Category: Apple

(WARNING: Yuppie-in-denial complaining follows. If you’re the type who’s offended by the petulant whining of the over-privileged, you’ll want to skip this post. And a couple of the next posts, too. For that matter, you probably want to skip this whole blog.)

These past few months have been kind of a test of will power for me. I’ve had this irrational jones to get a new computer, one that I haven’t been quite able to justify. I’ve got a behemoth of a Windows PC that I hardly ever use anymore, and it’s just taking up desk space. And because it’s one of those flashy black Alienware cases, it feels like it’s mocking me for not using it — it’s like having a pimped-out motorcycle in the garage that you don’t really need anymore because you actually just prefer driving the minivan.

So I want to get rid of it, and get a Mac desktop instead. Even though my laptop does everything I need, it makes me uncomfortable at an OCD-level using it as my one and only computer, for reasons that only years of therapy would be able to explain.

But I’ve been able to keep it under control, all this time. I figured I’d wait until it was time to get a new monitor, and upgrade everything at once. Then I found a deal on exactly the monitor I wanted, at almost $200 less than it normally sells for, so I picked one up.

Then I said I’d wait until Christmas-season unemployment situation worked out, and I started getting income again. Almost immediately, I got a check from a contracting job, which was almost exactly the cost of a new machine (after taxes).

Then I said I’d wait until Apple updated its desktop Mac line, to get in at the beginning of a product cycle instead of at the end, like I usually do. And literally the day after I said this, they announced their overkill model, which has way more processors than I’d need at a price there’s no way in hell I’d ever pay for a machine. So that was a wash.

Then I figured I’d wait until they released the new version of OS X, so at least I’d get that included in the price. It was coming out “in Spring,” most likely early June, so it was only a couple of months to wait and see if the feeling subsided. Tonight they announced that the next version of OS X has been delayed until October.

There’s no way I can hold out until October. I’m really tempted to just buy the damn thing now and be done with it. And reading the comments in response to that post on ars technica, a few other people are saying the same thing: “At least now I don’t have to wait to buy a new Mac.”

Now, that’s kind of creepy. The whole “Mac users are a cult” concept is tired and played out, but I’m kind of alarmed. They announce a delay in the release of their OS, and my first impulse was to punish them by giving them a lot of money for a new computer? And I’m not the only one! I really want to get a pair of those They Live glasses to see if my computer is projecting brainwashing images at me while I work and sleep.

And seriously: if anybody out there is still a Windows fan and would like a still-reasonably-capable (AMD Athlon 64 2.66 GHz, ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum w/256MB VRAM) PC for a reasonable price ($800 or best offer), send me an e-mail at my name at this domain. Friends don’t let friends use ebay.

Man, I want to get a 24″ iMac so bad I can taste it. The problem is I don’t, strictly speaking, need one.

I’m a master at convincing myself to blow too much money on excess stuff, and my skill only increases when Apple’s involved. But I’m hitting a brick wall here.

At the moment, I’ve got a PC that’s a little over two years old, and a MacBook Pro that I got last spring. I use the laptop for about 99.9% of everything. The PC is now my ghetto machine, for work stuff that only runs in Windows, for games (and it’s already showing its age on that front), and for “private web browsing” of stuff I don’t want anybody to know I look at and don’t want in my main machine’s browser history (like this).

So really, it all comes down to the fact that I want a bigger monitor (somewhat valid), and it bugs me that I’m using a laptop as my desktop computer (totally irrational). And, I guess, I want to get more room on my desk. I could ditch the PC, and the only thing I’d be missing out on — apart from the wad of cash I spent on it a couple of years ago — is the ability to play a videogame full-screen while checking my e-mail. I suspect I’d find some way to manage.

Part of me says that as long as I’m jonesing for a computer, I should be all excited about the Mac Pro. It’d be better at running both OS X and Windows stuff (if you believe some people, it runs Vista better than it does OS X), and it’d be more expandable. Which is to say, expandable at all.

Every instinct I have says it’s a bad idea to buy a machine on which you can’t swap out video cards and hard drives, but then I’ve got to look back at my track record and the mass-market, preconfigured computer industry as a whole. These things just ain’t as upgradeable as they used to be. Apple’s most guilty of it, granted, but across the board, it seems like the planned obsolescence lifespan of computers and electronics has shrunk to just over two years.

