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AppleTV, some random thoughts
The Apple TV is now shipping, and some lucky blokes like Walt Mossberg were given demo units to play with early. I don’t have much to say, other than as it stands now I will not be purchasing one, and here are some reasons why.
I want my DIVX!
Seriously Apple, come on. H.264 is actually a beautiful codec; I have no complaints with the quality that you can get out of it. What I will complain about is the footprint. I can get the same, or better quality, from a DIVX encoded file that is sometimes half the size. Period.
Apple opening up
How about that! Apple has thrown a curve ball to the community today by launching Mac OS Forge, and populating it with a number of pieces of software released under the apache license.
This is an exciting move by Apple. Currently the server houses the following projects:
- Intel Kernel Source — link
- CalDav Server Source — link
- Bonjour Source — link
- Launchd Source — link
- WebKit — link
For me the biggest bit of this is the CalDav server source. Read more about it here.
Oh, and Mac OS Forge runs on WordPress.. :)
My MWSF Predictions
Yes, I am going to prognosticate for you all now, and tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt what Apple will announce today:
- Apple will be releasing new products and/or services that you will immediately want, but not have the money to purchase.
- The machine you just bought three days ago, yeah that one; completely and utterly useless now, you must upgrade, obey your Jobsian overlord!
- Steve Jobs will mispronounce at least one word in the keynote, probably the name of some large jungle cat.
That’s it folks, have a nice day.
Papa’s got a brand new bag
That’s right people the Davis family just got a serious upgrade. I took delivery of my shiny new 20 inch iMac today.
2.1 ghz, 250 gig HD and Front Row. Can’t ask for more than that. Pictures will be forthcoming.
I Got the Call
That’s right, I got the call from Apple Computer on the 25th of this month. Now what could this call be all about you might ask? Yeah I was asking that too actually, so let’s sit back and imagine shall we?
1: Random Chance
Was it finally my moment in the sun? Had some Random Apple V.P. of Something Really Important stumbled across Sillyness and was blown away by my prose and mad design skillz, prompting them to pimp me to his Big Headness The Jobs and now there is a position waiting for me at Cupertino? Will I now be able to have lunch on “the campus” with people like David Hyatt and Dunstan Orchard? Do I get a standard issue black turtleneck and Reality Distortion Field? Or am I under the influence of said field at this moment?
2: What could have been, just may be
Ooh, ooh or was the call in response to my aborted application for the web design job that is now being advertised? Had some Middle Manager of Coolness seen my entry and then on a whim searched out my website thereby starting a chain reaction of ooh and ahhs that culminated in being blown away in much the same way as Random Apple V.P. of Something Really Important from scenario 1? Was this call the first overture of Corporate Courting, complete with a leer jet ride to Cupertino for a more personal interview with the Jobsovian Hordes? Or is a lack of sleep and a lack of artistic fulfillment at my current job leading me to this delusion?
Well gentle reader, to make a long story a bit longer, neither of these scenarios are correct. No, the truth is a completely different scenario all together.
The follow-up call
Having that type of nature that demands mysteries be solved I called the number in my caller ID. And you know who was at the other end of that call? Who picked up the phone and said “Thanks for calling Apple Computer”? A freakin machine that’s who.
Apparently Apple was just following up on my laptop purchase, trying to whore me some applecare or to tell me about, get this, Mac OS 10.2… 10.2, seriously people update your freakin automated dialer programs!
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Well Look at that
So whilst drooling over the offerings at Apple.com I decided to just pop in at the MacOS X area and WOW, am I glad I did.
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There are no words
In other news I am apparently a Design Ninja! And with that I have joined the ranks of the ninja elite, there can be no higher compliment.
There are just no words to describe the overwhelming coolness that is Apple product releases.
I am blown away. I am undone.
Why I am a MacHead
People often ask me why I choose to be a mac user; the questions usually fall into 3 camps:
- What is it you find more appealing, or better on the Apple platform?
- Why would you want to lock yourself into a platform with so few games man!!?! You’re missing out on the games!!?!
- You must be an idiot that doesn’t know much about computers, you must b0w d0\/\/n +0 +h3 m45+er h4xx0r!
Yeah, so believe it or not I am getting way more camp #1 questions of late which is a great change in statistics. In recent years it has usually been either 2 or 3 that held the number one spot.
Today I finally decided what my answer will be to all of these questions: class. Class is not something you can buy, or steal or copy it must just be. And that is what apple has, class.
New Toys…
I am writing this from my brand new toy, a 12 inch powerbook!
