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Another Look at What Apple Has Taken Away

October 20th, 2008

Back in the early days, your expandable Mac came with technologies that other personal computers didn’t always contain, such as NuBus for peripheral cards for graphics and other tasks and SCSI for such devices as external hard drives and scanners. There were also the proprietary ADB ports for input devices.

But with the introduction of the iMac in 1998, huge changes were heralded. The iMac depended on USB, a standard that had actually been introduced in the PC but had gone virtually nowhere. Suddenly, you had to go out and hunt for conversion interfaces for your older mouse and keyboard, if you didn’t want to use the ones Apple provided. There was, of course, the requisite Ethernet for networking.

Now, an all-in-one computer with minimal expansion possibilities didn’t need NuBus, although you had to wonder about the lack of SCSI. Then again, when you considered all the problems you might encounter when you’d daisy chain several SCSI peripherals to your Mac, maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

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Apple’s Notebook Update Mostly Ignores 17-inch MacBook Pro

October 14th, 2008

Most of you know that I am addicted to the 17-inch form factor for my notebooks. I first bought a 17-inch PowerBook G4, the one with the 1.33GHz processor, shortly after it was released in late 2003. After a couple of years of regular use, it passed on to my son, Grayson, who later sold it when he acquired a black MacBook.

I’m now on my second 17-inch MacBook Pro, and it gets more use than ever these days, as I migrate more and more of my workload to the bedroom.

That takes us to the latest Apple notebook revision, replete with the long-awaited changes to the stagnant form factors that had gone largely unaltered since the days of the Titanium PowerBook.

Normally these revisions have arrived in the form of modest speed bumps, with faster processors and larger hard drives. However, there hasn’t been all that much of an improvement in Intel’s CPUs in recent months. So what is Apple to do to refresh its notebook line and garner big sales for the holiday quarter in a seriously troubled economic environment?

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Apple’s Prospects: What a Difference a Year Makes!

July 9th, 2008

In 2007, for a time you had to feel that Apple was neglecting the Mac. At the beginning of that year, the famous Steve Jobs keynote concentrated very little on Mac-related developments, and mostly on the iPhone. A few months later, we learned that the next major reference release for Mac OS X, Leopard, would be postponed a few months to give Apple’s engineers time to finish up the iPhone software, based on the same fundamental code base.

Where Macs were upgraded, for the most part, those changes represented the faster processors released by Intel, and perhaps boosting hard drive storage to take advantage of model upgrades. The actual designs remained pretty much the same, with the possible exception of the hugely-successful iMac. But in that instance, it was a matter of switching the case from plastic to aluminum and sourcing a glossy rather than matte flat panel.

I know some tech pundits must have had a field day writing lurid copy about how Apple was really abandoning the Mac, and moving on to such consumer electronics products as, of course, the iPhone and the iPod.

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Newsletter #442 Preview: Are Mac Styles in a Rut?

May 18th, 2008

Although Apple has the reputation of delivering cutting-edge designs, particularly when it comes to the iPod and iPhone, they’ve been extremely conservative with their personal computers.

The most radical styling exercise was probably the first flat-panel iMac, with its flower-pot base and articulated swinging arm. In retrospect, it wasn’t a barn burner when it came to sales, particularly when you compare it to the original pear-shaped iMacs.

Today’s iMac, though elegant in its aluminum clad fittings, is actually pretty conservative. It’s basically a stylish computer display with the guts carefully inserted in a way that doesn’t add significantly to its bulk. Aside from moving from plastic to aluminum, however, recent styling exercises for the iMac have been minimal.

The always-forgotten Mac mini was a neat variant on the PC theme, using basic notebook parts in a case that struck some as half a Cube. I suppose Steve Jobs can’t get away from that design, since it’s been duplicated in large part with the Apple TV, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule.

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