New slew of Apple products

Yesterday, Apple updated a slew of their products as rumored. Here’s my quick take on them:

1. iMac: The most noticeable difference is the 16×9 aspect ratio of the screen, compared to 16×10 on previous iMacs. That changes the size, with the small one being 21.5″ and the big one being 27″.
Things I like (that makes me want one):
-Aluminum back instead of plastic
-1080p resolution on the 21.5″
-SD card slot
-Support for Apple earbud with mic
-Option of discreet GPU for the 21.5″ (previously, the small iMac only have integrated GPU)
-The 27″ model supports video-in, so it can be used as an external monitor
-Wireless keyboard and the new magic mouse are standard.

Things that I don’t like:
-The option for the new intel Core i5/i7 processor are only available on the 27″ model. This is highly annoying. Not everyone want the giant 27″ iMac, nor have the desktop space for it. Heck, my TV is only 25″. This kind of upselling is typical of Apple.
-Previously, iMacs have been using notebook processors due to the design and thermal concern. Now is the first time Apple is using desktop processor (according to blogs like engadget) on the iMac. Who knows what kind of problems might come up (typical Rev A issues).

A nice update, but I wish Apple push in the Core i5/i7 processor across the board.

2. Mac mini. Just a minor spec bump from the previous mini. Alas, no price drop, and the value of the mini remains questionable. What is interesting is that now Apple is selling a Mac mini server, a mini without an optical drive, but with an additional hard-drive in it. This sounds like a great idea and I would love to get one, except that Apple is selling it for a whopping $999. Why? Because they bundle in Snow Leopard server OS with it. Again, the typical upselling. 😦

3. Macbook. The white plastic Macbook got a makeover.
Things I like:
-Lighter and more sturdy construction
-Glass trackpad
-7 hours of battery life
-Support for Apple headset with mic

Things that I don’t like:
-Firewire is gone. 😦
-No price drop on the price point
-No option for SSD. This wouldn’t be a problem in the past as it was pretty easy to upgrade the Macbook’s hard-drive, but now with the sealed battery, it’s much harder to open the thing up just to upgrade the hard-drive. Boo! Hard-drives are the most likely component to fail, and making it not easily user accessible is highly annoying.

No that impressive. Imo, loosing Firewire makes this Macbook more like a downgrade. Expect more demand on the refurbished older Macbooks (grab one if you must have Firewire).

4. Magic Mouse. With the recent news that Apple lost the “Mighty Mouse” name, the name change is highly expected. Finally, another Steve Jobs’ obsession coming to fruition, a mouse with no buttons. LOL. Instead of a scroll ball, the surface is multi-touch capable. It’s natural to do scrolling on this, but multiple fingers gestures are pretty awkward. It is standard on iMacs, and seems to have better battery life. Oh well, at least you don’t have to clean the stupid ball on the old Mighty Mouse anymore.

Other updates include the new remote, and updated Airport Extreme (thus Time Capsule). Not too exciting. Another typical Apple update, with plenty things to love and hate.

 

MacOS X Gotchas

Couple things I noticed when using my Macs in general.
1. Pairing Apple remote requires you to log-in as administrator. Yeah, it sounds stupid. I was trying to pair my Apple remote with my iMac to no avail. After reading Apple’s document closer, apparently you have to log-in as admin.

2. Screen sharing doesn’t stream audio output to the connecting computer. This is a bummer. With Microsoft Remote Desktop, the sounds produced by the windows client is streamed to my connecting Mac. Sure there’s a delay due to the network, but it is useful in certain situations. Not the case with screen sharing. Gosh, for once Microsoft did things better than Apple.

 

iPod Touch 2.0 firmware

As most people know, iPhone 3G goes on sale today. At the same time, 2.0 firmware is released for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I’ve been refreshing my iTunes in the morning, but it’s not until about 9-10pm at night that the firmware is finally available for purchase. Yup, it’s another $10 for yet another firmware update. But the ability to install the apps makes the $10 worth it IMO, although free would’ve been preferable.

Updating my Touch took quite sometime, mainly because iTunes had to wipe my Touch clean, and reload the content after updating the firmware. The flash memory on the Touch has pretty slow write speed. After updating, preferences, all icons arrangement and screens are put back to default.

Most noticeable addition is the App store icon. This will allow you to download/apps directly form the Touch. In iTunes, there is an option to setup mobileMe, although it only directs you the Apple’s website, showing you simply to sync mobileMe/.Mac in system preferences. There are some minor cosmetic updates on the maps app. In preferences, there’s an option to schedule the email push/fetch.

First app I downloaded is epocrates. Finally! As I mentioned in the past, I’ve been using my beat up Palm Tungsten E for epocrates. The app seems to download pretty quick in iTunes. After transferring it to my Touch, I put in my log-in, and the app continues the installation by downloading (presumably) all the updated database over-the-air. My Palm Tungsten E doesn’t have bluetooth nor wifi, so updating epocrates requires me to sync it with my desktop. It’s a nice upgrade that now I can just update my epocrates directly from my Touch without having to sync back to my desktop all the time. The UI is just like any other app. I just have to get used to the touch keyboard, having used to my Palm’s stylus. Another great feature is pill ID, with pictures. This is not available on my Palm before.

Next app is iTunes remote. This allow your iPhone/iPod Touch to control your iTunes via wifi. Obviously you have to have a wifi access point, since that is the only way the Touch can be connected to the network. The computer itself doesn’t have to be connected to wifi. My iMac is connected to the network via ethernet. In iTunes 7.7, there is a new option for iTunes to find iPhone/Touch remotes. When I tap on Add library on the remote app, iTunes shows my Touch on the sidebar. On the Touch, it shows a 4 digit code that I have to enter into iTunes, just like bluetooth pairing. After that, I can control most aspect of iTunes from my Touch. Even better, I can control my Airtunes output from my Touch! Control response is surprisingly responsive! UI is pretty much like the Music app. There are a couple of gotchas though.
1. You don’t get the output on the Touch, meaning audio and video are not streamed to the Touch. The Touch will simply act as a remote control only.
2. Cover flow doesn’t work. Although the album list of your library will look very similar as the music on the Touch, tilting the screen won’t give you cover flow.
3. All playlist are listed, except Party Shuffle. Don’t know why. 😦
4. The remote is only for iTunes, not Frontrow. It would’ve been much more awesome if Apple made this into a more capable Frontrow remote, vs the basic Apple remote.
5. The starting volume control on the remote app is set to max. This volume is independent from the actual volume control in iTunes/MacOS. So make sure you set the max volume you desired in iTunes/MacOS.

Despite all of the advance things the Touch can do now, still no shuffle by album feature, something that the traditional iPods can do. Booo!

This is definitely an exciting platform for developers and Apple. I can see Apple phasing out the traditional iPods for this platform. Of course, the idea of having to pay Apple for every firmware update is highly annoying.

Addendum: epocrates’ pill pictures are only loaded when my Touch is online (via wifi). If not, it only shows a question mark, although the pill ID still identify the pill correctly, albeit without pictures. Grrr! I assume it would require quite a lot of storage space to store the variety of pill pictures locally. Still, the app doesn’t even cache the pics I already viewed. I’m kinda disappointed, especially that I don’t have wifi access at my work place. 😦

2nd addendum: Screen capture capability! On any screen, press & hold the home button, then press the on/off button. A white flash will pop up, and there will be a new folder in the photos app called Saved Photos holding the captured picture. You can also save pictures from Safari by pressing on the picture for a couple seconds, then an option will pop up to save/email the picture. Saving the picture will put it into the Saved Photos folder.