Before I get started, this is a topic I can't quite figure out where to post in fritter. It started out as an Apple related rant, and it, well, mutated into something completely different.
Is anyone else as disappointed with Apple's latest offerings as I am? The new iPod doesn't really impress me. It plays video - whoop de doo! The new iMac, front row and a built in iSight -nice, but not nice enough. The new PowerBooks and higher res screens - yawn. The new Power Macs - ummm, these should have shipped six months ago. Considering that the PowerPC 970 is a Power5 cut in half, the dual core G5 existed before the G5 did - Yawn.
I'm not bashing macs or Apple, but these new products just seem well, less than thrilling. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm an adult now, or the fact that I have a 2004 model PB G4 15" (which still isn't that much slower than the new model) and a 60gb iPod that makes new models that are marginally better not so exciting. I remember being excited about new products, like when the Titaniums came out, the Dual USB iBooks, and what I remember to be the last really exciting product announcement - the aluminum 12 and 17 inch models in January 2003.
I realize that the intel switch is coming soon, and that these are "let's have something to sell in the meantime" products, but come on guys, can't you give us something a little bit more exciting or innovative? Though, we've climbed one mountain and don't know what the next one is. In some respects I am at a similar point in my life. All the goals I made for myself while in high school have been achieved with one exception - completing college, which isn't an option for at least another year. I've done everything I set out to do, and am looking for the next big thing. I'm looking for another mountain to climb, and can't figure out where to go. I guess this is the downside of setting expectations too low and overachieving.
Has anyone else been through this? The moment when you've completed those goals you set out, and don't know what to do next.
- iantm
i am very unimpressed with this new output. but granted i have been really dissappointed in macs since the g4 imac. a really horrible design gone wrong. but i love macs and always look forward to new innovations. and these just dont have any innovation. especially the ipods. as much as i want an ipod, i will still settle for a 128mb mp3 player from walmart. i guess this is just a way to get us more hyped about the upcoming macintels. since we are so disappointed in the regular mac, then we'll love the new mac. kind of forcing us to be disappointed. purposely under-delivering so that when they finally over deliver, it will seem so much more than it actually is.
peace and love
ande
Well, I guess that's why there is the shift away from the PPC platform. More opportunity to grow.
Personally, I hope they are dedicating most of their design efforts towards the new processor macintosh line.
You know, there is nothing thant makes me more happy to be a mac owner than having to use a Windows based machine.
The PowerBooks are really disappointing. Look at the changes in the iMac and PMac lines compared to the PB's in the past five years or so. The upgrades seem mostly incremental in comparison.
Perhaps a loss of forward momentum by Apple is only seeming rather than real? I have about five principal reasons for maintaining my flock of 20-odd Apple machines: buying/selling, business administration, music programming and editing, Apple-ology, and text-based activity. My wife's and my G3-based machines are used for most of this, and they can do everything that is asked of them, without fail. The other Macs engage me much more, however.
I endure one platform in almost every client's establishment while I am earning. At home I use the platform of my choice, but not all of the applications that are prominent in Apple's advertising are of use or interest to me. The recent redeployment by Apple of existing technology to serve a market that they had the wit to define is perhaps low in technological innovation, but high in business acumen. Without today's business success there can be no tomorrow's existence, let alone innovation.
As long as Apple does not again tie itself to processor architecture, we can foresee incrementally better products from them. Future 'giant leaps for mankind' advances will have to wait for complete re-thinks and matching technology to coincide. The company's record in technological development allows me to believe that such an advance will come, but not every week and not necessarily immediately. Real time involves longer spans than human impatience.
de
I think there are several technical issues binding the hands of anyone doing laptop design. The processor's heat and the electricity it uses are huge obstacles, I think you have to count the OS into any laptop equation, lots of PC look at Mac OS X and a powerbook and they poop their pants. I also gauge my laptop satisfaction by using my IBM thinkpad every day. Comporable to a Mac in price, but so much harder to use and that counts too.
David Pogue gave a great article about the ipod with video, and he pointed out some things I never would have thought of. Perhaps the jaded view is common most with Mac people because we are used to so much, but I think this latest ipod is like the original ipod itself, many people were less than impressed when the ipod came out. But look how it grew on people once they found they couldnt live without it. I think it will do a LOT for "carrying around video" for people on the go. It could integrate with other tech in the home, you watch your episode of the apprentice you missed last night on your morning train commute, or you start getting into small indie productions that now have a voice because ipod video means a huge audience without a lot of upfront costs. I think time will show us this is a major major breakthrough, and we just have to temper our desire to see the thumbail ipod with frikking laser beam type products with real world expectations.
hey, no one said Apples were a bowl of cherries...
Buck up, campers! Just think of how bad you'll want one of these new Macs 17-18 years from now when they are vintage and less than $50!
said one: "Hey, I got one of those vintage G5's... one of the dual core/dual processing ones... and it actually runs OS XXIV!... I'm going to hack it to drive this old food replicator!"
said the other: "I don't know why you bother with that junk. When are you going to finish that 3rd PhD anyway? You've got to grow up sometime, you know."
Creative and Sansa players look better than iPods for me. Besides they have no problems with software. I’ve purchased my spam link deleted - eeun and they have lots of movies and music to download at the same place, some models even have 30 days trial of Rapsody subscription. I'm glad that i refused to use iPods
It sure seems that every post from this account is a product plug. If there is a real human behind it, it's an awful odd posting habit for being around here for over a year and a half dozen posts...
Yep...a human and very low volume spammer. Quiet enough and good enough with english to slip under the radar until now.
Wow, I'd forgotten about this thread. Well, things have certainly changed since late 2005 ...
Apple's even *more* boring now? ;^)
--Peace
hehe, maybe apple read the inital post??? i think a lot has changed since then. well, maybe not the design of alu p'books but at least the functionality...
"the times, they are a changin' ..." - bob dylan
In the time that has passed since then, I have come to regard the aluminum PowerBook G4 and MacBook Pro's as the finest laptops Apple has ever made. (in regards to feel and using it) My vision has also gotten worse - so the 15" PowerBook G4 and MacBook Pro are the sweet spot for me with glasses (I were progressive lenses nowadays - so they suit my needs better than anything else out there.
I've also been through three PowerBook G4 15" (one personally owned, two work issued), a 13" MacBook (personally owned), a 14" iBook G4 (personally owned) and two MacBook Pro 15" (one work issued, one personally owned).
As for the lineup, the MacBook Pro's and iMacs are what I'm into. If I had monster cash - maybe a Mac Pro. The AppleTV seems ill conceived to me - Just what my living room needs - a random device connected to the tv that requires I use iTunes - I think I'll stick with the divx dvd player and renting dvd's.
The iPhone seems nice, but comes off as nothing more than a big hassle to me, and the iPods are cool - maybe I'll get a classic.
Actually, I think the iPhone is the perfect meld of technology. I hate to have to carry a cell phone and iPod, and for that reason, my 20gb U2 iPod sits untouched, even though I have close to 6gb of music on it, it rarely gets listened to on a regular basis, and I love music. It's just too clunky. Plus the hard drive hits the battery life a bit hard, though this past weekend I took it on a trip with me, and it was playing through well over 4 hours, enough for the drive there and back, plus driving a friend around later on Sunday.
I feel if I did have an iPhone, I would use the iPod bit more, because it's always there.
Oh, and I was thinking of buying the black macbook for college, seems pretty sexy, and from my hands on a unit that has been running all day, seems to run pretty cool. Though the light up keyboard is just awesome, and the macbook air is only $200 more than the black macbook, plus I have been liking the idea of a dock-able mac more and more.
-digital