Andy's Blog

• MacBook Air (Mid 2009) Review | Laptop | Macworld: The big story is that the latest revision to the MacBook Air is slower than the one that it replaces. While I can understand why Apple wants to sell this product, and that it has a reasonably bright future, the MacBook Air as it currently stands is a touch machine to love. My workplace is in the process of divesting itself of almost all MacBook Airs (save for mine). And the only reason why I'm not giving up my Air is because it is solely a secondary machine for me.

• Bit.ly’s Grand Plans, And Their Inevitable Clash With Digg: Bitly Now: I'll admit to being a little confused when bit.ly took on funding, but based upon the amount of traffic they're getting, it seems like they might actually have a business here. Which is amazing, considering how simple (and technically uninteresting) URL shorteners are.

• Will TV Ever Get an App Store Moment? — GigaOM Pro: I've been beating this drum for awhile. I'm hoping that now that Steve Jobs is back at Apple, working on the next major revision of Apple TV is on his short list of projects deserving of his attention.

• The "S" Should Stand for Smooth - Joe Hewitt: This was my impression in playing with the 3GS as well -- everything was just a lot more responsive.

• 3G Speed and Reliability Results by City - PC World: AT&T fairs poorly on these reliability & speed tests, especially in San Francisco and San Jose, where many Apple employees live. Remember what I said about Apple having to be pretty unhappy with AT&T in order to go to the trouble of producing a CDMA iPhone? Maybe this'll do it. (via Dan Merritts)

I've been so busy with moving and everything, that I'm not on top of my gadget fondling. Well, I cut out of work on time today, and went to the nearest Sprint store, to spend some quality time with a Palm Pre. And then after dinner, I ambled over to the Apple Store in the Marina to play with an iPhone 3GS. And I have to say, at this point, I have a pretty tough decision ahead of me.

First, the Palm. In the Sprint store, the two Pre's that they had on display were annoyingly tethered -- while it was possible to pick the device up, the tether wanted to pull it back to earth. Annoying. Even more annoying, the demo units were running some sort of special demo software, which was supposed to highlight the features of the Pre. But in reality, all it served to do was get in the way -- it kept popping up and annoying me, and it continually ran in the background. I'm wondering if that application caused some of the middling performance that I observed while playing with the Pre:

A Palm Pre, smudged by countless hands (mine included)...

Nevertheless, the Pre is pretty cool. I was actually hoping that it would be a lot faster than my original iPhone, but in side-by-side tests (with Daring Fireball loaded in both browsers), scrolling speed & wait time for the phone to catch up was about identical. And the keyboard seems like it is OK, not great. I was able to type accurately, but slowly. I'm sure that I could get faster with practice, but as of right now, I'm really hooked on side-typing on iPhone 3.0.

I will say that the "card" interface on the Pre is pretty cool. I liked being able to re-arrange cards, and swipe them up to close the application. The metaphor seems strong, and I think will serve WebOS well into the future. And the "hidden gesture area" is neat as well -- it actually has little lights that show that the phone recognized your input (which I just have missed in the 3 or 4 reviews that I read).

I followed-up my Pre experience by spending some quality time with the new iPhone 3GS at an Apple Store. And the experience here was just much better, all the way around. Apple has a bunch of iPhones that you can play with, and they're all loaded up with applications, music, movies, etc. There is a demo movie that plays when the iPhone is idle, but once you start playing with it, you are never pestered.

And the speed. The speed is quite impressive. I did several side-by-side tests with my original iPhone and the iPhone 3GS (dual-wielding, if you will). Since Apple runs an open WiFi network in their stores, I was able to have both phones attached to the same network. The iPhone 3GS wasn't much faster in my Daring Fireball test, but it absolutely blew away the original iPhone in the New York Times test. I mean, it's not even funny. With my current iPhone, I have whole list of websites that are "mobile friendly" that I visit when using Mobile Safari. It seems like with the iPhone 3GS, you can just visit any website -- so long as it doesn't have flash, the enhanced processor in the iPhone 3GS will make the site usable.

In fact, the iPhone 3GS brought a smile to my face several times when I was playing with it, which the Palm failed to accomplish. I like the weight and feel of the iPhone better than that of the Pre (although I think I still prefer the original iPhone with the flat back). And I could definitely use a boost in storage capacity the the iPhone 3GS affords over the Pre. But I do like the idea of being able to write web apps for my phone, and the Pre does have some interesting innovations over the iPhone.

I think that my 2 year contract with AT&T is up this Friday, so I'll have some more pondering to do next week.

-Andy.

Even though it was really really hot in the South Bay yesterday, that didn't stop Jogi and I from hiking Mission Peak. We started at around 6:30 PM (by which point we thought that the heat would be subsiding). But it was still 90° F when we started. And as I got there, the paramedics were just leaving (presumably from helping someone else who was suffering from heat exhaustion). And on the way back down, we saw a snake -- possibly a rattler. And we were attacked by crazy bugs. And did I mention how hot it was?

Anyway, it was totally worth it. It was definitely a fantastic workout, I convinced Jogi that men and women are totally equal, and I got some fantastic pictures:

I like the silhouette of the hill against the sunset.

Full gallery of photos is on Flickr.

-Andy.

