Why mobile phones need to change!

An interesting experiment tonight drove home the point that Steve Jobs made with the introduction of the iPhone which was that the existing manufacturers of mobile phones need to wake up and improve their products.

I decided that I wanted to transfer a couple of files off my Blackberry Curve 8310 to my MacbookPro. Unfortunately, Macs and Blackberry's have never played terribly well together if you looks at the discussion forums at Crackberry.com you'll see numerous posts to this effect. To RIM's credit they have struck a deal with PocketMac to enable users to get a free copy of their software for synching Blackberry's with Mac's. Unfortunately this leaves Mac users behind in the software upgrade cycle since RIM's own desktop applications only run on Windows machines (obviously now with Bootcamp, Parrallels and VMWare we at least have the option of running the app. on an Intel Mac with a Windows install). However, personally I prefer to stick to OSX and would like to see RIM stepup to the plate and more aggressively support the Mac platform.

Regardless I opted to utilize the Bluetooth connectivity on my Curve to transfer files from my Mac. I was able to get the devices to pair and recognize each other. However the one thing that wasn't intuitively clear was how the Blackberry was to receive the file once I initiated the transfer on my Mac. To Steve Jobs' point most of the mobile handset operating systems out in the wild today aren't particularly user friendly or intuitive. Eventually, I was successful and must say that the file transfer was easy once you knew that you have to set the Curve to receive or send via Bluetooth. Maybe there was another option to enable it to automatically accept connections and files from my Mac but it wasn't exactly evident.

In comparing my use of the iPod Touch things operate very much the way you'd expect on a Mac and a user with a little exploring can easily maximize their use of the device. The iPhone has ushered in a new era along with the Touch not only in terms of a touch driven interface but in terms of a highly usable operating system. As we saw by the scrambling this year at the mobile industry tradeshow 3GSM the mobile handset vendors are in catch-up mode. It's interesting that in a 1.0 device Apple has been able to put all of these vendors on the defensive and forced them to face up to the fact that most of the user experiences on mobile devices pre-iPhone were plain awful. Let's hope that this intensified competition will kick-start vendors into actually spending on getting improved user experience for mobile users.

"The Little Kingdom" by Michael Moritz

I just finished reading one of the earliest biographies of Apple and its founders. Former Fortune reporter Michael Moritz was granted access to Apple's inner circle leading up to the 1984 launch of the Macintosh by Steve Jobs. After having read a number of books that cover Apple's history if you're a fan or even interested in the background to Apple's launch this book offers a good perspective. More so than Apple Confidential 2.0 and various biographies on Steve Jobs (e.g., iCon)
The Little Kingdom puts into perspective the role of Apple in the early development of the personal computer industry.
As you work your way through this book, Moritz outlines an interesting portrayal of how the computer industry operated in its infancy. He offers up a more detailed description of Steve Wozniack's background and experiences and how they influenced the design of the Apple I and Apple II. Additionally, he offers perspective from Woz's peers as to his gradual withdrawl from the business in the early 80's. If you're an Apple fan I'd pickup a copy of The Little Kingdom for a quick read to gain some interesting insights into the background. Don't expect a tonne of exciting insights into the workings of Apple relative to other discussions.

Time Capsule - Home Storage & Backup

We've come a long way from the days of the Classic Mac and Fat Mac to where we are today in terms of processor speed, OS reliability, and most of all disk space. Going back to the early 80s I can remember the time when storage was treated as a precious commodity and while I'm glad I don't have to watch every megabyte I use up - I fear that we're heading for trouble. In previous posts I described the rapid pace at which I've been burning through storage space on my MacBookPro.

The good news I see some positive benefits on the horizon:

• TimeMachine - with the release of Leopard OS X now contains a built-in easy to use and configure back-up system. To-date I've been running Leopard and using a TimeMachine back-up with a Western Digital MyBook connected via Firewire 400. At this point I've partitioned the back-up drive in two segments: i) for TimeMachine and ii) for backing up some Audio files. I will say that Time Machine is a bit of a disk hog so depending upon how much data you want to back-up a bigger drive is better.
• TimeCapsule - one of the more interesting announcements from this years MacWorld is the launch of TimeCapsule - essentially a combination wireless router (Airport Extreme) and a built-in harddrive (in either 500GB or 1TB sizes) that enable over the air back-up of any Macs in your home. After checking the prices of 1TB drives at Costco on the weekend it would seem that Apple has the pricing right on this device avoiding the typical "Apple Tax" that Apple fans are forced to pay. The only area of uncertainty on the web at the moment is whether the TimeCapsule drive must be dedicated to TimeMachine back-ups or whether it can be used as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. The consensus at the moment appears to be that its for TimeMachine alone.
  
