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Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

A few weeks ago I was talking to some cow working type people about the 8 MacBook Pros that were sitting near me at Stardust Video & Coffee. I’ve been working on a MacBook Pro (or a similarly designed Powerbook) for about 2 1/2 years and I was opining for a revision to the laptop that has served me so well. 

While it’s kind of my default position to want something new, someone suggested that while it has been quite a long time since the base design for these machines was put into mass production (about 7 years if you look at the TiBook as being the first), the MacBook Pro is still heads and shoulders above any mobile computer available, from any manufacturer in terms of design, and while it does have a few small missing features, it certainly is a strong contender on the feature side. 

That in mind, here is my hopeful list for things a new MacBook Pro would contain sometime in the next year or so:

• EV-DO or other high-speed wireless functionality - This seems like a no brainer to me, but time will tell. Anyone that has done any significant traveling with a MacBook Pro will know the pain of not having any Wi-Fi available at crucial times. 
• Multi-card reader - It sure would be nice to not have to bring along a card reader or an extra usb cable for my camera at all times. 
• HD iSight camera - In my opinion, one of the smartest things Apple has done with recent updates to the MacBook Pro (outside of the switch to Intel Core 2 Duo chips) has been the iSight. Until you begin using a machine with a built in camera, even if it is a light weight, only sufficient for well lit rooms device, you just don’t know how handy it is. I’ve used it as a replacement scanner to get my signature on documents, take a picture of myself almost everytime I need a new photo for the next social site, not to mention the video conferencing abilities you get that are just bundled in with your computing experience. Upgrading the camera to a better lens would go a long way to negating the need for a separate video device in 75% of my use.
• Better screen (both resolution and native brightness / color reproduction) - the current display is good, but there is room for improvement both with native resolution, as well as color production. 
• Speakers - I could use both more volume, and a bit richer sound. 
• A new design to lust after - While I love the look of the current machines, I’m sure the geniuses over at Apple (no, not that kind!) could come up with something that is even more beautiful and drool inducing. 

Friday, April 4th, 2008

First off a warning that doing anything unusual with your iPhone probably breaks the warranty, and at the very least will make Steve Jobs cry, so everything is always at your own risk. 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to drag a wagon full of food to some youth that we’re camping with our churches “Pilgrims Survival Journey“. While this was great by itself, when you add a iPhone in the pocket of my cargo shorts, and what appeared to be torrential downpours of rain, you end up with a recipe for disaster. 

I was only slightly worried at the time, assuming that my phone would be fine, but it turned out that when I got home it was only 80% working. The phone worked for periods, but every minute and a half to 3 minutes would show the “Device not compatible with iPhone” message, with nothing hooked up to it. Sadly, with this message showing up so often, I noticed a significant decrease in battery and knew that I’d have to fix it or be off to the Apple Store in hopes for a uniquely exchange or fix. One other problem I noticed when trying to power down the phone (the first suggestion when any electronic equipment gets wet) was that when shutting it off the phone would automatically restart no matter how many times I tried. 

After a lazy twitter was sent out, Matt Williams suggested (among other things) applying a little rubbing alcohol to the dock connector with a q-tip. After doing this and keeping my iPhone standing on end (with dock connecter facing down) all seems to be well and I’ve received no further error messages. 

Apparently the rubbing alcohol trick is fairly well known, what this does is helps the water to evaporate a bit faster, and since none of the actual circuitry was damaged inside of my phone (it was in my pocket so it was protected from any direct contact with water) the alcohol got rid of whatever was triggering the message (and the restarts on shutdown) that was happening on my phone. Strangely I also noticed a story from The Washington Post about correcting electronics that get wet by leaving them in a bowl of rice overnight (via LifeHacker).

Monday, March 24th, 2008

Apple has been rumored to be contemplating and negotiating a subscription model for sometime, and I think this would be huge both for Apple and digital music sales in general.

While there are many other services that have some flavor of “subscription” music purchasing (ie allowing the user to pay a flat rate for their music while allowing the download and use of “unlimited” songs / albums), but iTunes has been the the dominant player in a saturate music sales market even without such an option. All of the music and files purchased through iTunes is on a per file basis today, so clearly they don’t need a subscription based system to work.

What I do think though, is that while iTunes is currently the market leader, they can increase that lead today by expanding their potential user set. Currently Apple can only expect people who purchase music to purchase music digitally, which leaves out what I percieve is a large set of potential customers who no longer purchase music, opting to procure it through various illegal means.

As of today, the reasons to steal music rather than purchase license to listen to it include the following:

1. According to the number of albums I personally download,  would be spending an additional $2,600 a year. This may not sound like much initially, but in my world of personal finance and debt, this would be the difference between making it and breaking it. The largest problem with this is I can’t equate the cost with a monthly bill and make it work with my budget, if it’s a particularly good month for music I could be out $700-800 dollars rather than the $200 I’m suggesting I would average.
2. While iTunes has a very, very large collection, I can find anything online for free. That include The Beatles catalog (which iTunes currently does not carry) as well as live sets that weren’t officially released and original versions (rather than reissues) which are sometimes preferable.

My reasons are admittidly limited, but they’re enough, and I’m certain that I’m not the only person out there that finds it easier to forget about copyright law than to pay .99 for a song. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of people like me, people who are geeks, with a moderate income and a mortgage, and don’t pay for music because they’re not familiar with the process or aren’t used to it, were a large number.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple finds itself a legion of people who, given the right combination of cost and opportunity, might even be happy to pay for music. I’ve got either up to $30.00 a month, or the price of a new iPod / iPhone / device + $200 on the ready at my end, waiting for the new pricing scheme to work.

So, what is it Apple? Are you ready to take my money? It’s burning a whole in my pocket at the moment.