Are the new MacBook trackpads efficient?

One major change made to the MacBook line is the new trackpad. Instead of having a button on the bottom like the majority of laptops on the market, Apple has developed a trackpad that is the button itself. According to Apple, the new trackpad offers 39% more tracking area over the old one, which is mandatory to be able to accomplish the new multi touch gestures offered. Are the new trackpads an engineering success, or just a huge flop on Apple’s part? I, myself cannot answer this question because I don’t currently own one of the new laptops, so I encourage the new MacBook owners reading this article to leave your thoughts on the form of a comment.

New MacBooks and MacBook Pros, disappointment in the air…

That’s it! Finally, the rumor mills have stopped yammering with their rumors (rumors confuse me so much, and deceive when you actually see the real product) and the new notebooks are currently out for sale. Let’s start with the MacBook Pro. They really changed the design of the new MBP, adding a black glass contour around the screen (very similar to the iMac) that make the colors pop out. The keyboard has also adopted the black color, adopting the same keyboard as the old generation MacBook ( I liked the old MBP keyboard…). When purchasing the baseline model at 1999$, you get plenty bang for the buck: A 15 inch glossy display, a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (wow), 2 GBs of DDR3 RAM (why not 4 Apple, why?), a Nvidia GeoForce 9400 M and a 9600M GT which is the card you switch to for high performance, and finally, a 250 GB drive. You can also chose as an option to take a 128 GB SSD instead of the regular HDDs, and also as an option, upgrade your processor to up to 2.8 GHz which really gives you a kick-ass machine. I am a bit disappointed that the price has stayed at the same sky high price but I can understand why ( It’s supposed to be a pro machine, right?). I will probably take the baseline 1999$ model around end of January-ish. To sum it up, the MacBook Pro is what we expected it to be, the kick ass pro notebook machine, with the same outraging price ( I know, you must think I live in misery to care about price as much as I do). Now on to the new MacBooks, which got the exact same design as the new MacBook Pros and the price has increased by 200$. Another odd choice Apple made is to retain the old white MacBook (the one I currently have) and sell it a 999$ price-point. This move isn’t really the kind of thing Apple would do in regular times. I mean, Apple, couldn’t you just create a new sub-thousand dollar notebook for the masses? Instead of taking an old product and clearing the available stock? I overall liked the notebook related announcements, but still, some disappointment is in the air…

Is the iPod Classic dead?

The iPod classic, the iPod that started the whole iPod craze. And now, it is rumored that it’s death would be very near. The sign that started these rumors is the elimination of the 160GB model, that was aimed at the hardcore music fans, replaced by a “one size fits all” 120GB model. Apple justified this product elimination because customers preferred the “thin” model (80GB) over the “thick” model (160GB) and because it didn’t sell much of them anyway. The other sign was the change of the name to “Classic” which is typically meaning that the product is on it’s way to the door, or meaning that no improvements are to be awaited on that product. I personally don’t think that Apple will completely erase this product, but will be keeping it around, maybe a memory gain here and there, with incremental upgrades but no revolutionary new features. I don’t think Apple will kill the Classic because, come on, it’s the Classic isn’t it??? There’s some nostalgia associated with this product, I mean it started it all, didn’t it? Well, I personally hope it will stay around for a while until Apple decides it no longer needs to be on the market anymore…

New iPod Nano

The holiday season has come and with it, the usual refresh of the iPod line, bringing us a new Nano and a new iPod Touch. The new Nano is just gorgeous! I fell under it’s seduction power the second eye contact with it, proving once again that Apple always has the most sexy and appealing products on the market. Let’s rewind back before the Nano’s launch, when the rumored (and soon discovered to be true) pictures have been published on Kevin Rose’s blog, I thought the picture was awful and that Apple could not permit itself to release something like that, with a curved screen, perfect for a maximum reflection and glare. Now, I am just in love with this product and plan to buy it this holiday season and write a hands-on review. One of the fun (but not ground-breaking- features is the shake to shuffle, which permits the user to shake (quite violently) his iPod and turn on shuffle. This is just a well thought-out Apple-ish feature that only the Cupertino-based company can pull off. The integrated accelerometer permits the iPod to be rotated horizontally, and have the cover flow artwork show up, proving that Apple has learnt a lot from the iPhone and applying it to their other products. What do you think of this iPod, or the Touch? Feel free to drop a comment stating your feelings about the current iPod holiday lineup.

iTunes 8: Initial reactions

That’s it! The next major version of iTunes is out, now iTunes has turned to version 8.0, bringing with it some worthwhile but not revolutionary changes and tweaks. First: the new grid view, 100% inspired by the iPhone’s iPod interface (the buttons are the same except they are black in iTunes). The new view is my new default view (I used cover flow before grid view) and I am very much satisfied by this new interface tweak. Next: Genius, which takes a song that you chose and takes similar songs (same genre, same pace, based on user information). Now, this feature is bound to evolve because it becomes even more intelligent when Apple gets even more information from the users and collect metadata about the songs. I personally enjoy this feature, which made me re-discover some of the dark and forgotten corners of my music collection, but it really isn’t a HUGE feature that I couldn’t live without. So, this is a brief description of Apple’s new x.0 iTunes version, next’s 9.0!

Microsoft Gates/Seinfeld TV ad… What was that all about???

I recently saw the new Microsoft ad that starred Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld (who supposedly received 10 million dollars to be on the ad) and here is a three letter reaction I had after watching the ad: W-T-F. Why is this even considered an ad? Is this their (Microsoft’s) way of imitating the successful Apple ads? If so, this is really, really a big mess. I am not a particular anti-Microsoft person proof: in my opinion Vista is O.K. but took too long to deliver, and I use and enjoy Microsoft Office 2008 on the Mac side. But even the die hard Microsoft fanboys (if they actually do exist…) will tell you what a crappy ad that was. Go check it out for yourself and feel free to leave a comment saying what you thought about the ad.

My Predictions for the September 9th “Let’s Rock” Event

I will take a shot at predicting what will be announced at Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event. I think we will definitely see a refreshed iPod Nano with a new design and more storage (up to 16GB). The iPod Software will also get a new interface which will be a free upgrade for old nano users and will be out of the box for new nanos. I don’t think we will see a MacBook or MacBook Pro speed bump or design change, which is long overdue. I think Apple will wait until MacWorld to announce new Macbook line refresh because of the new Intel chips shipping in 2009. iPhone and iPod touch Software 2.0.3 will be released with the Apple server thing that permits for example IM apps to send received messages without having the application running in the background. I also think the MacBook Air will get a 100$ price drop but no new design or speed bumps. Well this is pretty much it, will my predictions come out to be true, we will know soon enough.

3G iPhone in june?

All the rumors say that the next generation iPhone, with 3G networking, will be presented at WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference), then released a little time after. The rumors sites all seem to speculate that the 3G iPhone will include a GPS, which would be great side to side with the current maps application which kind of acts similarly as a GPS (it is able to find your location by the touch of one button). The design also is due to be changed. A black and rounded corner iPhone is what is in the talks. I personally have a current generation iPhone and will not upgrade to the new version when it comes out because of obvious financial reasons. If you happen to have a current generation iPhone, will you upgrade or not, why or why not? Even if you don’t have an iPhone, why are you choosing to buy this new one or why not? Why did you hold off on not buying the iPhone that is currently out in he stores? What are the features you’ve been waiting for?