TSA explains MacBook Air grounding: just doing its job

Filed under: Laptops What, you don't read the official Transportation Security Administration blog? No worries, we've got your back on this one with the TSA's official reaction to Michael Nygard's missed flight as a result of its incredulous MacBook Air inspection. TSA agents are in fact trained to look for anomolies. So along come the MBA laptop. It's new (thus, rarely seen), ridiculously thin, and lacks a mechanical hard drive and any visible ports. Requesting further inspection is exactly...

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TSA works to clear MacBook Air for flight

Filed under: Odds and ends, Apple, MacBook AirYou may recall that MacBook Air user Michael Nygard was recently screened by the TSA (that's the Transportation Security Administration, to those who aren't in the US.) when he went through security with his MacBook Air. It would seem that the good folks manning the X-ray machine couldn't make heads or tail of what they saw on their screen. When Nygard explained that the MacBook Air was, in fact, a computer (and had that assertion backed up by a younger TSA worker) all was cleared up and he was sent on his merry way (though he did miss his flight).The TSA is working hard to make sure you don't have to deal with this hassle. On the official TSA blog (yes, the TSA has a blog and it is pretty entertaining) Bob informs us know that he is working with Apple to get his hands on a MacBook Air (hey, Bob, just make sure you don't throw it out) for some testing. He wants to run it through one of their screening machines and see if it looks any different than normal laptops. If it does, in fact, look a little odd the image will be sent to all TSA workers in airports so that future travelers won't be bothered.Read�|�Permalink�|�Email this�|�Comments
August 2007 Zoon Awards for Technical Ignorance and Incompetence

Daniel Eran DilgerIn an effort to recognize the spectacular efforts of individuals and organizations promoting the regression of human achievement in the field of technology, a series of nominations await your vote to determine the recipients of August 2007 Zoon Awards.Meet the Zoons.Segregated by color, the various Zoons highlight the world's absolute worst in small minded ignorance, paid to say propagandism, and blind devotion to products without merit.The Pink Zoon is awarded for a spectacular effort in fear-based propagation of uncertainty and doubt, or efforts to infect headlines with false information with the primary goal of preventing innovation, competition, and the emergence of new ideas, or simply to make a quick profit. The White Zoon is awarded for the blinding glare of a shiny blank brain, particularly when such ignorance is presented with authoritarian emphasis by an individual or news source operating well outside its abilities. This award may also be assigned to a company or organization in recognition of epic failure. The Brown Zoon is awarded for squirting extraordinary amounts of intentionally noxious misinformation, whether dredged from an impacted recollection of twenty years ago, sucked from the trusty bucket of canned responses, or simply invented as needed to create an intolerable outburst of stink.These should not be considered as first, second and third placements, as each tie for an equal standing in the Zoon Hall of Shame. It is also possible to award multiple parties for the same award, either as shared participants or, in the case of an unclear majority vote, tied nominations.Meet the Zoon Nominees.As one might imagine, determining the most fitting recipient might be difficult given the wide range of potential candidates standing in line. Here's a brief background on the nominations for August.Troy Wolverton, San Jose Mercury News.A writer for the Street and most recently, the San Jose Mercury News, Wolverton always manages to dig up an unattractive headline for any news related to Apple. A series of articles documented his negative spin and inaccurate reporting, particularly when the subject related to Apple.Wolverton promised me and other readers that he would answer the questions related about his shoddy journalism record, then cowardly ran away. He also wrote emails to RDM readers assuring them that he was only ever honest and unbiased, and that RoughlyDrafted should be read with great suspicion.[10 FAS: 8 - San Jose Mercury News’ False Apple Scandal][Troy Wolverton Documents Faux Apple Shareholder Outrage]Wolverton is nominated for a White and Brown Zoon.Neil Cavuto, Fox News.While actually based on reports from the end of July, I wrote about Cavuto in August, qualifying his nomination for arrogantly complaining about how Apple purportedly over promised iPhone shipments it then failed to deliver. In reality, Apple didn't indicate any sales goals for its first weekend. Cavuto also confused AT&T authorization numbers with Apple's sales figures. Fox News subsequently corrected his comments to suggest that he hadn't made the error, but still failed cover up the core problem that Cavuto's entire rant been a specious bit of ignorant rambling delivered--rather hypocritically--with far too much arrogance than the subject required.Cavuto is nominated for a Pink and White Zoon.[10 FAS: 9 - Troy Wolverton, Neil Cavuto, and the Apple Stock Scandal]Jim Cramer, Scott Moritz and Brett Arends, the Street.After documenting how he would spin false information to manipulate the market as a hedge fund manager, Cramer praised his apprentice Moritz for publishing a string of articles dredging up or simply inventing false information about the iPhone with the intent to knock value from Apple and suggest that Apple's phone was not competitive, not selling as expected, and that Apple's deal with AT&T was an unprecedented deal earning unconscionable profits. Arends is thrown in for good measure after delivering similar work directly from the mouths of Street-savvy Verizon shill, Roger Entner of IAG Research.Cramer, Moritz, and Arends are nominated for a White and Brown Zoon.[More on Scott Moritz and the Jim Cramer Street Misinformation Engine][The Street's Flaccid Campaign Against the iPhone][Unraveling Anti-Apple Panic: the iPhone Launch Success]George Ou, ZDNet, CNET.Nominated in August primarily for his article misrepresenting typography technology and falsely portraying Mac OS X as incompetent in the area of text rendering, Ou deserves extra reason to earn your Zoon vote for failing to admit that he falsified his report, and instead attacking those who pointed out his error.[Tech: Zoon for George Ou]After posting the article detailing why he was wrong and establishing a pattern of his consistently inaccurate and tilted writing, someone who appeared to be Ou emailed me to say:“If you're gonna do a hit piece, at least do it accurately... I'm not going to get uptight about a little man like you chewing on my feet and I'm not even going to bother cursing at you for writing a blatant hit piece on me. It's not worth my time.�?Assuming that the author was unlikely to actually be Ou, I did a search on the email and found an online comment from the same address mentioning being a former ballet dancer. To determine if the author was Ou or just simply a joker trying to get a response, I wrote back, “Hi George, What was inaccurate in my article? Are you really a ballet dancer?�?Ou tu?In reply, Ou wrote, “I was a professional Ballet dancer up till 2000 and I still try to perform now and then,�? but didn’t note anything that was incorrect in the article. When I asked for the correction again, I got two emails, one insisting that, “The 'FreeBSD community' is essentially Sam Leffler. Sam pretty much wrote all that wireless code. Sam is an employee (contractor) of Atheros. Atheros is involved in that FreeBSD code.�?The second said, “You don't even understand the fact that the same Atheros ‘team’ led by Sam Leffler that wrote Apple's wireless drivers is the same team that wrote the open source MadWiFi drivers for Linux and FreeBSD. The same wireless drivers Apple said there was no problem on had to be patched three times a month later. And here you are slandering me because I defended two researchers against a billion dollar corporation.“When you smear my photograph and slap a "SHILL" on top of it, that is slanderous and insulting. You're accusing me of taking payola which is a crime and only a ‘little man’ would slander someone like that. It's one thing to disagree with me or not like a certain piece I wrote, but smearing someone's photo with accusations of shill is nothing but the act of a coward. Unprofessional? There's nothing unprofessional about calling trash like you little and I'd say that to your face.�?Pearls Thrown.How could a professional writer fail to understand his subject matter, fail to grasp basic logic, and then be so arrogant about it on top? I wrote, “George, I don't have to prove that people from FreeBSD did not contribute to Apple's driver. I never stated that, and it has no relevance to statements I made. You had to prove that Atheros did not deliver the driver, and that it came directly from FreeBSD without Atheros' involvement. That was the question, and your misunderstanding of the architecture of Mac OS X helped you to confuse the situation.“The truth is that Atheros contracted with an expert to port some of the FreeBSD code for use in its driver for Mac OS X, which only shares significant similarities with FreeBSD in its userland environment. Atheros had to deliver unique work for Apple to offer a working driver for Mac OS X, and paid a contractor to complete that work.“You maintained that Atheros simply wasn't involved at all, and that Mac OS X's driver just came from the FreeBSD repository. That was wrong. Your explanation of why this was the case was also wrong. It is clear you still do not understand the situation entirely. That's why you shouldn't be writing about it as if you are an expert, simply because someone told you something that sounded believable off the record. You don't understand the issues involved, but operate under the assumption that everything you think up as a plausible idea is also the truth. It isn't.“Slander, as noted in my article, is spoken. Libel is written. Just FYI. Also, a shill doesn't necessarily need to be paid, so calling you a shill isn't ‘accusing you of payola.’ Also, payola really only is illegal in broadcasting. There are plenty of people who are paid to say things, and nobody is arresting them. The company you work for largely serves advertisers; that isn't illegal, or all of CNET would be shipped off to jail.