iMedia

ok… it has certainly been a while since I wrote on this blog, but no time like the present to return!

Why now? Well… my friends… this time I am again complaining of the media. And this goes far beyond just the hype machine. I mean, HELLO??? Occupy Wall St coverage? ANYONE? I digress.

This is actually about the newest iPhone.

Seriously cannot believe how under impressed people are with the newest iPhone. Why?? Because it DOES NOT LOOK DIFFERENT! That is the ONLY similarity between the 4 and the 4s. Why are people so mad about the design factor? Because our rotten and disgustingly over hyping media pumped you all up. This product is easily Apple’s best phone offering. Strong, FAST, Worldly, AMAZING camera, CRAZY BAD ASS Voice Recognition… Siri-ously!

I must run but those are the words I have thus far. I will be writing much more often from now on.. I promise. No, really… I will!

Hard to iMagine

Update: Wow…it has been a while. Interesting to revisit this after using the since day 1 of the originals release! I was pretty right, I think… no?

Well, as the final weeks start to roll by before the launch of the mythical iPad, and the pre-orders start pouring in, one wonders just how many people out there are seeing the upside of owning one. I completely over-exhausted my words on the day after the initial announcement of the device, yet I find myself wanting to express more about it. The possibilities for ways the iPad can be used are seemingly limitless. So I just felt like I should throw a few out there and see what all of you think you could use one for.

Talking Points

Communication is the most obvious place to start. I have heard, over the past two months, far too many times about the iPad being “nothing more than a giant iPod Touch.”, which just is not the case. How much easier would it be to type and email on a 10″ high resolution screen? Especially with the new email app designed for the tablet, I would say IMMENSELY easier. Just iMagine how much faster and more accurately you could type on a much larger on-screen keyboard. Let alone how much easier it will be to read what you are typing, then add the ability to see your email as a whole while you do so. This is a no brainer for written communications.

What about the fact that there s no phone?? Ahhhhh, but have we absolutely all forgotten about VOIP? You could easily make calls with apps the likes of Skype. The iPad has a built in microphone and speaker, not to mention a headphone jack as well. Yeah, there is no video for video chats, but how much do you actually video chat with people anyway?

Rack ’em Up!

There are no doubts, at least in my mind, that the iBook app will be a HUGE success for Apple. Last Friday Apple mentioned a couple of key ingredients for the success of the app and accompanying store. First one would be the addition of a screen lock button. What this lovely little button does is lock the screen in position so you can still tilt the iPad a bit in any direction, or pass it around, without having the screen constantly changing from profile to landscape modes. If you have ever passed and iPhone around to show a photo or video to someone you should know what I mean.

The second thing that was announced is that once your eyes grow tired of reading a book, or you need to do something else while you are reading, you can press a button and have the book read to you by the iPad. This is a sweet addition to the device as you can still keep your mind on track with the book you are reading and still manage to make yourself some food in the meantime. One must eat! Obviously this is not a feature limited to merely making some food… but you get the picture.

Next thing that will no doubt be a game changer for travelers and publishers alike, is the possibility of getting your magazine fixes without having to lug around a ton of magazines. (This idea really struck me when my Aunt came to visit from Long Island last week. With her she was carrying at least 5 extra pounds of magazines?!)The iPad will never gain an ounce of extra weight, regardless of how many magazines you put on it. Alone, that is worth the price of admission. Then you can add to that by realizing the way that magazines can enhance their content. You are no longer limited to static images and formats. The publishers can add video, web links, slideshows and enhanced navigation to their offerings and thereby make the experience for you and I much much much more immersive and engaging. It’s a win win scenario for all parties involved.

iMage-in

While many many people are crying about the iPad not having a camera, being both a photographer and someone in live with his photographer girlfriend, I am beyond excited to work with the the photo app and the Apple camera and card reader dock attachments. For one thing, the pictures will look fantastic on that 10″ screen, making it very easy to show others the pictures. Also one would be able to carry their portfolio around with them and show it to potential jobs without having to lug around a 5-10 pound physical portfolio. This alone has HUGE potential.

Then throw in the camera attachment and card reader attachments and you have yourself a wide open field of possibilities. You could easily shoot your pictures and then import them to the iPad where you can really check the image out. You can dump the photos to your iPad quickly and free up the card for more shooting. Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, one could feasibly  use the iPad for tethered shots. Which would make framing and composition much much easier than a view finder or a 3″ lcd on the back of a camera.

I, for one, do not actually want to use a camera on the iPad. I mean I have an iPhone for point and shoot photos. Plus I have a DSLR for taking very high resolution photos. No need for their to be a low resolution camera on the iPad itself. Have you ever tried taking a perfectly still image with the iPhone? It is rather hard, especially in lower light settings to get a perfectly clear photo. Now imagine trying to steady a 10″ device with the same camera built in… eek!

The Appsolute Truth

The real, yet to be seen, value of the iPad lies with the App developers out there. They are the real window into the realm of possibilities for the device. With much more screen real estate, faster performance, larger keyboard, and higher resolution screen at their disposal, the sky is the limit. Already Apple themselves have shown what is possible by making iWork a native iPad app. This pops open the idea of actually getting serious work done, on the go, with a lightweight touch screen device.

I cannot say enough about this magnificent device, and I have yet to even hold one in my own hands!

So, who has already pre-ordered the iPad out there?

Who plans on waiting until they hear more about it?

Who plans on passing on it entirely?

feel free to chime in!

Too iPad, or not too iPad, that is the question!

Wow what a week of Apple fantasy and fury!! It’s been a long while since I sat down to blog about anything, yet this subject positively SCREAMS out for it!

So, after months of unbelievable science fiction worthy hype around the fabled tablet machine from Apple, that day has finally come. It comes in the form of the iPad, a rather unique take on a tablet computer. Where does one begin when one hasn’t even seen or touched one in person?

That, my friends is quite simple! One starts with the insane amount of web based, flittering and fuming, reactions to the embodiment of the hype. I am absolutely flabbergasted by the outpouring of lambasting and bashing that is happening online. I can’t recall there ever being such visceral reactions to a device…. oh wait yes I can! The comments and articles I have read in the past 24 hours are EXACTLY the same reactions that were to be found during, at least, the 24 hours following the announcement of another “destined to fail”, “no Flash” having, “typing on glass”, “no 3G!?!” having device known as the iPhone. You remember that thing that made it nowhere, changed nothing and left people feeling cheated?!

The iPad is, almost literally, no less game changing a device than the original iPhone, or iPod touch for that matter.

