Incremental Blogger

I keep thinking about the limited number of connectors on the MacBook Air–a headphone jack, USB connector, and a mini-DVI (for external displays and projectors). It reminds me of the new generation of MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices), which only have a minimum number of connectors too.

I like the mini-DVI connector. That’s a good idea. VGA connectors are too bulky on notebooks as it is. Good move on Apple’s part.

The single USB port I’m not so keen on but I guess it’ll pass since the MacBook Air includes most of the things that you need in a device anyway, such as a webcam. EVDO is the one big thing not in the computer, but a USB EVDO will do OK, although it will eat up the battery–which by the way how do you change if you need more than five hours of run time??? Is there an external battery extender? Where’s the connector for that?

Now as to the headset connector. That’s OK, but since there’s no mic in jack, this means you may want to use a USB mic for podcasting and the like. I guess USB mics are getting more and more common so maybe this isn’t a big deal. However, using the USB port for a mic means using EVDO connectivity at the same time which is going to be problematic, though not impossible to get around. I’m guessing a USB hub will work.

So is the limited connectivity on the MacBook Air a thing of the future? In some ways I think it is. As more devices are built into the base unit and devices get smaller and smaller we’ll see fewer connectors. Another possibility is that we’ll see more smaller specialized connectors, like the mini-DVI connector on the Air.

Oh, and one more thing: The MacBook Air also shows that all notebooks don’t need CD/DVD players. The Tablet market had this right to begin with–they didn’t include integrated CD/DVD players at first. Sure it’s fine to include DVD players in some units, but I don’t think most Tablets need them. Part of the problem was that retailers thought they couldn’t sell Tablets without optical drives. Kind of makes sense when you consider the premium Tablets have been selling for. However, I really, really think the OEMs should have held their ground and gone the other way–towards thinness and lightness.

Apple has it right. It shows the MacBook Air next to a thin envelope. That’s the correct imagery. Ever seen an add where a Tablet was marketed this way? Me neither. 

Oh, how I wish NEC would have keep going with the NEC LitePad.  

To almost no one’s surprise, the new MacBook Air, introduced today at Macword, supports multi-touch gestures similar to that popularized by the iPhone.

The display doesn’t include a touch sensor, however.

Instead, an enlarged touch pad supports the new gestures. What gestures are supported?

There’s the two-finger pinch gesture, that can be used in iTunes or a photo-album app, or Safari to zoom in and out.

There’s the swipe new three-finger (yes, three finger) swipe gesture supported in Safari to navigate forwards and backwards among pages.

Also new is a two finger rotate gesture.

Some other gestures include a screen zoom (hold the control key down while sliding two fingers up or down), tap, click and drag, click, drag and lock, and two-finger clicks. Not bad.

I couldn’t help thinking that Apple is positioning the new MacBook Air in part as a business notebook–not specifically in words but particularly in the imagery being used.

For instance, in the online demo video, there are references to Mac Office. No focus on iLife here. And there’s Apple’s new commercial which shows the MacBook Air being pulled from a business-sized manilla envelope. And then there’s the classic business look of the device itself.

It’s not all business, of course. There were shots of a family friendly photo album and the like shown on the Air’s display. However, I can’t help but think that Apple is moving one small step closer to the IT world with the MacBook Air.

Yes, there are some big IT limits to this device. Is that an embedded battery? And not many ports for access. No direct ethernet. No expansion dock. No easy expandability. Hmm.

But still, one small step.

Which is better: Flexibility over movie streaming time or movie streaming device? Or are both equally as important? That’s my vote.

Cool twist on a Tablet PC.

Over the last couple years people have questioned the success of Tablet PCs because they say they haven’t seen people use them. (For the record, I’ve seen plenty in the wild, but I can understand how people miss them.)

This got me thinking: How many iPhones have I seen in the wild? The answer: Not many. In fact, the first ones I saw were this past week near an Apple computer store. You could say I need to get out more–or move to the Bay Area, but I think this isn’t too surprising. Even though several million iPhones have supposedly been sold, the numbers in use at any given time are probably not that high.

Have you seen many iPhones in use?

Here are some entries for Gizmodo’s MacBook Touch contest. 

Engadget feeds another Apple Mac Tablet rumor. This time it looks like Apple is looking for a QA person to work with a multi-touch team. Not sure what this means in terms of the short term–specifically what might or might not be announced at MacWorld in January.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is anticipating an ultra-portable Mac with possible iPhone-style touch to be launched at MacWorld.

Would you like an Apple with your EeePC? Well, here you go. Dan over at UneasySilence was able to get OSX running on an Asus EeePC.

It sounds like he has WiFi and sound, which is good. I’m not sure what else is working. He does point out that the OS runs a bit sluggish, but that’s to be expected. The main part here though is that it installs at all on such a minimalist machine.

(Oh how I wish that the EeePC had a digitizer option.)

Crave is posting another Mac Tablet rumor. This time it supposedly someone from ASUS confirming the rumor.

First things first: ASUS is a contract manufacturer for Apple. So it would make sense that ASUS might build a Mac Tablet if one came to market. However, it would also make sense that ASUS would build an Mac Tablet that Apple is purely building as a research project. I think this is where previous rumors have gotten tripped up. Just because Apple builds something internal doesn’t mean it’s going to take it to market.

There are some differences now, however. Tablets are reaching across the market–whether they are called “Tablets” or not. There are now full sized Tablets convertibles, slates, very small Tablet convertibles, UPMCs, MIDs, and who knows what else Apple, Intel, or Microsoft have up their sleeve.

I can guess that a Mac Tablet will have it’s top notch pinch-touch displays. If so, I imagine the screen won’t be that large. Generally these are technologies that scale up slowly. So maybe a 5 or 7″ display?

