"Back to the Mac" Recap

Here's my video recap of the "Back to the Mac" event. It was held on October 20, 2010 at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. This was an event that was focused around the Mac platform. It's been way too long since we've seen an event focused on the mac. Lately Apple has been paying most of their attention to their mobile devices such as the iPods, iPhones, and iPad. So let's get started with iLife '11.

iLife '11: iLife '11 was my favorite announcement at this particular event. Apple started talking about iPhoto which is a vast improvement over iPhoto '09 in my opinion. The interface is a lot cleaner and easier to use. iPhoto '11 brings Facebook enhancements, an easier way to e-mail photos, full screen mode, and more. You can also create new letter pressed cards with iPhoto '11 which is perfect timing for the holiday season. There's also many more options for you to create books in iPhoto. Now to iMovie '11. The interface hasn't changed but we will now see movie trailers just as professional as anything you'd see straight out of Hollywood. This an amazing feature for a simple editing system like iMovie. There's also improved audio editing and audio effects. Garageband also has two great new features for better music creation. Groove matching helps you're composition get all the instruments into sync. Flex time lets you get the timing of all the instruments matched so every instrument sounds great together. You can pick up iLife '11 today for $49.

Mac OS X Lion preview: There are a lot of great things coming in the future of Mac OS X. Apple has named their newest one; Lion. The first feature which I think has a lot of potential is the Mac App store. Developers could make really mind-blowing applications for the Mac. I can't wait to see what will happen. But the Mac App store is open within 90 days for Snow Leopard users. Another really neat feature is the Launch pad. With a simple multi touch gesture you will get a view of all of you're applications right on the screen. Think about an iPad when I say this. The last feature Apple gave us a sneak preview of was Mission control. This feature is like Expose on steroids. It lets you show all of you're windows at once if you're desktop is clustered which is great. You can also swipe between screens with a simple multi touch gesture. So you could switch between dashboard, you're desktop, and another application.

New MacBook Airs: The new MacBook Airs come in at 11.6 and 13.3 inch models. Apple is claiming this will be their next generation of notebooks. It's 0.68 inches at it's thickest part and 0.11 inches at the thinnest. It's very light at 2.3 (11.6 inch( and 2.9 pounds (13.3 inch). It features core 2 duo processors and it has flash memory. So, there's no optical drive or hard drive. This could be a risky move on Apple's part. You can pick one up starting at $999. For full specifications and pricing you can head over to Apple.com. 

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My "Back to the Mac" Event Prediction

That's right, I only have one prediction. If you were looking for something more, sorry to disappoint you. Basically, I predict that what everyone is saying about a new MacBook Air is false and that, instead of launching a new MacBook Air, Apple will kill it. Bold claims. Below, I will state the sole reason why I think Apple is going to kill the Air: iPad. If this prediction is false, I honestly think Apple would have made the wrong decision.

First, what are the current rumours surrounding the MacBook Air?

1. Appleinsider claims that the new MacBook Air will have upgradeable RAM
2. Engadget has a photo of the new insides. 

The first thing I want to say is Apple has always been about user experience. If the Air has upgradeable RAM, I will guarantee it will be a nightmare to upgrade. Apple would much rather lock you out and charge for an upgrade.

Now let's move on to the main reason why I think Apple would abandon the Air in favour of the iPad. As we all know, the Air is not a practical solution to anything. It's not good even for basic browsing as Flash is still out there, believe it or not, and people still play Flash games. If Flash can't run decently on a Mac Pro, don't expect it to on an Air. When Apple released the Air, it was to show off. It was a proof of concept, if you will. The MacBook Air was like the Cube and the Millenium Mac. It was a fashion statement and didn't fit for anyone who wanted to use their computer, not even a niche market. These computers are all examples of art. Beautiful to look at, but useless. And beauty is their main function.

Now, compare the Air to the iPad: 

1. The iPad is more beautiful than the Air. This may not seem like that important a detail, but when beauty is the best feature that the computer can boast, this is a killer.
2. The iPad is now the best-selling gadget of all time (official). It would be money better spent on marketing the iPad, rather than selling a new Air
3. The iPad is attractive to the consumer, because it's so easy to use and they don't have to worry about little details. I'm not saying OS X isn't easy to use, but comparing iOS and OS X, it's clear who's the winner
4. The Air is very slow and completely impractical. If you want ports, there is the MacBook for that.
5. The Air will undoubtedly still be more expensive than the iPad, if it were released. 