First Thoughts

Being human as the rest of you out there, I am certainly not immune to the hype, rumors and “analytical theory” that always creeps up around an Apple media event. What will it be? What will it do? What will it look like? what is it?? Naturally, being that I am an Apple Certified Consultant and Technician, I was immensely intrigued, if not ludicrously excited about the infamous tablet device that was possibly headed our way yesterday morning (Jan 27th, 2010). This thing was, according to all of the above mentioned sources, going to change the world! Yet I have learned one thing about Apple events from the past, which is to keep myself grounded in expectations. Yet the hype machine was in FULL blast leading up to the event yesterday here in San Francisco. They had hit an all time high of hype this time.

Now, when the event finally rolled around, I was practically foaming at the mouth in anticipation. I could not wait to see what would unfold. So I saddled up to my MacBook with a cup of coffee awaiting the “live-blogging” of the event to begin. (Honestly, what I do not get, AT ALL, is why there is no live video coverage of the events. In this day and age and with Apple’s media strength, why must we rely on people blogging with, if you are lucky, still images of the item(s) in question?) There I was all ready and eager to read away. So I fired up Safari and headed to my regular Mac news sites with several tabs open, one for each site. Even a couple of tabs open for the likes of the New York Times and SF Gate to chime in. I was READY!

What happened next was ultimately frustrating. They all seemed to be starting nice and smooth before the event, which was ok. Then the event began, and that’s when the troubles began across the board! This, if I am not mistaken, is 2010, is it not?? So my main question was, why is the entirety of the Mac news world having SUCH a difficult time getting this info out. What I noticed immediately is that a few of the heavy hitters were using the same “Live Event” web software to do their blogging, and it wasn’t working for ANY of them. The system completely choked. Then there were the less than immensely popular sites I check out that were using their own servers for the live blogging. The problem there was that the servers they were using could not handle the kind of volume that was needed for this event, and they too choked HARD. I found myself yelling at my screen, switching between Firefox and Safari to no avail, and switching between the three Macs in my home, again to no avail

The big savior of the morning for me was Engadget, those guys had it going smooth as silk with great images popping up at a furious rate. They did a hell of a job keeping up with the volume and the system barely hiccuped with the volume. So a huge thanks go out to the folks at Engadget for their coverage, although I could have done without their opinions on what was happening  on stage. Overall though I rather enjoyed their coverage.

The i—WHAT??

On to the big event, “the Latest creation”, The iPad. Hmmmmmmmm what a curious name they chose?! I was really digging the name iSlate that the rumor mills had made up for it, but no they went with the iPad. In itself it is not a horrible name, matter of fact it really seems to fit naturally with their naming convention of their portable devices. What struck me initially was that it was awfully close to iPod, which I inevitably called it several dozen time over the past 24 hours. iPod has been a part of our culture since 2001 and it’s name just rolls right off of your tongue without effort. Needless to say I am on the fence about the name.

Just to make a quick observation about the comments and a few articles I have read out there, I must say the following. One thing that never even came close to entering my mind was that the name iPad would be synonymous with a feminine hygiene product, the maxi pad. I mean I suppose I could see how maybe a woman would catch that before a tech hungry guy would. However, this has led to an enormous amount of comment posting that is, to say the least, in excusably immature. It really seems like 14-year-old boys have taken over the comment boards on most articles about this unique device. Could we maybe try to at least act like adults on these things?? Ahhh well, maybe I am just turning into an old man. I digress.

I waited for… THIS!?

All naming, commenting and hyping aside, the event finally rolls on smoothly. Upon first seeing the iPad I was, of course, not surprised at the sheer beauty of the design. The iPad is without a doubt stunningly gorgeous! Yet I could not help, initially, thinking that it definitely looked like a large iPod Touch with an awkward black bezel around the bright and beautiful screen. I thought, “Wow, what a waste of screen space?!” Mind you I only had still images of the thing just as the rest of your out there. Then I said to myself “just wait to see what it does.” So that I did, I waited for the specs of the device itself, I waited for demos of what the great Hype machines out there were touting, a mashup of Mac OS X Snow Leopard and the iPhone OS. I waited for mind altering software to be present on the iPad…. I waited!

The first half of the presentation was all about the Web Surfing, which was a nice thought. (Again there was no way to see how it actually worked by looking at still images on a blog.) Then Steve talked about the email, and I was rather pleased to see that they had truly redone the mail interface from the iPhone/iPod Touch. To me this was all very nice, yet I could only think “Yeah, OK we get it, It’s is a beautiful web experience. NEXT!!” My impatience was setting in strong at this point. And then the stills of Jobs lounging in a chair on stage demoing the iPad started rolling in. Cool but kind of odd. (Jobs looks like a skeleton, by the way, definitely to be expected considering his recent health problems. Yet he definitely had more color than he had the past few times we had seen him.)

Next Jobs introduced Scott Forstall to talk about the SDK (Software Developers Kit) and the App Store and what they meant to the iPad. I thought, “Now we are getting somewhere!” So the iPad could handle “nearly all apps on the App Store,” awesome, great news indeed. The stills, however, were showing the apps on this big black rectangle with the apps running in their native iPhone screen size…. kind of lame looking really. Although it did give you a sense of the size of the iPad itself. Then came the pixel doubling effect available to all iPhone apps, which make the apps fill the screen of the iPad, a nice touch indeed. That is until you see a text based app like FaceBook in the pixel double mode, the effect makes the text look exceedingly large and awkward. Mind you this is all still being seen by me through still images on a blog, but i got the idea.

Here I am 45 minutes into this event and all I could think was, ” I waited for… THIS!?” A big iPod Touch!?!?!? I also rolled through many of the sentiments expressed by the angry commenters out there. Such as “No Camera?!?!?!?”, “No Flash Support?!”, “Where is Snow Leopard on this Thing????” I was steaming myself up beyond belief. I thought, “this is no tablet computer at all, just a big ol honkin iPod Touch. WTF?? “This is the revolutionary tablet computer sent from the mouth of God to the hands of Steve Jobs??” HA!! what a waste, I thought.

The Game Changing Moment(s)

The next people to show up on stage were four App developers that had been asked to demo what they had been able to put together for the iPad in just 2.5 to 3 weeks. This was now starting to get interesting. First up was The New York Times, and what a lovely job they did on the App for the iPad. I have the iPhone app already, and many times throughout the day I will jump over to the site for news. Both of which are excellent experiences. This iPad app is already shaping up to be quite the over the top experience for readers. (Again I am still in still images on a blog here.)

Then came Gameloft, a company that has about 60 apps on the App store as it is for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Not only that but I own 6 of their titles on my iPhone and LOVE every one of them. These guys do typically derivative titles based on many popular games for the X-Box, PlayStation…etc. They do them so beautifully, that you end up forgetting you are on a tiny iPhone screen, and you become fully immersed in the worlds they create. Love them! So I was very excited to know that Apple featured them as an iPad developer. From the stills I saw, the game  looked SWEET! (Did I mention I only had stills on a blog to go by?? hahahahaha!)

