Article: Leopard delayed until October, says Apple

In spite of what this article says, some doom merchants were predicting this release date for Leopard.

But so what? Why would I change my purchasing plans for this news?

It is not the OS release – I am not that excited by it anyway.

It is much more to do with the between-the-lines reading of the attitudes at Apple. Many have suggested that the Mac is secondary to the iPod, and now the iPhone, and even the change of company name – to Apple Inc, rather than Apple Computer – this year, was not entirely enough to convince me of the reality of my old cynical cry that Apple will eventually dump OS X and go all Windows (or Linux or whatever succeeds in the end).

But this… I have only been an Apple user for 3 years, but as far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened in Apple history. In fact, the pre-announcement of the iPhone is also a “first” (Apple have, to my knowledge, never announced a product *before* release – the Apple TV and the iPhone in the past six months have been a new phenomenon, and with good reason… though I am struggling to find the link right now – watch this space

This sounds like a company not prepared to fund the resource needed for such a major undertaking as an operating system. And that means that OS X is dead. Or at least, dying.

All good for Apple shareholders, I should add. If Apple becomes a pure electronics company, then great for them. But what can that ever mean for the Mac platform?

The Mac is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet. And I am sad about that.

I became a Mac user at the appearance of the iMac G5. It did everything I was looking for at the time – almost silent, highly responsive, looked a damn sight better in the living room than the stuff I threw together, etc.

But it was still a reluctant switch in some ways. I wanted BeOS to succeed, and on standard Intel kit, but by then (and even with my own programming efforts it was obvious that BeOS was a relic of the past – dead before its time, but dead nonetheless.

With XP, there was no competition in the home. Linux was lost in its own isolated culture (still is in my opinion, in spite of Ubuntu), the Amiga had been dead for years, Solaris was an almost irrelevance, OS/2 a joke, PegasOS a nearly-ran, SkyOS just techie wank, etc.

Some people might wonder why I even care about the choice of OS. Those people have, I believe, become too used to the status quo – or maybe they never saw computers as I did when I first discovered them.

I have always seen computers as creative tools, in spite of Microsoft’s insistence that they are Business machines. It is a matter of soul – but like rhythm, if you aint got it, you can’t be taught it.

So, the machine I used to think (in the Amiga days) was an overpriced piece of fashion-crap, and that finally became my platform of choice, is now no choice at all. All current plans to buy a Mac Pro have now ceased. My next machine will definitely be a custom built PC. And, although I used to like building those things, I am still saddened that it has come back to that.

But to me, the current Apple trends and situation all smell like the final years of Commodore. I have seen this shit too often at my slightly creaking age. I don’t care what the publicity guys say – this company has lost the (computer) plot.

I would still semi-secretly like to be proven wrong. But I don’t feel positive about the chances of that. I have been wondering about this for a while. and this news just convinces me I am right.

Now, will I be right about the PS3, too? (Oh, please Wii, don’t be just a blip…)

F**king technology. I’m going back to the theatre.

I have, since December 2006, been the proud owner of an Apple Macbook.

My purchase of this machine was specifically timed to coincide with Christmas. Not as an indulgent, juicy present for yours truly (though it was that but because I wanted to have the machine in time for traveling back to see my family for the holidays.

If you think this was a poor motivation, then think again. The reception the machine had at the various Christmas family events was dynamite (a story for another time, perhaps).

In making sure I had the machine at this time, I did, perhaps regrettably, choose to sacrifice hard drive size (I got the standard 80GB, instead of the 120GB – and no, I did not want the black model which would have provided this). Nonetheless, storage notwithstanding, this was the machine I wanted.

In the event, what did I conclude about the machine as a whole? I had paid a penny or two short of a grand for it… how did it shape up?

Well, I have had this machine for four months now. I thought it was about time I looked hard at that purchase, and decided for myself: was it worth it?

This is a summary analysis of the pros and cons of the purchase. I may at some point in the future, go into more depth about the machine – but for now, an easy to read (but deeply-considered) list of points:-

Pros

• Very nice indeed Core 2 Duo processor
• Good power usage for the speed of the machine (and fan management seems good overall)
• Dual boot (or virtualise) to Windows – Bootcamp makes this effortless to install
• OS X runs superbly on the machine (as does Windows in general, for that matter)
• Great quality built-in web cam
• Very compact, generally good looking machine
• MagSafe power connector
• Bright, easy to view screen
• Fast boot up time (especially to OS X)
• Great bundled software, iMovie, iWeb, and especially Garageband are fantastic

Cons

• Poor graphics chipset, works fine for desktop but very poor for 3D acceleration in games, etc. (unless they are old, or World of Warcraft
• No right mouse button on the track pad (double finger pad then click works, but is cumbersome)
• No choice of a matt screen, stuck with glossy (though reflection is better than most laptops I have seen with glossy screens)
• Default hard drive 80GB is too small if you plan to use Windows (and have 30GB of music like me)
• Keyboard lettering looks somehow childish
• Max RAM expansion of 2GB
• Battery gets quite warm after running the machine for a while

Conclusion
In spite of the noted flaws, this is still a great buy for the price, especially with that processor. The only real complaint is the graphics card – most laptops do better in this regard at a similar price point.

Great for all round use, and even video editing, etc. but don’t expect to play the latest, most demanding games on it (at least not at particularly great frame rates).