Quenching the firewire and the strange case of the missing diskette

The new Macbook

As you probably heard by now, launched new Macbooks, and you can get the full specs and stuff over at their website. Going through the product page you will see that this is both good news and bad. The good news is obviously the new design and features. The bad news is not so obvious, unless you plan to get a new Macbook and have a slew of Firewire devices. Which you won’t be able to use. Since it completely lacks FW or any kind.

Some people compare this with the introduction of the original iMac, which lacked a diskette drive. These are the people who don’t have FW external hard drives, or don’t have miniDV cameras which rely on Firewire to transfer video on the computer. So you see, it’s actually not at all as not having a diskette drive in the original iMac. Try capturing digital video via USB and you’ll see what I mean.

Firewire, besides being technically more advanced than USB in almost every way, offers some key advantages that make it “not just another port taking space on the side of the laptop”:

- the ability to daisy chain up to 63 peripherals in a peer-to-peer architecture
- Target Disk mode (this is specific to Macs, Windows PCs don’t have this)
- no system overhead during use (unlike USB which relies on the system to manage the data transfers)
- for DV: the ability to control the video camera (play, stop, rewind etc.) via the capturing software; with USB the camera only streams like an old analogue VHS player

Currently I use my Macbook Pro with three Firewire 800 hard disks daisy-chained on the FW800 port, while keeping the free FW400 free for the video camera. I can also connect the DV camera to the last of the hard disks in the chain, so I could even do with one FW port (meaning I could do this with the white plastic Macbook). But having both is still nicer. Having none is impossible.

I don’t think this is a case of the “missing diskette”. I think it’s a case of rev. A hardware corroborated with the rush to get this babies into production in a certain timeframe. Remember the rev. A Macbook Pro? That one only had FW400, no FW800. By rev. B it had both.

I hope Apple engineers are working on squeezing a FW connector on the Macbook right now. The Macbook is a great little machine for doing home videos, or for use in a home recording studio (with all those audio devices that connect via Firewire), so not having any Firewire connectivity cuts out a lot of people out of the loop. And it’s always nice to not have your processor spike up whenever Time Machine starts churning out entire gigabytes of back up data.

Here’s to rev. B Macbooks!

Amilo Dalmatian and the sorry state of laptop design

Fujitsu Siemens updated the design for their line of their laptops. Unfortunately they are still keeping the Amilo name (it always seemed sad and hopeless to me), albeit with a new styling, and the new font is not helping at all. On first viewing it reads “omilo”.

The design itself is all angular with soft corners and black and white. It’s like the bastard child between an Apple Macbook and an IBM Lenovo Thinkpad. The concept, as explained on their site, is interesting but in the end just a gimmick: the black stuff represents technology (all ports and jacks are on black), and the white is “the human interface” (keyboard, power button and cover).

All in all the design isn’t bad, but it just comes off as another computer company trying to crack the “stylish” market, and when you put it next to the latest Dells, Vaios (you know, Sony’s Amilo), HPs and even Toshibas, it really doesn’t stand out from the crowd that much, if at all.

Sony Vaio

 

Dell Inspiron

 

HP Pavilion

 

Toshiba Portege

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess the Vaio comes the closest to the laptop that they are all trying to emulate, the Macbook. Now I’m not saying that all laptops should look like Macbooks, far from it. For example I like the look of the new Lenovo IdeaPad (hate the name though). I actually think it looks the way Thinkpads should be looking, instead of the dated design they are still having so many years later.

The big flaw all of these machines is trying to look like some other laptop (whichever that may be). When the Macbook was launched (actually the iBook G4, Macbook’s precursor) it looked like nothing else (even though the first iBook was much wilder in design), and that’s what mattered, that’s what made its design timeless. Everyone trying to reproduce that very same laptop is just producing knockoffs.

WARNING: “Apple is the greatest thing in the world” type rant follows. If you have a low threshold for “Apple fanboism”, consider this post over and out.

It’s really not that complicated to make a really good laptop. Take the very Macbook example, subtract the design, and just look at the process. Find a nice shape, and then refine the hell out of it. Make sure everything looks perfect from any angle. Make sure you don’t have stupid stickers on it. Make sure the blinking blue lights don’t become a pain in the ass after only 10 minutes of use. Make sure that the back of the laptop doesn’t look like something from Alien 2. Pay lots and lots of attention to detail. Forget focus groups. Not having every possible button for every possible feature is a good thing. And pay lots and lots of attention to detail at each step of the process and in between.

