Has your check card melted yet? It should be. At 5:30 a.m. PST today (about 30 minutes from publication of this), the iPad will be available for pre-order in the USA.
Are you getting one?
I know I (and my wife) want one, but we’re planning on two new iPhones in a few months. So, sadly, we’re likely waiting for the iPad Mark II (not likely a real product name) sometime in the next year.
I will say, I am excited to play around with an iPad in the next few weeks, as Apple Stores will surely have them, and a friend of mine is getting one.
The iPad is certainly the talk of the town these days. Most of the focus has been on it running a flavor of the iPhone OS, it “just” being a giant iPod touch, the exclusion of a webcam, or a myriad of other surface details. By far, though, I have been chiefly interested by the things Apple told us are inside the iPad.
Back at the iPhone unveiling in January 2007, Steve Jobs quoted Alan Kay, the so-called father of object-oriented programming, which Apple uses in Mac OS X and the iPhone OS. The quote Jobs used was,
“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.”
Over the past three years, Apple has really taken that philosophy to heart. Just over a year ago, Apple introduced the 17-inch aluminum unibody MacBook Pro to round out the unibody line of Mac portables. The key difference of the 17-inch from the 13- and 15-inch varieties was more than just a larger screen. The battery was no longer removable by the user. Apple revealed they had been designing their own batteries (versus buying the cells from a third party), and by removing the hardware necessary to allow the user the change the battery out themselves, they were able to expand the size of the battery and the overall capacity. They began to make the battery cells in house, taking on a new form factor and the ability to last up to 7 hours on a single charge. Also, normally a computer battery can handle around 300 charge cycles before needing replacement. Apple was able to increase that to around 1,000 cycles.
The following June, the 13- and 15-inch aluminum unibody portables received the same battery treatment.
And now, fast-forward to January 2010, and the iPad uses a custom processor, made in-house by Apple. It’s called the A4. Details are scarce, as the iPad hasn’t yet been released to the public. But what we do know is that it is a mobile processor than runs at 1GHz (the iPhone 3GS runs an ARM Cortex A8 at 600 MHz). Other than that, all we have to go on are educated guesses, and some statements than Steve Jobs apparently told Walt Mossberg of the The Wall Street Journal last week after the event. AppleInsider has the scoop on that conversation:
Like the iPad, people familiar with the matter claim the fourth-generation iPhone will run a version of Apple’s homebred silicon, which melds ARM’s latest multi-core Cortex reference designs with Imagination’s upcoming GPU components into a fine-tuned, customized SoC (system-on-a-chip) package.
These enhancements, along with improvements to the iPhone software, are expected to translate into quantifiable improvements in battery life and the overall speed of the iPhone interface and the software that runs on top of it.
Last week, in a conversation with Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, Jobs spoke of the battery-sipping custom chips Apple has built with the acquisition of P.A. Semi. He noted that the newly announced iPad will offer “140-something hours,” or nearly six days, of continuous music playback with the screen off.
“It’s all about the display,” Jobs said of battery life. “Our chips don’t use hardly any power.”
With Apple making its own chips, batteries, and software, it is obvious that they are able to manage the power consumption to an almost ridiculous level. This is merely the beginning. These technologies will continue to get faster, more efficient, and generally better.
Apple is getting serious with it’s products. I would be shocked if Apple didn’t use a custom processor in the next iPhone model. I can’t even begin to imagine what a screamer the next iPhone will be if it has something similar to the A4, if not the A4 itself.
And it just so happens that I’ll be eligible for a new iPhone this summer.
Before I started college, I read a lot of books. I remember one time I was so engrossed in a book that I read all 1,000+ pages in two days. But then, when I began college, my passion for reading books faded as I needed to read more and more dull textbooks.
(Seriously, textbooks are rather dry.)
Sad to say, I haven’t read many books for fun in the past 6 years.
Naturally, I had been intrigued for quite some time about eBook readers. But I’d been leery of dropping so much money on something I had never seen in the real world. I’d read plenty of reviews of folks praising their Kindle, but I wasn’t even sure if it would inspire me to read. So I put it to the back of my mind.
Things were stirred up again when Barnes & Noble announced their Nook eBook reader. I thought the industrial design was superior to the Kindle, and it actually looked like something that may come from beloved Cupertino. But once reviews of the Nook started rolling in, well, things didn’t look as pretty as the pictures. But everyone still loves their Kindle.
For Christmas, my parents gave me a Kindle. (Okay, it’s also for my wife, too.) (But it’s mostly for me.) I have to say, I’ve read nearly every day since then. It’s easy on the eyes, easy to navigate, light yet sturdy, and overall just a great experience.
