Crackworld Revealed
January 15th, 2008
Blurbomat predictions:
-New MacBook (yes)
-Apple TV with new content announcements (yes)
-Something with touch technology (yes, trackpad with more touch options).
Stuff announced that I’m stoked about:
-iPhone update looks very sweet (movie not loading at post time). I’m going to install it the first moment I can.
-Time Capsule. We’ll probably get one as a better way to backup the laptops. And maybe finally enjoying full 802.11n speed over WiFi.
-MacBook Air (store link) looks really nice for a road warrior. Probably won’t be picking one up.
I’m pleased most with the iPhone stuff and Time Capsule. Are you bummed about today’s announcements or stoked? o
Tags: macworld, predictions
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January 15th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Brewcaster: or you could just rip it to an Video_TS file. Or an .avi file. Or a Quicktime file. The last two of which would take up less space and use less power on a flight than running a DVD off an optical drive. Mac the Ripper and MPEG Streamclip: both free and open source.
And why is it a “Gotcha” to buy a movie from iTunes?
January 15th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
The macbook air is nice, but the name blows, every time I hear it i think “air jordans”. Glad I won’t be in school next year to see the rich kids whose parents bought this for them b/c you “need” to be ultra-portable at university (never mind the fact that at university you need a larger hard drive more than a 1 pound laptop). It is as sexy as sin tho. My boss has one and it is gorgeous, the box is small and it ships with the comp in an envelope!
January 15th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I’m with Karl. The whole Time Capsule thing just pissed me off more than anything — I paid the money, I have the Airport Extreme, I have two enormous external HDs, and I still can’t use Time Machine in any convenient or logical way with my MacBook Pro unless I drop another 300 clams on more Apple hardware? That’s riddik.
After that I’m downright shocked that I they didn’t chump me and my first-gen AppleTV.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
so… the $20 dollar fee for the 5 new apps is for “accounting reasons”. And, you can update your software for free. And guess what…. the 5 new apps come in the update. The $20 just unlocks them.
The statement that the charge is for accounting reasons is worrisome for a couple of reasons. One, the incremental cost is close to, if not, zero. A few extra kilobytes with the 1.1.3 firmware we’d download anyway. If that can’t be covered by general operations or firmware maintenance in a company that has Apple’s margins, I don’t have much faith in that company’s long term viability. Two, allowing the accounting department to make product design and customer service decisions played a major role in sending companies like General Motors spinning down the toilet back in the ’70’s. Decades later, those companies, and our economy are still struggling with the repercussions of that practice.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:59 am
If you’re up here in Canada, this was a pretty disappointing keynote.
We have very little of the good content available to us through iTunes, so it will likely be the same with rentals and all the new content.
We also don’t have the iPhone, so the fuss about that is lost on us too.
Time Capsule seems kinda cool, but only for back-ups of larger files. I can’t imagine the throughput being sufficient for a photographer or videographer — too much file size. Hard wire is the way to go. It seems that it is made much more to support a lightweight new wireless family of products like the…
MacBook Air. The “cool” factor of this machine is undeniable, but I really can’t imagine who the target market is. As a constant traveler I can tell you that wifi is not yet ubiquitous, and in terms of reliability, ethernet (especially in hotels) is much better. A single USB port would likely need a hub if you brought an ethernet adaptor, because you will probably want to bring a back-up hard drive if you are loading irreplaceable files. And then there’s the speed of that drive — really slow which precludes any speed intensive work.
It really looks like a lightweight machine — in weight, but also in durability. It will be a beautiful internet machine, and an occasional creative work machine. But nowhere near an adequate desktop replacement, and a nightmare if anything goes wrong — nothing is user servicable.
It seems more like a status symbol than anything else at this point.If the price comes down I can see it being a lightweight SECOND computer, but only for certain uses — presentations come to mind. It’d look great coming into a client’s office with that slick machine, but beyond that…..?
January 16th, 2008 at 4:03 am
I’m pretty happy with the announcements…I knew there’d be an iPhone software upgrade, so I’m just patiently waiting to install it
I hope all the functionality will work in the UK version, anyway.
The new MacBook Air is sweet - just like Apple to be pushing the barriers of size when it comes to laptops. The possibilities are endless! Of course there has to be some compromise to make it that thin, but in a couple of years the technology will exist to be all to cram all today’s features in something that thing, that’s how technology works. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. And I still REALLY want one of the new MacPros that Jon got
January 16th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Jon - found this and thought you might be interested. Custom web icons for your website on iPhone and iPod Touch. Hope to see them for Dooce & Blurbomat very soon
http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/custom-webclip-icon-on-the-iphoneipod-touch
January 16th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Further to last comment:
“Apple has added a section called “Create a WebClip Bookmark Icon” and it calls for a 57×57 pixel icon. After some testing today I’ve concluded this recommended sizing results in a fuzzy icon, largely due to the iPhone being a 163ppi display.
Instead of sticking with the recommended sizing I bumped it up to 158×158. When this gets scaled you’ll be left with a crisp icon that sits nicely amongst Apple’s crisp icons.”
January 16th, 2008 at 7:22 am
I was disappointed. I’m very sad that the thing I’m going to be most excited about after Macworld is a MICROSOFT product. Bah.
I might consider Time Capsule for when we get a new Mac for my house, but right now, I already have my network drive hooked up to my router, serving the same purpose. But by using a Time Capsule, I’d be able to reclaim my existing external drive to use for other stuff, without ever needing to physically move my backup drive. That’s at least somewhat appealing.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Karl/Karo, you can use Time Machine on a network drive, just not out of the box. It requires a small amount of Terminal trickery so that Time Machine sees the network drive as an option. Google “time machine network drive” and there’s plenty of unofficial documentation on it. The initial backup was as fast as cold molasses (took several hours, I let mine run overnight), but subsequent incremental backups are small enough where they don’t take too long (my home network is 802.11g).
