Posts Tagged ‘Apple’
Is the time right for Apple to start licensing OS X?
It has always struck me as odd that Apple’s design philosophy inevitably favors form over functionality. In some cases, that strict allegiance to form often compromises what would other be a very useful product, like the MacBook Air. I’m sure a lot of people value the beautiful aesthetics of Apple machines above all else, but I’m not one of them – and I’m not alone. As much as I like the looks of my MacBook Pro, the few extra seams it would take to make the hard drive readily accessible and an extra inch of width on the ExpressCard slot to make it ExpressCard/54 compatible, would be perfectly acceptable tradeoffs to me.
Stubbornly reluctant to produce machines at certain market segments, Apple has been able to maintain its high-end image, partly by always selling high-end hardware. This behavior has emboldened some entrepreneurs to risk legal entanglements by starting up would-be cloning operations. Clearly if Apple doesn’t “…know how to build a sub-$500 machine that isn’t a piece of crap…”, others do. And surely in this economy there is a vast, untapped market for such machines.
Green Tech at the Expo
Green Tech was by no means prominent at Macworld 08, but there was still a pretty good amount on display. Environmental sustainability has become a major concern when it comes to technology products. Computers and most other electronic devices consume lots of energy while they’re living and produce lots of waste when they die. Hazardous waste, in many cases. But nearly all of the major manufacturers have begun thinking through the lifecycle of their products and designing them to have as little an impact on the environment as possible – not only because of the demand for Green Tech in the marketplace, but also because it’s just plain old good business.
One last Best of the Booths
I do believe one final Best of the Booths post is in order.
There was so much to do and see this week, I didn’t even get a chance to take a nap in one of the sleeping pods Pzizz had been kind enough to set up for us.
The Washington Post and the news on the net
If you haven’t ever seen any of the short videos in the onBeing section of WashingtonPost.com, you should do yourself a favor and check them out. They are incredibly funny and profound, yet the idea is simple: People from the Washington D.C. area talking on the subject of being themselves.
The web arm of The Washington Post is one of the most innovative news organs out there. Rob Curley is head of the “skunkworks” team that conceives and builds the newspaper’s creative web presence. He gave a presentation on Thursday at Macworld in which he described himself and his team as “Mac nerds from Kansas trying to save a dying industry from the Internet.” He sees that salvation coming from local and even hyper-local news delivered through a variety of inventive web tools.
Thursday’s Best of the Booths rundown
Chris and I happened by the never-ending table of MacBook Airs and I snapped a few photos of it for you to enjoy. Enjoy.
There’s a lot more pictures of Expo booths after the jump.
The Mac-powered digital studio
The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus made a stop at Macworld Expo 08 and offered tours, plenty of digital music equipment to play with, and a very helpful guy named Nick to talk about their amazing digital studio setup.
Mac Games at the Expo
Mac gamers: the phrase is pretty much a contradiction of terms. Or at least it has been traditionally. There are actually some encouraging signs at this year’s Macworld Expo that the gaming industry is finally coming around to acknowledging Macs.
For one thing, there’s a grand-looking “Mac Games” pavilion. True, it isn’t quite bursting with game demos, but at least there are enough to allow for an entire Mac Games pavilion. They were all supplied by the few game developers that have booths at the Expo, so I’ll just describe the games by company.
Hoo boy: The first day on the show floor
Aaah, there’s nothing quite like cruising the show floor at a big convention. It’s overwhelming, it’s over-stimulating, but it’s tons of fun. In the Expo’s South hall alone you’ve got major software application developers like Microsoft, Adobe, and Google all conducting tutorials and training seminars; you’ve got access to every iPod or iPhone accessory you ever wanted, and about 18 million more that you never knew you wanted, from big names like Samsung and Shure right down to local retailers from all over the country; and of course you’ve got the Apple store as the giant hub of it all.
The MacBook Air’s environmental progress report
My biggest hope was for a truly green Mac, and that hope faired extremely well. No, we didn’t get the first fully recyclable, 100% toxin-free, super-energy-efficient machine, but Jobs had prepared a presentation on the environmental friendliness of the MacBook Air, and he stated that he would deliver an environmental progress report with every product Apple announces henceforth. That is huge: It means Apple has really taken the mandate for a greener Mac to heart, and is committed to being the leading environmentally responsible computer manufacturer they should have been all along.
Keynote announcements
The Macworld Expo 2008 Keynote Address by Steve Jobs has finally come and gone, putting an end to all the speculation. The big news, of course, is that the MacBook Air predictions were nearly spot on.
There was plenty of other news, too, but it took quite a while for the event staff to get the masses in the door and in their seats. So long, in fact, that many of us missed half of the Keynote. The main auditorium was beyond capacity, and so were the rooms playing the Keynote on closed-circuit television. But no one was grumbling. Everyone had come to see a big announcement, and they weren’t disappointed.
Mac-Forums.com Posts
- Test drive impressions 15" vs 17" Macpro
- Two questions considering Mac Mini dvd drive
- Logitech G9 for mac? yes? no? maybe so?
- Entourage database problem when using Time Machine
- Mystery File
- time machine problems
- Bluetooth mouse wont auto-connect after update 10.6.2
- Solidworks users?
- StarCraft Campaign Editor
- Password.
- best way to switch from vista to windows 7
- No further OS X.4 Tiger support
- iPhone now?
- Anyone use wacom bamboo or mte450
- Lagarith video question