I have been laptopless for quite awhile now and have found it to be although not very much fun, not that huge of an inconvenience. Untill now. The Top-Secret Project that Skippy, LaughingLizard and I are undertaking combined with another top secret plan that I cannot mention yet have neccesitated that I once again join the mobile computing crowd.
I just love technology. I haven’t had the machine long enough to really write up a proper review, but I will say that man it is Shiny. I luckily decided to go with the top-o-the-line 12 incher so I should have more than enough oomph to get me through for a good long while; once I upgrade the ram that is.
That is one of the things I don’t get when it comes to Apple. I wish they would get thier act together when it comes to the RAM issue. But I digress, the machine is nice regardless. When I have lived with it for a bit I will post a proper review.
Not fair…
Apple released new monitors seen here, and previewed “Tiger” the next version of MacOS X.
While the monitors are tre´ cool, I am more exctited about the new features in Tiger. There are significant upgrades to iChat, Safari, Core Services and the Finder. Here are some sneak peeks:
Lets start off with the coolest one in my opinion, you can now have 3 members in a video chat:
This is just outstanding. You can say what you want about eye candy and such but that is just swank. There is no other word for it. I have been waiting for the ability to add multiple streams to a video iChat with great anticipation. And with the new codec one can only imagine how beautiful the feeds will be, although I am sure that you are going to need a pretty hefty processor and net pipe to be able to handle that much data coming across your wires. I believe that this, coupled with the iChat Server that is included in Server 10.4, will be another strong offering for Apple in the enterprise market.
Next we hit the new compression codec in Tiger H.264/AVC. This new codec is just amazing. This standard was developed to provide a “network-friendly” video representation for use in “conversational” (video telephony, in use by iChat AV) and “non-conversational” (storage, broadcast or streaming, Quicktime Streaming and I would imagine the Music Store/Movie Store.) applications.
H.264/AVC really shines when compared to older standards like MPEG 2, typically increasing in the area of rate-distortion efficiency by a factor of 2. Apparently the codec splits the data representation into one layer, the Video Coding Layer (VCL)which carries an accurate representation of the video content; and the Network Abstraction Layer (NAL) which formats the VCL and provides header information based on the particular transport layer or storage media in use.
Other than that the new codec follows the previously established block-based hybrid encoding approach first employed in H.261.
Now onto the second most exciting change for me, RSS features for Safari. I have come to love this browser. It is fast, reliable and other than the over-used metal texture, it is well laid out from a usability standpoint… at least I think so. My only gripes have been:
- There lack of a script driven sidebar. That has been solved by the author of Saft apparently, you can find info here.
- And lastly the lack of any RSS aggregation or viewing in Safari.
- I agree that:
- the lack of a way to show the count of unread feeds, as well as assigning a value to frequency of updates… but I disagree that:
- it is not “the nicest of solutions”, I see great potential in this interface (I find NNW to be bloated and over featured) and will wait to see what they come up with in the next 6 -8 months.
Now onto Dashboard. This has got to be the worst idea Apple has ever stolen. I thought konfabulator was a collosally stupid idea, and I think that the Apple variation is a slightly better integrated, collosally stupid idea. The “widgets” don’t integrate with the UI at all, and they take up way more desktop space than should be allowed by law, not to mention they break everyone of Apples HIG guidelines. I can’t even talk about this anymore. Moving on.
That is it for now. I plan on finishing this up with a look at the new Meta data Search that has been added to Tiger, and the new 64 bit codebase and libraries. Until then, stay well.
Oh really?
Oh it is soooo on now.
Checking the web this morning I came across this great article about the music revolution that Apple has sparked with thier new app GarageBand.
The article is going really well until I get to this quote, from a pompous a$$ named Kim Cascone:
Musician and writer Kim Cascone said GarageBand is perfectly good for learning how music is put together, but doubted anything very good could be created with it.
“GarageBand is snoozeware for the iPod generation who think that music comes in a small white-and-chrome can and only need be served lukewarm for public consumption”
I am here to say that while this is not Pro Tools (which I have used) GarageBand is an incredibly powerful, easy to use app that will allow hundreds, if not thousands of musicians to bring thier music to people. So this is what I am going to do, I am going to produce an entire album of music, using nothing but GarageBand and any interfaces I need, and then release it on the iTunes Music Store.
I get very tired of pompous jerks who are way too full of themselves and thier own inflated since of self worth. Time for a little wake up call. I hope you guys are with me, and help me out on this ride.