already limited.
Ugg, where to start. Apple released yesterday an entirely new Macbook and Macbook Pro. The primary chassis of the laptops, the upper part that holds the keyboard, palm rests and touch pad, are now made from a solid piece of aluminum. This is great because it improves structural rigidity and the laptop can be made from fewer parts. The Macbook also gets to take advantage of some new nvidia chipset/video card which improves performance greatly over the old intel option.
Now for the bad part. There is no eff’n firewire port. None, just two USB ports. WTF? Why would Apple ditch a port they created on a consumer level laptop that costs $1300? “Hey, look at this laptop, it comes with iMovie so you can edit all those family vacation movies that you CAN’T GET OFF OF YOUR CAMCORDER.” Want to edit video with a firewire camcorder, pony up $2000 and get a Pro model! Got firewire external drives or peripherals…get a Pro model!
I’ve always recognized and understood why some people are so anti-Apple. They hate that lack of choice in hardware, among other things, but it has never bothered me. Apple hardware has always been pretty good and looked ok. Looks are subjective but I’ve always found Apple’s products agreeable. But when a company decides to strong arm you into buying their more expensive product by cutting out a key part…it’s ridiculous.
I was reading slashdot the other day and someone had asked about how to provide email for their children while keeping them safe. One of the answers mentioned that they didn’t really have a solution for them regarding email but if they needed a way to help protect them while browsing the web they should look into OpenDNS. Turns out OpenDNS now offers a type of web filtering that you can control and best of all it is free. I have a new button on the side of my site that will take you to their site if you’re interested in such a service.
I’ve heard from more than one person (one of them quite reliable) that new Macbooks are coming but I’ve also heard they are likely to be priced lower than we’ve seen them before. With the lack of attention the Mac mini has seen in the last year my tin foil hat is picking up ideas that the mini may be phased out in favor of the cheaper Macbook.
A number of people will want to point out that killing the mini wouldn’t make sense, they make great media center PCs or without the mini Apple won’t have anything to pull in those Windows users. But I’d argue that Apple needs only to improve upon the aTV to replace the mini as a media center. I’d also argue that laptops are where its at and more people are buying laptops than desktop systems these days. If a Windows users is on the fence on which computer to choose, you can bet that the two choices are between a Windows laptop and a Mac laptop.
One of the more dismissed iPod features announced recently is the one that allows users to instantly find out what song is playing in a Starbucks and then buy the song on the spot if they so choose. At first glance it’s easy to dismiss this as something you’ll never use but I believe this will lead into something bigger.
Although I would tend to agree that teaming with Starbucks is a bit of a yawn you can’t deny that the idea is great. How many times have you been somewhere, heard a song and wished you knew the name of the song or artist? Now imagine if more places teamed up with Apple to make this a reality. The local gym, mall food court or what have you could be setup with similar equipment to what Starbucks is putting in to place. Or, how about a small band playing at a venue making album sales while performing?
Since Starbucks is a place that benefits simply because it is the kind of place a person can order a drink and listen to music, I imagine Apple would need to build in some kind of incentive for other businesses to get involved. Someway for the company to pay for the equipment needed to run the service.
The real benefit, for Apple anyway, is that the chance for an impulse buy goes up substantially because the customer can buy the song right away, they don’t have to try to remember the song and buy it later. This will undoubtedly lead to increased music sales for Apple and even though we’ve always been told iTMS exists to sell more iPods one has to think Apple makes something on music sales. With an increase in sales volume iTMS will become more of a money maker than it is today.