January 16th, 2008 at 8:15 am
I have to agree with most of the hesitations to get the MacBook Air that have already been stated in the comments. I don’t want to have to shell out a ton of money for a slower, less powerful machine, and then have to buy auxiliary parts for it! I have to have an optical drive because I work on documents that are too large to be sent via email– my clients overnight them to me on CDs. And if I’m working at the coffee shop, I’d have to have the external optical drive– one more damn thing to haul around/break/lose/spill on. It won’t kill me to lug around a MacBook Pro– and I have decided that that is the machine I need.
I agree with Marshall– I would kill the MB Air. It would look very nice in a client office– but it’s a status thing. For the 48 weeks of the year that I am working at home and not in front of clients, I need the power of the MacBook Pro.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Marshall, your comments about the MBA were very well stated — I absolutely agree. Who is the target market, indeed.
Omar, thank you! I’ll give that a google and see what I come up with. My other concern, though, is that when TM was first released, it conflicted with Aperture. Does anyone know if that’s been fixed?
Off to do some fancy googly-moogly.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Ok, that was ridiculously easy. A one-line command in Terminal. Thanks again, Omar.
Although this does beg the question of why Apple cannot include this functionality straight out of the box, if it’s this easy.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Honestly, I was hoping for something more innovative to be announced (like a tablet!). And the name “Macbook Air” is retarded.
Still, it is progress and if they can accomplish this much, I am looking forward to the future.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am
“[The slimness] is a major technical and aesthetic breakthrough, and a killer feature for those vexed by the fact that you can’t send laptops via interoffice mail.”
http://www.slate.com/id/2182227/
January 16th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I like the concept behind the air, and until actually looking at all that it had to offer (or not), I wanted one. Upon actually taking time out today to look at it and all of it’s features, I still want a MacBook Black. There’s that pesky affordability thing, though.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Is more double the price of a more-powerful, more upgradeable Macbook REALLY worth the (to me) marginal weight savings? Because, really, it should be more about the weight and not the thickness (or lack of).
Anytime I see/use more ‘lightweight’ devices like this, they always seem to get treated more carelessly, too. Something with more substance is more visible when not being used, and less likely to get tossed about, so I’ll be curious to see what the durability is like. Will it end up between someone’s pile of papers on the couch and have a textbook dropped on it, as an example?
And the Apple TV HD movie thing? [yawn] The box is limited to 1280X720, while my Blu-ray and HD DVD players will play 1080p and 1080i respectively.
Will my unlocked iPhone be able to use the map/locating feature in Canada? If so, that’s the only item of interest to me.
Very underwhelming, all in all.
January 16th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Question about touch on trackpads: Is pinching, spreading, swiping and rotating with your fingers REALLY an improvement over simply tapping a key or button? Performing any of those touch actions with any frequency over any period of time seems guaranteed to be slower, more awkward and more liable to piss off your carpal-tunnel than clicking is. Touch is clearly a boon to phones, what gots no keyboards or mice; but on an actual computer, it just seems like someone’s been watching too much “Minority Report.”
So, touch on a laptop: Rad or fad? (I call “fad.”)
January 17th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Just thinking…in these days of ever-restrictive luggage controls at airports, a lot of people may decide that the Air is just what they need. The weight and size savings can be enough to just squeeze that baby into your case! In Apple’s case though, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have a massive market share, it’s the innovation that counts. Innovative things like the iPhone have broken the mould - now they have to keep on pushing the boundaries. I can’t wait to see what they do next. A tablet/touch laptop I hope
Dave Thomas - it’s REPETITION of movement that causes things like carpal tunnel and RSI…surely a wider variety of movements like pinching, zooming, multi-touch items instead of just one finger scrolling will actually be better for your hands? The multi-touch feature was bound to come to a laptop at some point - it’s no fad, it’s definitely here to stay. 5 years ago people would have said touch on a phone would be a fad…
January 17th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Yeah, I know from carpal tunnel. I also know that repeating a large, more involved action (pinching, for example) is worse than repeating a slighter one. Maybe the variety of actions you mention will save our digits and wrists — but that doesn’t mean any of them are easier to perform than just clicking a button. So what functionality does it add?
As I said, I think touch makes sense on the phone, which has much more limited input options (no keyboard, mouse, etc.). But if I had to scroll through five hundred photos from yesterday’s shoot, I feel that pinching and expanding and swiping shit will lose its charm.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:43 am
@Dave Thomas, I wonder if you threw a 30″ display flat on a surface and could use your hands (and arms and shoulders and the various musculature in the upper body) to quickly sort through those photos? I think the words that might describe the multi-touch trackpad: baby steps. I can definitely see a two-handed pinch/expand gesture being really useful, but only if I’m looking at a photo and want to quickly see a detail on my laptop that I probably wouldn’t be looking at photos on (I’d likely bring more firepower to a shoot or to look at images in this way).
Having had to go through slides on a light table, I would imagine being able to do the same with a giant display and a few hundred images would be pretty sweet. But I think we’re still a few years away from Minority Report style photo sorting.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Yeah, we’ll see. That kind of display is well on its way and might well prove to be the succulent and vital fruit borne from the seed of this silly laptop.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Sorry for belaboring — but right now if I want to zoom in on a photo on my laptop (using Picasa, for example), I just press my UP arrow. DOWN, I’m back out. Short of mind-ray technology, what could be easier?
I shut up now.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I am pretty pissed about the $20 fee on updating my iPod Touch… but it was “free” for iPhone users…