Next up was the folks over at MLB.com to show the Baseball game they worked on for the iPod. I am not really a fan of sports in general, but I know enough about them to get by. That being said, their offering looked wonderful, incredibly well done. The graphics looked very nicely polished and the game play, I imagined was just as nice. They had even mentioned that you could get live playbacks of the game while still in the game itself. Very nice use of the screen real estate! Like I said though, I am no sports fan, so whatever.

Finally the people from the legendary gaming house EA sports popped up to demo their work in the form of a car racing game. Again, not a huge sports fan, but I looooove me some driving game. This one appears to be no slouch either. But that was my only opinion as you cannot tell what they, or any, of the developers mentioned here did with the interaction and general feel of the products with still images.

Jobs then popped back into the limelight with the introduction of iBooks and the iBook store. Simple idea, you download books from the iBook store right to the iPad and they instantly show up an the graphical bookshelf within a small time frame. Then you tap a book to open it up. There are definitely other options for book reading out there, like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook. Yet in my opinion they are severely limited and awkward things to use. Plus they are primarily in black and white only. From the images I saw the books look AMAZING in the iBook app. They actually look like a printed book right down to the pages and book bindings. When you turn the iPad to landscape mode you see both pages of the book in full glorious color. They have also included two buttons where you can skim chapters and also change the size of the font. A lovely design and a great way to read a book!

What came next was what really shined through as making this iPad stand apart from the iPhone/iPod Touch. Phil Schiller took the stage to talk about an Apple App worked on specifically for the iPad, iWork. I personally find the suite of programs indispensable on the Mac. I do all of my business writings and documenting with it. I find that it is a vastly greater user experience than the dominant, only because 95% off all businesses use it and are afraid of moving away from it, MS Office. On the Mac, in my not-s0-humble-opinion, iWork is the only way to go for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Though I will admit that it not really suitable for everyone’s needs.

Phil told us that the iWork team completely redesigned the entire suite specifically for the iPad, and boy did they ever! From what I could tell at that point yesterday, Apple’s team had truly outdone themselves! The suite looked amazing and supposedly worked as smooth as you could ever imagine with the touchscreen of the iPad. This suite, to me, was what made the iPad more of a workhorse than the iPhone/iPod Touch. Bravo!! Finally!!

The Specs

Naturally, as a Mac Tech and Consultant I was ever so excite to hear about the innards of the iPad. I must say that I was a bit disappointed at how little time they spent talking about the actual specs on stage. The website has much greater detail if you are into that sort of thing, and I am! What Jobs did say though was rather intriguing. He casually said that the chip that makes the iPad move was “our own custom silicone” and barely touched on what that means. What it means, though, is that early last year Apple acquired a company called PA semi, which made processors, and called it their own. Thus the A4 Apple 1ghz chip was born, and it’s the heart of the iPad. It handles the processing, the graphics, the Wi-Fi and the accelerometer all in one little chip. Quite impressive I would say.

The screen is a 9.7″ capacitive touch surface, backed by LED and ISP technology. That means that it is less power hungry, brighter and has a a very wide viewing angle. The trade off on the shape of the iPad is that instead of a 16:9 aspect ratio (what you might find on your flat-screen TV), they went with a 4:3 aspect ratio (what you would find on all older TVs). I am not sure that is a bad thing, otherwise Apple would have had to make the iPad a much more awkward device to hold and use. The glass they went with is similar to that of the iPhone 3GS in that it is oleo-phobic, meaning it repels oils on our fingers and faces making it easier to clean.

The iPad will ship in six different flavors. First there are three sizes of storage, 16gb, 32gb and 64gb. You can get these three sizes with two different options either with Wi-Fi only or with Wi-Fi and 3g built in. nice enough options, yet I would have liked to see a built in SD card slot to expand the storage options. However, we all use iPhones/iPod Touches with the same, or smaller amount of storage built in and that suits most of us just fine. Especially considering that most Apps are very small in size. Media that we put on the devices are what consume the most amount of space.

The more interesting and thoroughly exciting part of the announced specs was without a doubt, the PRICE!! Most “analysts”, as well as the press were expecting it to be priced at $1000, as did I. Then Steve drops the entry price of $499!!!!! This, of course is for the 16gb option with Wi-Fi only, still a fantastic price indeed! Then if you want to add 3G to the iPad you simply tack on $130 to each model. The thing about the 3G is that the service here in the US will be handled by…  wait for it… you guessed it Verizon, shoot actually it’s AT&T. Which you may know from my blog post, I am NO fan of. Although I must admit that the 3g here in SF has definitely improved since my posting about them. The two things that make being tied to AT&T again are the prices ($14.99 a month for 250mb, or the most likely more popular choice of unlimited data at $29.99 a month. Verizon charges a minimum of $50 a month for there 500mb a month plan, so it’s quite a deal.). The other, and perhaps more phenomenal thing is that there is NO contract attached to this offer. That means, come and go as you please, or if Apple ever gives other carriers the option to carry their devices you can switch without termination fees. That is HUGE for AT&T!!

My really big disappointment regarding the iPad is the lack of connectivity. The only connection points are the headphone jack and the standard iPhone Dock. Which limits things quite a bit. As a technician that means the device really fails for me in my work. Yet it does keep things much more simple for the user. So it’s a trade off that I am willing to accept. I mean what can DandyMac do about it anyway??

Apple also talked a bit about the accessories they will offer, they have a simple dock for it ($29). They also have a much more appealing dock ready to go for it, this one has a full keyboard fused to the dock and has some special function buttons related to the iPad itself ($79). The more interesting offers to me are for connecting a digital camera (do we really need to say digital before camera any longer?) or an SD card, the devices plud directly into the dock connector and therefore protrude from the bottom of the iPad. I am uncertain whether or not Apple has decided to allow the SD card reader to allow for extra storage for the iPad or not, would be REALLY sweet if they did. (The pair of connectors sell for $29 combined). Also Apple is offering a case designed by them which not only acts as a case, but it also doubles as a stand for the iPad. Meaning that you can stand it up in portrait mode by folding the case back and you can then put it in landscape mode too for easier typing ($39). I would imagine the case will most likely not do that well when the third party accessories start pouring out of the woodwork. Yet I still think it’s a nicely designed case.

The Real Mental Shift

Now that you have labored your way through my immense postings. I must say that at first I was a bit disappointed in general with the iPad, as I and thousands of others have said, it seemed like a Huge iPod Touch. But then last night I decided to check out the QuickTime video Apple posted of the event. I spent the afternoon contemplating what they had released, back and forth between “it’s cool!”, and “what the hell would I do with it?” WOW!! You really cannot get a good idea of what the iPad does until you watch this video, the stills are nice but NOTHING like watching it in action! (Not to mention what it must be like to actually hold one and use it!!)