But, much like James Bond and my car, they just won’t die, is the problem. They linger. They stay just functional enough that they’re perfectly adequate for most of what you want to do, but constantly give you reminders that they’re old. That top-of-the-line videocard you shelled out for now wheezes when it tries to display a Flash movie. That monitor that seemed more than big enough a couple of years ago, now seems cramped and confining. That 1GB of memory that at the time was so excessive you started to reminisce about how your first computer didn’t even have a quarter of that in hard drive space, now is just a minimum requirement. And sure, you could upgrade, but it’s like putting bionic parts on your high school sweetheart, when you really want to run off with the new secretary/trophy wife.

Which all leads me to realize that this thing that Apple marketing and product design does, is more insidious than I ever even suspected. There’s just something about the iMac that works on the nerve endings at the base of my spine, even though it’s irrational. Sure the Mac Pro is an overall more powerful computer, but then I’d have to buy a new monitor! (Yeah, I know that logic makes no sense, but I already said it was irrational). The iMac is a whole, complete package, like the perfect answer to a question. And that question is, “What can I waste a ton of money on this year?”

I should be safe for a few months, anyway. The rationalization that’s still firmly in place is that I only buy a new computer when the new version of the OS is available. See, that way I save over $100, instead of having to buy the OS separately. (That’s how you stick it to The Man, by spending a couple thousand bucks every OS upgrade!)

Still, don’t be surprised if around spring, you see me trying to sell a PC and a couple of flat panel monitors. (Note: readers of this blog, as always get, deep discounts).

This year I plan to bitch about the iPhone one day every day until its release. This article on Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop journal links to confirmation that the iPhone will be closed to independent developers, because Steve Jobs wants it that way.

That article makes plenty of good points, but the best was raised in the forum discussion. One poster mentions CoverFlow. That’s the feature that Apple’s making a big deal about in regards to the iPhone. Turn the thing on its side, and you get to flick through all your album cover art with an incredible interface that the geniuses at Apple invented.

Except, wait, they didn’t. It was made by an independent developer and released as freeware until Apple bought up the IP to incorporate into iTunes 7. What could be better proof that independent developers come up with good ideas? And how can you get off demanding total control over a platform and still insisting that you’re leading in innovation?

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been reading too many Apple-related blogs, but I think they really over-sold the whole Macworld expo this year. No doubt it’s a bigger deal if you aren’t stuck with just the exhibits-only pass, and you can see some of the conferences. But I was pretty underwhelmed.

After watching two sessions of Apple reps telling me stuff about Leopard and the iPhone that I already knew, I just wandered around booth after crowded booth of third-party developers who basically all had the same story: more information is available on our website. I got the distinct impression that you’re better off just staying home and looking at everything over the internets.

Even the people-watching wasn’t that interesting; I’m assuming that’s because all the Hitler Youth-style post-keynote fervor had died down since yesterday. There were still hordes of people crowding around the little iPhone altars (myself included), and that was somewhat comical. But apart from that you’re just left with a bunch of middle-aged hairy guys shambling through a convention hall looking for free stuff.

And in transit to and from the show, I realized I’m already feeling buyer’s remorse for something I won’t be able to get for another six months. The iPhone looks to be just as cool in real life as it was presented in the keynote. All seeing it “in person” gets you is confirmation that it wasn’t just some hard-coded demonstration, and a look at the actual screen of the device. (And it is a really nice screen; I can totally imagine watching a movie on it).

But there are some pretty big issues that are going to hit early adopters hard. Exclusivity with Cingular is still the big one. Especially since it’s so expensive and it requires the two-year contract. Anybody who tells you that $600 for a phone is “cheap” or even “reasonable” is just plain lying, but you do have to admit that the price is in line with the cost of most other first-version gadgets that do the same thing.

