2010 MacBook Air
Image via Wikipedia
So last month I was very excited and upset about the changes Apple are making to their subscription model for the iPad. Steve Jobs has since made an effort to clarify that these changes should not apply to single item purchases – such as Kindle – or Software As A Service products – think Dropbox. Only time will tell whether Apple decides to do the right thing by its customers.
This month I wanted to stay with Apple – but to have something a little more positive to say! This year was renewal year for my work computer – and I decided to go for an iMac with a MacBook Air rather than a MacBook Pro this time. This article is about the MacBook Air.
To stay within budget I was left with little option but to go for the least expensive model off the shelf. This is the 11 inch with 2Gb of RAM and a 64Gb onboard Solid State Drive. It is worth noting that if you choose to buy a MacBook Air you MUST order it in the configuration you can live with because both the RAM and the SSD are soldered to the logic board and cannot be upgraded later.
To be honest I was a little nervous at first that the Air would be little more than a toy with what are today considered such low specs. I had read quite positive reviews – but to be honest they did not prepare me for the stellar performance of this little machine! You certainly wouldn’t want to have it as your only machine if you have any interest at all in editing home movies – but if you travel a lot and your needs centre around the web and office applications it really is perfect.
One thing that really surprised me was how adequate 64Gb is as a drive when you remove all of your media. My iTunes and iPhoto libraries now sit on a small external drive – which works perfectly well when needed. I have a reasonable selection of applications on the Air – including Microsoft Office 2011 and several lightweight web design and graphics tools. Whilst most of the Adobe Creative Suite would probably run reasonably well I have not tried because it would simply take too much of my precious space. The screen is a tiny revelation – whilst small it is very high-res and is fairly comfortable to look at for extended periods.
Visually the Air is a stunner. Until you close it up it is hard to believe just how small this thing is. It is actually lighter than an iPad – and yet is a full blown computer with none of the restrictions of iOS. I cant help but think how great it would have been to have one of these when I did my backpacking Grand Tour…
So why does the Air perform so much better than expected? In my opinion it is largely due to the SSD – followed closely by Apple’s ability to ensure maximum compatibility between all installed components. I have a SSD’s installed in all of my computers now and the difference it makes to performance is astonishing.
All up I would highly recommend the MacBook Air. I find myself using it a great deal more than I expected to. In hindsight I do wish I had opted for more RAM and the bigger SSD – maybe next time…
The MacBook Air is available from Apple starting from $1199.
Apple – Rotten To The Core
Image by ultraBobban via Flickr
Apple have announced that from the end of March they will be “enforcing” an existing rule that will have profound implications for owners of iOS devices. Personally Im hoping that an outbreak of common sense will occur before then driven by what I anticipate will be an avalanche of bad press in the coming weeks.
Essentially what Apple plan on doing is blocking apps which allow access to content purchased outside of the App Store unless users can also purchase that content inside of the app or the App Store where they can reap 30% of each transaction. They have also said that newspaper publishers will not be allowed to provide a free iPad version to print subscribers. This will have serious ramifications for ebook, newspaper and magazine apps as well as potentially video subscription apps such as Netflix.
On the face of it this doesnt sound so bad – but I daresay that Apple will not take to kindly to providers marking up prices by 30% to accommodate this impost so where margins are tight content providers may be squeezed out of the game.
Ultimately I think Apple have forgotten one major point. Unless Im mistaken I bought my iPad – at great expense – and as far as I’m aware this means I own it and therefore have the right to decide what goes on it.
I was prepared to put up with the closed ecosystem argument as long as it was to provide a better user experience by keeping crashing, nasty apps out of my hair – but this move is just greed. As one ebookstore – I think Kobo – commented, Apple’s 30% cut is the entire profit margin given by the publisher – so why bother…
Also as a 7-day print subscriber to the Sydney Morning Herald I have enjoyed free access to the iPad version – and why not? Why should I have to pay twice for the same content? As far as I know the data is going from the servers of the SMH provider Newspaper Direct to the iPad that I OWN and I’m also paying bandwidth for at my end. Frankly – what business is it of Apple? Surely this is restraint of trade – if not from the sellers point of view, from mine. These are restrictions that were not in place when I bought the device and had I known this was the going to be the case I would not have.