The video shows a GORGEOUS piece of work, I mean it is large and polished looking, and it fits in with their design motif on the Macs. Suuuuuper thin (0.5″ thin), weighing in at 1.5 lbs, with a LARGE 9.7″ screen that is BRIGHT! When you watch Jobs surf the web, although still a bit odd, you really see what they mean by “the best web experience.” It is a full web browser with beautifully designed “modal” drop-down and pop-up windows for bookmarks and the like. It moves FAST and smooth as well, proving that Apple’s A4 1ghz chip really can SCREAM!

Then he shows of email, AMAZING design again!! It’s what you would want your iPhone to look like when checking and writing emails. Matter of fact, I am now wishing that OS X Mail looked like email does on the iPad. I did not catch whether it has a unified inbox function (for more than one email account), but what I saw was glorious! I would buy the iPad based on that fact alone. Yet it kept becoming more and more amazing as I watched the video.

Next up was the other two communication tools we rely on so dearly, Calendar and Address Book. They have completely redesigned both apps to look nothing short of stunning. Almost as though you have actual physical books right in the device shielded under glass for protecting their glory. You get Calendar views of not only daily, weekly and monthly views like we are all too familiar with (frustratingly so for some of you out there), you can also have your daily schedule on one “page” while having the weekly or monthly view on the opposite page. Something MANY of my clients dream of having on their Macs at work or home. It looks to be a far more functional version of the Calendar App as well. Address Book has garnished the same respect and overhaul as well. Though it was not really showed as much, so the features are a bit more uncertain at this point.

Then the Apps portion I talked of earlier in my postings came around. Forstall is not my favorite presenter, but he does OK in this event. The real stars were the developers I had mentioned earlier as well, The New York Times, Gameloft, MLB.com and EA sports. These guys did highly impressive work in a VERY limited amount of time. Most impressive to me were the Apps from The New York Times and Gameloft, these guys really leveraged the technology of the iPad to a beautiful height. The Times app really looks like their print edition, right down to the grain of the paper. Plus, forget Flash kids, they have embedded video into the pages as though it were printed like that, the videos look wonderful!! Navigation was rather impressive as well. I will own that app when it hits, no doubt in my mind.

Gameloft solved the obvious problem of playing a game in a device of that size with that wide black bezel between your hand and the screen. (The iPod Touch and the iPhone both have screens that go to the edge of the devices so you have easy access to the screen) There first solution was for on-screen controls, many games out there utilize this functionality as the means to move about the environment, pick things up, drop things, jump, choose weapons or tools, fire weapons…etc. There answer was to allow the user the option of placing those controls wherever is most comfortable for them, a very nice touch (pun intended). Next up they came up with a method for dealing with multiple objects, in the game they showed it helps you deal with many enemies at once, by drawing a circle with your finger around the enemies and then the guns take over and take out all of the enemies at once. GO GAMELOFT!!

Now for the iBook App, what a beautifully designed App for reading! It sounded nice during the live bloggin, but it is a different experience to see it in action. The books look beautiful, just as they did in the stills. But what you don’t get from the blogging is the action of the app. You can tap either side of the book to “turn” the page or you can use a finger to, as fast as you like, flip through the pages. It is incredibly elegantly done. You can also, with the tap of a button, change the font size or even navigate through chapters. Kindle be damned people, this is a close to the real thing as you can get. The iBook store is laid out much like iTunes and you can get a book to the phone FAST, depending on your connection speed of course.

I could go on for days here. iWork is a completely different beast when you watch the video as opposed to the blogging. They did a simply SUPERB job of completely redesigning the suite for the iPad. Really, this is reason enough for me to pick an iPad up. I am blown away by the design and usability of this old friend of mine, iWork!! My fingers are aching over here…

SOOOOOOO

In conclusion (I know, FINALLY!! hahahaha!), I have done a 180 degree turn on my thoughts of the iPad, simply by watching the video.

These are my caveats with the people out there complaining at any given chance:

1. The non-existent camera. This device to me does not at all call for a camera. While I suppose I could see the benefit for say video chats, I do not see how this could be effectively implemented. The size of it and the way one has to hold it would make for some very shaky video chats. Also to use it as a still camera would be a nightmare. Think of how hard it is to hold the iPhone camera steady to get a clean shot. As an Amateur/Pro photographer I will always prefer an actual camera for that task.

2. No multitasking. Wow, where to start. First off you CAN multitask with Apple’s own Apps. Second, Do you really want to bog down a device by allowing many apps to run at once?? There are reasons behind Apple’s choice to not include multitasking on the iPhone/iPod Touch and now the iPad, that reason is… PERFORMANCE!! I could understand if it took sooooo painfully long for an App to quit or launch, but that is just not the case. The Apps are light, responsive and FAST. Not a deal breaker in my opinion. Until the technology of multiple processors can happen in these small devices, there is no point in enabling multitasking. Get over it or Move On!

3. Read or Watch the event. Nowhere is it stated that the iPad would REPLACE your laptop or your iPhone. As a matter of fact in the first five minutes Jobs explains (not to mention, he spelled it out literally in black and white!) EXACTLY what the iPad is designed for:

BROWSING

EMAIL

PHOTOS

MUSIC

VIDEO

GAMES

EBOOKS

People please, THINK BEFORE YOU POST!!

The iPad is a huge leap in personal communications and internet technology. While it does have an obvious big brother to the iPod Touch feel about it, it seems to me after much personal deliberation, that once people get their hands on it (just like with the iPhone) they will no doubt WANT one of them for themselves.

Also, If you are basing what you feel about the iPad on what you read yesterday during the announcement, please take some time to watch the quicktime video of the event. It really really changes your perspective about it. If you listen to what Jobs says about what the device is intended to do, the iPad is SPOT ON!! I cannot wait to give it a shot! I will doubtlessly, and cannot wait to, end up owning the iPad!!

Oh, and p.s.: Flash is a serious resource drain! What really needs to happen is that Adobe needs to pull there collective heads out of their, let’s say, backsides and rethink that monster to make it more friendly for mobile devices. Then, and only then, do I see Apple adopting that ancient technology. Granted it is used all too often on many websites, but that is no excuse for poor design laziness on Adobe’s part.

As a side note, please notice that Firefox mobile has removed flash support as well.

WAKE UP ADOBE!! You guys are resting on your laurels, which always ends up hurting more then helping.

to the commenters blaming Apple, if you want a less slick and slower device, then go with Android (not that there is anything at all wrong with Android, I am actually a fan. But it does really slow the speed of web use on those devices dramatically. Apple’s goal is to have the best user experience possible, period. They are not willing to compromise speed, battery life and ease of use for the ability to run Flash based web technology. To be honest, neither am I. The real future should indeed be an implementation of HTML5, already in use by Apple, Google and You tube… It’s time for a change kids. Not to be too corny but, Yes We CAN!!