“There is nothing cowardly about pointing out that you are a shill and then documenting your attempts to spread misinformation in efforts to make Vista look good and Apple look bad. There is something very cowardly about fuming that you've been outed, and rather than apologizing and correcting your error, and then maintaining that you're simply better that others so your misinformation campaigns don't matter.“I don't have a little man complex, so repeating that doesn't really bother me. It does make it clear that you have some size issues in addition to your general lack of professionalism and technical incompetence.�?To which Ou elegantly replied, “Go find yourself a bathhouse in the city where you belong. You have no business writing.�? Using the same address, Ou responded to several other online sites defending himself and ignoring the errors of his article. How does Ou have a job? Ou is nominated for a Pink, White, and Brown Zoon, and his winning will also earn a Zoon for ZDNet and its CNET parent.Windows Genuine Advantage, Microsoft.After choosing a delightfully ironic name for its software DRM system, Microsoft then bungled its validation system for users worldwide. The hundreds of millions of PCs running Windows XP and Windows Vista phone home to Microsoft at regular intervals, but the company set up the system with a single point of failure. An inevitable failure prevented the company from maintaining resilience to downtime--something the company highly touts as an Enterprise feature of Windows Server--but it also highlighted the problem of validating software in general using a system that assumes guilt when there is any question in reaching the validation server. Windows users who tried to verify their genuine software had software features remotely turned off because of the WGA problems.[Tech: WGA the Dog]WGA is nominated for a White Zoon.Oliver Rist, InfoWorld, IDG.Suggested by reader Robert de Bie, Rist yesterday wrote an article titled “Does Mac OS X suck? Apple's desktop platform has impressive technical chops, but it falls short from a business perspective.�?Never mind the sophisticated and professional headline, the real question is, did Rist back up his headline, or simply cower in a bed of second hand fear, uncertainty and doubt? No need to guess, really; this is InfoWorld, a rag primarily useful for its ads. No competent IT manager wastes much time reading the ramblings of such stuffshirt columnists.Rist brings up the idea that Mac OS X is really just Unix with some frosting, making it easy to coo about, but not really ready for real business. Unfortunately, Rist offers no basis for anything that he says. In fact, his headline and (forgone) conclusion don't even match what he writes in between. Under the subject of networking, Rist says, “OS X has an excellent networking client, both wired and wireless — due in large part to FreeBSD rather than anything coming out of Cupertino.�? But wait, does FreeBSD write the Mac’s Apple File Protocol? Does it maintain Samba for Windows networking? Wrong on both counts. By spouting the dittohead myth that Mac OS X is just FreeBSD with an Apple logo, Rist has already established that he knows nothing about the subject he's pretending to be an expert in. He then says nothing else about networking, granting that Mac OS X has no real issues.Security Absurdity. On the subject of security, he says “It's a pretty secure system. Yes, ever since OS X has become more popular, attacks and breaches on the platform have become more numerous. And, yes, those numbers are high enough that if I were managing a portfolio of MacBooks I'd be installing anti-virus on them.�? Rist linked his comment to another IDG article reporting on a Mac OS X worm threatened by the anonymous "InfoSec Sellout," which turned out to be a fraud. That's the extent of the acceleration in Mac OS X “attacks and breeches,�? a crank call? There are yet no viruses for Mac OS X, and all the malware that exists is proof of concept ideas hatched in a lab. Strike two for Rist in trying to write about security issues. Even so, he concedes, “once the personal firewall is up and the AV installed, I'd fully expect to see far, far fewer security-related problems from my Mac clients than my Windows clients.�?[10 FAS: 10 - Apple’s Mac and iPhone Security Crisis.]Many Words, Little Point.On the subject of reliability, Rist beats up Artie MacStrawman for insisting that Mac OS X apps never crash. He then provides some recollected figures for estimating how many times he has noticed a Mac app crash compared to Vista crashes. He passes by saying, “Apple's probably less crash-prone overall.�?On the subject of software compatibility, Rist says Apple “treats third-party developers like the proverbial redheaded stepchild, which results in significantly fewer third-party software options for Apple users than Windows users,�? then follows up with the genius, “When it comes to mission-critical, vertical-type business software, Windows clients far outnumber Apple clients. If they didn't, Macs would be populating a much larger number of corporate desktops.�?How does this guy get work writing? By the end of page one, Rist had said nothing at all. On page two, Rist really gets going. He starts off referring to "Apple jihaders," as if he has a fundamentalist shock radio show rather than a column designed to inform IT managers. Rist says people don't want to retrain employees to use Macs, and then suggests that retraining users for the significantly different Vista would not be an issue. He gives the Mac a “grudging�? pass again and moves to hardware. [Paul Thurrott's Merciless Attack on Artie MacStrawman]Mac OS X’s Hardware Features.He says that Gateway has more USB ports and a finger print scanner in the same form factor for less cost, without outlining his comments with any factual basis. He then complains that his MacBook suffered a hard drive failure after four months. “That's a pretty short time frame for serious hardware failure,�? Rist wrote. It's odd that hardware issues are being outlined in an article about “why Mac OS X sucks,�? but someone writing to an audience of experienced IT users should be aware that computing hardware--particularly hard drives--is most likely to fail in its first few months. Past that break in period, most hard drives typically have a relatively stable three year life span, after which problems become statistically more likely to occur. It's called the bathtub lifespan curve, because like the contour of a tub, it starts high, then drops low for a long stretch, then begins to rise again. Clearly, Rist doesn't know what he's talking about at all, even when complaining about consumer Mac hardware in the context of Mac OS X as a business operating system.Dude, You’re Being a Shill.After "passing" all of his categories, Rist then fails Mac OS X in “business orientation.�? There are good and justified reasons for faulting Apple in the IT arena, but Rist doesn't mention a single one. Instead, he prattles on about Apple's consumer ads, and how they portray the typical Mac user with a “SOHO, I'm-cooler-than-you, coffee house image.�? For all the dittoheads who like to repeat this idea, I'd like to remind you all that Dell's memorable mascot was a smirky pothead who couldn't finish sentences beyond, “Dude, you're gettin’ a Dell! (excited thumbs up).�? That had no impact on Dell's Enterprise sales, because serious enterprise users don't make their decisions based on watching prime time TV and deciding whether they like the advertisements targeted at families. So please shut up about the Justin Long and John Hodgman Get a Mac ads. Enterprise Worthy Dell Pothead Vs. the Too Good for You Coffee Drinking Mac.Highly Unqualified.Rist is a “senior senior contributing editor�? at InfoWorld. With this sort of incompetence and ignorance, it makes one wonder what kind of single celled organisms must pass for junior editors at IDC and its various ComputerWorld, PC World, and InfoWorld properties.While writing “a column devoted to running Microsoft technologies in medium and large enterprise environments,�? Rist only notes experience in running a small Microsoft-oriented software business and writing for rags like Computer Shopper. That qualifies him as a Microsoft shill, but not as a columnist offering advice about ‘medium and large enterprise’ IT environments.Rist is nominated for Pink, White and Brown Zoons.Microsoft’s Pseudo-Philanthropy in New Orleans.Bob Emery notes that Microsoft is offering free software for hurricane-hit businesses in the devastated New Orleans area. However, in order to qualify, users have to sign up for a three year plan, of which Microsoft only covers the first year. A local paper noted “For the typical small business of 50 employees and 25 personal computers licensing Microsoft Windows Vista and the Office 2007 suite of programs, the free year can result in savings of as much as $12,050.�?Of course, what that really means is that recovering small businesses will actually have to shell out $24,100 just for software licenses, in addition to buying computers capable of running Vista. One might think that a company earning $50 billion in revenues might be able to offer more than an advertisement to struggling businesses, particularly since software costs Microsoft nothing to deliver.[Microsoft gives free software to hurricane-hit businesses - New Orleans CityBusiness]Votes toward Microsoft's headline friendly, fake philanthropy will help the company earn its White Zoon for its WGA fiasco.Vote in the Forum and add your comments.Official awardees: Pink : George Ou, ZDNet, CNETWhite : Windows Genuine Advantage, MicrosoftBrown : George Ou, ZDNet, CNETWhat do you think? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
TSA can't believe MacBook Air is a real laptop, causes owner to miss flight

Filed under: Laptops The TSA has been known to take issue with products designed in Cupertino before, but for one particular traveler, it was Apple's thinnest laptop ever that caused the latest holdup. Upon tossing his ultra-sleek slab of aluminum underneath the scanner, security managed to find enough peculiarities to remove it from the flow, pull it aside and wrangle up the owner for some questions. Apparently, the TSA employee manning the line was flabbergasted by the "lack of a drive" and the complete absence of "ports on the back," and while hordes of co-workers swarmed to investigate, the user's flight took off on schedule. Thankfully, said owner was finally allowed to pass through after some more in-the-know colleagues explained in painfully simple terms what an SSD was, but the poor jet-setter most definitely paid the price for trying to slip some of the latest and greatest under the sharp eyes of the TSA (and cutting it close on time, of course).[Image courtesy of ABC]�Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Will Google's Android Play DOS to Apple's iPhone?