What happened to the days when Apple would have encouraged good content as a way of selling the hardware? Again, this is just pure greed on Apple’s part and as a loyal Apple customer of many years I’m bitter and disappointed and they have lost a free advocate – heavens only knows how many people have Apple gear now on my recommendation.
At the moment Android is less polished than iOS – but the Motorola Xoom with Android 3.0 Honeycomb launching soon is looking far more likely to get my next discretional dollars than the iPad 2…
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iPad – From An Apps Perspective
- Image via Wikipedia
I have been struggling for some time to write a meaningful article about the iPad. When it comes to the device itself there has been so much press that little remains to be said. Is it, as Steve Jobs proclaims, ‘Wonderful and Magical’? I think so. Whilst there are shortcomings, such as lack of Flash, I have not really noticed this as an issue in real terms. That said I would REALLY like to be able to watch ABC iView or any of the other TV Catch-Up services on it!
It crossed my mind that a good approach to writing an article would be to relate my experience of taking it with me on a holiday to the USA and how it would manage as a laptop substitute. I should clarify that I did have to bring a laptop for work – but aside from using it to download photo’s onto, it did not see the light of day. I would not have even needed this if it had not been for the iPad’s camera connection kit being sold out months in advance!
Connectivity wise I have the WiFi only iPad. As I already had a pocket WiFi hotspot for all my other gadgets, it seemed pointless to pay extra for the iPad and pay monthly for another data plan. In the US i was reliant on free WiFi which I was able to access from McDonalds and hotel reception areas. Since my trip Starbucks offers free and easy WiFi across the US and Canada.
I was concerned before departure that the battery, while good, would not make it across the Pacific to San Francisco. I needn’t have worried. Most of my use was reading books (Kindle App), magazines (Zinio) and various other documents (Goodreader) and listening to some music and podcasts. On arrival I still had about 50% battery left. On the way back the story was much the same except that I also watched a movie on the iPad.
In the US I had no trouble keeping up with my email. The Mail app is very nice and typing is not a bother in small doses. I have the iPad office apps (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) and they work well for dealing with attachments. A variety of news apps kept me informed (Bloomberg, ABC and Early Edition). Using PressReader I was even able to read my Sydney Morning Herald daily. The native ‘The Australian’ app is not bad
- but still needs polish. I was even able to listen to Australian radio stations using WunderRadio.
If I needed access to any of my work documents they were all safely stored online and accessible from Dropbox. Notes in Evernote. If necessary I could access the work server via remote desktop and work on it as if I was there by using iTap RDP.
As a games platform the iPad excels and Nintendo/Sony would have to be worried, especially when you consider a top end game on the iPad is less that $15 on average. On the games front Plants vs Zombies will keep you busy for hours…
The value of the iOS came home to me after 3 days in Yosemite with no connectivity (Yes – I did suffer withdrawal!). We ate at a redneck diner just outside the park – which funnily enough offered WiFi). I had my iPhone with me, was able to check my email and fix a minor crisis in Australia.
Until next month…
Dropbox
- Image via CrunchBase
In the past we have looked at SugarSync as a tool for online backup and file.
Lately though I have made a switch to another service called Dropbox. Whilst it is similar, there are many features of Dropbox that make it more useful for offsite backup and collaboration.
Setting up Dropbox is pretty easy. Sign up for an account – free for a 2Gb starter plan – and then download and install the required software. The software is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and even iPhone – so there are no limitations by platform.
Once installed you will have a Dropbox folder and anything saved into this folder will be automatically uploaded and saved into your online, secure, space. The way I set this up was to move my entire documents folder into the Dropbox. It took a bit of fiddling to get everything pointing to the right place – but once done all of my work documents are transparently saved online.
If you have several machines you can install Dropbox on all of them and your files will be kept magically in sync. It is worth noting that somehow the software is clever enough to only sync the parts of the file that changes – reducing file transfer times and data usage. Also – it knows if the computers are on the same network and sends the files direct, rather than up to the Internet site and back down again.
There are a couple of elements to file sharing. First, if you have a large file you need to send as a one-off you can drop it into your Public folder and grab a download link which can be easily emailed. Secondly – and this is the exciting bit! If you are collaborating with a colleague you can share to them a whole folder of files – although to do this you must both be Dropbox members. The folder will be available locally on both computers and any changes made by either party are automatically synchronized to the other user.
