MacNewsBlog

Lately, we've been noticing a whole lot of negative reporting regarding Apple, ever since the iPhone 1.1.1 software update. Even some of our favorite Apple, Macintosh, iPhone reporting sites have been exhibiting reporting of stories with a negative slant toward Apple. In fact by the way they write, you'd think that they were writing about Microsoft... not Apple!

Here's hoping that the Apple reporting community takes a breather and also time to reflect and get some perspective again. If your story is an opinion piece thats fine, but it'd be great if we all take off the tin-foil hat and try to be fair... Apple makes it's fair share of mistakes but it doesn't mean that Apple is out to get us. The Apple paranoia is getting out of hand.

Just our $.02. And yes this is an op-piece in case you were wondering!

This past week saw the debut of Apple's lightest, thinest MacBook ever: the MacBook Air. It seemed like the world was talking about this new ultra portable Mac, even before anyone has gotten to touch or see it in person. A lot of Apple fans and non-Apple fans alike have kinda shunned the MacBook Air, calling it too expensive, too lacking in the memory and hard drive dept.

So who did Apple make this ultra portable for anyway?

Here's my take on this situation:

The MacBook Air is a special portable made for folks who need a really thin, light, ultra portable that is a Macintosh. If you're a windows user, there is definitely ultra-portables that are cheaper if that's all you plan to use. The MacBook Air is also, in my opinion, not meant to be your main workstation, although it can be. I would be hard pressed to store everything on an 80 gig HD (although I probably could if i HAD to), and running of of 2 GB RAM is no fun anymore. Further more, using any type of external storage will be slow since i've only got Airport wireless or USB 2.0 to get to my storage devices.

The MacBook Air, in my opinion, is made to be a satellite desktop or a temporary desktop. You do your work on it when you are away from your main workstation. When you are back near your main workstation, you sync the MacBook Air with your desktop.

Who would use the MacBook Air?
- Students could use the MacBook Air for taking notes, presentations and research during class. With 5 hours of battery life and the ultra portability, it would be very easy to take along in a backpack.
- Reporters, Advertising execs and Business people who do activities outside the office will have a wonderfully easy time taking the MacBook Air out in the field.
- Photographers who shoot tons of photographs can use the MacBook Air on site to edit and upload photos remotely.
- Teachers who work on lesson plans at home can take their work with them home.
- Business people who travel will love the MacBook Air due to the size and weight. They'll probably hate the battery though since there's no way to swap it out.

Who wouldn't use the MacBook Air? Just about everyone else. If you've already got a MacBook Pro or a Macintosh desktop powerhouse and never leave it at anytime, there is little or no reason for you to purchase a MacBook Air... although I'd probably lust after one once I've actually gotten to see and feel it in person.

We've been hearing over the past few days that folks have been clamoring for the new Multi-touch trackpad found in the MacBook Air. We've tried it ourselves and found it extremely cool and useful, especially in iPhoto!

It seems that adding Multi touch to current MacBooks and MacBook Pro would be as easy as a software update although none are planned at this time according to an Apple spokesperson. This is interesting especially since the current trackpads can sense 2 touch points.

Whether or not we'll see a "software update" to allow this feature remains to be seen. I personally think we'll see new MacBooks and MacBook Pro's with larger touchpads and features from the Air before we see that update come to any older models though.

And no, I seriously doubt Apple will be using multi-touch ON something like an iMac, and here's why: Try touching your screen for 5 minutes over and over again. You'll be having some serious shoulder issues before you know it!

With the arrival and installation of Leopard and Time Machine on my PowerBook G4, it was just a matter of time that I would be needing an external hard drive enclosure. I know that nowadays its probably more economical to buy an off-the-shelf product, but I had a spare 500 GB hard drive on hand and figured that now was a good time to use it as ever.

So, I set out to do some research online and the pickings were a little slim. I guess that since a lot of the manufacturers already make their own enclosures, the market for "roll your own" enclosure has shrunken a lot in the past years. A few years ago, I recall the enclosures were easy to find and now, its really hard to get your hands on a reliable one. In any case, in the past, I've always known that Other World Computing or OWC has pretty good products, so I decided to visit their site. The one that seemed to fit my budget and specifications was the MiniStack v2, they also produce a MiniStack v3, but it was more expensive and included features such as eSATA that I didn't need. Also, as a side note, normally I like enclosures that are vertical, but the MiniStack sits horizontally, I decided to make this an exception.

As far as the specifications, this enclosure could accommodate ATA drives up to 750 GB and it had 2 Firewire (1394) ports and 3 USB ports. It also apparently had an "intelligent" fan and seemed to get pretty good reviews online. Newer provided all the screws that were needed and also a short USB and Firewire cable.

Also included in the box were: the power adapter, the manual, the enclosure cover and some tape (for taping down the hard drive's heat sensor). The instructions were straightforward and there were lots of pictures illustrating how to assemble the enclosure. I think total assembly time was approximately 30 min. or so. The only problem that I had was that the enclosure cover was made of plastic and didn't fit well, mostly because it was such a tight fit.

Anyway, I've been using this enclosure for about a week and I can say so far that I don't have any issues with it. It works flawlessly for what I wanted it to do and I find that the on/off switch to be a good feature. That being said, I really like this enclosure and would recommend it to anyone who has a spare HD lying around and are looking for an external enclosure, however, if you are in the market for an external drive, the more economical solution would be to buy an external drive/enclosure ready made.

After a rocky weekend rollout, it seems that unfortunately, Apple's newly rolled out web-based internet services application, called MobileMe is still experiencing problems.

When MobileMe first was introduced, I was really excited and intrigued by what Apple was trying to accomplish. The concept behind MobileMe is a great one, syncing calender, contact and email data over the internet to ALL your devices (your desktop, iphone, laptop, etc.).

In any case, while I think I will be purchasing the service in the future, I'm glad that I haven't jumped right in as they say because it seems that approximately 1% of MobileMe users are having email problems.

We'll see what the next few weeks hold for MobileMe users, but I wish Apple all the best because I want this new service of theirs to succeed. Good Luck Apple!