Daniel Eran Dilger Today's broad array of smartphone operating system contenders are offering lots of potential answers to a problem that only requires one. It appears the market has two options ahead: either pool generic hardware makers behind a single operating system and deliver a smartphone marketplace that resembles the Windows PC market, or watch them fall to a dominant leader and have a smartphone market that resembles Apple's iPod ecosystem. This decision isn't going to be made by a class of intellectual elite, or by government mandate. it's going to be made by the market itself. Here are the factors that will influence the outcome, either marginalizing Apple's iPhone into a niche as the company has twice experienced previously at the hands of DOS in 1981 and Windows in 1991, or positioning it as the dominant leader as Apple has achieved for itself with the iPod since 2001. The third segment in this series looks at Google's Android and the Open Handset Alliance as a possible “DOS-attack” against Apple's iPhone. Subsequent segments will look at Nokia's newly opened Symbian and other mobile contenders challenging the iPhone. Will the iPhone Meet its Match from a Modern Day DOS? Will Windows Mobile Play DOS to Apple’s iPhone? Will Google's Android Play DOS to Apple's iPhone? Will Symbian Play DOS to Apple's iPhone? Google Acquires Android. In 2005, Google purchased a startup named Android, which had been in business for nearly two years. The secretive startup was known only to be working on software for mobile phones. It was being run by a who's who of mobile industry veterans, including Andy Rubin, the founder of Danger. Rubin had earlier worked at WebTV along with Chris White and Andy McFadden, both of whom had also joined Android. Richard Miner of Orange and Nick Sears of Tmobile also brought their mobile provider experience to Android. At the time of the acquisition, Google didn't announce any plans for Android and instead only told BusinessWeek, “We acquired Android because of the talented engineers and great technology. We're thrilled to have them here.” It appeared that Google was only going to be expanding its search services for mobile phone users, along the lines of the Google SMS answer system it had recently released. Google Buys Android for Its Mobile Arsenal - BusinessWeek Windows XP Media Center Edition vs Apple TV: The Fall of WebTV The GPhone Myth. As reports began to leak out about talks between Google and hardware makers throughout 2007, rumors began to fly about “the GPhone,” a competitive offering that was supposed to take on the iPhone. Some phone enthusiasts hoped Google would jump in to rescue the struggling OpenMoko project and turn it into a viable project that could attack Apple's new smartphone. In October 2007, I printed the Great Google GPhone Myth, taking apart the idea that Google would be directly competing against the iPhone, and describing that Google was really working on a free alternative to Windows Mobile as a conduit for getting its search and related services on a broader variety of mobiles. Google's services were already on the iPhone. In November, Google played its hand: it had organized a consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance to develop open standards for mobiles. The first product from the group would be Android, a mobile operating system built on the Linux kernel. Google wasn't getting into the phone handset business at all; it was only making sure that its mobile search products would not risk being marginalized by the threat of Windows Mobile on phones in the same way Microsoft had been working to leverage its PC monopoly to push Google search off the Windows desktop. The Great Google gPhone Myth Introducing Android: Leader of Linux. Two weeks later, Google released an early version of the Android software. On top of a Linux kernel, Android uses a specialized version of a Java Virtual Machine that takes Java language code and turns it into what Google calls “Dalvik bytecode” rather than Java bytecode as a standard JVM would. This allows Google to leverage existing and familiar Java language tools without paying Sun for a Java license. Like Mac OS X and its fraternal iPhone OS, Android includes a variety of open source libraries, including SQLite and WebKit. On top of that, Google developed a series of frameworks that handle the tasks Cocoa Touch does on the iPhone. Android also bundles a set of applications. While Apple adapted its existing Mac OS X to work in a mobile environment to create the iPhone OS, Android is more like a customized Java environment running on a specialized mobile Linux variant: elements of maturity in an otherwise experimental new platform. What is Android? -Google Android was by no means the first mobile OS using Linux. Both Palm and its amputated ACCESS software arm have Linux-based mobile platforms. Nokia has Maemo, which it uses in its Internet Tablets, and also recently acquired Trolltech and its Qtopia mobile Linux platform. Motorola has teamed up with MontaVista Software to use its Mobilinux. Intel created the Moblin project for mobile Linux, aimed at Internet devices. Google's OHA also isn't the first consortium to attempt to standardize a mobile Linux platform. The OSDL started the Mobile Linux Initiative to define requirements for hardware; the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) then worked to define various phone profiles aimed at the Japanese market; the Linux Phone Standard (LiPS) Forum tried to do the same thing in Europe. In 2007, LiPS was folded into the new LiMo Foundation, along with the OSDL. All of these committees have had some overlap and some complementary features. Several of Google's OHA partners are also LiMo members, including NTT DoCoMo, Wind River, and Motorola. So why didn't Google just join LiMo? “LiMo, very candidly, wasn't moving fast enough,” OHA board member John Bruggeman told CNET. Google hopes to herd the Linux cats into a progressive, structured platform that can battle against Symbian and Windows Mobile to succeed as the new DOS of smartphones. Will Google fracture or unify mobile Linux? The Presumption of the Necessity of DOS. The previous segment examining Windows Mobile pointed out how the PC industry as a whole assumed that Microsoft's desktop Windows monopoly would easily take over dominance in the MP3 player market, pushing Apple into a niche position. This was expected because DOS had pushed Apple's early computers into a reduced role starting in 1981, and Microsoft had repeated this again in 1991 when the DOS world migrated to Windows, effectively pruning Apple's Macintosh into a Bonsai platform. The inability of one company to dominate any product category has been frequently repeated by PC industry pundits as a given, despite the fact that history is full of examples of this happening. Sony dominated personal music players for two decades under the Walkman brand even while equally large competitors tried to push it from this position; Nintendo has similarly owned handheld gaming despite ill-fated efforts to grab a piece of its pie by products running a generic platform such as Microsoft's WinCE (Gizmondo), Linux (GP32), and Symbian (N-Gage). In fact, outside of the Windows/DOS PC, there are actually few examples of a generic platform taking over an industry. Nearly every other consumer-facing product uses proprietary platforms: car makers, stereo equipment, appliances and so on typically all use designs custom to their maker. The paradox of the Windows PC market has been that Microsoft's broadly licensed software supposedly saves hardware makers from investing in software development while ensuring compatibility, when in reality it adds significant costs to PC makers while limiting their ability to differentiate themselves. That explains why PC makers have been perpetually merging together and going out of business while Microosft has rolled in money over the last two decades. Parallel efforts to copy Microsoft in broadly licensing an operating system have regularly failed: IBM's OS/2, Apple's Mac OS, Palm's PDA OS, even Microsoft's own efforts to duplicate Windows dominance in other markets, from copy machines to PDAs to smartphones to SPOT watches to music players. The closest copy may be Symbian, but its customers are partners, not simply consumers of a generic third party's operating system as Windows licensees are. That indicates it is not necessary to duplicate the dominance exercised by Microsoft over the PC industry in the smartphone market. Google's Android and Symbian exist more as technology sharing pacts among manufacturers, but both aspire to take Microsoft's DOS role among smartphones. However, the idea that Apple's iPhone must be dethroned by a modern-day DOS, whether Windows Mobile, Android, or Symbian, is not just debatable, but does not sync with the reality of more recent events. Apple's recent history of the iPod further refutes the idea that a software analog to Microsoft is needed. The iPod Emergence: Apple & Pixo vs IBM & Microsoft. Apple's iPod in 2001 made no effort to clone the DOS business model; it actually did the opposite. When Apple entered the market, there were a number of existing MP3 devices using custom software, hardware designs, and DRM codecs. The iPod used off the shelf components to deliver a custom MP3 player using third party software, but Apple also added its own technologies: easy to use sync with iTunes, a fast Firewire interface that made uploading music far faster than the prevailing USB 1.0, and an attractive industrial design. With the iPod, Apple played the role of IBM in 1981, using Pixo's embedded operating system to enter the market quickly, just as IBM had used DOS. The difference was that Apple didn't direct any market attention toward Pixo and added a lot of value on top of that core embedded OS. A modern day Compaq couldn't simply clone the hardware and license Pixo to run on it in order to compete against the iPod, because the iPod was much more than just generic hardware running Pixo software. As the iPod developed, Pixo's role diminished and was eventually displaced. Just like IBM, Apple jumped into a new market just as demand was beginning to explode. Apple made MP3 players far more attractive to a general audience by delivering greater playback capacity than most entry level devices offered, along with an ease of use that encouraged buyers to jump in at the higher end of the market. That left Apple with not only the lion's share of the market, but also by far the most profitable segments of the market. Two decades prior, IBM badly fumbled its play with the early PC and ended up irrelevant in the PC world by the late 80s, sideswiped by Microsoft's DOS and the cloners who were licensing it in parallel, notably Compaq and later HP and Dell. Steve Jobs had witnessed that happen, and was determined to not let it happen again to Apple. Rather than being manipulated by a software middleware vendor as IBM had, Apple worked to incrementally develop the iPod market itself. After consuming the hard drive-based player market, Apple took on the Flash RAM-based market with a tiny hard drive system used in the iPod Mini, and followed up with Flash-based devices of its own in the Nano and Shuffle. This allowed Apple to progressively serve an increasingly wider market, incrementally growing upon an established foundation. With the iPod, Apple became, in effect, an IBM with its own internal Microsoft. Microsoft's Failure Despite Features. In contrast, Microsoft entered the music player market by promoting music player hardware reference designs around WinCE. However, it was unable to ship a finished design until the iPod had become firmly established around 2005. Later branded as PlaysForSure, the devices were sold by various hardware makers and all purported to support the same DRM and the same music subscription services while also offering a broader array of hardware that presented video before the iPod did, supported wireless before the iPod, and so on. Despite these unique features, all of those PFS designs still failed. Microsoft blamed the failure of PFS upon its music store and hardware partners and decided to take Apple on itself in 2006. It relaunched a Toshiba PFS player as its own device under the Zune brand, adding WiFi music sharing features and a larger display than the current Pods had. It failed dramatically as well. Did Microsoft's attempts to float a new DOS among music players fail because of Apple's success, or due to Microsoft's own problems? The failure of the Zune, which followed the iPod model rather than the DOS model, seems to suggest that Microsoft itself was to blame. Consider too that Microsoft's Windows Mobile phones, which use the same underlying operating system as