Sarah Ward’s Blog

So here I was waiting for the Macworld 2008 Keynote to begin. Lots of stuff about the iPhone which was nice, but still won’t be getting one until the 3G version is released and we have a lot more options for service provider. I’m not going to be stuck with an 18 month contract from O2. And rentals on iTunes, nice idea but we are so behind with what’s available in the UK iTunes store that I don’t think rentals here is going to change the world just yet. And then they bring out the Macbook Air, which was not entirely unexpected as it has been doing the rounds on the rumour circuit for over a year now. And I agree it looks absolutely sweet, but functionality wise it’s still not what I want or need. And here’s why…

• Lack of ports- one USB I doubt will cut it.
• No Superdrive - probably not a big deal as the only disc I have put in the my Powerbook in the last 6 months was drivers for installing a new printer. I don’t want to have to buy another one, but they don’t say if any 3rd party drives like the Lacie one I use on my G4 will also work.
• 2 Gb RAM max… and its soldered on!?!?! Great if that gives up and you can’t replace it. Call me power hungry but I would rather run Photoshop, Parallels etc on 4Gb Ram that I can replace if needed.
• Max processor speeds are low compared to the current Macbook Pro lineup. I’m assuming this was probably due to the amount of heat and size generated by the higher speed chips.
• Only supports up to the 23 inch HD Display from Apple. Now I know I like to dream a little, and hope I might one day be able to afford that dream 30″ model (like I can afford to do that any time soon - not) I don’t want to be limited in my choice either. Plus no dedicated graphics, so it’s already eating into that 2Gb RAM.
• Do I need a 64Gig Solid State Hard Disk, sure it should last for 50+ years, but to pay over £800 for the privilege of one. Will the rest of the Macbook Air still work in 50 years? I know what I’m like, I could quickly pack that 64 Gig with all sorts of junk. I need more space please.
• Can’t replace the battery. Apparently they will install it for free and the price is equivalent to any of the other portables, but what do you do in the mean time while they are installing it.
• It’s only going to be about £100 less than entry level Macbook Pro.

I’ll probably think of some more reasons why I shouldn’t pay for the Macbook Air. So for now, I’ll keep waiting for that Macbook Pro update that I have been hoping for the past 3 months. Just hope my 8 year old Ti PowerBook holds out that long, and my Dual 500Mhz G4 doesn’t need another power supply in the mean time while I wait.

Apple have just announced the Safari 3 Public Beta at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Now I love my Apple products. I still love my old G4 even though it is now on it’s second power supply, and am I currently sat here typing away on my 6+ year old PowerBook even though the DVD drive is starting to really struggle. (I actually want to get a new Mac, but I keep changing my mind about which one but that’s another story…) And I think my Apple Video was one of the best products I’ve ever been given for a Birthday present. I use it all the time at home connected direct to the TV to watch video podcasts PixelPerfect and Diggnation (both Revision3 productions). Oh hang on I am digressing here a bit… but basically I am a fan of the Mac.

So I guess it was expected, with the move over to Intel, and iTunes successfully moving over to the PC (and well Windows media player sucks so why wouldn’t it). But I’m a bit worried that it may not be that successful or at least not gain the market share they hope. Firstly, it is known amongst some developers that the fastest browser on the Mac at the moment is Camino. Safari and Firefox just doesn’t seem to be as fast. Yes, standards compliance is important, but if something takes for ever for some JavaScript to run, you ain’t going to hang around. However notice that they don’t even list that it the comparison charts. You can’t even download this Beta unless you have upgraded to the latest OSX either which also sucks. (A problem we have in the office at the moment as we are still stuck on OSX 10.2.)

But I think what is really ironic is that the screenshots of Safari they have on the Apple.com website is displaying Yahoo. Now as a Mac user I know I can’t view Yahoo Mail Beta in any other Browser but Firefox (and some other weird one I’ve never heard of). Hoping this might have changed I have downloaded the Beta and tried again, but no we are still not allowed in. I will assume this will be the case for those on PC too. So why would anyone change from a great browser that is Firefox, and well if you’re using Internet Explorer, do the right thing you know you want to, and switch over to Firefox, if you can’t even check your Yahoo email. Come on Apple and Yahoo, I think it’s time you resolved this issue.