I have the 6-inch Kindle with international wireless. The text on the e-ink display is crisp and extremely legible. The battery life is amazing. Page turns take no longer than if you were turning a physical piece of paper. I also find it to be a great size for holding while relaxing in a chair or lying on the bed. I actually prefer it to holding a paperback book. Or hardcover, for that matter.
In the “Welcome to Kindle” letter on the device when I turned it on initially, CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos said that one of Kindle’s goals was to get out of the way and let you experience a book. I believe the Kindle does exactly that, and it has, pardon the pun, re-kindled my enjoyment of reading.
If you decide to give Kindle a shot, there’s a handy link in the sidebar to go buy one. Using that link fills my pockets with filthy lucre. So buy a couple, okay?
A week and a half ago, Apple refreshed some of its product lineup for the holidays. The changes included new unibody plastic MacBooks, gorgeous 21.5” and 27” iMacs, updated Airport Extreme and Time Capsule base stations, an aluminum Apple Remote, and the multitouch Magic Mouse. The Magic Mouse instantly became the object of my desire, and I placed an order for one as soon as the store was updated with the new merchandise. Today, it arrived.
This is purely a thing of beauty.
This has to be one of the sleekest designs to ever come out of Cupertino. The bottom is aluminum and the top is a curved blade of plastic. The top shell does depress physically for button clicks, but otherwise buttons do not exist.
The top surface is multitouch enabled. It detects when you want to perform a primary click or secondary click (aka right click) by how your fingers naturally interact with other mice. This function can be reversed via software if you mouse with your left hand.
Scrolling is achievable with a soft flick along the surface. The new software for the Magic Mouse even gives scrolling the visual feedback of momentum, much like the iPhone. (Please, Apple, enable momentum when I scroll with the multitouch trackpad built into my MacBook Pro!)
Swiping two fingers left or right allows you to move backward or forward, respectively, between web pages in a browser, or pages within a document, or items in Cover Flow view in Finder or iTunes.
Inevitably, comparisons must be made to the Magic Mouse’s predecessor, the Mighty Mouse. First of all, the Magic Mouse is only available with wireless bluetooth, whereas the Mighty Mouse had wired and wireless varieties (Apple still sells the wired Mighty Mouse, yet it has been rebranded as the Apple Mouse).
The Magic Mouse is much lighter and thinner than the Mighty Mouse. In fact, even though both contain two AA batteries, the Magic Mouse is on par with the light weight of the wired (thus without batteries) Mighty Mouse.
One stupendous benefit is the lack of the dreaded scroll ball. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the function of the scroll ball, but only when it actually functioned. Due to a poor design decision, there was no way to clean the scroll ball, and it would often gum up and stop working. I managed to sort of clean it with a cotton ball and some water, but cleaning it was at least a twice-weekly event. Scrolling with a touch sensor is much nicer.
Speaking of the scroll ball, here is one nagging difference where the Magic Mouse is lacking. On the Mighty Mouse, depressing the scroll ball acted as a third button, which I had set up to activate Exposé. Also, there was a fourth button on the side that you could squeeze, which I had set up to enable Spaces. The Magic Mouse lacks these buttons, or even a way to access any tertiary function. Perhaps Apple will be able to add in more gestures through software updates. One can hope.
Honestly, I rarely used the squeezable fourth button on the Mighty Mouse, but I used the tertiary button under the scroll ball a lot.
Thankfully, if you have a Mac notebook manufactured since late 2007 or any of the aluminum external keyboards, there is an Exposé button on the F3 key.
All in all, I am actually enjoying the lower profile of the Magic Mouse, as my wrist doesn’t have to bend at all for my hand to conform to it. Clicking is easy, and scrolling feels more natural than ever. The two-finger swipe is a bit tricky yet, but I think I just need to develop the muscle memory for it, like I did with the multitouch trackpads.
The only things lacking are the ability for at least a tertiary function, and I kind of wish the pinch/zoom gesture were available.
I highly suggest giving the Magic Mouse a try at an Apple Store. If you currently use a Mighty Mouse, I’d say overall it is an upgrade.
I’ve embedded some “unboxing” photos in the slideshow below.
Since my second year of college (which was 5 years ago) (crap, I’m getting old), I’ve been using an AirPort Express base station for my home wireless network. Recently, I’d noticed my household was beginning to stretch its limits.
Between several Macs, an iPhone, iPod touch, TiVo, XBox 360, Wii, etc etc and so forth…things were getting crowded for the little AirPort Express, which supports a maximum of ten clients. Also, the AirPort Express just wasn’t transmitting enough to reach the places like the kitchen and bedroom.
