I have entered the singularity

Apple's quality control really sucks

The most appealing thing to me about Apple is that they're able to take high-tech stuff and create cutting edge products that work really well and are dramatically simpler to use than anything else out there.

Except when they break.

I've been saving a bunch of notes and evidence for a longer post on this topic, but I can't hold out any longer. I've been a Mac user for about six years now, and I have experienced serious hardware defects with virtually every Apple product I've owned, including a G4 tower, a G3 iBook, 2 iPods, and a PowerBook G4.

Many of my Apple-using friends (some of whom purchased Apple equipment at my recommendation) have been burned even worse. There's my friend Paschal, who has had to replace the motherboards on his (and his wife's) G3 iBooks numerous times. And there's my brother-in-law Will who had a similar problem with his G3 iBook that went through- no joke- at least six different replacement attempts.

Will was the picture perfect Mac user- an MIT grad student who'd been using Macs since the day he was born. After motherboard blowout six (or was it seven, or eight?), he gave up and switched to a Dell.

There's my friend Mike, who's had hard drive and CD-ROM drive problems on his iBook. And Gabe has had his own CD problems with his G4 iBook.

There's my brother Mike, who's had hard drive problems with his G5 iMac, and my friend Jordan, whose G4 tower went crazy for a while.

I apologize to anyone I didn't mention, or if any of my brief descriptions have not fully captured the rage your troubles have experienced. This is just a cursory list.

Apple's products are incredible in theory, and often in practice, but the magic vanishes the moment the things break down, which happens way too often. If you've had similar frustrations, please feel free to comment. I have more to say on this issue, but for now, that is all.

Now this...

...is pretty weird. Cool, but weird.

Gabe...

This looks like a good DVD to iPod solution too.

I'm with stupid

Doh.

Intel Macs

Ars Technica's first impression of the new iMac is very positive (and they know what they're talking about).

And here are some very informal, preliminary benchmarks of the MacBook Pro.

So far, the Intel transition is looking very promising.

Gabe...

If you haven't seen this, now you have.

Also, I'd like to plug Gabe's "Friends of Davey Jones" podcast.

Fuel for thought

America's dominant standing in the world over the last half century was brought about primarily by our development and use of nuclear weapons, and our subsequent policy of being the mightiest. There were other factors, for sure, but Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the prospect of more were undeniably responsible for a lot of our power.

The dynamics of power are changing rapidly, and it's time for another Manhattan project. The US needs to devote its massive resources and determination toward developing a solution to the world's energy problem- a cure for our addiction to oil.

If we could develop the "atomic bomb" of energy, we'd regain control of our destiny from the Middle East and make ourselves invaluable to everyone else. And we'd be doing so in a positive way that would underscore our investment in progress over destruction.

Dream

MacBook Pro SuperDrive dilemma dissected

Here.

Uh-oh

Your pilot may only be making $22,000 a year!

Macworld 2006

As is typically the case, Steve Jobs' Macworld announcements did not live up to all of the hype and speculation that had been floating around over the past few months. This doesn't mean that the revelations were flawed, but it does show that Apple's practice of keeping everything a secret and stoking the hype is bound to lead to disappointment. At some point, they may run the risk of coming across as underdelivering because they're not managing expectations prior to these events.

Anyway, the substance of the speech focused on key software enhancements to iLife and (to a lesser extent) iWork, followed by the announcement of the first Intel-powered Macs. The software stuff looks interesting and I haven't had a chance to really dig into it yet and dissect it, but by all accounts it seems like Apple is continuing to innovate and make it easy for people to manage their digital content and push it around in all kinds of formats (on the web, in printed books, on DVDs, etc.).

The Intel announcement was the big one for most people. Since Apple announced their intention to switch to Intel processors back in June, speculation has been rampant over if and how this switch would effect the overall Mac experience. Would Macs become less "Mac-like" and more like PCs? Initial impressions seem to point to a clear "no": it seems as though the Intel Macs will continue to be every bit "Macs"- although there are a few details relating to the specs of the first laptops out the door that are disappointing.

In my opinion, here are the "Mac-like" attributes that I was most concerned about losing in the transition, and which appear to have survived more or less intact:

Identical software experience on the Intel platform- everything looks the same and performs the same. Most accounts indicate that this is the case. There is some speculation about how some media software (such as programs that use QuickTime to play back video) will perform on the Intel platform, since those programs were heavily optimized to use the PowerPC's vector-based Altivec processing engine, which is absent from the PC. In other words, the PPC had a kind of "turbo" mode that greatly accelerated certain types of applications, and without a direct corollary on the Intel side, it's unclear if the media experience on Intel will be on par (or better). There is a partial analog to Altivec on the Intel side (SSE), so if initial impressions are that media performance is a little bit slower, perhaps as media apps continue to optimize for SSE, things will improve. But, overall and with this one caveat, the software experience seems to be intact.

Advanced pre-OS system configuration environment- PPC Macs had firmware (OpenFirmware) that was very advanced and provided some intelligent early stage boot functionality for Macs that PCs (most of which use a traditional, legacy BIOS system) don't have. The Intel Macs are using EFI, a next-generation BIOS replacement from Intel, that appears to provide similar functionality to OpenFirmware and compatibility with existing Mac pre-boot utilities (such as their firmware password protection). Bottom line: Intel Macs continue to have an advanced early boot environment that is superior to BIOS, and that's great news.

FireWire target mode- related to the early boot experience. PPC Macs have a tremendously useful feature where the user can plug a Mac into another Mac via FireWire and boot one of the Macs up as a hard drive. This feature is still supported. Fantastic.

Really, really fast sleep and resume from sleep- not 100% sure if the Intel Macs sleep and wake up as quickly as the PPC Macs did, but preliminary reports indicate that they do.