its failed PlaysForSure music players and the Zune, had similarly flopped even before Apple could release a charismatic phone equivalent to the iPod. Of course, when the iPhone was released, it hit Windows Mobile hardest. The iPhone made Windows Mobile Smartphones look ridiculous and underpowered, and made Windows Mobile Pocket PC phones look clumsy and awkward, despite the fact that they both supported a variety of features the iPhone didn't, including the ability to edit documents, capture video, send MMS, and so on. Simply adding on features did not enable Microsoft to compete against Apple. The only conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that competing against Apple requires more than just having a feature arsenal. Microsoft's failures in themselves do not necessarily mean that Google's Android will fail in its attempts to float its own smartphone platform. Why Microsoft’s Zune is Still Failing Microsoft’s Zune, Vista, and Windows Mobile 7 Strategy vs the iPhone Will Google Succeed where Microsoft Failed? Microsoft's demonstrated inability to successfully enter consumer markets for MP3 players and smartphones has given observers little faith that the company will somehow turn things around in late 2009 when its next generation of devices are expected to be released. However, prior to that the first fruits of Google's efforts to build its own smartphone operating environment will arrive. Will Google's Android take over Microsoft's crown as the “DOS vendor” among smartphones? Supporters of Google's Android project point to some parallels between Android for smartphones and Windows on the PC: Android will allow hardware makers to differentiate in ways that can offer features Apple can't (or doesn't want to); it should allow software developers to offer features Apple does not allow on the iPhone; it embraces open, hobbyist experimentation in ways that Apple currently isn't; and it opens the potential for content providers that Apple is not interested in allowing. Openness is Android's key competitive feature. Will all this openness allow Google to unseat the iPhone to become the primary platform developers want to participate in, and subsequently soak up the market for third party hardware makers that Windows Mobile serves? While Google currently has no market share due to the fact that no Android phones have yet shipped, it does have broad vocal support from a variety of the same kinds of hardware manufacturers that supported DOS and Windows and helped to make those platforms successful in the desktop PC market. HTC and Android. The first Android phone is expected to be the HTC Dream; Taiwan's HTC (High Tech Computer) also manufactures Palm's Treo Pro phone as well as many of the most visible Windows Mobile devices. In addition to models produced under its own name, HTC also sells Windows Mobile devices under the Dopod brand, as well as no-name phones branded by providers, such as AT&T, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and others. HTC will also be building the XPERIA X1 Windows Mobile phone for Sony Ericsson. HTC was quick to throw its support behind Android despite its long term alliance with Windows Mobile. Why would it so enthusiastically support an unproven platform from a company that has no experience in consumer hardware platforms? One can only assume that HTC is not happy with the current state of Windows Mobile, and desperately wants another “DOS” to succeed where Microsoft's has so spectacularly failed. As an Original Design Manufacturer for Palm, HTC watched as Palm adopted Windows Mobile in place of the Palm OS and subsequently fell even deeper into crisis. Palm's only successful phone since has been its Palm OS-based Centro. HTC undoubtedly sees Android as its ticket to becoming the next Dell, but without a similar dependance upon Microsoft. Android for mobile phones is essentially playing the role of Linux for PCs, except that it has the backing of a major company behind it. Can Android Take on the iPhone with Openness as its Feature? As great as this sounds, it's important to consider that Linux on the desktop has made no significant progress in eating into Windows dominance after a decade of trying. Being open, free, flexible, and decentralized hasn't been enough of an advantage to get consumers to migrate from Windows to Linux in any fraction of significance. Similarly, in the music business, Linux-based MP3 players have had no impact on the iPod, despite offering more features, flexibility, support for additional codecs, and so on. In the mobile phone area, Linux enjoys a sizable portion of the smartphone market, but this is almost entirely due to phones sold by Motorola in China, where the advantages of Linux' openness are void. Motorola's Linux phones offer nothing to users in terms of openness or flexibility, and are really no different in terms of features than other appliance 'feature phones' based upon closed operating systems. And again, a key problem with assaulting Apple in a feature war is that neither the iPod nor the iPhone became popular by being “highly featured.” They both delivered perhaps 80% of the functionality found in all other devices in the market. Rather than trying to match every feature and cater to every niche as Microsoft had with Windows Mobile, Apple's devices did a few things very well at launch, and incrementally developed into full featured devices that still lack some of the more unique features of their competitors. Further, in terms of openness, the demographic that embraces Linux' characteristic freedoms is not the same as the demographic that buys smartphones in quantity and then pays for data service. This is a critical fact to consider because a big part of the iPhone's success stems from the fact that it is being pushed by mobile providers who want to capture the cream of the market willing to pay a premium for data services. The Frankenphone. Combining the fractured aesthetic of HTC's Windows Mobile phone hardware with Android's software, based upon Linux' perpetually unfinished DIY openness and Google's Java-like development platform, will not result in a product similar to the iPhone. Instead, it will look a lot like phones that have already failed in the market. Apple's advantage comes from slick hardware designs with a close attention to detail, combined with software that purposely does less so that it can do what it does better. Even Apple's own conservative attempts to broaden its software capabilities with iPhone 2.0 have resulted in instability problems that can be blamed upon both Apple's early releases of its phone operating system and software from inexperienced third party developers new to the platform. Would the current frustrations with iPhone 2.0 be somehow mitigated by additional openness that also embraced all kinds of variables from different hardware makers with less quality control than Apple, a loose committee of additional cooks working to serve up operating system features targeted at every possible conceived need, and a wider third party software group with fewer constraints on illegal behaviors? The Failure of Open. While it is politically unpopular to criticize the well meaning efforts of open source contributors, the failure of Linux on the desktop, the failure of the vaporware Indrema game console, and the failure of the OpenMoko project to deliver a workable phone within a year of its deadline all underline the serious problems open development faces in the world of consumer oriented devices. Open has simply failed to deliver on its promises in the world of consumer hardware. OpenMoko was supposed to release its first mobile phone to consumers for $250 several months in advance of the iPhone. When the iPhone shipped, the group then announced new plans to get its phone out by the end of 2007. Instead, this spring the group announced new plans to move to an entirely different development platform, and ship its phone mid year for $400 with limited functionality and incomplete software outside of basic GSM phone features. Linux's notable successes, from Motorola's Linux phones to the Tivo DVR to Linksys Routers, have often come without any associated openness or freedom, and were instead delivered simply to provide their manufacturer with a free kernel to build upon. This indicates that while Linux may find its way into an increasing number of smartphones, it will likely not be accompanied by the glorious freedom of an open development environment Google has said it would offer with Android. Apple iPhone vs the FIC Neo1973 OpenMoko Linux Smartphone Can Google Succeed Where Open Has Previously Failed? Despite “openness” being Android's strongest competitive feature compared to Apple's iPhone, Google recently revealed that its wide-open development model is intentionally gravitating towards a closed association of top tier partners due to practical considerations. In July, Google accidentally sent out a notice that revealed that it had been seeding private SDK updates to only a subset of its contributors, angering those who believed that Android would be as open as Linux on the desktop or the OpenMoko project. Further, Google has restricted initial development to higher level APIs just as Apple did, further indicating that Google itself realizes that being wildly open to impress a minority of hobbyists will not result in the commercial success of its new platform. That serves to neuter Android's primary advantage over the iPhone. Without delivering on the premise of being wide open, Android is really just a less mature set of Java libraries used to create a specialized binary that runs on a Linux foundation. Unlike Apple's iPhone, Android phones won't have a slick user interface developed by professional artists, nor the iPhone's legacy of mature software development frameworks crafted over the last thirty years, nor the iPhone's tightly integrated hardware with award winning industrial design, nor its marketing power tied into the iPod and Apple's retail stores. Android won't be an open iPhone, it will only be a Windows Mobile phone with a better kernel that runs specialized Java software instead of Win32 or .NET code. Don't expect consumers to be impressed by that. The Biggest Missing Feature. There is one remaining factor that strangles to death any last remaining hope that Android might assassinate the iPhone and assume the crown of the “DOS of smartphones.” That is: Android delivers zero price advantage to consumers. In 1981 and 1991, consumers who wanted Apple computers faced the sticker shock of a somewhat arrogant price tag. Apple sold its computers, as it still does, at the higher end of the market, but there was simply far more range in prices available. In 1981, that meant the Apple II was $2600 and the new Apple III was $3500, even before you added a monitor. On the low end, Commodore sold its far less powerful, but “still a computer” Vic-20 for $300, while IBM entered the market with the IBM PC at $3000. Over the next few years, Apple focused on delivering additional sophistication at the same price, releasing the $10,000 Lisa and then the $2,500 Macintosh. IBM continued selling PCs in the same $3,000 to $10,000 range, but other DOS PC vendors began selling machines at prices that ranged as low as $1500. That left Apple with a roughly $1000 price premium over low end PCs. The products weren't really comparable, but consumers only saw the huge price difference. In 1991, Apple was still selling moderate to high-end Macintoshes for $3,800 to $10,000; the crippled Mac LC was $2500, and obsolete-at-birth Mac Classic ranged from $999 to $1500. Windows allowed PC makers to ship a functional $1500 PC and claim a rough approximation to Apple's $2500 entry level system, maintaining that apparent $1000 price premium. Today, pundits are lucky to find a Dell or HP system that is even a couple hundred dollars less than a comparable Mac. However, in the smartphone business, the iPhone 3G is now the same price, if not less, than generic competing phones on the market. Even more significant is the fact that the price of the phone hardware is nearly nothing compared to the cost of the service plan. This fact simply eases any price premium that could cause buyers to flock to a smartphone running a generic operating system over buying the iPhone 3G, regardless of whether it runs Windows Mobile or Android. 