Both Developers and Users, take control of what you want!! Viva HTML5!!

Long Live the iPad!!

Appiness

Whew, it has been a while since I posted. Feels like a year!

So Apple has once again done their best to alienate app developers for the iPhone. Why wouldn’t they, right? I mean it’s not as though Apple is using the amount of apps developers have worked VERY hard on in their advertising or anything. 100,000 + Apps in the app store, what importance do developers hold in that?

Well obviously they hold absolutely ALL of the importance in the App store’s success. If it were not for the hard work of all of the developers, the iPhone would be just another smartphone in the mix. A message that, to me, says Apple should very much start respecting these people! It is ridiculous, if not offensive, what developers have to go through to get their hard work up on the App store. It seems that Apple is taking the route of Walmart and Blockbuster in their policing and censoring of content. What Gives Apple the right to pull this nonsense? Apple makes fantastic products as we all know, yet their policies may be the end of them. Sadly their policies are becoming rather Microsoftian.

You may have guessed that I am a bit incensed by this behavior from Apple. The straw that broke my back was the denial of the Bobble Rep app last week. The app is a very well designed piece of work that provides the names, phone numbers, websites and even emails of all of the members of the 111th Congress. It is also a bit on the humorous side. You see, Tom Richmond (once an illustrator for Mad Magazine) has, by hand, drawn caricatures of every single member of congress and given them all a bobble head. They are quite well done and provide a bit of a chuckle every time. The app is an incredible resource and one that I believe everyone should have installed on their iPhone.

The fact that these caricatures are in the app is the very reason why Apple had rejected the app. They rejected the app because they deemed the caricatures (specifically mentioned was the one of Nancy Pelosi) offensive?! In my opinion the only offense was actually provided by Apple. There is nothing offensive at all about these caricatures. Honestly, Apple has approved several farting apps and those apps are not labeled offensive. How are caricatures offensive?? It’s not as though the caricatures are nude and in compromising sexual positions. They are simply caricatures, nothing more, nothing less.

In a reverse decision by Apple, the app was approved on Friday without the developers having to make a change. Fine, they came to their senses finally. Yet that does not change the fact that they really need to get their heads on straight. I would imagine that the only reason Apple changed its mind is because people complained in mass last week. That alone should have Apple second, and third guessing all of their approval criteria. (Which, by the way, are almost completely unknown to the developers out there. This is a HUGE issue in my mind, and doubtlessly in the minds of the developers. At the very least Apple should release to the developers world their code of ethics on App approval.)

I read recently that some developers are staging mini rebellions out there but changing prices on their apps from under $5 to well over $40 or $50. This may seem to be a self destructive move, yet it also could potentially hurt sales for the mothership (Apple) as well. It is unbelievably sad that developers have to attempt such actions to get their voices heard and apps used.

There may be a much easier solution that Apple already has in place in the rest of the iTunes store. That solution is RATINGS. If a song, album, movie, tv show or podcast is questionable in content, Apple straps a parental advisory notice and an “explicit” tag on the product. So instead of rejecting apps on their own morals, Apple should simply let the people who purchase the apps (or children’s parents) make that decision on their own. To be fair it was not DandyMac who came up with this simple, obvious solution on his own, it was actually that of the love of his life, Stephoto! (Thanks baby!)

All of this aside, Apple’s approval process does have some benefits. As posted in this article over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (tuaw.com), Apple has rejected some Unity based games on the use of API calls. Which essentially send the phone number of the user back to the developers so that they can compile info on the user. In other words the API calls are a form of data mining. A policy Apple does not, and very much should not, adhere to. In actuality Apple does not condone the collecting of customer info without the customers consent.

DandyMac has concluded that Apple needs to pull its head out of its Apps! Seriously though, they need to be clear and open about their App store approval methods before more and more developers opt out of developing for the iPhone. This would be a catastrophe for us all. DandyMac would like to see the App store grow and grow for the benefit of you and I, not to mention Apple themselves.

Vive Le iPhone!

see you next time!

Snow Days

As the weather warms and the sun comes out here in SF, it finally Snows for Mac users everywhere. That is to say that Apple has released their latest big cat named operating system, Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6). With it Apple has picked up Leopard (OS X 10.5), cleaned it out, dusted it off, and sped it up greatly for all Intel Mac users. Plus, they have dramatically reduced the price for us too! ($29 for a single user and $49 for a family pack (5 users).) Sorry to say that anyone with a non-intel Mac (iBooks, PowerBooks, PowerMacs and G4 Mac Minis) will not be able to upgrade to Snow Leopard. However, now is a great time to upgrade your old hardware and go Intel.

One problem that may affect users though is software compatibility. Some of your third party (non-Apple) software may not work with the latest release of OS X. Generally speaking, a good majority of your higher end software (ie, Adobe, Microsoft…etc) will work without a hitch. It’s more along the lines of the little pieces of software that will fail to work. I, for example, loved a little piece of software called Letterbox (As it stands the developer of Letterbox has a 4th beta version posted, which seems to be working rather well for me.) which allows you to have your emails preview pain show to the right of your email list. Unfortunately it was rejected by Snow Leopard. To be fair to developers, Apple did really jump the gun on the release date of Snow Leopard. That move undoubtedly left developers dangling in the wind by cutting off roughly a month of further testing on their software.

Overall though, Snow Leopard is a gorgeous piece of work. It truly is what Leopard should have been from the get go. The developers at Apple redesigned 90% of Leopard’s internals. Which means Snow Leopard is heavily streamlined and even more visually gorgeous then its predecessor. Snow Leopard is not at all an entirely behind the scenes redesign, there are quite a few little tweaks to what you and I see and use everyday. I have been using Snow Leopard on my MacBook since the early Beta release back in June and I am still finding nice enhancements constantly. Some of my favorites are:

-Dock Expose allowing users to click and hold on an applications icon in the dock to get a view of all windows open for that app, and thereby get to the window you are after with ease.

-I am also a huge fan of the ability to resize items in the finder with a handy slider at the bottom right of the finder window.

-Another nice enhancement comes to Stacks (Stacks is a Leopard-introduced feature of the dock which allows quick access to folders placed next to the trash can icon). You finally have the ability to scroll through a folder’s contents and click into folders within a folder to get to its contents. Also a nice touch is a back button so you can go back to the previous folder you were in.

– Quicktime X has a fantastic, albeit simple, feature that allows you to record a video of actions you make on the Mac real time. Which is a great way to help out family and friends with their most vexing Mac problems.

There are many more little tweaks and improvements that make Snow Leopard wonderful experience, but I won’t be going through them all.

