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Macworld thoughts
So what do people think about the Macworld keynote?
A couple of thoughts (it's still going on as I type this):
1) $20 to upgrade the ITouch when new owners get the update for free? Lame. Besides, the machine is still absurdly locked down.
2) What do you think about no optical drive on the Macbook Air? That's a big gamble, in my book. I think it would be a deal breaker for me. Sure, you can add a drive, but if you want portability and want an optical drive, that's not the way to go.
3) The AppleTV is still a dud. With no DVR for television, what's the real advantage? Get a TIVO and use it with Amazon Unbox.
A couple of thoughts (it's still going on as I type this):
1) $20 to upgrade the ITouch when new owners get the update for free? Lame. Besides, the machine is still absurdly locked down.
2) What do you think about no optical drive on the Macbook Air? That's a big gamble, in my book. I think it would be a deal breaker for me. Sure, you can add a drive, but if you want portability and want an optical drive, that's not the way to go.
3) The AppleTV is still a dud. With no DVR for television, what's the real advantage? Get a TIVO and use it with Amazon Unbox.
Comments
But holy fuck that Macbook Air is thin.
Time capsule. It's a wireless hard drive. So why is the software only capable of using it for backups? Why not make it a full on wireless NAS/home file server that would actually be useful and way cheaper than other NAS products on the market?
Movie rentals. Amazingly enough, despite the DRM, this is something that I could even think about doing. Problem is that Netflix just blew them out of the water in this department. How long do you think it will take for the DRM to be cracked and rentals become purchases?
AppleTV update. Well, the AppleTV is now actually useful instead of useless. However, our very old Mac mini is capable of doing everything the AppleTV does and more. Until plugging the AppleTV into your television is better than plugging an actual computer into your television, what's the point? They should just go back to updating the front row software and trying to get people to buy Mac minis by calling them Mac TVs.
As for the air, it's not really all that bad. However, it is lacking key features. Battery life might seem good at the theoretical 5 hours. I get 9 hours. Oh, I also have more than one USB port, an optical drive, a fingerprint scanner, built in wired ethernet, a microphone hole, and a PCMCIA slot. They did a damn good job of getting as much into that package as they could at the size it is. However, in their quest for thin they went a little too far in carving out absolutely necessary features.
Apple TV. eh. Now if they released that software for me to install on my mac mini I have hooked up to the TV, that'd be great. Heck I'd be even willing to pay $50 or so for it. Time Capsule fits in the same boat. I already have a Airport Extreme with the USB HD connection. I can use it as a NAS on my home network. Backing up to it for some reason doesn't work with time machine properly. Now I know why. They should make it so I can use that with the old hardware (they won't cause it doesn't make sense in terms of buying new stuff, but still.
iTunes, again eh. Nothing all the unexpected. HD content? It's the normal at this point, Apple is just going with the standard. Taking on Netflix is rather gutsy, but not all that unexpected a step for them.
I see this as a real competitor to Amazon Unbox. If you don't own a TIVO, it's easy to forget about Amazon Unbox. But trust me... Amazon has already got into the living rooms of a gazillion homes thanks to Unbox on TIVO.
If this forces Amazon to improve its product, then I'm happy. If it squeezes Amazon out, then I'm bummed.
(Edit: look like Apple pulled the page.)
Oh, wait maybe it's Absolutely Proprietary Products Looking Elegant. I have a co-worker that's been waiting to replace his 17" MacBook, so he's thinking about the Air. He swears Apple has the best user environment available, then he drops to the command line and does 100% of his development work in Emacs.
The price is bad enough on the HD version, but the SSD one is outrageous IMO.
It's 2GB of memory can not be expanded.
No firewire port, no ethernet and only one USB port. Ouch.
Battery can't be replaced by the end user. (How long until external batteries that plug into the AC adapter are sold?)
Only 2GB? Is any normal user with a 1.8ghz computer going to need more, this a consumer model.
There is also an ethernet to USB adapter available.
That said, I am not interested. Going to up the RAM in my laptop to 4gb and then get saving on the desktop machine I want.
When you get right down to it, even if I had a the perfect unlocked phone, what would I do with it? I would make calls, and send text messages. I would occasionally use the camera. It would be a perfect mp3 player. It would browse the web. It would be a GPS. Lastly, it would give me access to all my Google applications anywhere in the world. That's really about it. Other features would be nice, but I could live without them in my pocket. Despite being horribly locked down and proprietary, the iPhone does all these things. In fact, it is the only device that does all these things well. I fully suspect that by next year they will have the second generation iPhone, and I will probably buy it immediately if the Android phones don't put up a stiff competition.
My #1 complaint with Apple is always that they make devices that are capable of many things, yet they choose to polish some of the features to a perfect shine, while completely sacrificing other essential features. Their products have less functionality than the competition, but the functionality they do have is ultra shiny. In most departments, such as the Macbook Air, this is a bad thing. In the phone department this is actually a good thing.
There are phones out there right now that do a lot more than the iPhone, the Nokia N series is a good example. However, statistics show that people aren't really using those features. My LG phone has a crazy number of features, but I really only use it to make calls. Web masters are noticing that of all the mobile devices visiting their web sites, the iPhone is the majority. However, the iPhone does not have a majority market share. The reason for this is that people are actually using the browser on the iPhone, and people are not using the browsers on other mobile devices. That's right. People own devices with more capabilities than the iPhone, but they aren't really using those capabilities because they are implemented so poorly.
In the PC space and the home appliance space, there are competitors to Apple's products that are not just more feature rich, but are also usable. The absolutely free Ubuntu Linux has more usable features than the OSX. Apple likes to make fun of PCs for copying all the features from the Mac. Well, all those features Apple just added to OSX, like dual booting and virtual desktops, are things that have been in *nix for over a decade. Who's stealing from who now?
In the mobile space there are also competitors to Apple with more features, however those features are not actually usable. The iPhone with it's 10 very usable features beats out the other phones with 100 hackish and painful features. This will change in the years to come as others catch up, but for now that's the way of the world.
I don't text. I don't use the camera. I just make calls. So I'm just going to get a phone that fits nicely in my pocket and makes decent calls.
To show this better, the iPod originally came out it was met with terrible reviews. People wanted so much more and wanted it to cost much less. Cries of "I Pod? What's a pod?" or "I can already do this with a Nomad" (remember those?), or "It's only a mac thing. PC users would never want it if was release on windows." But they slowly kept adding features and polishing it and at this point, as far as the world is concerned, MP3 player = iPod.
So although I'm definitely not going to get a MacBook Air (nor the newer versions of MacBook Pros that are expected within the next 2 months or so), the Air is something to look at and figure out it's future potential. Is this something that will help redefine ultra portables? Or is this just another apple cube that has a niche market that won't last long?