MacInTouch: news and tips about the Apple Macintosh and iTunes

MacBook Pro has a 15.4″ widescreen and it’s 1-inch thick, at 5.6 lbs. with an “iSight” camera built into the top of the screen. It also has an IR sensor and an Apple remote, a light sensor, sudden motion sensor, scrolling trackpad, DVI video out that can drive the 30″ Cinema Display, digital optical and analog.

Unlike the PowerBook, the MacBook does not have support for FireWire 800, nor does it have any modem, although it does have FireWire 400 and two USB 2.0 ports. The laptop has an aluminum case, like current PowerBooks.

The MacBook sports a new Express Card slot, a smaller 34mm format approximately the size of a CompactFlash card, but there’s almost nothing available in that format.

A new MagSafe power adapter connector is magnetic, so tripping over the power card won’t do the kind of damage it used to do. It’s “patent pending”.

Apple’s price is $1999 for a 1.67GHz MacBook, shipping in February, with 512MB of RAM, or $2499 for a 1.833GHz model with 1 GB of RAM. Apple is taking orders today.

I’m on the road today in Redmond, but my first reactions:

1. Wow, faster, thinner - neato!
2. The power plug solution sounds frickin’ awesome
3. Lack of modem is a bummer. Modem has saved me quite a number of times on the road - boo to Apple for cutting it.
4. MacBook? I liked the name PowerBook better.

Jimmy is a great friend of mine, and we share a lot of the same background (Mac fans, reformed Micro$loth haters) - heck, I even own his HDTV and much of his furniture.

Well, his blog noted today that MacIE is no longer available - he has some great commentary, and there is also some great commentary from Jorg Brown who used to have the office next to mine (and we’d compete to have the loudest music at midnight sometimes.)

Jimmy Grewal’s Weblog ? End of an era: Mac Internet Explorer

Jorg and Jimmy no longer work for Microsoft, so they say a lot more than I’d be comfortable with. There’s a lot of other ‘war’ stories that can be told - they’ll come out some day.

My personal experience of working on MacIE was this: I interviewed in November 1999 to work on Mac Outlook Express and Mac Internet Explorer. I got an offer and accepted in December 1999. I attended the launch of IE 5.0 at MacWorld SF 2000 on Microsoft’s dime as a college student. That spring, I heard rumors on the Mac sites that the Internet Explorer team was being disbanded… and when I started on 6/19/2000, I found that to be basically true.

Jimmy understates his accomplishments during that time: he basically kept MacIE development going by himself. More than anyone else, his passion for the product kept some amount of attention paid to it with his relentless championing of it.

There is sort of a MacIE 6 - it’s inside MSN Explorer, and it’s sort of in Entourage in the form of an HTML rendering engine.

That said, in the end it makes perfect sense for Apple to include an HTML rendering engine as part of the OS - heck that’s what Microsoft did (though the reaction was slightly different. )

MacIE is dead. Long live MacIE.

Dear Apple,

I recognize that from time to time it is necessary to offer of updates to your software - after all, I work in software too. That said, could you please make your iTunes installer smarters?

Last week I finally got around to upgrading to iTunes 6.0. I noticed that it installed QuickTime 7.0.3, and of course, QuickTime ignored its previous settings and showed itself in the tray - again. I went and turned that setting off.

Today, I launched iTunes and it informed me that 6.0.1 was available. Fair enough, I installed it. And again it installed QuickTime, and again it reset the settings such that I had to turn the try setting off again.

This is pretty lame to begin with, but what really exacerbates the lameness is the fact that iTunes installed QuickTime 7.0.3 again. QuickTime wasn’t even updated!

My advice to you, Apple: if the same version of a product is installed already, please don’t install it again. And if you do, please don’t stomp over the settings.

Thanks.
-Dennis

Is it just me or can you not delete a song from an iPod nano using solely the device?

Sony Plans for Fewer, But Better Products - Yahoo! News

Sony is banking on rear-projection TVs, digital music players, and next-generation DVD systems to revitalize its core electronics business, Howard Stringer, the company’s newly appointed chief executive officer, said at a news conference in Tokyo Thursday.

He will also narrow the company’s overall range of products to include only those he thinks Sony can make a profit on, he said in his second day on the job. He did not indicate which of Sony’s many products might be cut.

“A company as big as this one… has to organize its priorities. In the U.K. we call it the law of raspberry jam: the wider the culture is spread, the thinner it is spread,” he said.

Finally! What a smart move! Don’t they have like 32 different iPod competitors right now?

I remember back in the bad old days when Apple had the Performas, the PowerMacs, the this and that. Printers, monitors, scanners - and even clones!

And then Steve Jobs came and cleaned it all up into machines:

Consumer Laptop- iBook
Consumer Desktop- iMac
Professional Laptop- PowerBook
Professional Desktop- PowerMac

oh, and iPod.

The key is to focus on your strengths, instead of constantly trying to fix your weaknesses.

WSJ.com - Apple Is Poised to Shift To Intel as Chip Supplier

Apple Computer Inc. and Intel Corp., long on opposite sides of one of technology’s biggest divides, appear finally to be coming together.
Apple, of Cupertino, Calif., has begun briefing some partners about plans to begin shifting its Macintosh computer line next year to Intel chips, according to industry executives and people familiar with the briefings. Apple has said it expects to announce the move today, these people said.

[snip]

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive and co-founder, is expected to explain the shift today during a keynote speech at the company’s annual conference for software developers in San Francisco, the industry executives said. Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO, may take part in the presentation, an industry executive said.

Apple recently briefed IBM and other major software partners on its plans, according to people familiar with those briefings. On the other hand, some Apple watchers said that, given Mr. Jobs’s mercurial reputation, they won’t be sure a change will happen until a formal announcement.

Some interesting times await! If this is truly the case, the impact will roil the Mac community.

Gosh - remember those days when all the Mac fans like me would cheer Apple on when the long division bug was found in the Pentium?

This showed up all over the blogosphere today. Only Apple could get away with this. I remember when I was a die hard Mac Fan (you know, the M$ Winbloze-kind) I would probably send this to all my friends saying “Wow, check out how cool Apple is.” Good thing the RDF (Reality Distortion Field) has no effect on me any more.

Imagine if Microsoft did this? I suspect the press would be raining all over Redmond.

(Clicking on the image will bring up a larger version)

Thanks Gizmodo.