By far I believe that the number one thing you will notice from the get go is speed. I have, of course, installed it on all the machines that are active in my house: a Mac Mini 1.66 core duo, a MacBook 2 gHz core 2 duo and my girlfriend’s MacBook Pro 2.4 gHz core 2 duo. The MacBook Pro was the last machine to receive the upgrade. That being said, my MacBook, after the upgrade was equal in speed if not faster than the MacBook Pro, prior to upgrading the MacBook Pro. Needless to say I was rather pleased with this factor. Next to get the upgrade was the Mini, that bumped it up to equal or slightly greater than my MacBook, prior to upgrading the MacBook. The last computer to get the upgrade was the MacBook Pro, that computer is now SCREAMING fast, incomparably so. The speed bump is worth the price of admission alone.

How did Apple developers achieve such performance, you might ask? Well I will tell you. WARNING: this part is gonna get techie. The main speed boost comes from switching from 32 bit processing to 64 bit processing. To be fair not all Intel Macs can benefit from this as they cannot all handle 64 bit processing. What does 64 bit processing mean? That means that the processors can do the math of processing at almost double the speed of 32 bit processing. Also 64 bit processing means that your computer can handle a nearly infinite amount of RAM. RAM is responsible for allowing you to run more applications at once, aka multitasking, plus it does give a bit of a speed boost as well.

The next reason I am about to give for the speed boost in Snow Leopard is a debatable, yet I believe it to be true. What I am referring to is the slimming down of the system software installed to roughly 7 GB, as opposed to an 11 GB Leopard install. They pulled this feat off by removing any code for Apple’s pre-Intel computers (Power PC Macs, aka PPC), hence the reason older Macs are not supported by Snow Leopard. It is in my belief that without all of the code for the PPC computers, Snow Leopard has to shuffle through less code and thereby improving speed as well. As I said though, this is debatable. One thing I do know for a fact is that when you install Snow Leopard over a Leopard install you gain up to 15 GB of storage on your internal hard drive, which is always a lovely thing in itself!

If you couldn’t tell from reading this post, I am a HUGE fan of Apple’s latest operating system (OS), Snow Leopard. It is, in my opinion, the best OS Apple has released to date. At $29, it is by far their cheapest offering as well. So, what are you waiting for? Go on out and grab yourself a copy today! If you need help with the install, don’t hesitate to call DandyMac if you are in the SF Bay Area!

Why, AT&T?

Yes, that is indeed the question. Why, AT&T? Why do they treat iPhone owners as second class customers? Why do they offer such horrific internet service? Why do they make setting up such horrific internet services so difficult? Why do we, as their bread and butter, allow them to continue operating in these ways?

ISP

These questions haunt me everyday as an iPhone owner, and as an Apple Consultant & Technician who installs their services for unsuspecting clients. I mean first off, DSL? Really? For almost the exact same price, an individual or small business would do much better in speed, strength and reliability by simply choosing cable internet. The one and only argument I constantly hear from people about choosing AT&T over, say Comcast for example, is “Oh well, Comcast is evil!”.

While I know from experience that actually dealing with Comcast can be a bit daunting, I know that I am, at the very least, getting a far superior end product than with AT&T. Plus, if you want to really talk about ‘evil’ companies, can you honestly state that AT&T is a better company than Comcast? Is AT&T really less evil than Comcast? My friends I am here to tell you that I see very little difference, as companies, between the two gigantic corporate monsters that we have to choose between here in San Francisco. The main, and most important part for me is the end product they each produce. And as far as speed, strength, reliability and ease of use are concerned, the true winner here in the battle of the evil corporate overlords is clearly Comcast cable internet!

Cell Service

So, let’s get specific here. What does AT&T provide for us? The most obvious thing these days is iPhone service and support. One would think “well that’s cool.”, I assure you it is barely cool at all. First off, let’s discuss the basic function of the iPhone, the phone itself. AT&T cell phone service is spotty at best, on any given journey here in San Francisco one could expect at least 2 dropped calls. Often times you will see far more than 2. Plus, the signal, when you can get it, is very poor and usually to crackly and quite to actually understand the conversation you are having. I find myself asking, “I am sorry, could you repeat that?” much more then I ever should have to. So the actual phone service is subpar to say the least.

Now, let us talk about the data spectrum we are so graciously provided by AT&T. AT&T is supposed to be providing iPhone users with top notch 3G data coverage, unlimited for $30/ month. Matter of fact, you do not even have a choice in using the data plan or not. If you have an iPhone in the US, you are required to have this coverage by AT&T. In theory it is a very reasonable price for what should be a strong, fast, reliable and unlimted data service. In practice, however, it is not strong, fast or reliable. It is especially unreliable in actuality. A very odd thing for a resident of San Francisco to be saying, considering the proximity to the birthplace of the iPhone, Apple Inc. On my average bus commute downtown, more than half of the journey is spent on the Edge network. (For those that do not know, the Edge network is AT&T’s old and slow data service. If you are using an original iPhone then you are more than familiar with the edge network.) This fact of spending more than half my ride on the Edge network is simply unacceptable! When you factor in the that I am on the edge network through some of the more expensive neighborhoods in town, and downtown even, it is just pathetic. Just goes to show that money cannot buy happiness.

The Big MMS Scandal

When I ask the question at the beginning of this post, “Why do they treat iPhone owners as second class customers?”, I am referring to the fact that basic cell phones on AT&T’s network are allowed features that the iPhone is not. The main feature that sticks out would be MMS service. MMS stands for Multi-media Messaging Service, meaning that  you can send audio, video and image files along with a text message. This is available for almost all AT&T phones, except for the iPhone. To be fair to AT&T for just a second,  at Apple’s WWDC Keynote address back in June, they announced this functionality for the iPhone for the first time. They also presented a list of all the companies that will support MMS (not to mention tethering, for using the iPhone to supply your computer with high speed internet while on the go). Guess who was obviously missing from that list? Yep, it was AT&T,

Why, I ask again, AT&T? Why do you keep  a choke-hold on your most lucrative phone offering? Why do you hold down all of the people that continue to use your service, let alone the hordes of people who have switched to your services from other cell service providers, just to have an iPhone? It really is very sad that Apple had to go with AT&T to get the iPhone out there, now we are all suffering from that forced decision. What has become even more sad about the whole deal is that Apple’s reputation is getting smeared by AT&T’s short comings. (Hence 2 recent lawsuits filed against AT&T AND Apple over the MMS promise and lack of delivery from AT&T. Here is a post in reference to one such lawsuit at TG Daily. People just do not seem to understand that the one and only true culprit behind the lack of MMS on the iPhone in the US is, but of course, AT&T.)

Unjust

What are we to do about this corporate overlord running our communications? Well, I wrote this post in reaction to many things I have experienced, heard about, and read about over the past few months. One article caught my eye in particular lately, a posting on a site called macdailynews.com. That posting led me to the original one on the wsj.com (The Wall Street Journal). At the bottom of the original posting is a bullet list of possible solutions that I fully agree with. It’s far past time for us to take control of the way AT&T, and all other corporations for that matter, operate in this country.