• Other NAS drives for home use - A number of NAS drives exist targeted at the home market with a number of new devices being launched earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. My thought here is that given the growth in the amount of digital content that we're all generating and wanting to keep at home the idea of a NAS that is a central file store within the house is a great idea. I see both NAS options such as the Drobo or Apple's TimeCapsule as solving the biggest headache for most users which is the need to have an external hard drive plugged into your laptop and the hassle of accessing external drives across multiple machines. It seems clear that wireless connectivity to your back-up drive is definitely the way to go.
  

At this point I still have storage space and time left to pick an appropriate option but the next move upwards in drive size will see me heading the way of a home based NAS.

Disk Warrior For Leopard Released

Good news to those that made the switch as the independent software developers are now catching up with the fall release of Leopard. Apple rushed the final seeds of Leopard through the field meaning that when the Gold Master finally went out in late October the development community was left with next to no time to react. As a result a number of my favorite apps still need to get updates to function properly under Leopard.

The good news for those that utilize Disk Warrior from Alsoft they've released a fully Leopard compatible version of the app. head on over and check it out.

I'm still patiently waiting for a Leopard compatible version of SuperDuper! the great full disk backup utility  but as they say patience is a virtue. Quite frankly while lots of people continue to push the folks at ShirtPocket software for a release of a Leopard version of SuperDuper - I for one am willing to give them time to deliver the quality product we've come to expect from them. Let's face it there is nothing worse than producing a back-up program for critical data that doesn't stand up under fire.

MacHeads The Movie

Just got a heads up on "MacHeads the Movie" a documentary about the Mac community which is due to be released shortly. The movie promises to cover a history of the Mac and features interviews with a number of well known MacHeads including:

Raines Cohen, Co-Founder of the first Macintosh user group BMUG,
Guy Kawasaki, former Apple Evangelist and savior,
Bruce Damer and Galen Brandt, owners of Digibarn Computer Museum,
Shawn King, host of Your Mac Life,
Adam Engst, publisher of the first Apple newsletter,
Leander Kaheny author of Cult of Mac,
Andy Ihnatko Chicago Sun-Times' technology columnist,
Daniel Kottke Mac engineer and the first official employee of Apple Inc,

Having read a range of books on Apple and the development of the Mac this documentary looks like it could offer an interesting twist on the topic of what makes Apple and Mac such icons. Simply put it seems like the team at Chimp 65 Productions is onto the answer which is the community of Mac users. Given that its been the devotion and help of other Mac users that make using the computer far more enjoyable than working on a PC - I'll be interested to see how this documentary comes out.

Testing out Eneloop batteries with Bluetooth Keyboard & Mighty Mouse

If you're like me and have grown weary of swapping out other rechargeable batteries or worse still using disposable regular AA or AAA batteries in your gear this will hopefully offer a solution. Sanyo's Eneloop rechargeable batteries are one solution that I'm currently testing as a way out of my current battery woes. I found that a number of different big name brand rechargeables don't seem to hold a charge terribly well and for a short period I was stuck using Duracell disposables. When they finally gave up I purchased a package of Eneloop's after reading some commentary on the web regarding their performance. Basically Sanyo has developed a brand of rechargeable battery that offers the following claims:

• Longer life with slower drain
• No memory effect meaning that you don't end up with rechargeables that need to be thrown away in less than a year
• Ability to use any quality NimH charger to recharge the batteries.

So far so good - I'll keep you updated with how well the Eneloop's hold up over time.

MacWorld 2008 - High Expectations Lead To A Let Down

Well the keynote came and went on Tuesday with the usual amount of media attention and fanfare. Apple fans walked away with: Macbook Air a new ultra portable laptop, Time Capsule a wireless router/500GB or 1TB backup drive, updates to iPhone and iPod Touch software and the U.S. launch of iTunes Movie Rentals with support from a major new software revision for AppleTV.

Lots has already been written about Macbook Air so I'll point you to a number of the reviews and photo galleries elsewhere. I'd only focus in on three items that are of interest in this laptop for me with regards to the future direction of Apple technology:

• Integration of additional gestures in a Multi-Touch Track Pad. No shock here following the success of the iPhone and iPod Touch expect to see hardware manufacturers seek to include multi-touch technology. Overall the state of advances in the PC market in terms of new user interface has been pathetic at best over the past decade with limited progress. Multi-touch represents a positive step towards improving usability and I'd think we're just at the beginning.
• An optional Solid State Hard Drive (SSD). While it's still very early days for SSDs as a replacement for traditional magnetic media the future is clear. Yes, there is still a massive price gap that needs to be narrowed but I'd expect that we're now on a clear trajectory toward seeing SSDs go mainstream over the next three to four years.
• The exclusion of an onboard optical drive. Apple is helping to lead once again if we think back they made early moves in helping to initially drive 3.5" floppies mainstream in the early 1980s, helped kill floppies off a decade later and now the exclusion of the optical drive on a Macbook Air points the way to the next wave. While we're still years away from seeing the disappearance of CDs and DVDs its clear wireless downloads are the wave of the future. 

