| Tuesday, October 20, 2009 |
09:45 - Stuff
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Um.
I remember when iMacs had 15-inch monitors and we thought that was just peachy.
Twenty-seven inch? Holy expletive.
One thought: is that really an iSight way up there in the top of the bezel? Is everyone planning to iChat with the tops of their friends' heads?
Oh, and look: they put in an SD card slot. Talk about a grudging concession to market realities, eh?
And I love that the 27" iMac's screen can be used as an external monitor for some other computer. Downright practical, that.
Between this and the new supermini (which can be had as a server, almost as though Apple is pandering to the nerdy wish-lists of home-network tinkerers everywhere), it's starting to look like the customer who needs a Mac Pro is a pretty rare beast. Wasn't Apple's whole deal that they were choosing not to play in the low end? They'd better watch out or their high end will get poached away by these middle offerings.
The other big news appears to be this new mouse:
Lessons learned from the Mighty Mouse: pixel-resolution scrollability is a winner, but a gum-up-able mouse ball for your finger (just when we'd settled comfortably into the optical mouse era) is not. Especially when the only way to clean the gummed-up finger-ball is to slice open your hand the mouse with a knife. Multi-touch appears to be the rule across the board now for all Apple devices, which is damn cool; but wireless-only keyboard and mouse offerings give me hives. I don't like the thought of having to stock batteries just to keep my input devices from going mysteriously unresponsive every few months just when I've forgotten about that potential eventuality. (Fortunately it looks like they'll still sell the wired keyboards and the old wired Mighty Mouse.)
I'm glad, perversely, that they stuck with the single-button-but-configurable-as-more-dammit rule of the Mighty Mouse. It always just struck me as such an elegant solution to the one-button-mouse sneerers. Even though you had to retrain your mouse hand to use it properly without accidentally right-clicking when you meant to left-click. God only knows what it'll be like getting used to using the Magic Mouse. And I guess anyone who'd grown used to those side-squeeze buttons is out of luck now, too.
I just hope it has good optical sensitivity and doesn't lose tracking on rapid movements. Pleasepleaseplease.
And now that they've tried every other iteration of rounded corners, the new Macbook now has fillets large enough to make the whole edge of the computer into a single unbroken 180° bullnose curve, like a great big iPhone. That's never looked friendlier. I like, though I doubt I'm the target audience. And apparently the sealed-in batteries are a big win in the market too.
Pretty solid lineup. Sure must be nice to be Jobs right about now: better sales results than ever, some damn good product offerings, a healthy lead in all the key markets he's interested in, and a brand new liver to run some champagne through.
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Brian Tiemann