After all, we pay them, so it’s high time we should make them provide top quality service, or pay for not doing so!

iPhone Batteriness

Ok, so I grabbed a new 3GS iPhone on day one of its release, switching from a 4gb original iPhone. Obviously I am very pleased with the general speed of the 3GS. I love that the performance of my already owned apps has dramatically increased in speed. Having 3G has also been a more-than-welcome network speed increase as well. iPhone OS 3.0 has brought the phone up to par with all smart phones by adding a ton of great additions to functionality. (cut and paste is FANTASTICALLY implemented.) So what is my number one complaint about the 3GS?

Just like most of you out there, the number one complaint I have thus far is battery life. My original iPhone’s battery lasted me all day on moderate to heavy use. I wouldn’t have to charge the battery until I came home from my 8 to 10 hour work days, which seemed like a problem to me at the time. I was excited to think that my 3GS would outlast the original iPhone. I mean, Apple did indeed tout greater battery life at the WWDC Keynote address, right? Well I am here to state that they were so so very wrong as far as I am concerned. I now leave for work in the am, with the same amount of use and I have to recharge the battery at about 1pm, as it is half-way spent by then. I have noticed that after the half-way mark, the battery drains rapidly from then on. Half-way spent by 1pm?! That is better battery life? Even with location services, 3G and wifi turned off on my 3GS, my girlfriend’s 3G iPhone with all network and location services on, still outlasts my 3GS. This, my friends, is a sad statement about the new 3GS’ battery life.

However, my girlfriend’s 3G is getting less battery time then it did before updating it to 3.0. Does this suggest that Apple failed to optimize the performance of the new iPhone OS? At first I was convinced I had a malfunctioning iPhone, it just seemed wrong how fast the battery would run dry. All posted specs on the 3GS seemed to point to a longer battery life. Those who have cracked open the phone have reported that the battery is 6% larger physically than the 3G’s battery. Which would suggest that it would have a greater life span. I was convinced that my 3GS was a lemon, not an Apple. Matter of fact I am still uncertain what the real case is. Another oddity is that the performance of my girlfriend’s 3G, with iPhone 3.0 running, has become more sluggish then before the software update. Which may be a signal that the culprit is indeed iPhone OS 3.0 not being properly optimized.

Now, I fully understand that it is a new OS and a new piece of hardware, and they have bugs to work out. Apple, more than most computer companies, is very fast at releasing updates and bug fixes. As I understand iPhone OS 3.1 has been seeded to developers already, which backs my belief that they are working on fixes. I am pinning much hope that they are indeed going to address this battery catastrophe in OS 3.1. I do hope that I am not let down by the mothership.

So, my questions to you are:

Do you have a 3GS? Are you experiencing horrifying battery life? Do you think it’s the phone or the OS? Are you hoping for a remedy with OS 3.1 too? What are us rabid iPhone owners to do??

Let me know your thoughts please…

Thank you in advance! DandyMac is off to save Mac users from their troubles.

iFoniness

Ok, let me start this off by stating that this is a BLOG, meaning that this is article of opinion with facts. That is to say that this is not reporting in any way. Which is really what I am writing about here. This article, or post rather, is about a couple of different thoughts regarding the state of journalism in today’s ever increasing online society. Being that I am a huge Apple fan, consultant and technician I am focusing on the current barrage of rumors, ‘reports’ and comparisons surrounding the iPhone.

Obviously I am a gigantic fan of the iPhone, and an avid user of it as well. I am still using an original 4gb version of the phone, and I have been holding off upgrading until the next generation of the device is released. I seriously hope that the rumors out there about the release hitting during next week’s WWDC. I mean I REALLY want it to happen, as my screen has been cracked for nearly a year now. On a positive note about he crack, it hasn’t affected the performance or sensitivity of the phone. Which is a testament to the quality of the build!

The Hype Machines:

Now, let’s talk a bit about the rumor mill and ‘analysts’ predictions. I will first admit that I do enjoy speculating about the features, changes, and release date of desired Apple products. However since the release of ‘the Jesus phone’, things have just escalated FAR out of control. Seriously, I am half expecting to hear that the next phone will make me breakfast, cure cancer and promote world peace. As I said though, I enjoy a fair amount of the rumors, but can we give it a rest already? Nobody REALLY knows what will or will not be released except for Apple themselves, or anyone that Apple has legally bound by full NDA.

Next, and definitely far more annoying, are the analysts out there. Can you even believe that they get paid to make predictions?? I certainly cannot. I can only liken their type to that of your garden variety Palm Reader. Normally I would have no problem with what they do as analysts. The main problem I have is how their BS affects the general population, the companies who’s products they are analyzing, and the overall economy! These guys are sincerely screwing up the country in general, let alone technology.

The rumor mills and the analysts aside, what has been under my skin lately is the so called Press and the bloggers that work for them. This to me is the number one problem in our country today: The press is supposed to be comprised of people that have been educated in the art of journalism, people that are impartial and non-biased, people who’s only desire is to inform the public of actual facts without slant. To me, anything less should only be considered opinion, and should be treated as nothing more. This is so very very far from the kind of ‘reporting’ that we are all exposed to in these online times. ( Speaking of the times, a prime example of the misleading and wrongful reporting I am writing about here can be found in today’s New York Times web site here. It’s not so much the full article that I have an issue with as much as the title itself. The title is contradicted several times on the first page alone.)

Blogging… what can be said, as I am (reluctantly) one myself? My blogging is primarily about Mac tips, thoughts and opinions based on personal experience as a consultant and technician. I would in no way consider myself to be a reporter in anyway, shape or form. This is where my problem comes in with blogging, it is not reporting. Knowing that it not reporting, why is it that bloggers are picked up by major journalistic institutions? Why do blogs make the headlines of the NY times?? This practice is incredibly misleading and wrong. I am not opposed to people making a living off of blogging, matter of fact I am all for it. But let’s keep blogs in their own section of the newspapers, as newspapers would for articles about food: in a specific section of your preferred news source. If I want to read articles about technology, I will go to the technology section of my preferred source. Can we stop putting blogs in with the headlines already??

Devise-ive

What I really want to write about is the iPhone and it’s competition, which is dominating almost every technology news source I rely on. More specifically I want to write a bit about the upcoming release of the Palm Pre. I am not trying to say here that the Pre is an inadequate device at all. But the press’ hype machine is in FULL gear over this thing. Some of the major players in technology review and reporting are absolutely making themselves look ridiculous out there over this thing. For example, David Pogue’s review of the Pre is almost silly, and unfortunately not fully factual (not his fault really). I find his review of the Pre to be a bit too gushing, just as I felt his review of the original iPhone was. Almost as though he were slipped and extra grand to get the positive word out. It’s sad because I really dig his style in general.