My biggest complaint of the moment, though, is that it’s a closed system. When I saw the “Widgets” icon in the demo, I guess I just imagined that you’d be able to develop your own little apps for the thing. The new version of OS X is going to include Dashcode for making widgets, so it just seems like it would be a natural. But Apple reps confirmed that it won’t be open to third-party development, just like the iPod isn’t. And it’s unlikely that this will change, because it’s definitely not in Cingular’s interest, and it’s not even in Apple’s interest — they want you to buy everything through iTunes. The only reason Apple would open it up would be out of altruism, and I think it’s pretty clear that’s just not what they’re about.

I never actually wrote an app for the Treo, but it was nice to know I could have. And I definitely downloaded a ton of stuff to run on the Treo. A lot of Treo users will tell you that their favorite apps are third-party ones. On the iPhone, it’s mitigated somewhat by the fact that it includes a fully-functional web browser, so you could conceivably set up a web app to do whatever you want — as long as you don’t mind paying the data-transfer fees every time you run the app, and you don’t mind having something that can’t access any of the data on your phone like address book entries or photos.

There are other issues that affect other people more than they would me; I don’t really care if it’s a 3G phone or not, for instance. Plus, there’s just the practical concerns: if you’re paying that much money for something you’re going to have in a pocket or thrown into a bag, you want it to be a lot more durable than Apple’s products are usually known for.

I’m sure that there will be a lot of improvements in version 2. I’m equally sure that I won’t be able to wait until version 2. Maybe that’s why Macworld didn’t impress me; pretty much everything there is something I’ve already seen and I’m already fated to buy. (Except for the iTV, which is something I was wanting to see for so long that by the time it was finally announced I’d already gotten tired of it. It seems kind of lame, actually).

It’d be cool if I could claim that I was completely unmoved by the Apple iPhone announcement. But I think we all know that’d be a lie, so I’m not even going to bother.

From the looks of it, they got everything right. It’s everything I was hoping to hear when they first started leaking rumors about the iPhone. In fact, it’s everything I imagined the Treo to be when I first heard about that, before it failed to deliver. I can still remember the first time I saw a Palm Pilot in operation, and I imagined all the “Star Trek” type stuff that would be possible with it — the demonstration videos trump even that.

Now, it really sucks that they’ve tied it to Cingular. It sucks a lot. The cell companies have had a stranglehold for too long, and they keep subsidizing crippled phones. As it happens, I already use Cingular, so the best I can do is protest the decision now, and then of course be the first in line to buy one the second they’re available.

And I guarantee that there’s going to be a host of complaints about the thing, just like with every first-version Apple product. Battery issues, screen issues, scratches, too-frequent upgrades, etc. But if there were ever any consumer gadget that cried out for me to be an early adopter, it’s this one.

So from now until June, I guess I’ll keep watching the demo movies on Apple’s site over and over again, as if it were the Zapruder film. (My favorite part is when they use Google technology to prank call a Starbuck’s). And point and laugh at my POS RAZR phone, which might as well have a tiny wireless Grim Reaper standing over it.

Thanks to my recent bout of unemployment, I’ve finally been able to finish one of the projects I always said I’d do when I got free time. This one is to write a complete app for Mac OS X, from start to release.

The app is called Incisor, and it’s a lightweight image editor. I’m always finding pictures I want to use in blog posts on websites, or Flickr, or from my own iPhoto library. But getting them in a usable format means having to crop and resize them in Photoshop or iPhoto, both of which are overkill for doing something as simple as sizing an image.

It’s such a common task I’m surprised it isn’t being done already, but I haven’t found an app that works exactly like I want — in particular, being able to see a real-time preview of the edit, and being able to drag it directly into another program without saving it as an interim file. (Of course, now that I’ve put it on the internets, I’ll probably hear of a dozen programs that already do that. But what the hell; I wanted to learn how to write a Cocoa app anyway).

The thing about programming for Cocoa, at least from my limited experience, is that it’s crazy powerful, but it takes a lot of work to get your foot in the door. There are plenty of excellent tutorials out there, but they either start out too high for the beginner, assuming that you already know the basics; or they are so tailored to a specific task that you’re screwed if you try to do something different. I wrote the “Currency Converter” app about four times, each time ending up with a complete program but never understanding how all the pieces fit together.