1990-1995: Planting Software Seeds Android Partners Have Already Failed. That same pricing principle similarly prevented buyers from considering many of the alternatives to the iPod. While Apple's original iPod models were more expensive than many of the first MP3 players on the market, they were price competitive with models offering similar features. By 2004, it was Apple who was undercutting MP3 competitors on price. Microsoft offered zero price advantage when it began selling the Zune, a major factor in its failure, but Microsoft simply couldn't out-price the iPod; it was already losing money offering the Zune at the same price as the iPod. Apple now has tremendous market power in buying RAM and other components that will prevent any competitors from being able to offer a huge discount over the iPhone's $199 price tag. Even if competitors were to give their phones away, they would only offer a $200 discount to users who would then still need to pay the same mobile fees to use the phone. Android's other partners, including Samsung and LG, have already failed to capture any significant market share in the music player market. Are they going to maintain their position as smartphone makers now that they face similar competition from Apple, its iPod ecosystem, its iTunes Music and Apps Store, Apple's retail store experience, and other factors that are pushing the iPhone? If they can, it is not obvious how partnering with Android will help. Other Problems for Android. Android was announced in early November 2007 and was followed with an early preview SDK within a couple weeks, a month ahead of Apple's initial announcement of the iPhone 2.0 SDK. However, between March and July 2008, Apple delivered nine progressive releases of its SDK, opened its App Store, and sold 60 million apps, raising $30 million to support iPhone software development in just the first month. It has since released three more SDK updates to developers related to iPhone 2.1, which is expected next month. Android just published its first open SDK beta update earlier this week, warning developers that “applications developed with it may not quite be compatible with devices running the final Android 1.0.” Additionally, Android still has no phones available. By the time the HTC Dream is expected to launch, Apple will have an installed base of around ten million iPhone (and iPod touch) users supporting software development through iTunes. The business model for selling Android apps is no better than that for selling jailbreak iPhone apps: there is no iTunes Apps Store to promote them, so users will have to track them down on their own. Android developers also have no real freedom that jailbreak iPhone developers lack. The only difference is that there are ten million iPhones to sell jailbreak apps to, and currently zero Android phones. If selling a jailbreak iPhone app sounds like more trouble than its worth, imagine trying to sell Android apps to a non-existant audience. Now add the official iPhone App Store into the mix, where publicity, promotion and profits are booming. What platform is going to have the most applications? How many users will flock to a smartphone platform with no apps? The wisdom of releasing a desirable phone and achieving a significant installed base before releasing an SDK makes a lot more sense in retrospect. Additionally, while Apple has a decade of experience in shipping regular updates to Mac OS X and its Xcode developer tools, Google has only shipped a random assortment of web-oriented SDKs (a number of which have been abandoned) as a tangent to its core business of selling advertisements. When the Android SDK 1.0 is finished later this year, developers will not only lack an installed base to sell their apps to, but will also have no high profile market for selling their apps in, and subsequently no financial incentive to develop applications that add value to the Android platform, just like Linux on the PC desktop. Around the same time, possibly within the next month, Apple will be shipping its second major OS release: iPhone 2.1. Apple will also be upgrading its entire user base to the new software so that developers will have a cohesive platform to target. This mirrors the efforts Apple has taken to upgrade its Mac OS X users to the same reference release. Mobile developers will be seeing money pouring in via iTunes while crickets chirp in the Android section of various mobile online stores. Apple’s iPhone Vs. Other Mobile Hardware Makers: 5 Revenue Engines Same Same, But Different: DOS Model Problems. Android developers will also have a series of other problems to manage. Like Windows Mobile, Android is intended to support everything, from BlackBerry-style keypad phones with a small touchscreen to the simple Windows Mobile Smartphone form factor lacking a touch screen to iPhone-like full size touch screens. Also like Windows Mobile, Android phone makers will have the option to leave off Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS location services, graphics hardware acceleration, and so on. Each Android phone will also have unique camera hardware, support for different video and audio codecs, and varied support for other differentiating proprietary services demanded by mobile operators. This will force developers to to make complex decisions regarding the lowest common denominator they choose to support. So while the iPhone will have a cohesive feature set, a managed software environment, and a functional market, Android will be a loose federation of hardware makers selling the same random features found on Windows Mobile today, with a chaotic development environment that lacks any central market for users or developers. And it will be run as an experiment by a company with no experience in consumer hardware or platform development. The Missing Tap. One specific example of the “DOS model problem” is that Android currently does not support multitouch. It's not touched on in the API, and Google quietly tap dances around its omission. Why no multitouch? Because multitouch screens are expensive, and most OHA hardware members are more interested in making a profit in a competitive phone market rather than impressing consumers as Apple did with the iPhone. Most existing smartphones, even those trying to directly rival the iPhone, use a stylus driven, pressure sensitive tap screen or a simpler, cheaper touch technology that lacks support for sensing multitouch. The iPhone's screen can actually sense up to five fingers at once, but the primary feature multitouch offers on the iPhone is the two fingered tapping and the pinching effects everyone associates with it. Android could certainly support multitouch if there were a demand for it, but that's the point: Google knows that its hardware partners are cheap and unlikely to put out hardware that actually competes with the iPhone. Instead of using expensive technologies that deliver clever yet largely invisible functionality, OHA members, just like PC makers, are far more likely to add flashy, impractical gadgety fluff that's cheap to tack on, such as slide out keyboards, neon tubes, and scratch and sniff stickers. That's how you impress gullible nerds on the cheap. Google itself is blowing smoke and erecting mirrors to distract from the reality that it being a “DOS vendor” means supporting bargain basement hardware from penny pinching duplicators. Android has been demonstrating some “wow” features such as a Street Maps app that pans around based on an internal compass in the demonstration phone. The problem is that that kind of thing only makes for a fun demo. Nobody needs to twirl around their phone in the air to see a view of the other side of the street, but everyone who has used an iPhone will wonder why they can't pinch to zoom out. Even worse, most Android phones aren't going to have a compass built into them, so Google is demonstrating features most Android users won't be able to use. That Sounds Like Microsoft… Google's design decisions are beginning to look a lot like Windows Vista; rather than actually working to make laptops boot faster, Microsoft came up with the idea of adding a small screen to the back of Vista laptops so users could check their email without having to wake the system up. But this was a stupid idea for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that most users just want a laptop that boots up quickly. Few laptops got the mini screen, but every user who tries Vista on their laptop will wonder why it doesn't boot up as fast as Mac OS X Leopard. In the same way, Google is advertising features for Android that most users won't ever see in their actual phones while ignoring things people will expect based on their exposure to the iPhone. Android is simply selecting the wrong features. Android will offer the advantages of supporting MMS, recording video, and the list of other features Windows Mobile already supplies. Those features didn't stop Apple from firing past Microsoft in the smartphone arena however, just as the Zune's highly touted WiFi and screen didn't phase iPod buyers. Incidentally, just months after the Zune, Apple had not only demonstrated a larger display but a higher definition multitouch screen, and not only WiFi, but functional WiFi that could be used to browse the web or check email. This suggests that Apple, with its faster release schedule, won't stay behind any of the leading features potentially offered by Android for very long. Android partners, however, will find it as difficult to catch up with Apple's unique features, just as Microsoft has been stymied to keep up with Mac OS X, the iPod, and the iPhone. The underlying reason: both Google and Microosft are tasked with maintaing support for a huge variety of hardware options demanded by all their partners. Apple has the unique circumstances to do only what it needs to do itself. Android in Windows Mobile's Shoes. Like Windows Mobile, Android faces a difficult market. In the US, it competes against the popular BlackBerry in corporate markets and the iPhone among consumers. Worldwide, it competes against entrenched market leader Nokia. The difference is that Google, unlike Microsoft, has no in. Windows Mobile was adopted by Windows-bound IT shops despite its weaknesses. Nobody has any preexisting reason to try an Android phone apart from hobbyists and open software enthusiasts, a demographic that has done little to move Linux on the PC desktop. Google also lacks Microsoft's installed base; it's starting from zero. The smartphone industry initially doubted Apple's chances of making much progress with the iPhone, despite the company having the Mac platform, the iPod, retail stores, platform development experience, marketing savvy, industrial design prowess, and so on. Google doesn't have any of those things. Mobile Providers vs Android. Apple also started with an exclusive partnership with AT&T, a three legged race that demanded effort from both. Google is hoping that hardware makers handle the hardware details and that mobile providers will be excited to sell its Android phones. While hardware makers such as HTC clearly appreciate having found a free alternative to Windows Mobile, it's not obvious why providers would be excited about Android, as it promises an openness that most mobile providers strongly oppose. AT&T took a big risk in getting behind the iPhone, as the phone encouraged users to use email rather than fee-based SMS and MMS, it supported WiFi for data access, and it bypassed AT&T's MEdia Net services to plug into iTunes instead. Verizon refused to parter with Apple and grant it those kinds of concessions. Is AT&T going to take a similar risk to partner with a phone that is not exclusive to it, and is Verizon now going to open its arms to support phones that do not exclusively support BREW, VCast and its other proprietary services? While Android may well eat into Microsoft's Windows Mobile business by stealing away its hardware makers, it seems unlikely that Android will ever serve as more than free alternative to Windows Mobile in a market where Windows Mobile is increasingly irrelevant. Android may have the dubious distinction of swallowing Microsoft's mobile business the same way Microsoft ate up the Palm OS, but even if it accomplishes that goal, Google will likely find itself unsustainably hungry immediately afterward. It will also find itself swimming in a shark tank of hungry rivals, including Nokia's Symbian, RIM's BlackBerry, and Apple's iPhone. Symbian is the final generic platform vying for the opportunity to play DOS in the smartphone market. The next article will examine Nokia's chances in its bid to match Microsoft's PC dominance in the mobile market while setting out in a new venture to copy Android's open software model. Did you like this article? Let me know. Comment here, in the Forum, or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast (oh wait, I have to fix that first). It's also cool to submit my articles to Digg, Reddit, or Slashdot where more people will see them. Consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
TUAW Review: MacBook Pro (Late 2008)