The one common piece that all smartphones seem to share at this moment is the design factor. Almost every single phone manufacturer now has a rectangular, large touch-surface, large screened phone. Where did this design factor come into play? From a company that had no previous experience in developing phones at all, Apple. Since the iPhone was released it has completely flipped the game on a stale industry. To date, there has not been one company out there that has managed to even come close to having the strong impact on the phone industry that Apple has had. We all know that copying is the most sincere form of flattery, right? So that makes Apple one seemingly endlessly flattered company by all of the phone industry. I personally would have hoped that Apple would have spurned innovation more than it did copying.

As far as the Pre is concerned, from what I can tell it may be the closest thing to competition that the iPhone has out there. I am certain that Palm has a quality piece of software on their hands with the Pre. They have been in the phone game for quite some time and most people that use their phones love them. I think, once again, that the design of the phone itself is yet another iPhone wannabe, aside from the slide out physical keyboard that is. (what’s up with no on-screen keyboard? You have to slide out a cramped keyboard every-time you want to type anything?)

I believe that the real star of the Pre is it’s webOS. From all of the reviews out there I have read it sounds like they have a winner on their hands, for about three more days that is. No seriously though, I do like the ‘cards’ idea. ‘Cards’ give you the ability to run several apps at once and flip through them with a swipe of your finger, which enables more efficient multi-tasking. Definitely a great idea. however, sadly, they are just too late. I have read several (too many) reviews of the Pre and all of them are touting this feature as “unparalleled”. Yes, it is currently unparalleled. Again, for only three more days, which is when iPhone OS 3.0 is due on the scene.

One thing about all of the reviews that baffles me is that not one of them mentions the fact that, a few months ago, Apple had a special developer’s event where they announced iPhone OS 3.0. During this special event they talked about these “unparalleled” features (enhanced multi-tasking and smart notifications) that reviewers are saying the Pre has, plus another 98 new features the iPhone will have. Apple has addressed making multi-tasking much more efficient by allowing apps to run in the “background” from servers instead of using up all the resources of the iPhone itself. Meaning that the iPhone will have more ram and processor power available to the task at hand, thereby making the iPhone more powerful and business friendly. Finally we will even see push notifications as promised at last years WWDC.

The absolute most suspicious thing I have heard thus far about the Pre is it’s “integration” with iTunes. We have all come to find out, which should really have palm worried, that this “integration” is nothing more then a hack of iTunes code that makes iTunes see the Pre as an iPod. This is so very sketchy. Has Palm not heard of licensing??? I do believe that they will hear a lot about licensing from Apple’s legal team in the near future. They will also, doubtless, hear about changing code to block any Palm device from syncing with iTunes in the very near future. To me this is the move that may ultimately sync, oops I mean sink a company that is very close to going under as it stands. One would think that a company facing bankruptcy might have been much more careful in making certain that they were completely legit.

Finishing touch

I am not one to condemn people for using their own judgement and choosing to buy any of the other smartphones out there over the iPhone. Matter of fact I give people who go against the grain huge respect for doing so. (I mean isn’t that how Apple came to be?) I would just hope that you are making your decisions based on facts and research and not from the great Hype Machine that is ever so ingrained in our daily lives.

Congrats for making it all the way to the end of this LONG blog!

Virtualization

When it comes to running Microsoft Windows on a Mac, there has never been a better time to do so. Ever since Apple switched to the Intel architecture the desire for running Windows on a Mac has come to full (virtual) reality. Now more then ever this happens with great ease, speed and power. This is not to say that it comes without issues and growing pains, it simply means that it actually finally works. Which enables people to only buy one computer and have the best of both worlds, the PC for business and the Mac for everything else.

Back in ’06, when Apple made the switch in processors to Intel, people were very excited that running Windows on a Mac could happen. So much so that there was a contest launched by OnMac.net to see who could come up with a way to do it. By March 26th, 2006 the contest was over, and we all were the winners. It was through this win that Apple unleashed Boot Camp which allows you to restart your Mac into either OSX or WIndows. This was fantastic although limited as you had to chose which operating system you wanted to use and you could only choose Windows as your second operating system.

That’s when things really took off. The next big thing to happen was the ability to run Windows on a Mac right from your Mac’s desktop, which treats Windows (or any other operating system you might want to use) as another application without having to restart into your chosen second operating system. This was a GIGANTIC breakthrough. Thanks to companies like Parallels or VMware you can now have two operating systems running at the same time on one Mac.

My preferred choice in software makers ended up being Parallels. Their product was very strong and worked very well. They also managed to bring great updates to their software to allow for some truly remarkable features, such as “coherence mode” which allows you to have the Windows Task Bar and Mac’s Menu Bar running on the same desktop seamlessly. I have sworn up and down on how great the company is and has been to all of my consultancy clients. I am not saying here that there is anything wrong with VMware’s Fusion which essentially is the same thing, I just have preferred Parallels.

Unfortunately I do believe that I am changing my preferences. Parallels just released version 4 of their Desktop For Mac software a few months back. I must say that at first I was very excited about it, they made the interface very Mac-ish, finally, and it is beautiful to look at. The problem comes when you actually run the software. It was so highly unstable that it froze every hour and interupted one of my best client’s work so often that I had to roll it back to version 3. Not that there is anything wrong with version 3, I was just extremely disappointed that Parallels released version 4 in such an awful state. It was simply not ready for prime time and they should have waited to release it until it was.

So for now I will have to recommend Fusion’s VMware for people who are looking to get started running Windows on your Mac.I do believe that Fusion has a very nicely designed piece of software, and it has always had a more Mac-ish look and feel. The one thing that really makes it stand out for me is that Fusion has support for split screen work, in other words across two monitors. It does appear to at least be more stable than Parallels version 4, yet I am not thoroughly convinced that Fusion is more stable than Parallels version 3.  As I said before though, Fusion and Parallels are very similar products and do essentially the same thing: enable you to run Windows (or any other operating system) on your Mac as though it were another application.

The next great leap for me in this multiple operating system on one computer idea would be if both Apple and Microsoft could somehow see past their egos and do what would be best for all of us, combine forces. This would enable the fine grained control one gets with Windows and the ease of use and fun of OS X. I may be far from reality on that thought, but it certainly would be dream of a computer platform. Imagine being able to install any application you want on one computer without the hassle of restarting into a different operating system or running virtualization software to make it happen. Ahhh to dream.

UPDATE: During my nromal morning scouring of my favorite mac news sites I stumbled upon this article from Macworld .com:    Opinon: Which is better for your business, a Mac or a PC? This guy has his own take on the economic times we are in and how his choice of computer helped his company.