So, the technology world is abuzz about an unconfirmed Apple event scheduled (supposedly) for January 26. During this event, it is expected that Apple will reveal the mythical tablet computer the world has expected them to build for years.
I, for one, hope they do not.
I’m not going to get in to hypothetical discussions about hardware that hasn’t been announced. There’s no point to that. However, I will examine Apple’s current hardware and price points, and share my opinions about a potential new product that might fill a spot in what I like to call “the middle”.
“The middle” is the price point between the high end and the low end. Apple would probably argue that the middle of their product map currently is the 13″ Macbook Pro. At $1299/$1599, it very well may be the absolute middle, price wise. But operating on the assumption that we are talking about consumer devices, I think it is safe to remove the Mac Pro from the equation (at $2500), and look at the high end consumer device being a $1700-$2000 iMac. The low end of Apple’s consumer offerings are their iPod Touch models. That puts “the middle” at a price point of $700 – $1000.
And here’s where things get sticky.
That price point is currently occupied by the polycarbonate Macbook. While it retails for $999, Education customers can get the white plastic Mac for $899, and in some schools, a bit lower.
Can Apple really introduce what is essentially a larger iPod touch, at a price point that is at or near a Macbook Pro? Is there an audience for such a device? Obviously, it would have to have a few more features than an iPod Touch. A web cam would be a nice addition. Being a somewhat mobile device, one could also imagine that it would have 3G capability (of course, with the wedding to a wireless provider). Most of the speculation though hinges on what OS it would run – Mac OS X, or OS X Touch. Being a tablet, it is probably safe to assume it would use the latter. OS X Touch was built for touch screen devices. And while that gets Apple a tablet computer with over 100,000 apps, it also makes for a pricey machine with reduced functionality.
I’m sure Apple would love to move more of their user base off of Mac OS X and on to OS X Touch devices. After all, Apple controls the experience of OS X Touch to a higher degree than they do with Mac OS X. And here is where my enthusiasm for the Apple tablet dies.
Simply put, everything I dislike about the iPhone is wrapped up in the control Apple exerts on approving 3rd party applications. When Apple created the iPhone application approval process, the argument for exerting total control over the approval process was pitched as a necessary evil, because a rogue 3rd party app could “bring down an entire phone network1“. A tablet device that doesn’t offer telephony features has no chance of causing this, but yet I doubt Apple will change the App Store for one OS X Touch device.
Then there’s the cannibalization question. Would a $700-$1000 tablet device cannibalize sales of the Macbook? In this economy, I would have to give that question a resounding yes. However, if you are Apple, would you rather sell a $1000 device like the Macbook, or a $800 device like the tablet, where you earn 30% off of every app sold for it? Granted, it takes a lot of app sales to bridge that $200 difference, but I would bet in Apple’s eyes, it’s a wash. The tablet would give them greater control over the entire user experience, right down to the app level, and I’m sure to Apple, this is very appealing.
But for me as a user, it is not.
I’ll reserve judgement, of course, until I see if this mythical device does anything I couldn’t do with a Macbook (apart from navigate it with my fingers touching the glass). Apple obviously has a way of making ordinary products seem extraordinary, so anything is possible.
But count me as one of the people who aren’t excited at the prospects of a $1000 OS X Touch device occupying Apple’s product line up.
1: OK, Jobs made the comments “You don’t want your phone to be an open platform. You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.” back in 2007 before the App Store. But you see where I’m coming from.
Category: Opinion
Somewhere in Silicon Valley, Larry Ellison is watching the Chrome OS Webcast thinking, “Dudes, I pitched this shit back in 1997.”
Category: Opinion
Snow Leopard is a different kind of beast for Apple. Previous Mac OS X releases have focused on adding new features to the operating system. Past releases have given us features like Spotlight, Time Machine, QuickLook, Expose, and more. WIth Snow Leopard, Apple decided to take a feature “time out”, and instead focus on performance, underlying plumbing, and usability tweaks to more than 90% of the apps that make up Mac OS X.
Apple has done a terrific job with Snow Leopard. However, there are still annoyances that make me scratch my head and wonder “Why hasn’t Apple fixed this?”. Here’s a list of said issues.
- Desktops & Screensavers. Want a solid color for your desktop background? Apple has a few for you to choose from. Want a color that’s not on the menu? Better get out your favorite image editor and create it, because Apple still hasn’t given you the ability to select a custom color for a background image. Sure, you can create one and export it as a JPG, TIFF or PNG. But come on Apple – you have the Color Picker at your disposal. Allowing users to select a custom color would have taken all of 20 lines of code to enable.