Off the top of my head, those details- while not really big deals in the grand scheme of things- represent some of the subtle fit and finish that differentiated Macs from PCs, and it's really nice to see that they're still there.

On the other hand, there are some more mundane technical specs relating to the MacBook Pro (hate the name) that are inferior to the current generation of PPC PowerBooks- and it is troubling to see that the first Intel laptop is not a superset of the current generation. Specifically:

PPC PowerBooks have dual-layer DVD burners, while the MacBook Pros don't (they've only got single layer burners). I don't think the lack of this feature has anything to do with Intel per-se, but it's definitely a conspicuous step backward. For video professionals, dual-layer DVD support is becoming essential.

PPC PowerBooks have a FireWire 800 port- MacBook Pros don't. Not sure what the future of FW 800 is- perhaps it's being canned- but this is another example of a feature the PowerBooks have that the MacBook Pros don't.

MacBook Pros don't have internal modems. To me, this is not a big deal, and I view it as another example of Apple "innovating" by removing a piece of legacy hardware, just as they did with floppy disk drives. There's a balance between providing a completely compatible machine that is in some ways held prisoner by its need to remain compatible (which I would refer to as the Windows/PC way of thinking) and by continuing to advance the platform by adding new features and retaining only the most critical legacy functionality (the Mac way). Most people don't need modems- for those who do, Apple provides an external USB modem. To keep their laptops as efficient, light, and powerful as possible, Apple needs to excise parts that are not absolutely essential, and out of everything that could have been cut, I think the modem makes perfect sense.

MacBook Pros lack an S-Video out port. PowerBooks have one. For video professionals, S-Video is really nice to have, because there are situations where you may need to output the video from your computer to a video device that accepts S-Video but not conventional computer connections. I have not been able to determine if the MacBook Pro's DVI output port can send S-Video out through an adapter- but it doesn't seem like it. If this is the case, this is another pro video feature that will be sorely missed.

The bottom line with the MacBook Pro: most of the features that it's missing are those that helped differentiate the PowerBook as a video professional's mobile workstation. Without dual-layer burners, FW800, and S-Video, the MacBook Pro is not ideal for that use. If this exact same laptop were positioned as a replacement for the iBook, however, it would be a complete superset and a really nice upgrade. But as a replacement for the PowerBook, it comes up short.

Rumblings on the web are that there are a number of additional Intel-based Macs that are nearly ready to be released, but were held back from the keynote because of supply issues with the Intel Core Duo chips. Who knows if this is true, but I strongly suspect that this first MacBook Pro (and the new iMac) are the least impressive of the new Intel machines, and it's unfortunate that they represent the public's first impression of the next generation of Macs.

Macworld

There have probably been 5 or 6 patented "Steve Jobs Keynotes" since I've started this blog, and I'm sure I've allowed my enthusiasm to boil over prior to all of them.

But there's something particularly intriguing about this Tuesday's event that has me particularly excited. I think we're at an historic moment, and I suspect that some of the things announced on Tuesday will go a long way toward explaining how Apple plans on growing as a company beyond the iPod/Mac space they've been in for the past few years.

I'm certainly psyched.

Jobs keynote

Here's an interesting article about what goes on in the lead-up to the patented "Steve Jobs Keynote" presentations. Thanks, Mike.

O'Reilly & Letterman

I don't despise Bill O'Reilly as much as most of my peers- probably only 75% as much. For every 7 and a half really stupid things he says, he usually says about 2 and a half things that indicate he's not 100% one-sided. (As opposed to, say, Ann Coulter, who would attack a Democrat doctor trying to save her life from a Republican-inflicted gunshot wound.)

And I don't love David Letterman as much as I once did, years ago, when I watched Late Night regularly.

But here they are, both in top form. It's a nice reminder that Letterman really is a standup guy, and O'Reilly really is a schmuck.

The sounds of Vista

This is pretty cool. One of the things that I admire about Microsoft is its recognition of the fact that they gain goodwill by opening themselves up to the world.

Fuck this bullshit

Pardon my language, but this is patently absurd. From CNN.com today (highlight emphasis added):



"Watch relatives weep..."

Unbelievable.

What happened to those miners is pure tragedy. Enticing people to view the anguish of those families, in the pursuit of advertising dollars, is about the most disgusting thing I can imagine.

Scores of tragedies happen every moment, but we're only shown the marketable ones. This isn't a profound concept- "If it bleeds, it leads" has been gospel forever- but there's got to be a better way.

"Life Expectancy"

I think I just realized what my one and only New Year's resolution is going to be: not to be embarrassed to admit that I really like Dean Koontz.

I just finished "Life Expectancy". It is a fantastic book.

It scared me, it made me laugh, and it even made me cry. I'm really glad I pulled this sucker off the rack at the Rochester, Minnesota airport.

It's not perfect (what is?), but I'd put it right up there with "The Corrections" and "White Noise"- two of my very favorite books.

WMWMDU (What Mac Would a Mac Developer Use)

Interesting.

Seconds?

Apparently there was an added leap second between 2005 and 2006. Cool! (Courtesy of drunkenblog.)

The environment

Here's a fantastic speech by RFK, Jr. (brought to my attention by Wil Shipley).

Prediction

Since I nailed "King Kong" (sarcasm alert, for those who need it), I think I'm in a pretty good position to make another prediction for 2006. Here goes: Iran will be attacked by Israel or the US (or both) in an effort to destroy its nuclear capability. The results will lead to a foreign affairs calculus that is dramatically different from where we find ourselves today. This issue will figure heavily in the 2006 congressional elections.

I think that's the most likely "serious big event" that can be predicted right now. In reality, of course, these kinds of predictions are almost always wrong- so there's my hedge.