• Coding Horror: The iPhone Software Revolution: While in general, I agree with Jeff that with the iPhone, Apple is threatening to build a software empire for the next 15 - 20 years, similar to what Microsoft has had in the past, I disagree that the original iPhone wasn't worth owning. My original 8Gb iPhone still serves as my only phone, and more importantly, is potentially the single greatest technology device that I have ever owned. (via Daring Fireball)

• Kamal Meattle on how to grow fresh air | Video on TED.com: Nifty research out of India -- as cities gain prominence due to their energy efficiency, it's going to increasingly important to maintain air quality within them.

• Chrome and Firefox 3.5 Memory Usage: While I haven't tried out Firefox 3.5 yet, memory usage looks pretty good. I'm not sure if the comparison against Chrome is fair, however, as the author compared against a development version.

• TidBITS iPod & iPhone: Why AT&T Has a Lock on the iPhone: I think Apple has a proven capability that they'll make major shifts in vendor alliances, technical details be damned, if they get pissed off enough. So the real question is, how pissed off at AT&T is Apple right now? Because while I agree that Apple wants to stick to GSM, I think that if they want to be on Verizon before 2012 or 2013, they'll have to make a GSM / CDMA hybrid phone. In order to have this phone in 2010, however, Apple would have to be extremely motivated. And unfortunately, while I don't think that Apple is 100% happy with AT&T, I don't think they are super unhappy with them, either.

• Big in Japan: Apple Retail Experience -- Seeking Alpha: Apple has really shown good the buying experience for a computer can be. It boggles my mind that the rest of computer retail hasn't caught up -- I mean, being able to surf the Internet on a PC before you buy it is simply critical. This quote seems to sum things up:

  "Such a store shows a great deal of confidence in the products, which gives me confidence as a buyer."

Ever since the transition to Intel, I've been wondering why the entry level Mac mini costs $600, instead of the previous (G4-based) entry-level price of $500. And with each successive generation, I have the hope that Apple will get back to the magic $500 price-point, but so far, all of my hope has been for naught.

So it was with great interest that I read AppleInsider's cost breakdown of the latest Mac mini:

Mac mini cost breakdown (source: AppleInsider)

Although the numbers come directly from iSuppli (a group which frequently produces sketchy results), I have reason to believe these numbers because the Mac mini is basically a PC, and pricing for PC components should be rather easy to get.

So, this breakdown points out a few areas where Apple is paying more -- using the Mobile Intel CPU, and the Nvidia chipset. I thought that Apple was spending a lot on the case, but in general it looks like the case itself isn't what makes the Mac mini so expensive -- rather, it is the small components that must be used in order to get the entire computer into such a diminutive case.

For comparison, let's check out the "ZT Systems E5300 2.6GHz" PC that I saw recently while browsing Costco's website. For $500, you get an Intel dual core CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB of hard drive space, Intel integrated graphics, Windows Vista Home Premium and Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007. In order to get a better break-down on the costs, I tried my best to figure out what each component costs. Note these prices all derive from Pricewatch, and are what an end-user would pay. I'm sure that ZT Systems, since they are buying in lots of 1,000, can achieve cheaper prices. The following table is thus best used as an estimate:

Based upon my rough pricing guide, the raw components for the PC come out about $50 cheaper than those for the Mac mini. My guess is that the more favorable pricing that ZT Systems is able to achieve by buying in bulk would easily account for the other $50. And while the Mac mini does provide more functionality in certain areas (Nvidia graphics, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth), the ZT Systems machine provides a faster CPU, nearly 4 times the hard drive space, and 4 times the memory. Thus, it looks like Apple's use of laptop components is the biggest contributor to the Mac mini's $100 extra price premium versus a standard PC desktop. And while it's nice to dream of Apple producing a desktop machine that uses desktop-sized components, I don't think we'll see this anytime soon. One other advantage to that the Mac mini probably has over the ZT Systems machine is power draw -- because it uses components engineered for mobile computers, the Mac mini probably draws a lot less power. Since Apple's major marketing push (since the unibody MacBooks were introduced last year) is on green computing, I don't see the Mac mini losing it's laptop trappings any time soon.

-Andy.

While there are still some more areas that need my attention, I think that I'm just about settled in my new apartment. I've made one trip to Ikea so far, just to get a new, more efficient, kitchen table (the old one that I inherited from Sara was just too big):

New Ikea kitchen table & chairs

I've been enjoying the Marina so far -- I've started jogging again, and there are some flat-out fantastic places to run here. Running along the bay as the sun is setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge? Ooookay, that's something that you're not going to see in Sunnyvale.

The city certainly is noiser, however. My first week, I was extremely sleep deprived. Last week was better -- either I'm getting used to the noise, or I'm just so tired that I'm passing out from sheer exhaustion.

I updated my Flickr gallery with some new photos.

-Andy.

• Warren Buffett: Apple Withheld "Material Fact" On Steve Jobs Health - Warren Buffett Watch - CNBC.com: While I sympathize with Steve Jobs wanting to keep the medical details of his life private, I think I'm with Warren Buffet on this one. Steve is CEO of a publicly traded company, and as such, there are certain needs for disclosure for people in that position.

• Side-scrolls: 8-bit Ninja Gaiden in paper | Offworld: This is totally awesome.

• The iPhone 3G S stripped bare in Paris - Apple 2.0: It's amazing how similar the main boards are between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS. I can see why Apple wants to get into chip design -- the CPU seems to be reasonably integrated, but there are way too many chips to make the cellular radio work. If Apple wants to make a thinner iPhone (and they almost surely do), then they're going to have shrink this board. I bet that is the major design challenge for the iPhone 4GS+.

• I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel on Vimeo: The jiggling jello (near the 2:30 mark) is absolutely mesmerizing.