- Finder Preferences, Color Labels. Again, here is another instance where 20 lines of code would have given users the ability to set their own custom color for Finder labels. Instead were stuck with the same 7 colors Apple deems appropriate to be displayed on your Finder items.
- FTP in the Finder. Still. Broken. Sure, you can mount FTP volumes in the Finder, but you can’t write to them. It’s 2009. 8 years after Mac OS X was birthed, and this is still broken. Can someone tell me why you can mount and view an FTP volume, but not write to it? It makes no sense to me.
- Finder Sidebar. You still can’t rearrange the order of the main top level categories of Devices, Shared Items, Places, and Search for.
- Mac OS X Help. Still exists as a floating Window above all other windows. I understand wanting the Help window to be easy to find among all your other windows, but if I click another on another window behind the Help window, I expect that window to come to the fore front.
- iChat. Still no unified Chat window when using different chat protocols/accounts. This is the one feature that keeps me using Adium. I want one window for all my buddy lists, not one for each protocol.
- Sound/Sound Effects. We’re still using the same notification sounds that shipped with Mac OS X back in 2001. Many of these are the same sounds that shipped with Mac OS 9 and earlier. Apple produces two of the coolest sound editing/creation apps with Soundtrack Pro and Logic. Would it have killed them to refresh the system alert sounds?
So, in my quest to write a “Top 10 Snow Leopard Grievances” article, I could only come up with seven. I think that speaks volumes about how polished Snow Leopard is. Although I’ve been a huge supporter of every Mac OS X release to date, I can honestly say, this one is the most polished operating system releases by any company producing said product.
Category: Opinion
From C|Net’s Ross Catanzariti comes an article with the headline:
“The Palm Pre Will Be an iPhone Killer”
OK. So you would assume that Mr. Catanzariti has used the device and can speak to how it compares to the iPhone. You would assume wrong. Third paragraph in:
“Although we haven’t yet had a chance to get our hands on this hot new smartphone, the reports coming out of the US have been largely positive so far. In particular, the webOS operating system is reportedly intuitive, easy to use and visually appealing, and looks like the closest competitor to the iPhone yet.”
Look, the Pre might be an iPhone killer. I certainly hope it does well, as competition can only push Apple to make the iPhone better. But if there’s one thing the Blackberry Storm has taught us, it’s that stock photos and hitting key “features” is not enough to make a phone that will dethrone the iPhone. Before proclaiming a certain product a “killer” you may want to have at least used it first and formed an opinion based on usage, not on a press release.
Category: Opinion
Paul Thurrott, on his bullshit laden “SuperSite for Windows” espouses:
“Microsoft today will announce its plans for the various Windows 7 product editions it will sell when that OS is released to the public sometime this year. And I am thrilled to reveal that it’s good news for a change. Here’s what’s happening.”
For those who haven’t heard, Microsoft is simplifying things by going from 6 versions of Vista, to 5 versions of Windows 7. This. Is. Progress? According to Thurrot, yes.
“Unlike with Vista, where Microsoft crowded the market with too many mainstream product editions, Windows 7 will ship in just a handful of common-sense product editions. And also unlike with Vista, these product editions are all true supersets of each other, so there are no overlapping feature sets (which is good) and upgrades will be much simpler (which is even better).”
I’ll give Microsoft credit for removing the overlapping feature sets, but come on. 5 editions of a product (not counting the inevitable Server edition, which brings us back up to 6) is not how you simplify things. You simplify things by going to one version.
Of course, Thurrott is a Microsoft shill, so his cheerleading on this unimpressive “change” is not surprising.
Category: Opinion
Contrary to popular belief, Mac users and tech enthusiasts are not all Democrats. Most reputable tech news outlets understand this, and as such, don’t use their platform to launch political hack attacks against those who don’t share their politcal beliefs.
Enter John Gruber, who has risen to the top of the Mac punditry with his “Daring Fireball” site. An unashamed leftist, it’s no secret who Gruber is pulling for in the election. That Gruber is an Obama supporter (after switching allegiance from Hillary) wasn’t the least bit surprising.
However, today, when the non-story broke about Governor Palin’s 17 year old daughter’s unplanned pregnancy, I was a little surprised to read this on his site:
Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant. McCain campaign claims he was aware of this before selecting Palin as his VP, despite evidence and rampant speculation that Palin was not seriously vetted. Governor Palin is a strong supporter of abstinence-only sex education.
Tom Eagleton lasted 18 days before withdrawing from the McGovern ticket in 1972. My money says Palin doesn’t last that long.
Governor Palin is also a pro-life candidate, and put her money where her mouth is. Apparently the fact that her values transferred over to her daughter seem to cause shock for some liberals.
