Is MacBook Falling Behind the Crowd?

No Comments »February 20th, 2007

Believe it or not, I don’t own a laptop. I generally have little need for a portable, as most of my work in done primarily in front of a workstation (actually two in fact). But on the odd occasion a laptop would be a welcome accessory. So I began researching various PC laptop models on the market today, notably Apple, and came away surprised. Apple is really behind the market. Dell and other PC vendors are offering portables for as low as $599, which include a 15.4″ widescreen display, while Apple is charging $1,099 for its consumer portable (MacBook) that only offers a confined 13.3″ widescreen. Now, I wouldn’t buy a Dell Inspiron or HP Pavilion notebook to save my life…they’re junk! But a gulf exists between these two products that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Granted, Apple’s products have always been premium priced. So this is nothing new. And historically you get much higher quality components in Apple’s machines which makes the higher sticker price worth the premium. But in this case it is the weak specs that have me alarmed. If Apple is charging me over a grand for a MacBook, so be it. But at least give me the same 15″ widescreen display that I would normally get from a bargain basement PC laptop for crying out loud!

At this point I can’t justify spending so much for so little, and intend to hold off for a while before making a purchase. Hopefully Apple will revamp its portable line soon, bringing it to more competitive terms.

Technorati Tags: MacBook, MacBook Pro

OSX Leopard Coming in January?

No Comments »October 25th, 2006

Nothing fills me with greater joy than watching one company pull the rug out from under its competitor the moment that adversary is about to step into the spotlight. That’s exactly what Apple is about to do to Microsoft on the eve of Vista’s launch. Now, keep in mind that Apple, or rather Steve Jobs, has stated publically that its next operating system (OSX Leopard) will ship sometime in the second quarter of next year. Microsoft meanwhile will ship Windows Vista to consumers in January. Well guess what? Apple is going to sucker punch Microsoft by launching OSX Leopard early in January at Macworld San Francisco. How do I know this? A few reasons.

• Steve Jobs loves to surprise the industry with his legendary “One more thing” product announcements. And nothing will give him greater pleasure than trumping Redmond by stealing publicity away from Microsoft with a surprise launch of Leopard.
• Apple is running out of dot releases. The latest system update to OSX Tiger is version 10.4.8. Now unless Apple plans on adding further incremental digits onto its builds, I don’t see how they can protract one further dot release another 7-9 months.
• Apple has recently been turning up the heat on Mac developers in an attempt to cajole them into getting their apps released for Leopard at the earliest possible date. I’ve received two emails from Apple’s Developer Connection program over the last couple weeks that boasted the benefits of supporting Leopard, and encouraging me to learn more about the new OS. This coincides with recent preview builds of Leopard to developers. Coincidence? Maybe.

Now, granted I don’t have any insider information to confirm my suspicions, but the pieces fit. Just as Apple surpised analysts and the media with a January release of Intel-based Macs early this year, which weren’t supposed to ship until Q2 of this year, history will repeat itself again this MacWorld with Leopard.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Leopard, OSX

Core 2 Duo + MacBook Pro = Crazy Delicious!

No Comments »October 24th, 2006

Apple keeps finding more ways to drive me into bankruptcy. First they nickel and dime me with repeated assualts from iPod rollouts. Then they introduce the Mac Pro. Now comes a beefed up MacBook Pro running Intel’s latest mobile processor; Core 2 Duo. This release seems to be watered down as upgrades come; aside from a new processor under the hood, nothing significant has changed over the previous models. Even pricing remains the same.

My biggest concern is the much maligned heat issue that some users complain to be so hot, the laptop can literally be used as a portable grill top. If these machines run cooler and more reliably than its predecessor, then I might bite the bullet. As it is now I don’t own a Mac portable at all, in no small part to issues I keep reading about. We’ll see

Check out the new MacBook Pros here.