This is what separates the Macbooks from the rest, not the design itself, but the execution of that design. Stuff like the overall simple and unobtrusive look of the thing, the way the sleep light glows less powerful in the dark and stronger in the light, the way the back of it is designed to look good even if you put it upside down, the perfect alignment of the ports and connectors, the magnetic power connector, two finger scrolling etc.

See how easy it is? This is really what bothers me when I look at a Windows laptop. It tries to look all designed and fashion-y and stylish, but fails brutally when it comes to the details, and more specifically to the lack of attention to details that “went” into it. A stupid screw somewhere very visible. Too many seizure-inducing LEDs. Those dreadful Windows and Intel stickers (easily fixable fortunately). Manufacturer specific buttons (such as the “go to toshiba.com” button – is anyone really using that button?!). 

Anyway, the list could go on forever. The Macs have their own flaws, but at least the effort that went into the process  of refining them is very palpable. I went into this “Macs are the greatest thing on earth” ranting mode and I really think I should stop before I get the Mac Mac label. Yes, Macs do piss me off sometimes, they crash as well, apps get stuck. But they do it while looking so much better than the rest.

Let’s rock, the world is ending

Everybody is busy talking about two things these days:

1. The world didn’t end yesterday (Phew!)

2. The disappointment of Apple’s “Let’s rock” event

Not much of a surprise regarding point 1, however, for the “are we still here?” constant questioners here’s a big helping hand.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s dive into point 2.

There’s been lots of panties being caught into a knot because of the anticlimatic and downright disappointing nature of the event. The “only” thing Apple did was to update their entire iPod line and put out a new iTunes version. You know, like they usually do around this time of the year. At their iPod event. In which they update the iPod line. De facto non-Mac related. As in don’t expect anything new from the Mac division.

Some may argue that the new iTunes shouldn’t have been a full point version, but can you imagine Steve Jobs announcing “We’ve got a new iTunes version: iTunes 7.8″? After all they did add some features in there: Genius (to help you BUY BUY BUY, while also getting some nice info on people’s listening habits – anonymously of course), a new visualizer and HD TV shows (although that’s more of a Store update). And probably bug fixes and under the hood improvements.

So it looks like the iPod classic actually got a downgrade as they killed the 160GB version, this must be the last year that “grandpa” iPod will ever see any updates, if not it’s last year, period.

While the fact that the new nano looks like the Zune is debatable, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a completely new nano, with a new form factor, new features (accelerometer, improved UI, voice recording) and a quite amazing choice of colors. And it’s no longer FAT. Personally I think the new format is much much better than the previous one (the iPod mini still remains the best looking iPod ever), although I’m not sure about its oval cross section, must see it in person.

And then there’s the new iPod touch, with a new design (a la 1st gen iPhone), integrated speakers and volume buttons. And brand new software 2.1. And they built in Nike + iPod so all you need is the shoe transmitter. And a demo of its prowess as a portable gaming platform.

Last year’s Apple September event brought us: introduction of the iPod touch, new iPod nano (dubbed fatty), new iPod classic and iPod shuffle, and new features in iTunes.

Pretty much like this year.

What really didn’t help the situation was Apple’s PR department, which insisted that this year is special, and that the press shouldn’t miss the event, which corroborated with the now trademark secrecy and more security people than usual, practically guaranteed a huge level of hype. And then they delivered the standard iPod line update, with no additions (just a subtraction actually). Maybe they wanted to show off the new and improved (now thinner) Steve Jobs. Maybe there was more stuff down the pipe but it got cancelled at the last minute.

Whatever it was, the event was not more special than what happened last year, nor less special, and that’s where expectations failed to be met.

The shift

Ever since I updated my iPod touch to the new 2.0 firmware and installed a bunch of apps on it, the battery life got a real beating. Am I really using it more? If I were to make a mental statistic of my usage pattern, it should be roughly the same. With one major difference. Before this new update, I used the iPod mostly for listening to music and the occasional web browsing.

However, things dramatically changed when the update arrived. I can’t even remember the last time I plugged in the headphones. So while I may not be using it more, I am using it with its screen constantly on.

For me, the device mutated from a music player with some additional abilities to an Internet device with the ability to play music. I am still amazed when I remember getting it, and thinking what a wonderful music player it is. And just when that shine was beginning to fade, this new firmware gave it a new meaning and purpose.

