Readers in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area are familiar with the works of
longtime Sports Writer Blackie Sherrod. Blackie was in his prime
shortly after the founding of the original 13 colonies, but continues
to be a fixture with the Dallas Morning News. Over the past decade, he
has been subjecting us to articles which have no coherent theme or
ideas. He simply scattershoots, throwing out random thoughts as they
come to him. He was the model from which Larry King based his own
disjointed writing style, referred to as "dot.dot.dot".
I like to contribute to Low End Mac on a
monthly basis and have found that my mind will remind me to contribute
by throwing an idea for an article to my conscious approximately every
three weeks. This time I find that I have a group of small ideas, which
although extremely important to the community, are a bit lean. As such,
I will pay tribute to Blackie and submit these scattershots.
New Releases for Macworld?
I was talking with some of the employees at the local Apple store,
and we began speculating on possible releases to coincide with MWNY. We
threw out the usual rumors of G4 iBooks and G5 Power Macs and tried to
base our speculation on the current product life cycles. If you examine
the current product map, it is difficult to see where any major changes
could be made.
On the portable side, the PowerBook has just gone
through a wonderful revision in the past 60 days, and the iBook specs were raised
to keep the two machine relatively close to the previous capability
gap. In the 
desktop arena, the Power Mac specs were
just raised, and the
iMac still has the new computer smell. The eMac machine is both brand new
and dangerously close to hurting the value of the new iMac. The
Xserve is a brand new product, and the
iPod was recently upgraded to offer a higher capacity drive.
In the hardware arena, the employees and I decided that a
Quicksilver case update and a possible iMac upgrade were about all that
seemed realistic. It seems this summer will again be the platform for
highlighting software with heavy emphasis on 10.2.
I was able to come up with one upgrade I would love to see and that
no one else in the group had given much thought: AppleWorks 7.0. After
my switch to OS X early last year, I made a concerted effort to
keep my PowerBook Microsoft free. I did this for a few reasons, but
most important in my mind was the stability of my system.
Anyone who has used Office or Explorer knows that these products are
a leading cause of instability for an otherwise stable platform. As
none of the major Microsoft products had been carbonized at that point,
I took the opportunity to make the switch. When examining my computer
usage, three of the top five tasks (word processing, email, browsing)
had been traditionally handled with a Microsoft product. With the
arrival of OS X, I began to use AppleWorks as a primary
application for the first time since Claris was absorbed.
In my mind, the AppleWorks application accomplishes about 80% of the
tasks I need an office suite to handle - at a quarter of the cost. The
failings for me are the same well-documented limitations: The inability
to have multiple worksheets in each spreadsheet is a tremendous
liability for the spreadsheet application, and the lack of PowerPoint
translators is another factor that, if addressed, could greatly improve
interoperability.
Additionally, the application needs a redesign to better conform to
the OS X interface standards. A new revision would be a boon to
both the consumer and education markets, and it seems Office's
stranglehold still keeps many users from switching completely.
I Hate the New Ad Campaign!
When I first heard of the "switch" campaign, I thought it would be a
wonderful way to show Macintosh computers in the real world. I pictured
an ad showing John Smith carrying his PowerBook into a corporate
setting, trading files with PC users, connecting to PC networks,
working wireless, etc. Or Mike Admin, firing up his iBook to manage his
Unix network remotely. A real study in the way Mac machines interact
well with the rest of the computer world.
Instead, we get a collection of people who are quite frankly a bit
strange - and not one computer on the screen. I understand that it may
be a bit passé to actually show your product in a commercial,
but wouldn't you prefer seeing OS X screen shots to this
group:
http://www.apple.com/switch/
I must agree with Andrew Orlowski in his concern for the image the
ads promote. To quote the author, "The bad news is that Apple couldn't
have picked a starker collection of life's losers with which to promote
the Macintosh."
What happened to the simplified product grid?
One of the best things that Steve Jobs did when he rejoined Apple
was to simplify the Apple product grid. At the time, Apple had an
absolutely silly number of units available to the public, all of which
varied only slightly from the next. It was difficult for the channel,
difficult for Apple procurement, and untenable to consumers. Apple was
losing a fortune in inventory issues and was on the verge of
collapse.
Steve brought the company under control by building a simple product
grid. He offered both a desktop machine and a portable machine for both
the professional user and the consumer. Moving to only four basic
computers lowered costs, allowed for just in time inventory, helped
clear the channel, and pulled Apple out of a terrible mess.
Fast forward to 2002, and we see that the professional still has a
PowerBook and Power Mac, and the consumer still has an iMac and an
iBook. The complications arise when you are now faced with two
form factors on the iBook and an additional machine, the eMac. Are we
going to see the rumored "iBook LE" with a G4 to complicate
matters?
The additional units and products are not a problem as of yet, but
if I see a Performa G4 this fall, I am going to have a fit.
Thanks for the iPod Service
Kudos to the Apple store in Dallas for the good service in helping
with my five month old iPod. My trusty player had suddenly started to
exhibit horrible battery life, with a best-case time of around 1.5
hours. Now this machine is 5 months old and long past the 90 day
warranty.
I took the machine in to talk with a Genius about ways to
recondition the battery or any other thoughts on the problems with the
machine. Instead, I was given a replacement machine on the spot with
only a few signatures on a repair order. It would seem the iPod
warranty period has been adjusted without much fanfare.
I did not probe further as I wanted to get out of the store quickly
to ensure no one reclaimed the new machine. I recommend users take
problem iPods into a local Apple store rather than calling support.