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Reviews, Macbook Pro, MacBookAs many TUAW readers know, I was dealt a bad hand with the last generation MacBook Pros, so I met the new MBPs with open arms. My first impression of the new machines: the new MacBook Pros are absolutely amazing, but not all of the changes are good (we'll get to those in the second half of the review). Read on as I tackle each of the new features. The New Design I think Apple made a big improvement with the new laptop design. Overall, it is sleek and beautiful - the design is reminiscent of the MacBook Air, only thicker. Previous MacBook Pro generations had a physical latch mechanism for opening/closing the screen, but Apple has moved to the newer magnetic latch that can be found on both the MacBook Air and MacBook models. Earlier generations of the MBP had two USB ports, but on opposite sides of the case. When you have cables coming out of both sides, it makes the system almost unusable as a notebook, and makes it look less attractive. Apple has changed this by moving all the ports to the left side of the machine, while the SuperDrive has been moved from the front to the right side. This is a big improvement. How many people do you know who have successfully upgraded their MacBook Pros hard drive? On previous generations, this task was almost impossible due to the fact that you needed to disassemble the entire machine to reach the drive. Apple now has a door on the bottom that, when opened, gives you instant access to the removable battery and hard drive. You do have to remove the back of the machine to reach the RAM, but it only has a couple of screws. The new casing feels sturdier when you pick it up; you can definitely feel a difference in the quality of material used to make the new MacBooks. This is largely due to Apple using the new "brick" manufacturing method. In addition, this casing makes the entire computer run cooler ... in previous models, you could (almost) fry an egg on the back of the machine, but I haven't noticed much heat being produced on the new machine. Continue reading for the full review and pictures... Continue reading TUAW Review: MacBook Pro (Late 2008)Read�|�Permalink�|�Email this�|�Comments
Ten Big New Features in Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Daniel Eran Dilger Apple is marketing the idea of there being “no new features�? for Snow Leopard and instead promising an overall improvement in how Mac OS X works under the hood, thanks to a diligent code optimization and refactoring cycle discussed in the previous article. At the same time, there are plenty of significant new features coming in Snow Leopard to look forward to. Here are ten big new features (plus a few minor ones) that you probably haven't heard much about from anywhere else, including my previous articles on the subject that already described QuickTime X, Grand Central, and OpenCL. WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint Pulling Invisible New Features into Snow Leopard. Apple's increasing collaborations with the open source community have pulled back the veil of secrecy on several new but mostly invisible enhancements that will be showing up in Snow Leopard. One relates to LLVM, the Low Level Virtual Machine compiler architecture project originally founded at the University of Illinois. Apple began contributing to LLVM development in 2005, and started using it Leopard to expand support for OpenGL hardware features. Lower-end Macs that lack the silicon to interpret that specialize graphics code can now do it in software. LLVM is also working its way into Apple's Xcode IDE, initially as a highly efficient optimizer and code generator that works as a bolt-on upgrade to components of GCC, but eventually as a complete compiler replacement. That project, known as Clang, was opened up last year. LLVM compiler technology not only makes developers more productive, but also results in code that runs significantly faster on the same hardware. Apple's other open secret: the LLVM Complier The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure Project Another openly hidden secret in Mac OS X is CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System. Beginning with Jaguar in 2002, Apple adopted and licensed CUPS from its developer as Mac OS X's printing engine. It then purchased the project outright. CUPS is also the de facto printing system for Linux distros and is available for BSD and other commercial Unix systems. That means Apple owns the project that develops the printing architecture for Linux. That's not an issue because Apple has established a reputation in open source as a strong contributor and open sharer. According to a review of bug fixes and improvements in CUPS software, 24% of the enhancements came from Apple while 76% came from free and open source software contributors working with Linux, OpenSolaris, and other projects. Of course, 100% of both sides benefited from that sharing. CUPS collaboration has resulted in high quality code and the advancement of new features. CUPS 1.4, the version sources say Snow Leopard will use, adds performance enhancements and a variety of security improvements that use sandboxing to prevent malware attacks on the printing system from being able to read sensitive documents that may be in use by printers. Common UNIX Printing System A third significant new feature originating from an open source project in Snow Leopard is ZFS support, portions of which come from the OpenSolaris project (along with Sun's DTrace technology, which Apple uses in its Instruments performance profiling tool). Leopard debuted read-only ZFS features, but Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server will provide both read and write support for Sun's new 128-bit file system. ZFS was designed to provide “simple administration, transactional semantics, end-to-end data integrity, and immense scalability.�? ZFS hype during the development of Leopard helped the new file system reach buzzword status as news of the three letter acronym swept through blogs and the tech media. It is frequently described as being the imminent replacement for the Mac's native HFS+. However, the benefits of ZFS including as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots all apply primarily to servers and higher-end workstation users who deal with multiple disk drives. ZFS isn't going to replace HFS+ outright in Snow Leopard, and has limited relevance today to desktop and laptop users, particularly those who never move beyond the single disk drive installed in their system. More Predictions for WWDC 2007: Solaris, Google, Surround Apple - Mac OS X Leopard - Developer Tools - Instruments Symbiotic: What Apple Does for Open Source Apple's Open Source Assault Pushing Visible New Features in Snow Leopard. Apple's extensive work in developing push support for Exchange Server on the iPhone will also be included in Snow Leopard's Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Push support in those client side apps are also being used to power MobileMe's push messaging subscription service and Snow Leopard Server's push messaging services. Apple will be offering both in parallel as alternatives to Exchange, thanks to smart planning on the part of Apple's engineers to develop an interoperable push architecture in Mac OS X and on the iPhone. There is also a fourth application of push that has developed alongside push messaging: Apple's new Push Notification Service. PNS allows iPhone and iPod touch users to set up server side notification alerts that don't require mobile applications to stay running in the background just to update users of the external events they track. Along with Bonjour discovery, PNS will keep iPhones wirelessly connected in all sorts of sophisticated ways that third party developers can imagine in their applications. Whether Apple will integrate a listener for the same PNS system into the desktop side of Mac OS X remains to be seen, but it would allow a single, unified interface for alerting client users of new events. I proposed a system wide, Growl-style notification system in the Leopard Wish List published back in 2005. Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint Apple’s Mobile Me Takes On Exchange, Mobile Mesh With the strong push into push messaging, Apple will make mobile devices even more tightly integrated with its desktop products. Leopard delivered Back To My Mac as a novel way to use Wide Area Bonjour's dynamic service registration as a mechanism for sharing resources served from home to any location without configuring static naming services for address lookups. Because any software can register itself with .Mac/MobileMe, this opens the door to third party developers with the vision to exploit the potential of these enabling technologies. A Global Upgrade for Bonjour: AirPort, iPhone, Leopard, .Mac Ten Big Predictions for Apple in 2008 Among the technologies profiled earlier in Myth 3 that have been trickling from the iPhone into Mac OS X, there's at least one idea I proposed for the iPhone that will be in Snow Leopard's Safari: self contained web apps. The new feature will allow users to run web applications as a local app in its own window, essentially making the web platform into a native-looking app that can run outside of Safari. I proposed a similar feature as a possibility for the iPhone prior to the announcement of the Cocoa Touch SDK: web apps packaged up into a set of files that could be run on the device as a Dashboard widget-like standalone app, even when off the network. Why Apple hasn't pursued such an obvious strategy is a little hard to figure out, but it seems they've got the ball rolling on the desktop. That ball will be rolling even faster thanks to SquirrelFish, a new JavaScript interpreter that will make Safari and any other WebKit-based browsers, standalone self contained apps, and Dashboard widgets all a lot faster. Apple's MobileMe, Yahoo's Flickr, and Google various web apps will all gain new speed thanks to faster JavaScript execution. SquirrelFish will also raise the bar in performance and efficiency in the Rich Internet Applications sector in general, giving Flash, Silverlight, and Java a faster, simpler, and more openly interoperable runtime to compete against. RoughlyDrafted: Leopard Wish List: 2005 How Open will the iPhone Get? Surfin’ Safari » Announcing SquirrelFish Microsoft's Application Features in Mac OS X, System Wide. Microsoft's business model of tacking on features hasn't been a total wash. The company's desperate efforts to invent novel marketing features for every new release of Windows and Office have pioneered a number of ideas that have later found their way into Mac OS X. One example is the idea of Fast User Switching, which Apple added to Panther. Windows XP pioneered the trick, but built it upon the kluge that is Terminal Services. Microsoft also helped originate the basis of Ajax web apps by inventing XMLHttpRequest in order to make its Outlook Web Access 2000 web app work decently within Internet Explorer. Today, standards-based web apps are eating a hole into Microsoft's monopoly on the proprietary desktop platform, and tools such as SproutCore and resulting products such as MobileMe are poised to tear down interoperability barriers and level the playing field. Microsoft may now regret having opened Pandora's Box in terms of standards-based web applications, but its efforts to seal the web back up with the proprietary Silverlight plugin, which turns web apps into .NET programs, will now be next to impossible. Another example of a Microsoft innovation are the fancy text features in Word, such as red underlining to highlight spelling mistakes and the green squiggle for grammar errors. Word also features a variety of word auto correction, smart dash insertion, and text replacement features (such as typing TM to get the ™ character). The former have already become system-wide features in Mac OS X, while sources indicate that the latter text processing features will find their way into Snow Leopard, and therefore every application that runs on it. RoughlyDrafted: Remote Display part 3: Terminal Server Cocoa for Windows + Flash Killer = SproutCore Super Size Me. On top of injecting Word features into its OS for the use of every application, Apple will also expand the use of its own Data Detectors, a technology it invented in the mid 90s for identifying useful bits of text and making it actionable. Leopard introduced Data Detectors in Mail as a way to extract contacts and events for use in Address Book and iCal, but Snow Leopard will expose Data Detectors everywhere it draws text. Sources also indicate Snow Leopard will expand upon Font Book to provide full Auto Activation of any fonts requested by any application, using Spotlight to track them down. Snow Leopard is also suggested to have a new set of frameworks specifically for working with multitouch trackpad gestures, patterned after those introduced with the MacBook Air. Speaking of the ultra-thin Air, sometimes less is more. However, the high cost and relatively low capacity of Solid State Drives like the $1000, 64 GB SSD option offered for the Air means that one Microsoft feature Snow Leopard could do without is bloat. As one reader noted, “Currently, Leopard requires 9 GB of available disk space for installation and iLife requires an additional 3 GB. This means that a product such as the [SSD] MacBook Air comes with the hard drive 20% full.