Technorati Tags: Intel, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo

New .Mac Mail Coming Soon

Comments OffOctober 2nd, 2006

Apple has begun emailing .Mac subscribers (myself included) announcing a soon to be released makeover that will transform the tired .Mac mail interface, as we know it, into a Web 2.0 clone of OSX Mail (based on AJAX of course). I’m not sure a desktop UI is well suited as an embedded interface, but we shall soon find out. Considering I access my .Mac account through Mail as an IMAP account it really makes little difference to me. But hey, you do it your way…I’ll do it mine.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mail, .Mac

Killer App: OmniWeb 5.5

No Comments »September 27th, 2006

*Movie announcer voice*

“In a world…where one web browser looks and works just like any other…a small company with big ideas challenges an industry with a browser unlike any before.”



Ok, with that dramatic opening out of the way I’d like to introduce you to a product that I am crazy about…OmniWeb. Not excited by web browsers, you say? This browser may have you singing a different tune. OmniWeb has a few advantages over its contemporaries. Like its blazing speed, for starters. OmniWeb 5.5 actually renders web pages much faster than either Apple’s own Safari browser, or Mozilla derivatives like Camino and Firefox. Even more so on Intel Macs.

But what really appeals to me is this product is geared towards power users whereas the aforementioned browsers are designed solely for mainstream usage. For example, when visiting any web site, OmniWeb offers a Preferences feature that enables you to tweak and customize any personal settings related to that site such as cookie caching, pop-up blocking, scripting options, etc. This makes OmniWeb the perfect tool for web designers. It has proven to be a handy tool for me on many occasions.

Another feature I love is the sidebar tab viewer that replaces the venerable tabbed browser interface we are all accustomed to. Instead of a row of anonymous looking tabs that appear at the top of your browser window, OmniWeb displays tiny thumbnail images or snapshots of the web page you visit and displays them in order of retrieval. You can easily move these thumbnails around, placing visited sites in any order you choose.

Granted these aren’t world changing features. But they are done is such a way that is both innovative and useful to the end user. I encourage you to experience OmniWeb for yourself. It’s free to use unlicensed, and $29.95 for a fully supported license.

Technorati Tags: OmniWeb, OSX, Safari

Apple Finally Releases iTunes 7 Bug Fix

No Comments »September 27th, 2006

iTunes 7 is with little doubt the best “new” application Apple has released in quite some time. But as early adopters (like yours truly) soon discovered, this release is a roach motel of bugs and software glitches. Some of which can be downright critical. One issue in particular struck a blow below the belt to any iPod user; after installing iTunes 7, podcasts can no longer be played back on your iPod. Any attempt to play recently downloaded podcast in your playlists results in crashing the iPod. The only workaround to this problem is to pre-play the track within iTunes on your Mac or PC. Then and only then will the audio file successfully playback without failure. Imagine having to do that with every audio file in a podcast playlist that contains nearly 50 feeds? Yeah, lots of fun that is.

Another issue I experienced deals with iTunes best new feature: Coverflow. Coverflow, for those of you that don’t know, is a new way to view and interact with your music library; displaying a horizontal animated side-scrolling CD cover interface that works much like a Roldex. With this visual interface, one can navigate through their music library in much the same metaphor as a bookshelf filled with Vinyl records. After using this feature for a few weeks now I am completely hooked! I often find myself thumbing through music I haven’t played in a long time or nearly forgotten about. Best of all, iTunes will grab album art for any albums you’ve burned off of CD. Well, most albums anyway. Coverflow is ingenious!

Unfortunately, as iTunes 7 was clearly a release that was rushed out the door, Coverflow doesn’t work very well. It’s slow to navigate, and more often than not CD album art fails to load in system cache without reading from disk. Scroll quickly from left to right, or vice versa, and the only music you’ll hear is the sound of your hard drive crunching away as it fights like hell to keep up with Coverflow’s demands. Sigh.

Thankfully Apple seems to have addressed most of these issues with the release of iTunes 7.0.1, available as of today. Coverflow is still a bit sluggish at times, but at least in a more tolerable state than before. So far I can report no problems.

Download iTunes 7.0.1 from within System Update (Mac) or click here (Windows)

Apple Rolls out new iMacs

No Comments »September 6th, 2006

Apple unveils new Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) based iMacs, including a new 24″ widescreen whopper that retails for $1,999. In addition, prices have been slashed across the product line, and the entry level model can now be had for a mere $999. Not a bad deal.

Learn more.