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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Tuesday, June 4, 2002
12:09 - Yeah, they're about to go out of business any time now...

(top) link
It's a big day for Apple, it seems. There are at least three announcements, all of which I think are pretty meaningful.

  1. QuickTime 6 is out! Well, the Public Preview, anyway. I don't know what the story is behind the MPEG-LA licensing issues that (last time I heard) they still had yet to iron out; but evidently they've taken care of things enough to allow us to have the software they've been sitting on for a while. It's also still not final, and I don't know how that can be, considering that they've been ready to release the product for months now. I suspect they just really wanted to get it out the door, so people can start authoring MPEG-4 content and getting the traction ramped up, without having to wait for Jaguar this summer (read: September).

    Check out the features. The streaming stuff is kinda clunky at home, but then, streaming over my horrible connection never worked properly-- and to its credit, this version actually recovers and keeps moving when the stream stutters. But the instant-on movies rock, the video quality is superb, and the audio is rich and clear. They have some AAC audio samples which are straight out of the FreePlay Music library, which I already have in MP3 format; listening to the two formats side by side (the file sizes are almost identical, and the bitrate is the same), I can detect some subtle textural differences, but I'm going to have to ask some audiophile friend of mine to do a blind taste-test and see which one is "better". (Maybe I should use two or three audiophile friends, so as to detect BS.) But either way, AAC is an open format, it's developed by the MPEG working group as a successor to MP3, and it definitely has a number of logistical advantages. I wonder if we'll see it start to catch on, especially now that "MP3" has taken on a life of its own as a term...

    But either way, now we can get started making up some of that lost ground. MPEG-4 is here, man, and now .mp4 files written by iMovie can be played in any player, not just QuickTime. That's bound to blur the lines of contention for people who stubbornly refuse to use Apple software, of which there are plenty.


  2. Ever wanted proof that Apple listened to its customers? Well, here you go: the eMac is now available for all buyers. Previously, you had to be an educational buyer, and prove it; but immediately after it was released, the discussion boards and polls started filling up with discussions of how competitive a machine it was-- especially for the price-- and how Apple should sell it to regular customers too. And, well, here it is.

    It's clear, at least to me, that the G3 iMac (which this is clearly descended from rather directly) is a production-line sweet spot; they'd tuned a lot of their processes toward building iMacs, and this is something they can produce at fairly minimal incremental expense. It gets G4 power onto home desktops for around a thousand bucks. It's durable, and it's got a big screen. And those cool on-screen programming controls in the Display preferences get to stick with us for a bit longer.

    They've reworked the offerings, too. There used to be two models, the lower of which didn't include a modem and had a plain CD-ROM; now, there's only the one model (the one with a modem and CD-RW), plus a build-to-order one that includes... uh, a stand. So, just the one model, really. And it's about $1000. Sweet. Thanks for listening, Apple.

    And they're apparently still selling the G3 iMac, too. That's quite a product lineup they've got these days...


  3. 20525 Mariani Avenue, Cupertino, CA.


    Way back when, Apple's corporate headquarters was at this address, right across the road from where I work right now. The building was known as Mariani One. (Other buildings were strewn up and down Bandley and Valley Green; hence addresses like Bandley Three and Valley Green Five.) In the early 90s, though, when Apple was in its heyday, the landlord of the building decided to jack the rent price up. It's their corporate HQ, after all! The address is all over their letterhead! What are they gonna do-- move out, and have to change all their contact information? We've got 'em trapped!

    ...Well, Apple moved across the street, diagonally across the intersection from me. They built a brand-new complex, and dubbed it Infinite Loop. (How's that for fun and geeky-elegant?) And they changed their letterhead. One Infinite Loop.

    But Apple was in a slump. It was that long, dark teatime of the Mac, when Jobs was in exile and Apple was producing beige boxes with numbers for names under marketing-ese category monikers (Performa, Centris, Quadra, and so on). And gradually, Apple withdrew from the buildings on Bandley and Valley Green, one by one. The little one-story, tile-roofed offices emptied out, their windows went dark. The manicured green lawns and shady bowers of trees up and down the quiet streets stayed elegantly trimmed, but the buildings lost their identities. The corporate-logo tombstones out in front of each little building went blank. Walking down Bandley became a chilling experience. It was the Apple Graveyard.

    The dot-com boom of the late 90s happened, and the buildings along Bandley filled up with companies. Extreme Networks occupied Bandley Three. Three little dot-coms shared what was once the Apple company store in Bandley Seven. Apple still clung to one or two of those buildings, but it was a forlorn last stand. There was even speculation that Apple would retract its occupation of Infinite Loop and sublet out some of the five-story campus buildings there. And Mariani One, their old corporate HQ, was occupied by Sun.


    But then Jobs returned, and he brought with him a nexus of energy; vitality started to flow back into the De Anza and Mariani region. The iMac and the G4 Macs began to reawaken interest in Apple; the iApps began to revolutionize the digital-device world, and Apple was back in the black. They rolled out their huge banners over the Infinite Loop buildings once again. One by one, they started moving back into the buildings on Valley Green and Bandley. As the dot-coms fell, Apple was right behind them, shuffling into place and reoccupying their old territory. Cars were scuttling up and down Bandley again, like in the old days. And every tombstone in front of every building had a different-colored Apple logo. The last time these buildings had had Apple logos, they'd been the rainbow-striped ones of yesteryear; but now, the logos were big, shiny, vibrant, and fun in the way a Ferrari is fun or Mufasa was fun. Everything's all right, they said. We're back.

    A few weeks ago, Sun moved out of 20525 Mariani Avenue. For a month or so, the building stood empty, the parking lot unnaturally deserted in this newly bustling region of Cupertino. We had heard rumors. We had our theories. But we weren't sure what to expect.

    Well, believe it: this morning, 20525 Mariani Avenue had a shiny purple Apple logo on its tombstone. And under it, it said in that stately old Apple Garamond font, the font that has weathered so much doubt and so much derision, the font that has kept its dignity with quiet ease all these years:

    Mariani One


    Like the sparrows returning to Capistrano, Kris says. And somewhere a bird sang.


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© Brian Tiemann