At this size a slate makes sense with either the onscreen keyboard or a flip out one. I’m thinking MID here. Something that’s top notch at browsing the Internet and staying connected. The iPhone is jut a little too small for comfortable browsing. Everything a little bigger could make the device easier to use in more places. And it might become a good platform playing games. Or a Brainage knockoff. Dunno.

Then again–since this is all based on rumors–I can see Apple responding to all the education-focused Tablets. Toshiba, Fujitsu, Gateway are grabbing market share fairly well. And Dell is about to enter the fray too. That means Apple is the odd one out. So here, maybe they are thinking of an education-capable Tablet. Fact is Apple already has a reasonable foothold in the education market. Are Tablets eating at their market.

There are two concerns here if Apple takes this route. First, Apple products recently have been selling well to the consumer market–in which I’d include high-school age kids on up. I’m not sure what the IT folks think–and these are the ones in charge of the school infrastructure.

If Apple wants to ride its consumer wave, then an Apple education-capable Tablet would need to attract the older kids. So we’re talking maybe a small, Tablet convertible. Something that might even sell well in Asia. It would need enough umph though to play games and stay well connected. I’m not sure if they could pull this off and have the dreamed of 8hr battery life and so on. This would make more sense for a smaller device.

Anyway, like I mentioned at the beginning. These are all rumors. Rumors, rumors, rumors, that have all turned out to be false.

And it makes sense that the rumors are kicking up now that MacWorld is approaching in early Janurary 08.

Maybe we’ll see some leaked photos next. If so, I’ll really begin to believe.

Update: Ooops. I forgot one of the best features for an Apple MID–It could serve as a remote control with a live TV Guide built into it. It would be an  ideal companion for the Mini.

I successfully upgraded my iMac to Leopard. No problems in the install itself. Total install time I’m not sure, but my guess is that it took about an hour and a half. Basically, I got it started and then went off to watch a movie, so I’m not sure about the times.

After the install, most things still ran. My old version of XCode chokes on startup though. And under Bootcamp there are some devices that weren’t recognized properly. I manually had to install an iSight driver I found on the net, which was a bummer. I hoped that Leopard would take care of all of this for me. It didn’t. And I have a couple more devices to fix up based on XP’s device manager. Oh well.

My impression of Leopard so far? Well, I had no choice but to upgrade. I need Bootcamp for XP and the beta version of Bootcamp was set to expire. Is the upgrade worth it? So far, its a big yawn on my part. I’m not keen on the overall look–which really isn’t that big a deal anyway–but it reminds me of something I’d see on a college student’s computer circa 1997. Anyway, I can live with it. And I need to try out Time Machine to see if it really works the way I’d like it to. I’ve read some things about recovery being an issue, which makes me wonder about it’s value.

Which do I like better, Vista or Leopard. So far I’d say they are what they are. I’m partial to ink input–I whiteboard thoughts a lot on my Tablet PC, so Vista has the edge there–even with Apple’s InkWell technology. Other than that though, I’d say the OSes are on par with each other and both are incremental updates that make sense, but are NOT earth changing.

One new thing I did right away was to download Adobe’s Flex development environment, which is based on Eclipse. Not bad. Top of my list now is to code up a version of the SearchTIP in Flash. I’m very curious to see what the response is like. My guess is that it will reach two or three times more people than the Silverlight version. Sometimes you have to play to the peanut gallery to get noticed.

Great videos–one an old Apple commercial. One a twist on the top-notch ad.

Here’s the question though. Who is thinking differently? Apple locking down the iPhone? Or the developers?

I’m rooting for the developers, of course.

[Found via Robert Scoble]

AppleInsider says it has sources that are indicating the return of the Newton, sometime in early 2008.

“With the initial iPhone now out the door and two successive models well underway in Apple’s labs, it’s believed to be full steam ahead for the modern day Newton project. Like iPhone and the iPod touch, the new device runs an embedded version of Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard operating system.

Externally, the multi-touch PDA has been described by sources as an ultra-thin “slate” akin to the iPhone, about 1.5 times the size and sporting an approximate 720×480 high-resolution display that comprises almost the entire surface of the unit. The device is further believed to leverage multi-touch concepts which have yet to gain widespread adoption in Apple’s existing multi-touch products — the iPhone and iPod touch — like drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste.”

Based on previous rumors, this could be an indication that there’s a research effort underway at Apple and not a specific product. We’ll have to see.

However, I’ve been hearing rumors for awhile that Apple is up to something small. Is it a Tablet? A UMPC? A MID? Or something all to itself. I have no idea–just heard rumors from people that have said they’ve seen something cool. That can cover a ton of possibilities, so I’ve avoided blogging about it–even though I don’t know what “it” is. My guess is that Apple’s research group is in full motion and tries its ideas out on people from time to time. This suggests to me that we’re not talking actual products yet, but that’s just a guess on my part. Apple’s too secretive to show its real products around.

Marc Orchant asks: Is the best Windows laptop a Mac?

I’m hearing this more and more. And more not as a question, but as a fact.

I wonder how long this perception will last. 6 months? A year? two years? Five? Nah, not that long. The industry changes too fast.

Awhile ago I predicted this trend and it appears it’s in full steam. The unfortunate part is that the Tablet PC and UMPC is losing ground as an innovative platform. My concern is that Macs will sweep into the education market–migrating from the college level down–precisely where Tablets can have the greatest impact and provide the greatest value.

If Microsoft can figure out a way to easily retrofit Mac laptops with a screen digitizer technology that would provide access to Vista’s handwriting recognition and touch experience on a Mac laptop, then maybe the march to Macs would not be a bad thing for Tablets. Until then though, each Mac–whether it runs Vista or not—is one more challenge to Tablet PC adoption from a hardware perspective.