Written by Piotr on February 15th, 2008
The movie rentals service and free, massive update to Apple TV were my two favorite announcements from the last MacWorld keynote. I’ve been a big fun of Apple TV and this update makes it even more attractive to me then before.
The update allows Apple TV owners to rent movies, browse photos from Flickr, subscribe to podcast, buy TV shows and music directly form iTunes online store. All without the use of a computer. The fact that I can now do all of this from the comfort of my couch using one slim device in usable and effortless way is something exceptional that only Apple could delivered so far.
What I really like about it now, is that I can rely on Flickr solely to store all my photos and slide show them on all my devices including TV. No need to store them locally on my Mac and synchronize them via iTunes. The same is true for audio and video podcasts which used to eat up quite some space on my hard drive. Not to mention pain it was to synchronize and share them between computers. I can save a lot of disk space and time right now by relying more on the cloud services and live stream my content directly from the web when needed. It would be great to be able to do the same with all my media content including my music library.
Apple TV direct integration with Web based services is something I would like to see happening for more consumer devices. Some people may argue about the lack of openness to other services and possibility to extend the functionality using some sort of SDK. At this point however, I’m willing to trade the lack of it for great user experience Apple made devices offer. Nothing beats Apple TV when it comes to ease of use and convenience.
The only thing I can be a bit disappointed about, is that the movie rentals service is not yet available in Europe. It will be started later on and I can only hope for this to happen sooner then later. Honestly, I was expecting that having in mind all the trouble Apple has had in EU with the iTunes store service. It is hard to blame Jobs for that. He simply needs more time to sort it out.
Written by Piotr on January 25th, 2008
No doubt, MacBook Air is one good piece of engineering wrapped up in a stunningly designed case. While I want one badly I’m not going to buy it, not just yet.
It’s not about a missing Ethernet or DVD drive. I also don’t need more then one USB port. I use these features sporadically and could do well without them. The lack of a large hard drive is also not a problem for me. I’ve learned to rely on the cloud services and have only essential desktop apps installed. I use online services for almost all day to day tasks including email, word processing and RSS reading. I also use online storage to backup and archive my data to have it available at any time from any place having WiFi connection available. My intention is to keep it that way and try to resist temptation to install more apps or buy more gadgets - only essentials please, no more. I’m willing to sacrifice all the missing features for well designed lightweight laptop.
My hesitation to buy MacBook Air comes from the fact that I need a bit more processing power. To use iMovie, Flash or Photoshop comfortably you need more power than Core 2 Duo running at 1.8 GHz can deliver. Also, 2 GB of memory seams like a bit short. But, this is just me who would like to use one computer to do all the work including heavy lifting processing like video editing or photoshoping and, I think, I’m not a type of user this laptop is meant for.
It may sound strange but I believe MacBook Air will become popular because of the limitations it has. The form factor makes it very attractive despite the price. It would be just ideal for me if I would not need to run applications like Photoshop on it. I think I’m not alone in relying more and more on cloud services and MacBook AIR looks like a perfect cloud computer came true.
What I would like to see next to the MacBook Air is improved .Mac service allowing me to seamlessly store all my data and sync my preferences between MACs, iPod, AppleTV and iPhone at home and on the move. It would be much more attractive to me then just Time Capsule device alone used solely for backup at home. Time Capsule could act as a kind of cache device in between the home network devices and .Mac service. But still, .Mac style of service is the key to provide access to all your data on all your devices at home and on the move.
I’m quite sure, over time, we all are going to use more online services and MacBook AIR is a first sign Apple understands this trend. The next step would be to improve .Mac service or even team up with Google on this. Either way, online data storage and synchronization done right is essential and I hope Apple will take a step in this direction. Improved .Mac service combined with some processor speed boost would make me reconsider to buy and use MacBook Air as my only computer.
I also keep wondering what new devices based on the custom made, mini version of Core 2 Duo are in the works. It is hard to believe all the effort of shrinking the processor package was made to produce MacBook Air only.