If you make a mistake the default Dropbox plans come with 30 days of version control – ie every version created by any small change is kept for 30 days. There is an option to extend this out to unlimited.
In terms of pricing – for many users 2Gb will be enough and is free. The smallest paid account is 50Gb and comes in at US$99 per year. The option to add unlimited versioning is called ‘Pack-Rat’ and is an extra US$39.95 a year. In summary this is a very good service offering peace of mind and easy collaboration.
With luck next month will see an iPad for review!
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Pogo Sketch
- Image by Richard Clement via Flickr
The Pogo Sketch is a stylus designed to work with todays capacitive touch screen devices. The tip (described well by Leo Laporte as a ‘puffball’) is a spongy material that mimics the action of the finger tips on the screen. It is very effective when gloves – such as surgical gloves – have to be worn so the touch interface would not otherwise work.
The Pogo Sketch also works well with the Touch Trackpad of the latest generation MacBook and MacBook Pro computers, In fact the company that makes the stylus, Ten One Design, also make a piece of software called Autograph which allows you to sign documents on your Mac.
Similar to Autograph is the iPhone application Zosh. You can email PDF documents to yourself at your Zosh account (account is free, app is AU$3.99) which can then be downloaded to your iPhone, signed and emailed on. If you have been keeping a fax machine just to send on signed documents you can finally lay it to rest.
In summary, whilst you might not need the Pogo Sketch on every occasion it is handy when working in a clinical environment – or to help sign electronica documents using Zosh service.
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Apple – Great Products, But Pray They Don’t Go Wrong…
- Image via Wikipedia
SEE UPDATE BELOW…
As those of you that read Dr Gadget just may have picked up by now I’m something of an Apple fanboy. I switched to Mac November 2004 and since then we have had 3 iMac’s, an iBook, 2 white MacBooks and a MacBook Pro. This is not to mention the umpteen iPods, the three iPhones and the AppleTV. Our house is a veritable shrine to Apple. In addition I have been a keen evangelist for Apple and have converted many friends and family resulting in tens of thousands of dollars more sales.
Early in 2005 the logic board (Mac’s name for the motherboard) failed on my home iMac and it took a month to get repaired. Whilst this was a nuisance, I had an iBook for work and so it did not impact me there. Last year, however, as laptop performance converged with desktop I decided to consolidate on to one machine and for the first time invested heavily in a MacBook Pro. The machine cost nearly $5000 – and I took out the Applecare warranty for an additional sum in excess of $500 – to me a small fortune. My belief was that this is a business level machine and that the Applecare plan would ensure prompt service if I had any issues.
On Monday night my Mac died – refusing to boot at all. I was not unduly concerned having a Time Machine backup with all of my data for the last three months. Additionally we have some family friends who run an Apple Certified service business and who I knew would do their best to speed up any fix.
I was mortified today to receive a phone call from them to let me know that problem was again the logic board and that Apple were out of stock and would not be receiving new stock until the 10th of October. This meant that with the best will in the world I would not be getting back my machine until somewhere near the 15th… three more weeks of running the Aspen IT and web infrastructure with a Lenovo netbook – ouch.
Aghast I called Apple Customer Support and after being transferred around the world three times a very nice young man assured me he would try and speed things up and would call me back in a day or two. I do feel a bit sorry for these call centre folks – he copped a real tongue lashing from me. I put my case that when paying through the nose for a professional machine – and extra for the warranty – Apple had a responsibility to hold stock of spare parts. Do they anticipate that customer’s can keep a spare $5000 computer in case their main machine breaks down?
So I don’t know what will happen next. I have ordered a Dell laptop with better specifications that my Mac for about a quarter of the price. It even includes a free upgrade to Windows 7!! Perhaps the time has come to switch back?
UPDATE: Well I guess I had better stop complaining about Apple now. I received a call from Apple Customer Service and they are replacing my Macbook Pro with a brand new machine. They took on board my comments and accepted my position and did the right thing. Way to go Apple!
iPhone 3GS and Snow Leopard Announced
- Image via CrunchBase
This week has seen a swag of new goodies coming from Apple announced at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The one that will undoubtedly get the most attention is the new iPhone- the 3GS.
It is identical in appearance to the current model which means that current peripherals will still work. Inside there are some significant additions though – a faster processor, more memory, a better camera, voice control and a compass to aid GPS navigation. It will come with the new iPhone OS 3.0 which will also be available to existing iPhone users from June 17th as a no cost upgrade.