A couple days ago I picked up a dual-band AirPort Extreme for our cozy little home. This was quite the upgrade for our network, as we had never realized the 802.11n capabilities of our computers. So now I am running simultaneous 802.11n and 802.11g networks. The iMac and MacBook Pro run on the 5GHz n network and everything else runs on the 2.4GHz g network.
I was curious how well syncing app data from Mac clients to iPhone clients (think 1Password) would work, since the different spectrums appeared as different networks to the Mac. I’m happy to report that the AirPort Extreme allows devices on both networks to interact with each other as if they were on the same network. Everything is absolutely seamless.
It took a grand total of about ten minutes to set up the g and n networks from the unboxing to being up and ready to go.
I even noticed quite the improvement in download speed on the 802.11n network. As illustrated in the image above, I tested my MacBook Pro on both the 802.11g and 802.11n networks using Speedtest.net. The speed difference was just under 7.5 Mb/s! I had never seen results come in above 16.3 Mb/s.
Needless to say, I am very pleased with upgrading to the dual-band AirPort Extreme. It’s a little spendy compared to other dual-band base stations from D-Link and Linksys, but I much prefer to use AirPort Utility to manage my base station than a web browser.
I’d recommend this even to Windows users, but it’s a no-brainer for a Mac house.
Update Oct. 24, 2009: Sure enough, I bought my AirPort Extreme on Saturday, Oct. 17 and Apple goes ahead and updates the darn hardware on Tuesday, Oct. 20. Well, my local-ish (it’s 40-minutes away) Apple Store finally got the new ones in. And thankfully, Apple has a policy where if they update the hardware you just bought within 14 days, you can exchange it.
Since only 3 days had passed, I was golden. I stopped there last night with the now-old-generation Airport Extreme all boxed in its original packaging with the receipt, and the guy helping me did a flat-out exchange. I had been told when I called earlier that I would be charged a 10% restocking fee, but looking at the new receipt, that didn’t happen.
There isn’t much different about this one and the one I picked up last week. In fact, externally, they are identical. Apple says the antenna has been re-engineered. So instead of being a 2x2 antenna it is now a 3x3 antenna. Apple claims this allows 50% better performance and 25% greater range. I ran Speedtest.net again and I had marginal improvement in download speed at 23.02 Mbps, and upload of 0.97 Mbps.
I doubt I’ll realize much difference, but I figured if I am going to have this router for around 5 years or more, I might as well take advantage of getting the latest and greatest since I had the opportunity.
Also, make sure to actually use the disc in the box to install a new version of AirPort Utility. I had v. 5.3.2 from Snow Leopard, but this new base station requires v.5.5, which Apple has not pushed through Software Update yet.
If you’re considering purchasing an AirPort Extreme, flip the box to see the bar code label and look to make sure the part number is MC340LL/A. That’s the freshly re-engineered one.
The other day I upgraded the memory in my unibody MacBook Pro from the stock 2 GB to 4 GB. The kit I selected was the Crucial 4 GB 204-pin PC3-8500 DDR3 1066 MHz. I bought it on Amazon for $58 (the price seems to fluctuate weekly between $55 and $70). This is much cheaper than the $150 Apple wants for a 4 GB upgrade.
The upgrade was drop dead simple. I just had to remove the battery plate, take out 8 screws, and pop the memory in. In fact, the biggest shocker when I opened up my MacBook Pro was that there was a fair amount of dust in the fans. This makes me think I’ll give the internals of my machine a visit every 6 months with the can of compressed air. Another note about the inside of this beast: Wow, it’s gorgeous in there. Geek heaven.
(As luck would have it, I shot this a couple days ago using my Canon G9, and two days later my wife gives me a Kodak Zx1 which shoots in high def. Oh well. Next time.)
Three days ago, Apple held the keynote address of its Worldwide Developer’s Conference, and all I have to say is that it was a Parade of Awesome! That’s all I have to say. You can go about your regularly scheduled browsing now. I’m kidding! Of course I have the interesting highlights for you.
I waited to write this until I had time to watch the keynote video, as I prefer to get my source material first-hand, instead regurgitating all the other blogs. Call me old-fashioned.
The first thing that caught my attention was when Phil Schiller, Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, said that the number of active OS X users in 2007 was 25 million people and that number in 2009 is 75 million users. That is a lot of growth. Apple’s doing pretty well.
This post got pretty long, so I’m inserting a jump here for visitors to the main page.