Whatever happened to the rule that children of the candidates were off limits? Of course, that rule must only apply to Republicans, as this is the second time a Republican candidate for Vice President has had their children’s private life dragged through the press. I will give Obama credit though, as today he stayed out of this story. We’ll see if that holds. My guess is that Biden, the “attack dog” will bring it up before the campaign is over.
As to Gruber’s psuedo “bet” that Palin doesn’t last 18 days before she withdraws from the Vice President nomination: I’ll take that bet. Name your terms, John. Gruber obviously doesn’t understand conservatives. And he seems to understand “Barracuda” Palin even less. We were jazzed about the pick of Palin on Friday, and everybody I know is even more jazzed about her today. I was lukewarm about McCain, but have now backed the ticket with my time, energy, and more importantly money. That her 17 year old daughter is pregnant has in no way diminished my enthusiasm for a Palin Vice Presidency. Actually, the media and leftist attack on her has had the opposite effect.
Gruber should stick to writing what he knows about – the Mac, technology, and Stanley Kubrick. Whenever he ventures in to the field of politics, he not only shows how inept he is at the topic, but he also alienates his conservative readers.
Count me as one of those alienated.
Category: Jackassery
When Nullriver introduced NetShare, the iPhone app that allows you to tethter your laptop to it for internet access, appeared on the App Store, many were surprised. Then, without any explanation, it vanished.
On Friday it returned. Those who were smart downloaded it and were able to put it to use. By Saturday, the app had disappeared. Again. With no explanation at all.
While Apple’s control of the App Store can be viewed as a mostly positive thing, the NetShare debacle highlights what most of us suspected: When Apple holds all the cards, people tend to get steamrolled. In this case, the people are the developers at Nullriver. Most of what I’ve read seems to indicate that NetShare doesn’t vioalte the terms of the App Store in any way. So why ban it? And then why reinstate it for 24 hours, only to ban it again?
What’s going to happen to the users who have bought the app already? How are they going to get updates? Will they get refunds if updates aren’t provided?
Apple’s really been stepping in it lately, and unfortunately, this is just the latest example.
Category: Opinion, iPhone
Adobe blogger John Nack has let it slip that the next version of Adobe Photoshop (CS4 for those wondering) will be 64-bit… but for Windows only. While I’m usually one to cast blame at Adobe’s feet for decisions like these, I have to admit Adobe is doing the best they can with the situation they’ve been dealt.
Last year at WWDC, during the Mac OS X State of the Union, Apple dropped a pretty significant bomb that didn’t get much attention (probably due to the whole NDA thing, I guess). While Leopard would be a 64-bit OS through and through, Carbon would not gain 64-bit memory addressing. This essentially leaves developers with Carbon apps stuck in 32-bit land, with the only other option being migrate to Cocoa. This was counter to Apple’s promise in August of 2006 that Carbon would be 64-bit.
When I heard this news at the session, I immediately thought that apps like Photoshop, Flash, Office were going to suffer, long term. As Nack points out on his blog, this decision really did throw Adobe a curve ball. They were in the middle of developing against the previous Leopard seed from August of 2006, which did feature a work-in-progress 64-bit Carbon. (more…)
Category: Blog Watch, Opinion, Software
Are you kidding me? I don’t know who this Mike Barton guy is, but he clearly must be trolling for hits on his blog.
Hey Mike – first of all, your comparison of the Macbook Air to a ThinkPad notebook you just bought is disingenuous because the ThinkPad you link to at $599 is USED, not NEW as you list it. Besides, refurb Macbooks can be found on the Apple Store for well under $1000 (some as low as $799). And we all know, refurb is much better than used, as you get a full warranty with an Apple refurb.
You’re right about Apple needing a budget laptop though. I mean, the sales of the Macbooks are just abysmal. Apple’s market share is just tanking. What will they ever do?
For the record, the above is sarcasm. Apple’s Macbooks at their $1099 – $1499 price outsell the competition, are extremely profitable, and Apple is kicking ass on the market share front.
In short, you don’t know what the hell you are talking about.
(Via Daring Fireball.)
Category: Opinion
For Christ’s sake Mark, there are MySQL packages available for OS X, along with DarwinPorts and Fink (since you seem to be so fond of package managers). Nobody who uses Linux should be taking a smug attitude towards Mac OS X when it comes to installation. Sure, MySQL (and hundreds of other useful apps) are available in the apt repositories. But there are many applications that are not.
For example, try to get Parallels running on Linux (last time I checked, it wasn’t in the Ubuntu repository). Not a fun installation. On the Mac? A few clicks and you’re done.
99% of the software available for the Mac is either a 2-3 click installation, or a drag and drop. For those who like to get their hands dirty with command line, there’s source too.
That doesn’t make Mac OS X an “archaic OS”. It makes it flexible.
Category: Opinion
