Apple

One of the more overlooked aspects of the transition from PowerPC to Intel x86 CPUs is the effect it will have on the software you can run. I’ll be discussing this move and my take on it in a later article, but I think a subset of the transition strategy needs highlighting first. You Won’t Feel a Thing Steve made the transition sound utterly painless. According to him, developers will have to do little more than recompile their cocoa software. But what about existing software? Rosetta is the answer proclaimed Steve. Processor emulation will make it all better. Now, for the time being, I’m willing to ignore the inevitable confirmed speed cost, but what about compatibility and functionality? The keynote seems to make it seem like all your old software will just work. Well, I wasn’t buying that, My suspicion was rewarded when I read Apple’s document on Universal Binaries. ...

Well, I’m sure most everyone has read the CNet story on Apple switching Macs to Intel, the Wall Street Journal story, the Inquirer version, the Yahoo/AP version, or even the New York Times version. The number of sources coming forward to confidently say that they are has turned even ardent disbelievers in the rumor, such as John Gruber, the other way (or maybe not). I’m personally in the “I think this is a load of crap” camp. ...

Today has yielded two news items from Apple. One is wild speculation. The other is real news. Let’s start with the real news. iTunes Podcast Support Steve Jobs, at D: All Things Digital Conference, announced that iTunes 4.9 will have Podcasting support. iTunes will allow you to subscribe Podcast RSS feeds and automatically download the song files into your library. The update is due within 60 days. In the meantime, I’ll still use NetNewsWire (and I may do so after). Apple adding this is almost trivial now that they have the Safari RSS backbone to use. The question in my mind is whether Apple will try to integrate a bittorrent client. I find podcast feeds that distribute using Bittorrent exceedingly irritating. Currently, the only feed that I subscribe to that does this is This Week in Tech. Ok, ok, so they probably have the largest listening audience out of any podcast, but having to screw around with Bittorrent completely defeats the purpose of podcasts (they’re delivered automatically without user intervention). ...

Okay, so the title for this entry would have been much cooler if Tiger were arriving tomorrow. Tiger Tuesday! I could have had fame and fortune. Instead, I’ll have Tiger one day earlier and be a nobody. Anyway, posting won’t be on the agenda tonight. I hope to cover one Tiger feature a day. The order I cover those features is still up in there air though. Any of you out there interested in seeing my take on a particular feature first, please leave a comment. I plan on taking a lot of screenshots because no one can get enough. ...

My sadness quickly turned into rage last night because I wouldn’t have my toy this weekend. I read at several places, including Macworld’s forums that if you didn’t get your copy of Tiger on time, you could call Apple to get one of three things for free. iLife ‘05 iWork $30 Apple Store coupon Finding this out, I called up and they promptly offered me iLife ‘05. I didn’t hear him offer the other two options, but personally, I didn’t care as that was what I wanted anyway. ...

Imagine my surprise when I read of the Tiger release announcement (April 29th) showed up in Bloglines (which I’m only using instead of NetNewsWire because I’m at work). It was almost anticlimactic. Months and months of anticipation built to a single moment when I read that it was (nearly) here and I let out a soft oh. As usual, MacCentral has done a nice writeup. I’m sure every other Mac news site will have a piece on it, so stop by then if you’ve got some weird aversion to MacCentral. ...

It’s been rather quiet on the Mac front. Well, that’s not entirely true, we have the continuing saga of Apple versus the rumor sites. Very little has been decided in the courts, but that hasn’t stopped the Mac community at large from giving their fifteen cents. Unfortunately, the battles being waged are being clumped into one, making the debate wandering and unfocused. We have one group shouting “This is a freedom of speech issue!” while the other says (quite accurately) “This particular decision is not.” A pissing contest ensues. ...

Apple updated its line of iPod MP3 players. Specifically, the iPod mini and the iPod photo. The mini now comes in two sizes, and the photo had some pronounced price changing. In fact, it’s created an interesting pattern. For the most part, the pricing of all the models and sizes are separated by $50. iPod shuffle 512 MB $99 iPod shuffle 1 GB $149 iPod mini 4 GB $199 iPod mini 6 GB $249 iPod 20 GB $299 iPod U2 20 GB $349 iPod photo 30 GB $349 iPod photo 60 GB $449 What’s really interesting about this is that while Apple has established a linear pricing structure, the sizes are exponential. Of course, the biggest bang for your buck change is still the difference between the high-end mini and the regular iPod (14 GB for $50). Apple has bent over backwards to woo the various MP3 player customer types. ...

I’m going to review the new Apple product announcements inwhat I consider increasing importance. iLife ‘05 To me, this is pretty incremental. I don’t use anything in iLife (sans the free iTunes and iPhoto). Garageband fans will be overjoyed with a full 8 tracks to manipulate. At $79, I’m not sure I’ll be getting it though. I don’t need the new version of iPhoto that badly. iWork Apple finally tried to update AppleWorks for the new millenium with iWork ($79). Apparently though, they only had two tickets for the trip, taking along a word processor (Pages) and a slideshow app (Keynote). Spreadsheets and database manipulation were sadly left at the station with their heads hanging dejectedly. Pages looks really cool, like a publishing application more than a wordprocessor. However, if I’m going to have an office suite, I want a speadsheet application. End of story. ...

New from the expo: The Mac mini The iPod shuffle iWork iLife ‘05 The other announcements aren’t terribly exciting and the lack of a Tiger release date was disappointing. More tonight.