MacWorld is usually a pretty fun and exciting time, when swanky new products are announced that I'll never buy. Usually it's two stupid announcements paired off with one really cool one, and then an iPod update.
But this MacWorld gave us a lot of fun stuff. At least one of those things, the overdue Google Map locator for iPhone, was free (unless you're an iPod touch user, in which case they'll extort you for $20) so I already got it. It's lovely. Now Google not only knows what I'm doing, they know where I'm doing it! Exciting.
The Time Capsule is cool, but the MacBook Air is of course the flagship announcement. Alex likens the mixed response to the release of the iPod, or at least to the original floppy-free iMac. But the floppy drive was way dead when I got my first bondi iMac. I very much doubt that real life will happen for a lot of people without an optical drive; Apple is taking a very Microsoft approach in which convergence happens fantastically and your life is totally easy as long as you drink ALL the Kool-Aid instead of picking and choosing the parts of the Apple Experience you want. I mean, why insert a CD/DVD when you can buy the album/movie on iTunes, right?
I'm sure there's plenty of speculation (there definitely is in my mind) that the recently-surfaced patent application for an iMac-like docking station that a thin laptop slides into has something to do with this. That would, of course, make things even more absolutely perfect. In fact, I could probably get behind that if the total package wasn't going to run somewhere in the neighborhood of eight zillion dollars.
And to wrap it all up, here's a video my friend sent me yesterday of David Lynch expounding on his iPhone opinions. I suppose I see his point, but here's a man who makes Movies with a capital M, whose films don't even belong on the television. I don't even like it when people are eating popcorn when I go see a Lynch movie. But the sad truth is, part of what makes David Lynch great is that he still carries around a lot of romantic notions about movies - and Stomp The Yard is not Blue Velvet. It's real sweet that the idea of someone watching a movie on a small-ass screen makes him sad, but the idea of someone watching the latest Uwe Boll movie at all kind of makes me sad, so to each his own.
But this MacWorld gave us a lot of fun stuff. At least one of those things, the overdue Google Map locator for iPhone, was free (unless you're an iPod touch user, in which case they'll extort you for $20) so I already got it. It's lovely. Now Google not only knows what I'm doing, they know where I'm doing it! Exciting.
The Time Capsule is cool, but the MacBook Air is of course the flagship announcement. Alex likens the mixed response to the release of the iPod, or at least to the original floppy-free iMac. But the floppy drive was way dead when I got my first bondi iMac. I very much doubt that real life will happen for a lot of people without an optical drive; Apple is taking a very Microsoft approach in which convergence happens fantastically and your life is totally easy as long as you drink ALL the Kool-Aid instead of picking and choosing the parts of the Apple Experience you want. I mean, why insert a CD/DVD when you can buy the album/movie on iTunes, right?
I'm sure there's plenty of speculation (there definitely is in my mind) that the recently-surfaced patent application for an iMac-like docking station that a thin laptop slides into has something to do with this. That would, of course, make things even more absolutely perfect. In fact, I could probably get behind that if the total package wasn't going to run somewhere in the neighborhood of eight zillion dollars.
And to wrap it all up, here's a video my friend sent me yesterday of David Lynch expounding on his iPhone opinions. I suppose I see his point, but here's a man who makes Movies with a capital M, whose films don't even belong on the television. I don't even like it when people are eating popcorn when I go see a Lynch movie. But the sad truth is, part of what makes David Lynch great is that he still carries around a lot of romantic notions about movies - and Stomp The Yard is not Blue Velvet. It's real sweet that the idea of someone watching a movie on a small-ass screen makes him sad, but the idea of someone watching the latest Uwe Boll movie at all kind of makes me sad, so to each his own.