�? How the MacBook Air stacks up against other ultra-light notebooks Leopard Predictions for WWDC 2006 WWDC 2007: An Inside Perspective From the Halfway Point Think Small. Snow Leopard aims below the bloat to accommodate the coming wave of SSD-based systems. In the latest build, sources say Apple's own apps are losing weigh dramatically across the board. The apps in the Utilities folder all drop from 468 MB to 111.6 MB, for example. Other apps are similarly svelte, as the graph below indicates. Is this the product of just code optimization and shared resources? One factor likely relates to work on Resolution Independence, which substitutes bitmapped raster graphics (which define every pixel) with smaller vector graphics files (which draw GUI elements and controls by recipe). Vector graphics can be scaled to any size while retaining a high quality appearance, while bitmapped graphics can quickly look blocky when scaled up. Adding larger bitmapped versions can solve that problem, but at the cost of consuming more disk space. Apple earlier told developers it would be providing a library of shared, high quality vector graphics they could use instead of each packaging their own bitmapped art into every app. The dramatic size reductions in these apps must also involve more efficient Localization. For example, Mac OS X Leopard's Mail currently weighs in at over 285 MB, but the majority of its bulk comes from 18 language localizations inside the application bundle that consume 276 MB. The actual Universal Binary code is only a few megabytes and even its associated graphics and other resources only amount to 2.8 MB. Why does Apple default to dumping support for 18 or more languages in every app without providing any simple, centralized way to get rid of the unnecessary ones? Perhaps that question is answered in Snow Leopard, where Mail is reportedly just 91 MB. That's too big to simply to be an English-only, stripped down version for developers, but still far smaller than than Leopard's. Across the board, it appears Snow Leopard apps are about a third as large as their Leopard equivalents. And so while Snow Leopard paradoxically gains more useful features through code improvements and under-the-hood retooling rather than from a Microsoft-style new feature focus that aims to deliver “wow�? with flashy marketing gimmicks, the system is also getting smaller and tighter. There must also be some other subtraction, right? Will Snow Leopard scrape away the old Carbon API? That's the next myth. WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard WWDC 2008: Is Mac OS X 10.6 the Death of Carbon? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks! Technorati Tags: Apple, Development, Mac, Software
Farewell FireWire?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, MacBook During the meta-liveblog yesterday, I was in full-out Apple fangirl mode. I won't lie, after the MacBook specs and design were revealed, I was already contemplating putting my current BlackBook (that I bought in August '07) on eBay or Craig's List, hoping that the RAM and hard drive upgrades and all the software I would include could net at least $900. Then I would buy a new MacBook.After the dust settled and the specs were released, a dark cloud quickly dashed my plans: FireWire 400 ports are no longer included in the redesigned MacBook. The old style MacBook (now selling for $999) still includes FireWire 400, but the new beauties are FireWire free. What a bummer! Back in January, we listed lack of FireWire as one of the biggest downsides of the MacBook Air. On our Talkcast earlier this week, we actually discussed the idea of FireWire being withdrawn from the MacBook line. I thought it was plausible on the then-rumored $800 MacBook (a rumor that never materialized, sadly), but I was really, really hoping it wouldn't be removed from the line as a whole.Whether the reason was based on user-feedback (which I'm sure Apple will claim), or done merely to force a schism between the "consumer" and "pro" lineups (as commenter Kai Cherry suggested), the net result is that a technology Apple has been pushing for nearly 10 years and that many of us have come to rely on, for external devices, target-disk mode and digital video needs, is no longer available in any laptop other than the MacBook Pro (or the older generation white MacBook).No company has pushed IEEE-1394 (the technical name for FireWire) more than Apple (though Sony is close). The iPod was a FireWire device until its fifth revision in 2004 (USB adapters were available for the third and fourth generation units). Target Disk Mode is arguably one of the most useful Mac diagnostic tools. As long as you have a FireWire hard drive, you can safely migrate, repair or perform component tests on Mac, without damaging the internal drive. As of right now, there is no true support for USB devices in target disk mode. Yes, you can boot from a USB device, but it's not the same as TDM. It's a shame that they are now phasing out this feature, and without a genuine successor. I don't want to start a USB 2.0 vs. FireWire 400 argument, but for sustained transfer, power consumption and the ability to daisy-chain devices, FireWire remains superior, especially under OS X (other operating systems don't benefit from FireWire as much). I mean, if you are going to get rid of FireWire, at least give us an eSATA port. That would at least be a better alternative for external drives than USB 2.0.While it is true that FireWire only devices are on a serious decline -- the latest generation of digital camcorders that use AVCHD and store data to SD cards all utilize USB 2.0, as do the vast majority of external devices -- are we really at the point that it is a "pros only" feature? It took years and years for consumers to finally ditch VHS-C and move on to miniDV. Are we already at the point that everyone has migrated to AVCHD and converted all their old footage digitally? Obviously, for existing Mac users who are just buying a new MacBook, this might not be a big deal. Use the iMac or an older MacBook for digital conversion. But this is still a blow to anyone who relies on (or *shocker* prefers) FireWire and wants to replace their primary machine.There are bridge adapters available that will allow you to connect a FireWire device to a USB port, but they are expensive, and Windows XP-only. It is likely that a similar adapter will be created for the Mac, but how these devices will actually perform is questionable. As a fervent supporter of the standard since 2000 (when I bought an OHCI compliant PCI card for my PC so that I could edit video at home or at school on an iMac DV), I have demanded FireWire support on every computer or laptop that I have purchased in the last 8 years. Buying a laptop that I will use as a primary computer that does not have a FireWire card is frankly not an option for me. My next MacBook will have to be a MacBook Pro. And because spending another $1000 is a bit different from spending another $500, I won't be upgrading any time soon.What are your thoughts. Is a FireWire-free MacBook a deal-breaker for you, or is it something you can live without. Do you know of any devices or cables that will help ease the transition? Sound off in the comments!Read�|�Permalink�|�Email this�|�Comments
Microsoft's Mojave Attempts to Wet Vista's Desert

Daniel Eran Dilger Nearly two years after Windows Vista was finally released, Microsoft has remained unable to shake off its reputation as being slow, incompatible with existing hardware and software, and generally a poor and overpriced product that nobody wants. Microsoft is now trying to reverse Vista's bad reputation by insisting that the software's problems are not technical but rather just the fault of ignorant customers duped in part by Apple's “Get a Mac” campaign. What's Vista's real problems, and will Microsoft's “Mojave Experiment” help solve them? Blame Apple! Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has joined Windows Enthusiast pundits in theorizing that Vista's image problems are primarily the result of Apple's advertisements that regularly poke fun at the problems in Vista. The company has now taken aim at shooting at the messenger with a $300 million ad campaign. In July, Brad Brooks, Microsoft's VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing, addressed the company's business partners at its Worldwide Partner Conference, saying, “We've got a pretty noisy competitor out there. You know it. I know it. It's caused some impact. We're going to start countering it. They tell us it's the iWay or the highway. We think that's a sad message.” Another sad message Brooks had to deliver was that Vista's problems aren't really the fault of Apple. “We broke a lot of things,” Brooks admitted. “We know that, and we know it caused you a lot of pain. It got customers thinking, hey, is Windows Vista a generation we want to get invested in?” Vista: Pay it Forward! Brooks also noted that “Windows Vista is an investment in the long term. When you make the investment into Windows Vista, it's going to pay it forward into the operating system we call Windows 7.” Pay it forward? Is Windows 7 going to be a free upgrade to Windows Vista users, in the same way Apple is expected to offer the next Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard release to existing users of 10.5 Leopard? That's highly unlikely, as Microsoft can't sustain its egregious profits collected through the Windows monopoly by giving away updates for free. Windows Vista raised the price of Windows, putting a new definition on the phrase “pay it forward.” Myths of Snow Leopard 7: Free?! Microsoft Admits Windows Vista Mistakes, Criticizes Apple Ads - InformationWeek Reality Impairment at Microsoft Talking out one's ass appears to be a job requirement for all Microsoft executives, starting at the top. A serious case of reality impairment has resulted in the paradox of the company both admitting that Vista is flawed and “broke a lot of things,” while at the same time maintaining that Vista's reputation is entirely the fault of stupid customers and a comically unflattering portrayal by its competitor. In the “Mojave Experiment,” Microsoft plans to dispel the notion that Windows Vista is problematic and incompatible by publishing a series of videotaped interviews with users who arrived with negative impressions of Vista and left excited about the new operating system. This was achieved by presenting the users with a demonstration of “Mojave,” a new operating system that Microsoft later revealed to be Vista, much to the surprise of the interviewed users who'd heard so many bad things about it. However, the Mojave Experiment is so full of false information and saccharine gloss that it couldn't possibly appeal to anyone smart enough to turn on a PC. Even setting aside the fact that the ad experiment basically seeks to blame users for being dumb, the attempt by Microsoft to paint over Vista's problems is transparent and flawed, for a number of reasons. What's wrong with Mojave. Microsoft can't seem to decide whether it wants to admit that Vista has problems or not, and its waffling back and forth just makes the company look increasingly disingenuous. Is Vista a poorly launched, flawed product that the company is working to fix as quickly as possible, or is it awesome and wildly successful and just the victim of bad press? Microsoft tries to tell both stories at once, which is purely dishonest. In contrast, Apple said from the start last year that its Apple TV product was a “hobby” attempting to break into a difficult market. Critics lambasted it for not immediately taking over the market like the iPod had or iPhone later did. Apple's more recent problems in launching MobileMe were quickly noted by the company along with the intent to address complaints about it rapidly. Microsoft isn't alone in being able to stumble, but its complete lack of candor makes it hard to understand if the company realizes that it even has problems to solve. With Vista, Microsoft has issued a flurry of giddy press releases claiming widespread adoption based on the number of licenses sold