I’ve read in more than one tutorial that the mantra of Cocoa programming is, “If it’s hard, you’re doing it the wrong way.” And it’s mostly true; the problem is finding out the right way to do it. Several times I would spend hours writing a bunch of functions to do something, only to have to delete it all once I discovered it was all covered automatically by one call to the system frameworks. For example, everything complicated about image manipulation is handled automatically by the Cocoa libraries — the effort in writing this app was half connecting the UI, and half digging through tutorials and documentation to find out what was covered and what I’d have to write myself.

And I’m just finding out now that at least half the UI code I’ve written could be scrapped if I’d used a different method. I guess I’ll know better next time.

I’m not sure if it’s just my experience, but developing something for OS X at the moment seems like a lot of super-powerful pieces without enough to tie them all together. It’s almost ludicrously easy to get a full-featured app out of the built-in frameworks and tools they give you for free; you can write a functioning web browser with just one line of code, for example.

Still, there’s not really anything guiding you through the process. For a while, after seeing how powerful InterfaceBuilder and Xcode are, and how deeply-integrated AppleScript is into everything, I was starting to think that development had gotten to the point where something like HyperCard wasn’t necessary anymore. But now, after finishing an app (albeit a very simple one) and looking back on where my time was spent, I’m convinced that the system really needs something that casual programmers and even non-programmers can use to get results not built into the stock iLife apps. Bring back HyperCard!

P.S. The app has some of the ugliest icons possible. If anyone wants to volunteer to make new ones, let me know.

Not only is the honeymoon over, but I think a trial separation is in order. The fan on my MacBook Pro is making grinding and clicking noises that get gradually louder, culminating in an ear-splitting crescendo about 20 minutes after boot-up.

The thing has run ungodly hot ever since I got it, but what with all the reports of Apple logos burned into users’ thighs, I just assumed that was standard operating procedure for the MacBook. Now I have to wonder, Fox News-style, Could Improper Ventilation Be Putting My Data at Risk?

Now I’ve got to limit my computer access to 5 or 10 minutes at a stretch until I can get the thing back to California and back everything up. Then take it to the Apple Store and have one of their geniuses inflict their attitude on me.

Apple sucks.

Maybe I should get a new iMac.

I remember when a new announcement from Apple would have me visibly excited and reaching for my wallet.

I even waited around today for Pacific Time to catch up so I could see what all the hoopla was about. And the experience was like when you have to go see that distant cousin who’s a straight C+/B- average student perform in her school production of Singin’ in the Rain and the kids do a passable job, and the parents are genuinely enthused about it, but you’re just sitting there thinking you’ve got the DVD of Singin’ in the Rain at home and they do a much better job and you’d be better off not wasting your time watching a half-rate production of it.

The original iPod nano was just bad-ass. I never got one for myself because even I couldn’t rationalize it, but I was sorely tempted. And Apple had finally gotten their whole line from desktops to laptops to MP3 players all consistent and looking classy. The new ones are ugly aluminum all tarted up in iPod mini colors.

The “real” iPod has been improved, supposedly, but nothing groundbreaking going on there. It’s still just an MP3 player, and it’s still way inadequate for watching video.

And the whole new “iTV” thing; what’s up with that? A video server that apparently only connects to iTunes running on a different machine. So you can pay $15 and wait 30-45 minutes to download High School Musical in a format only playable via iTunes, and stream it at 640×480 resolution with plenty of compression artifacts visible on your living room TV.

Whee.

iTunes has been genuinely improved. In particular:

• The really cool freeware app CoverFlow got bought by Apple and incorporated into iTunes. It’s one of the coolest Mac-only apps out there, but never made sense as a separate app, and Apple integrated it just about perfectly.
• iTunes will download cover art for you, another thing that there’ve been about a billion freeware apps written to do. I haven’t had a lot of luck with it so far, but I assume it works.
• You can finally back up your library to disc right from iTunes. Even better, you can choose to backup only what you’ve bought from the iTunes (no longer Music) Store, and you can do incremental backups.
• It’s got an album cover/song list hybrid view that makes a lot more sense for browsing.
• Reportedly, it’s a lot better at handling iPod synching, but I haven’t yet tried it.

On the downside, it’s got the “new look” that Apple’s going towards with Leopard, and it’s all muted and ugly as sin. Or, ugly as the new iPod nano.