It’s no longer an iPod to me. It changed the way I use the Internet. I don’t know if this is the future of computing. I don’t think this type of device is going to replace a “full fledged computer” very soon. I work with lots of desktop applications that I just can’t see on an iPod right now (think Photoshop, Lightroom, Flash et al.) But I do think it is the future of lifestyle computing.

It may sound like I am a bit infatuated with Apple and their stuff. Maybe I am. But I remember two distinct events in my life when I was so amazed by a piece of technology: when I got my first ever personal computer (a blazing 486DX2 running at a mind boggling 66MHz). And the transition to the Mac many many years later, which was like discovering a whole new world.

These were moments when I felt like I was 12 years old again and I’m unpacking the much desired PC, inhaling new smells and trembling hands. After the 486 I got a bunch of other computers, yet I never experienced that emotion and sheer desire to discover what that new thing can do.

I guess this is what people call Apple’s ability to give people a sense of “childlike wonder” and “capture their imagination” about their products. Because we all remember our first contact with an object that we wanted and that changed the way we experience things in our life, whether it was a computer, a car, or a washing machine.

When Dell or Sony or Microsoft or whichever company will be able to put out a product that can do that, I’ll be more than happy to give them money for it.

Bad bad Front Row

I made the big jump and joined the Leopard using Macheads group. I read all the reviews, all the problems, all the nuisances and of course, all the neat stuff in it. So I reached the conclusion that 10.5.2 is a good start.

 

Every detail of Leopard has been analyzed and scrutinized, so I don’t want to go in all that stuff. What I want to discuss is the new Front Row, of which all the reviews I read barely make a note of, and it’s about its new interface and version number.

 

I found the new Front Row to be deeply flawed, especially in comparison to the previous version. Some of the basic functionality that was there in the 1.0 version went missing in this new shiny Apple TV-esque reborn Front Row.

 

Let’s start with the beginning. Upon pressing the Menu button on the Apple remote, the old Front Row would push the desktop into the horizon and slide in the main media icons. I liked the effect, it was rather stunning, and anyone seeing it for the first time would let out a short gasp of surprise and amazement.

 

The new one? A simple fade out of the desktop, fade in to the Front Row. OK, this is much quicker and simpler. And I don’t miss the old transition but for its sheer factor of coolness and visual effect.

 

And now that I got the cosmetic stuff out of the way, on to the more substantial stuff, so I don’t look like a shallow fanboi, all about the bling.

 

Let’s imagine the following situation: you are working on something, let’s say a Textedit document. Meanwhile you are listening to some music in iTunes. Suddenly, some friends come over. So you grab the remote, step away from the computer, press menu, people gasp at the transition, navigate over to Music, and hit Now Playing to have the current track displayed. Drinks all around. During all this, the music never stopped. This happens when you are using the old Front Row.

 

Let’s repeat the same scenario using the new Front Row: Working in Textedit, listening to music in iTunes, ding dong! at the door, grab the remote, step away from the computer, press Menu on the remote, music stops. That’s right. The music stops when you enter Front Row now! OK then. Go over to Music, and, surprise! There is no “Playing Now” item! Because… well… there’s nothing playing now, remember? So, now fumble around the menus, and playlists and artists trying to get to the track that wasn’t supposed to stop in the first place! People getting cranky, they want their drinks!

 

I really hate this new behavior. Oh, I forgot to mention: let’s say you do find that track and start playing it in Front Row. Then decide to get to the desktop and IM or browse the web or something. Guess what! The music stops! Again! 

 

I was STUNNED! Why so much disconnect between Front Row and the desktop now? Especially when only a simple fade out is separating them. I loved the fact that I could switch between Front Row and the desktop in the old version, and the music never skipping a beat. I clearly remember thinking to myself how intuitive the whole thing was.

 

And now this. Front Row is no longer an extension to the desktop. It is now a replacement to whatever you were doing there. It’s like your computer is abruptly transformed in an Apple TV.

 

I was so baffled by that whole music interruptus, that I almost missed the other big issue with the new Front Row: it no longer offers the option to resume interrupted videos from the Movies folder. It does offer it for the Podcasts, and I presume for the rented movies. But not for anything else. Which is sad. The old one did treat any video material equally.

 

So, to sum up: I hate the new Front Row. Anyone has any ideas how to make the old Front Row work in Leopard?