and naming it “the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft history,” ignoring the fact that Windows sales are increasing simply because they are tied to PC sales. Microsoft has no competition in the PC operating system market due to its monopoly position, so it could release Windows Wet Toast and still sell it faster than XP and ME and 98 Special Edition and every other version of Windows in the past that was tied to an increasingly younger and smaller hardware market. Vista Sales to Non-Users. Many of Vista's “sales” were free vouchers distributed with PCs sold in the holiday season prior to its launch. Even more than a year and a half later, PC makers continue to put Windows XP on their systems, even those sold with a Vista license, while corporate users almost always remove the default Vista to install an earlier version of Windows. There's also a busy third party industry developing around removing Vista for consumers. In late July APCMag cited Jane Bradburn, a manager for commercial notebook sales at HP, as saying, “From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP license. However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today.” The arrangement is supposed to end by January 2009, but HP is trying to extend the deadline because customers simply don't want Vista installed. EWeek also noted that between April 2007 and May 2008, its survey of business users indicated that Vista climbed from 2% to 5%, but that Windows XP jumped from 74% to 83%, three times the adoption of Vista. That growth came from migration from older versions of Windows. Even in its wildest projections, EWeek says Vista will only reach 28% adoption in businesses by the end of 2010. CNET reported that a Jully 2008 survey by systems management appliance company KASE found that 60% of companies surveyed have no plans to deploy Windows Vista, a ten percent increase in disinterest from late 2007. A full 42% were actively exploring Vista alternatives, and 11% had already made the switch to Mac OS X or Linux. Microsoft is simply lying about the level of Vista excitement, and it's gotten too obvious for the company to continue to do so. XP still killing Vista in sales volume: HP 60 percent skipping Vista, so Ballmer looks to Apple | The Open Road The Truth Is… oh Look a Distraction! At the same time, Microsoft notes on its Vista website “we know a few of you were disappointed by your early encounter. Printers didn't work. Games felt sluggish. You told us—loudly at times—that the latest Windows wasn't always living up to your high expectations for a Microsoft product.” That's some brutal honesty for a company with a knack for spinning wild fantasies about fictitious product enthusiasm for a product never actually put to use in many cases. At the same time however, in trying to refute away Vista's real problems, Microsoft uses a variety of tactics that just return to blind fantasyland. Microsoft is a Marketing Company, not a Tech Company. The company plays its Mojave Experiment hand on a new website, incidentally designed using Adobe Flash rather than the company's own Silverlight. Despite the site's oddly designed, usability-impared interface, it's still possible to pull out lots of details from the experiment that say as much about Microsoft's crafty, misleading marketing as they do about its technical problems, underling the simple fact that Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing company that flogs third rate technology products. Mojave took 140 people and asked them to score Windows Vista. The average response was 4.4. After demonstrating Vista SP2 under the name “Mojave,” respondents ranked Vista at 8.5, a stunning improvement. But what were they ranking? Microsoft notes that “many said they would have rated it higher, but wanted more time to use it themselves.” That sounds good at first blush, but it really indicates that the responses were biased by hyped up enthusiasm rather than facts, and that participants realized it, reserving their final judgement until they could actually see more. The “Mojave Experiment” What does Mojave Prove? Mojave tries to represent that Vista's bad reputation is the fault of ignorant consumers who have heard bad things that aren't true about Vista, and have made up their mind without getting the facts. At the same time however, Microsoft also publicly admits that Vista “broke a lot of things” and that specifically, “Printers didn't work. Games felt sluggish.” Did Mojave clear up mistaken notions for participants, or did it just erect smoke and mirrors in a carefully controlled demonstration that skirted around Vista's real problems, including those Microsoft admits? That's a question that answers itself. Mojave didn't send uses home with Vista in a Mojave package and then ask them how well it worked with their existing peripherals and games, or how fast it was in comparison to their existing PC software. This is Not the Droid You're Running Vista On. Instead, Microsoft sat them down in front of a HP Pavillion DV 2000 with 2GB of RAM. That's what HP called its “entertainment powerhouse” laptop, although HP only shipped it with 1GB RAM. Microsoft maxed out the RAM for the purposes of the test, making the laptop a bit more expensive than its usual street price of around $1050. According to Windows enthusiast Joe Wilcox, PC laptops actually cost $700, “half as much” as Apple's laptops. At least that's the Average Selling Price for consumer retail PC laptops according to NPD's Stephen Baker, compared to Apple's $1500 ASP. Wilcox insisted that his spin on NPD's figures couldn't possibly be biased because he wrote his article on a MacBook Air running Leopard. However, his $2,700 laptop did help drive up Apple's stellar ASP for its laptops well above the entry price for Mac Books, discounting his theory that revolved around the assumption that every Mac buyer pays the average price of all the laptops Apple sells. Wilcox and Microsoft are both disingenuously dancing on both ends of the truth. Many consumers are actually buying cheap laptops at Target that can't run Vista ideally, while Microsoft demonstrates its Vista on a considerably better equipped system in the Mojave Experiment to suggest that Vista doesn't have the performance problems that users have heard about from the majority of their peers who bought cheap PCs and are seeing Vista run particularly sluggishly on them. Should You Pay Twice as Much for a Mac? I Did! You Get What You Pay For. The fact that Apple sells more high end laptops to pro users at retail, and that it does not sell anything in the range of the cheap junk being hawked at big box retailers like Wilcox' Target both result in Mac laptops fetching a higher ASP. That fact also means that Mac buyers will be happier with their purchase and have a more favorable impression of Mac OS X because they're running it on a better system. That's all obvious stuff. However, selling people cheap laptops that don't work well, and then demonstrating a fake “new operating system” that appears to work well when running on a faster machine full of RAM is simply a dishonest bait and switch scam. Wilcox does nearly admit that PC makers are already stretching their credibility as they attempt to sell cheap boxes based on price alone, citing Baker as saying, “We aren't seeing any particularly substantive moves down in price on the Windows side, either in desktops or notebooks.” PCs can't get cheaper because they're already unprofitable and consumers are already disgusted with their performance when running the increased overhead of Vista. Wilcox also sets up a tilted comparison between a Dell PC desktop with integrated graphics and an iMac with dedicated graphics and claims a price advantage for Dell, although noting that, while “Dell offers more for less than the iMac,” “that 'more' also means Windows Vista, which won't satisfy some shoppers.” Why Aren't Shoppers Satisfied with Vista? Like Microsoft, Wilcox and his Windows Enthusiast pundit friends can't seem to decide if Vista has any real problems or if it's all just an unfair taint suggested by Apple's Get a Mac ads. However, while Apple has taken shots at Vista's incompatibility with printers and other hardware and its scarce updates that have been few and far between over the last year and a half of its being on the market, Apple also notes in its Get a Mac ads that Macs can run Vista, and can run it faster than PCs. So Apple isn't inventing and publishing false reports on Vista, it's merely advertising its Mac hardware as superior to PCs. The Vista flaws Apple's ads have referenced are flaws Microsoft itself has admitted to its partners, so the Get a Mac umbrage frequently voiced by Windows Enthusiasts is both hypocritical and ridiculous. However, in the Mojave Experiment, Microsoft downplayed those well-known faults by only carefully demonstrating certain features on a high end machine, and without actually exposing Mojave/Vista users to 'a lot of things Vista broke,' 'printers that didn't work', or 'games that felt sluggish.' It Can't Even Print. In response to complaints that Vista doesn't work well with existing PC hardware, Microsoft's Mojave website says that “the Windows Vista Compatibility Center lists compatibility status for over 9,000 products (5,500 devices and 3,500 software programs).” It even notes 2,000 printers, 200 scanners, and 500 cameras specifically. That sounds good until you realize that Apple ships support for over 3,100 printers in Mac OS X Leopard, a product that is targeted primarily toward education and consumers and which is not expected by users to run on any old hardware that might be in use by PC users. Vista is supposed to run on 95% of the world's PCs, and yet it doesn't even match the printer drivers that ship with Leopard, a number which does not include all of the third party drivers available for the Mac. Oh, but there's more. Not only did Microsoft dance around the truth to feed its Mojave Experiment participants a carefully controlled stream of garbage, but it also inadvertently revealed more serious problems related to Vista, which I'll consider in the following article. Did you like this article? Let me know. Comment here, in the Forum, or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? 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MacBook Air reviewed... as a Windows machine

Filed under: Laptops There's are a lot of reasons to pick another laptop over the MacBook Air -- especially if you're into little things like "useful ports" -- but the comparison to non-Apple hardware isn't even relevant unless you're willing to switch to OS X, right? Well, the crew over at Xbit Labs decided to even the slate and evaluate the MBA solely as a Windows machine, wiping the drive clean of Leopard and installing Vista Ultimate. Although actually getting Vista on the Air was a bit troublesome due to the lack of a built-in optical drive and the Vista installer's refusal to wipe out the OS X partition, once installed the OS performed fine, with Apple-provided drivers activating the media and brightness keys and even the multi-touch trackpad. The only major issues were over-aggressive activation of CPU power-management, which resulted in dramatic slowdowns during some tasks, and the fact that the case got fairly warm during use -- both issues MBA owners using OS X have reported. Overall, while the MBA was a solid if unspectacular Windows machine, the lack of support and nagging issues with running a pure Windows MBA mean you're probably better off going with laptop designed for Vista -- hmm, we can think of one that might spark your interest.�Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
How a MacBook Air baffled airport security

Filed under: Humor, MacBook AirAlternate title: The MacBook Air is a device, but it's not a "Device."Programmer Michael Nygard is used to travel. He's got the process down, from airport to hotel. Unfortunately, the TSA isn't as prepared. While passing through airport security recently, he was pulled aside and made to sit in the holding area. He watched as a gaggle of TSA workers examined his things, especially his laptop ..."'There's no drive,' one says. 'And no ports on the back. It has a couple of lines where the drive should be,' she continues...."As you've probably guessed, Michael's MacBook Air had them all baffled. Fortunately, a younger member of the team eventually arrived and explained that it's not a "device," but a computer with a solid state hard drive. It's good to know they're keeping up with this kind of thing.Here's a warning to everyone traveling to SxSW this weekend with a MacBook Air: schedule a few extra minutes for the airport.Read�|�Permalink�|�Email this�|�Comments

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