If you’re a MobileMe subscriber, one excellent new feature allows you to locate your phone on a map if lost, send a message with your contact details, or if unrecoverable, you can remotely wipe all of your valuable data.
Apple have also refreshed the entire range of MacBook Pro laptops with 7 hour batteries and announced that the next version of the OSX operating system, Snow Leopard, will be available from September. It will focus on optimizing and refining the existing features and promises significant speed increases across the board. Upgrading from Leopard is a quite reasonable US$29.95.
iPhone 3G First Impressions
- Image via Wikipedia
Okay, I admit it, I’m a geek and an early adopter! Usually this simply means I end up paying more to access technology early. With the iPhone 3G, I am beginning to long for a return to my Nokia N95… Now don’t get me wrong. As a gadget, the iPhone isn’t so bad. I am enjoying playing with the applications from the iTunes App Store, and as long as I am on a Wi-Fi network at home or in the office, I get good results. Leave the office and rely on 3G and the problems start – poor signal, sometimes no service and slow download speeds.
Recent head-to-head studies have suggested that the problem is more with the networks than the device itself, with the worst carrier in the world having been identified as Optus. No prizes for guessing which carrier I am with!
My theory is that because Optus offered the best data plans in Australia they have garnered the lions share of the iPhone 3G business, putting undue (and I hope temporary!) stress on their network. Few complaints seem to have been received from Telstra customers. This could be because they have so few customers due to initially high data prices, or related to their operating on a different frequency.
In summary I would recommend holding off on the purchase of an iPhone until the dust settles a bit more. Apple has some imminent updates at the time of writing that may help with signal strength issues as well as rumoured iPod updates. Next month we will take a look at some of the potential benefits of QR codes
MobileMe
- Image via Wikipedia
MobileMe is the new service from Apple to replace their .Mac online service for Macintosh users. Launched with the new iPhone to much fanfare, it may well represent Apple’s most painful product introduction. It seems Apple underestimated the demand on the service when the new iPhone was launched, and existing .Mac users were switched across. For some users this caused a 2 week period of intermittent outages. Personally, I found that things were working within about 48 hours, and given the scale of the transition, I felt this was acceptable. Apple has given all users an extra month free as compensation.
So what is MobileMe? It was initially promoted as ‘exchange for the rest of us’ offering Push – or instantly delivered – email to your iPhone. It also transparently synchronises contacts and calendar entries between multiple computers and iPhones on an account (Mac or PC Outlook). Make a change on one and it is rapidly reflected across to the others. At this stage, the desktop sync is every 15 minutes, so Apple has temporarily withdrawn the term Push.
Additionally, you get a beautiful suite of web applications mirroring the Mac desktop mail, contacts and calendar experience. These are so well executed it is hard to remember they are running in a browser. You also have access to a 20Gb online hard disk to allow offsite backup and file access, plus beautiful web galleries to store your photos and videos.
Is it worth it? Yes, if you have a Mac, although it is expensive. It integrates so well into the system and iLife applications that it is worth the $119 a year. On a PC, I’m not so sure. There are other less expensive options available. If there are a few of you, it may be worth considering a family pack for $180. This gives one master account and four sub accounts with 5Gb of storage.
More information on MobileMe can be found at www.me.com.
iPhone 3G
- Image via CrunchBase
On 10 June 2007, we had a glimpse into the future of computing when the new 3G iPhone was launched at the Apple World Wide Developers Conference.
By Christmas, iPhone 3G is likely to be THE ‘must have’ gadget for the cafe crowd everywhere – but the real excitment should be for what is happening behind the scenes – third party applications and Apple’s new MobileMe service.
Several medical applications were demonstrated during the launch presentations, including anatomy training and scan viewing. The iPhone also has a built in GPS which works with WiFi to accurately triangulate location opening up potential for location based services that we cannot even imagine at this stage.
One of the obvious areas of use for the iPhone is in the hospital environment. With integrated WiFi and a fantastic interface for image/video and document browsing, the iPhone lends itself to accessing patient records, X-rays and scans. Add to this, MS Exchange compatible email, web browsing, training via podcast (audio or video) – PLUS music for downtime – and you have a device that will be hard to leave in the store.
See you next month for a review of MobileMe.
The iPhone will be available from 11 July via Vodafone or Optus
