Building simplicidade.org: notes, projects, and occasional rants

Apple stuff

Busy day, so not much time to write. Highlights from yesterday Apple announcements:

  • F$%#$%Q&#$%! Airport Extreme got GigabitEthernet now. I bought mine 4 weeks ago! Anybody wants one, good old Airport Extreme base station? Tested? The reason I would like to have gigabit: shared disks, which this base station supports;
  • The new keyboard is beautiful, but I will have to wait until I can try it out. I don't know if I will like the feel. I'm very glad that they upgraded the wired version to USB2, so that I can use the ports to sync iPods;
  • if the new iMovie has direct YouTube upload (maybe a feature of Quicktime itself?), why doesn't iPhoto allows me to upload to Flickr? Guess I have some place to spend my $30 (see below);
  • Numbers: I'll download the demo and see what the fuss is all about. It wont replace die hard Excel fans like Rui (and I understand why), but it might be enough for simple people like me. But, I'm willing to bet that the analysis features of DabbleDB (my favourite Hype2.0 site) will leave both Numbers and Excel in the dust;
  • the iPhoto Web Galleries: shiny. Pity about the size;
  • the new Macs (iMac and Mini): if I wanted a desktop Mac, I would probably buy a Mac Pro. The difference between a desktop and a laptop is expandability, and the new models are both limited in that regard (I can't see why the iMac does not offer the option of a second hard-drive. Can't they find the space behind those huge displays?). The Mini would be on my wish-list if they made a version with a basic Mac OS X Server edition. That I would buy. They could add a couple of inches and make it dual-drive RAID1 by default: nirvana. (Update: having said all that, the new iMac ads make me want to rush out the door and buy five of them).

Some other odds and ends, and rants:

I don't understand people who like bluetooth or RF keyboards:

  • I would hate to be out-of-batery in the keyboard;
  • I don't want the bother of changing or recharging batteries in a keyboard;
  • the fact that a wireless mouse is extremely useful (because mice where made to be moved around and the cable gets in the way) does not translate to the keyboard, something that you hope that does not move around (rubber feet, essential feature of a keyboard).
  • given Macs poor USB port count, even the two extra ports in the keyboard are extremely useful, even more by the fact that they are very accessible;
  • the $30 difference is the price of several great looking, extremely useful apps by independent developers out there, which will probably make a bigger difference on your productivity than one less cable.

Still on the USB port count, the iMac specs page is funny:

Total of five USB 2.0 ports: three ports on computer, two ports on keyboard.

Err... Pity that the Keyboard that has 2 USB ports is the wired keyboard, and that one takes one of the other 3 ports, so let's just say:

three USB ports. If you use the included keyboard, you get two more! If you decide you wanna look cool using our bluethoot keyboard, you just get those three ok?

There. Much better.

On the department of things I would like to see in a future opportunity:

  • the ability to buy iLife and iWork as a package or as standalone apps via iTunes, to keep on abusing the 'M' in iTMS. I couldn't care less if they called anything else, but the infrastructure is there, just use it. I don't need the entire package, but I would update some of the apps;
  • there is this technology inside every mac called Bonjour, don't know if you hear of it. Apparently Apple has not. Why cant I do a slideshow over local lan, that other users can watch in real time? Or why can't I share a Pages/Keynote/Numbers session? Like Subethaedit? Room to grow.

That is all.