TimeCapsule - actually represents another great addition to the product line and while the pricing is a little high it is does not represent the usual excessive Apple tax that exists on other Apple products. Given that we now have TimeMachine built into Leopard and it offers a very capable way to ensure timely protection of your files this is the next step to help ensure you don't lose data. At the moment laptops are finally overtaking desktops and we're seeing Apple innovate to alleviate some of the hassles that exist when you use a laptop as your primary machine. For example, you are forever connecting and disconnecting the Firewire or USB connection to an external hard drive to enable Time Machine to function. TimeCapsule removes that hassle by enabling wireless backup of your data through a combined Airport Express and high capacity hard drive offering home users simple and relatively affordable network attached storage (NAS) to protect the data on all your Macs. The big question for me will be the speed of back-up and any performance issues but clearly wireless backup and central home data storage is the way things are heading over the next five years.

Overall, a successful MacWorld in 2008 but not the blow-out that we experienced in 2007 with the launch of the iPhone. I still expect that 2008 will be a busy year for Apple and Mac users - expect updates to the iPhone with a 3G version or major announcement around the 3GSM Conference being a solid bet, updates to the Mac product line most likely with the MacbookPro and Macbook - presumably getting speed bumps, and later in the year a revision to the iPod lineup with capacity increases for the iPod Touch being a given.

"Apple Confidential 2.0" by Owen Linzmayer

For those that are looking to brush up on their Apple history "Apple Confidential 2.0" is a great resource. Owen Linzmayer lays out a comprehensive examination of Apple from it's founding until early in the current decade. He covers the firm's inception and background on Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack, the Apple I, Apple II, birth of the Macintosh and various models, the Newton and more. Having read a variety of books about Apple and key members of its management team over the years - Apple Confidential does the best job of offering an unbiased view of key events that bring us to where we are today. While there is repetition of some of the famous stories - Linzmayer does a great job of laying out a wide-array of facts about Apple. Even if you've read other Apple books you will be able to find new facts that you didn't know if you read Apple Confidential 2.0.
For Mac fans that would like to know more about the history of some of the most significant developments in Apple's history this is an easy and engaging read. One area for those that are into collecting retro-Mac's Linzmayer does a great job of assembling some useful references including timelines of various Mac models. Overall, if you're into Mac's and want to learn more pick-up a copy of Apple Confidential 2.0 you won't be disappointed.

Leopard - Webclips a Useful New Feature

One useful feature that is included as a native part of Leopard is the ability to build a custom widget that is displayed in Dashboard. In Safari v3.0 a new icon appears in the toolbar
(a pair of scissors with a dotted box) that once clicked on allows you to select an area of the current web page to be monitored. Once you've selected the area you click the ADD button which puts a new Widget on your Dashboard. There are limited formatting options at this point in terms of the type of box that the web clip is displayed in. One thing that would be useful would be the ability to label the Widgets.

Overall, a small feature that previously you needed to use third party software and a couple of hacks to have this functionality. At this point I'm still experimenting with web clips having setup two 1) to monitor the current inventory of refurbished Macs on Apple's online store and 2) to monitor the ongoing auctions of vintage Macs on eBay.

Ditch DVD Player for VLC!

I encountered an interesting issue last night that has converted me to a user of VideoLAN otherwise known as the VLC media player. I'd borrowed a DVD to watch which did have some light scratching on the surface of the disk and when I put it in my Mac the default media player from Apple DVD Player took over. As the disk started to play the scratches conspired to ruin my fun by causing the video to freeze up and ultimately resulting in DVD Player crashing. After several tries I was about ready to throw in the towel on the idea of watching this DVD until I remembered downloading an open source media player called VLC. I ejected the DVD and launched VLC then selected the disc to be played and success! I'm not sure of the reason that VLC was able to play the disc but I'm guessing that the codecs used by VLC enable finer control of the DVD drive. Regardless this experience has converted me to a VLC user.

• To get your copy of VLC check out their website which offers a free open source product with support for Mac OSX Intel, numerous Linux distributions and Windows.

Great moments in the development of the Mac

I've reading and listening to podcasts relating to stories about the development of the original Mac from a number of the original developers. In particular, Andy Hertzfeld lays out a large number of stories in a folksy style that detail development of the hardware and software from the Lisa to the original Mac to the Mac Plus. I highly recommend a visit to Folklore.org to catch-up on the back-story behind the development of some of your favorite classic Macs. If you like the stories checkout Macintosh Folklore Radio podcasts where Derrick Warren reads a number of these great stories.

Back-up Back-up Back-up

Just a reminder now that we're in 2008 take a couple of minutes and beyond your regular back-up routine. My suggestion is that you should take the time to burn your current iTunes and iPhoto libraries to DVDs and store them in a safe place at home or even better off-site. DVDs are dirt cheap with Boxing Week deals easily had so there is no excuse not to back-up that valuable data.