I hope it's clearer now why I think Apple will kill the Air. With no market, the Air just will not sell. Even the thinness and beauty factor won't matter anymore, when the iPad is thinner and better looking. This means the only hope that the Air had left, art collectors, won't bother as well. This leaves no-one to sell the Air to, and with no-one to sell to, there will be no profit. Once again, we, including myself, must be reminded that Apple is a capitalist company and exists for profit.

Tek Nation Episode 8: "Back to the Mac" Event

Today I'm presenting you with episode 8 of Tek Nation. We're also in a MacBook Air, because it may get updated come October 20th. In this episode we talked about the BlackBerry Playbook, Windows Phone 7, and the "Back to the Mac" event. 

The BlackBerry Playbook has potential to be a very legitimate contender to the iPad. I think the specs for the device are pretty impressive. It packs a 7-inch capacitive display, a 1 GHz Dual-Core Processor, and runs on BlackBerry Tablet OS. For more information please refer to the video. 

The "Back to the Mac" event came as a bit of surprise to me. Usually Apple doesn't schedule events right after their annual music event until January. I hope to see an update to iLife. I'd really like an iWeb update and/or an iMovie update. I use iMovie to edit my videos, so I'd like more features to play around with. Rumor has it that we may also see an update to Mac OS X. I've heard it will be called Lion. I don't know what to expect with the new operating system will improve or do different than previous versions, but it will be very interesting to see. Many technology websites such as Engadget, Gizmodo and Technobuffalo are also reporting that we may see an update to the MacBook Air as well as the MacBook.

Windows Phone 7 was unveiled by Microsoft last week. It's a very interesting platform. The interface looks pretty great. It looks almost identical to the Zune HD. You can also access Xbox LIVE content right from your phone. I use Xbox LIVE like many others, so this feature could potentially go a long way. For more information, please refer to the video. 

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Recap: Apple Fall Media Event

Today I'm presenting to you a quick video recap of Apple's Fall Media event. We saw new iPods, i OS updates, and a new Apple TV. 

The new iPods pertain to the new shuffle, nano, and iPod touch. Let's start with the shuffle. Basically Apple brought over the button wheel from the 2nd generation and the voiceover playlists from the 3rd generation. I still don't think that's enough. But if you'd like to pick one up you get 2 GBs of storage for $49. The new nano in my mind is awesome. It's very tiny, so it's more portable. It's multi touch as well which is really great in my mind. You can also clip it to you're shirt or jeans which makes it very similar to the iPod shuffle. Price points are $149 for 8 GB and $179 for 16 GB. Next up is the iPod touch. Apple brought over the A4 chip and the retina display from the iPhone 4. Another feature they brought over is Facetime. It's pretty cool that I could now video chat without even using a phone. The iPod touch also features a full HD video camera. You can also pick up iMovie for iPhone from the app store for $4.99 and edit you're videos right on you're device. The last new product I'd like to address is the new Apple TV. It's a tiny black box, which is great compared to the previous generation of the Apple TV. There's no App store on it unfortunately, but it's still an awesome product. It's cloud based, so there's no internal storage or storage management. It's rental only for downloading content on it. But you can stream content from you're computer to the device. There's no syncing required. You can also stream Netflix on it, which is awesome. 

That's all I'd like to talk to you about in the post today. If you would like more details please refer to the video at the top. 

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iPhone 4: The Facts

There was a lot of hype as to what new features will be included in apples new innovative iPhone and apple did not fail to deliver. The new “iPhone 4” was released today (7^th June 2010) at the WWDC, from the moment it was revealed it had many peoples jaw dropping. The phone has had a complete re-design which brings even more elegance and class to the iPhones name, the front and back of the phone has two glass panels which Apple claims is 30x harder than plastic. Also on the exterior of the iPhone is a stainless steel ring which gives the phone a more rigid frame, as well as acting as an antenna. 

Another great feature apple have announced is their “Retina Display” which is the highest quality screen ever put into a phone boasting 320 pixels per inch. Also new is a 5.0 megapixel camera with an LED flash; this is a great advance as one of the previous iPhones let downs was its camera. It also has a front facing camera which can be used for video calling or as apple have called it “Face Time”, this is not such a great feature as apple have lead us to believe, as this type of technology has been around for a while.

Video recording was only introduced to the iPhone line when the “3gs” came out although the iPhone 4 records full 720p High definition video which can easily be edited on the iPhone using iMovie.  This adds great value to the iPhone and is sure to make it a great seller.

All in all the iPhone 4 is set to be a great success with some great new features such as its “Retina display” just reiterating how good apple are at surprising us and showing the endless capabilities of technology. The release of this phone is sure to get all other companies working hard to design and develop a rival to it which can only be a good thing. In my opinion I believe the iPhone 4 is great and I am sure to be spending my money on one.