They’re going to get my money with the new Leopard point release, but I’ve got to say I’m not that impressed with that, either. Nice try, Steve. Wake me up when you come out with the iPod phone.

I finally got my computer dual-booting into Windows, and everything I need for work installed on the Windows partition. That only took two days.

It’s not Apple’s fault; BootCamp couldn’t be simpler or easier to use. And I guess it’s not Windows’ fault either, since once I had an official install, it worked without hassle. It’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve used a machine that didn’t already have everything pre-installed, I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass it is to get everything up and running. Even if it is just a matter of clicking “Next” and waiting an hour.

So far, everything’s worked pretty much as expected. A couple of crashes and failure to boot, but that’s included in the “working as expected.” I installed a virus scanner (and on its first scan, on a clean install of Windows XP I’d done just one day ago, it reported four viruses found — no joke) and Firefox and everything I need for work, and it all works fine. For yuks I installed Civilization IV, and that works fine.

I also tried out that Parallels Workstation. Even in beta, it works exactly as advertised, allowing both OS X and Windows to run simultaneously. I’ve already uninstalled it, though, since at least in the Beta version, it can’t access any of my Mac files or even the Windows files on my other partition. Which makes it, at least at the moment, a non-functional novelty. (But a very solid one, I’ve got to admit).

And I got out of Windows as quickly as possible. Call me an OS snob; that’s a fair accusation. Windows just feels all underpowered and ugly now. Maybe Vista will improve the experience, but everything I’ve seen just looks like Microsoft trying to do OS X. Even if they succeed, why should I care? All of the apps I need that are Windows-only are still going to be as ugly and kludgey in Vista as they are in XP. And the home-user stuff that Vista’s emphasizing — photo viewers, music players, etc. — don’t promise anything I’m not already getting from iPhoto and iTunes and the like.

As it turns out, I’m weak. The lure of a faster Mac and a laptop that runs Windows was too much for me to resist. I ended up getting a MacBook Pro.

What finally sent me over the edge was realizing that I wasn’t just making some rationalization — it really is a legitimate business expense. That I can write off on my taxes and everything. Every time I go Down South I’ve got to make excuses about not being able to run stuff on my laptop because it’s Mac-only, and if I’m going to be at the theme park for weeks at a time at the end of the summer, it’s going to be essential to have a Windows machine.

For now, though, it runs World of Warcraft really well. (Note to auditors reading this blog: I’m only going to write off half of it as a business expense). Everything else seems slightly faster, but that may just be my imagination.

As for actually running Windows on the thing: I can’t report on that yet. Turns out that they’re serious when they say you need to buy a full, dedicated Windows XP SP2 install. I imagined that I had tons of Windows discs lying around, but was unable to find one. (Something tells me that there’s going to be some future crucial bit of Mac tech that relies on having an AOL installation disc, and I’ll need it right after I’ve thrown out the last spare one I have…) The version that came with my old Dell got me all the way through the two-hour-long install process, only to fail at the end because of some missing USB driver file.

So I ended up having to buy a new copy of Windows XP, which I swore I’d never do. (At least the dual boot thing qualifies for the license of the OEM version, so you don’t have to buy a full blown retail version). Once it comes in the mail, I’ll be able to say whether I have any success with it.

One thing I did notice during my installation attempts last night: Windows sucks. Sure, I use it every day for work, but that’s in an OS-agnostic IDE. And I use it mainly for games, which don’t care about the OS anyway. Actually using Windows — in particular, setting up network connections and organizing files and such — is just unpleasant. I was wondering if that was part of the impetus behind BootCamp in the first place, to take all of us complacent OS X users and remind us just how good we have it.

I can’t even put my finger on what it is exactly that bugs me about using Windows now; it just has this vague off-brand feel to it. Like eating a bunch of Oreos and then biting into a Hydrox. Or seeing an episode of “Alias” with Hilary Swank instead of Jennifer Garner. Or watching a movie for Natalie Portman and then realizing you got one with Keira Knightley instead. [and btw, thanks to NBC for saving us from having to search the web for “borrowed” NBC highlights!]

Still: hot damn! I got a new computer!