All Mac Considered

The Morning After The Night Before

"My tongue is asleep and my teeth itch!"
Opening line from a Shelley Berman Sketch,
"The Morning After The Night Before"

First of all, I have to let off some steam. My rant follows:

Just before this current MacWorld Expo in New York, many of us on the web spent a great deal of time trying to guess what new goodies Apple would show us. Now that Steve Jobs has made his keynote address and highlighted Apple's newest offerings I was surprised and a bit disappointed at what I saw. No, my disappointment isn't with Apple but with the absurd reactions from many on the Web who seem determined to punish Apple for not living up to the rumors that were flying about. As I remember it, Apple didn't promise any of the stuff that was being imagined by the rumor sites. I also have to plead "mea culpa" to adding to the confusion because I too was trying to guess what Apple would show to us. The fact that we were less than accurate on some of the prognostications does not make Apple guilty of anything, regardless of what a certain writer at CNet.com (who shall remain nameless...) was saying.

Looking at the keynote objectively rather than through sea fog of wishful thinking, the new hardware may be considered "lackluster" by some but the new Macs are still solid and progressive upgrades and represent a logical progression forward. What most observers have missed is the importance of Mac OS X 10.1 being announced for a September release date and the very impressive improvements in general performance and interface elements. Even Microsoft's bloatware opened up under Mac OS 10.1 in under less than a second! Most of the demo'd new stuff was fast in opening and very impressive in operation. Another thing being overlooked is the fact that so many top Mac developers either have software available for Mac OS X now or will have it shortly. Everything from Adobe who made an appearance despite the previous "no-show" announcement to demo some of their new stuff for Mac OS X (no PhotoShop yet though...) to a new interactive encyclopedia from Grolier that was a surprisingly powerful demonstration of what Mac OS X can do. For a more in-depth overview of Mac OS X, go see Sam Burrish' excellent article "OS X.1: Shocking Preview" at MacWrite. Mr. Burrish presents an excellent in-depth overview of Mac OS X 10.1. Fast, powerful easy to use and giving the user a whole slew of ways to customize how you do your work on Mac OS X 10.1.

End of rant.

There... now I feel better.

What did not show up that the rumor mongers were predicting?

Apple branded PDA

That one was simply not a viable prediction no matter how many pundits and Mac-o-philes want one. PDA makers like Visor and Palm are sinking into the red under our current economy and for Apple to put a PDA of their own onto the market now would be economic foolishness, even if they actually do have one waiting its turn to be presented.

Flat Panel iMac

I am sure that Apple does in fact have one being readied for market sometime in the relatively near future but until TFT display prices drop further we aren't likely to see one. Apple probably hoped that the cost factor would be better by now but it looks like the price drops have come more slowly than anticipated. With luck we may see it appear anytime from now until the January 2002 MacWorld Expo in San Francisco, depending almost entirely on the cost of a 14" TFT display.

I have to confess to being one of the legion of Mac Webbies who thought Apple would produce a flat panel iMac, but I did start to have doubts in the last couple of weeks before MWNY because I noticed that flat panel display prices have been relatively steady for the past few months and at a price point still too high to use in an iMac that might sell for under $1,000.

Gigahertz PowerMacs

This was not likely at this time because although Motorola has been able to make PPC 7450 processors running as fast as 1.2 GHz, they have not yet been able to produce them in commercially viable quantities or at reasonable prices. The Web prognosticators who held the line at a more conservative 866 MHz were the ones who got it right. The actual rated clock speed was 867 MHz for the mid-range model (single processor). I think that Apple originally planned to have 933 MHz models available but had to provide a dual 800 MHz version in its place until Motorola can ramp up production sufficiently to meet anticipated demand, which would definitely be high.

It is possible that we will see 933 MHz PowerMacs sometime in the next two or three months and they may show up either at Seybold or the Paris Expo. That will depend almost entirely on Motorola's ability to make them in the required quantities at reasonable prices.

New Case Design

In fact we did see a new case design, but it isn't as radical a departure from the Graphite case as many rumor sites led us to believe. I think that this may be a case of Apple's infamous disinformation tactics at work. I am sure that Apple did have several possible case designs to choose from but wisely chose to take a more conservative path in redesigning the case. The new "QuickSilver" case does match the rumored color scheme but the shape of the new case proved to be a refinement of the previous case. I am actually glad they did this because the current version is probably as handsome a design as is possible while still retaining a high level of practicality.

Apple retained the four handles, one of the best and most useful design features on any minitower case ever devised. Apple simply removed the ridges on the inside of the handles. The front panel was redesigned and is not only more handsome but also a bit more practical. The case also retained the curved outer shape that actually is a good example of strength engineering. No internal struts are needed to maintain the case's strength. The latch for opening the case seems to have been hidden, but until I can actually see one up close and in person I can't really say just what Apple has done with the latch.

Although the changes in the case look small, they are widespread enough to tell me that Apple is not using this case design as a mere interim case design. It costs money to make those "small" but extensive changes in molds and colored plastics. This much of a change looks like Apple may be using the "Quicksilver" case for some time to come. That's fine with me since it is a very handsome refinement of what was a very good design to begin with. If small refinements in design are good enough for Porsche and BMW over a period of years, then the same philosophy is good enough for Apple.

UMA-2 Motherboard

The new PowerMacs seem to have done something odd. There is indeed a new circuit board with a more practical arrangement to reach components, but the chipset is still the previous UMA-1.5 chipset. Memory is still PC-133 RAM and not the anticipated DDR SDRAM. FireWire remains at 400 Mbps and the AGP remains at 4X instead of the rumored 8X AGP. What it looks like to me is that Apple is using the older chipset on the new circuit board. I think that this may be because the UMA-2 chipset is not quite ready yet and/or the sub-GHz processors in use simply do not need it. I have no idea what to call this hybrid arrangement but it does show that Apple is moving towards a new UMA-2 motherboard arrangement. Exactly when the UMA-2 chipset will be installed is known only to Apple.

'Book Upgrades

The iBook was introduced much too recently for any upgrades to have been likely and I don't think anyone seriously expected Apple to introduce a new version of the iBook so soon. Nonetheless, rumors of 14" screen iBooks kept surfacing. I hope no one took that particular rumor seriously. I know that I didn't.

The Titanium PowerBook has been around now since it was introduced at MacWorld San Francisco this January and it could stand a few improvements. The iBook already has a combo CD-R/DVD drive and the current TiBook does not. At least adding a combo drive to a TiBook might have seemed reasonable but one did not appear. I have no idea as to why.

What did show up that many self-aggrandizing "Pundits" have disregarded?

Mac OS X 10.1

If you have not seen the demo of what Mac OS X 10.1 can do then you must go and see it in action as soon as possible. You will have to wait until September to get it yourself but from what I have seen, Mac OS X has gone from the molasses-in-January pokiness of Mac OS X 10.0.4 to the astonishingly fast ability to open big applications in under two seconds... even Microsoft's bloatware! Zoom is a word that does not adequately evoke the level of performance I saw.

Mac OS X's refinement of the Aqua interface has not only removed many of the complaints about it but it has even added some tricks I wish had been in the original Mac OS, like the "System Preferences" menu on the menu bar. The "System Preferences" menu obviates the need of a control strip without risking the system instabilities that the old Control Strip Extension tended to cause. The windows now resize properly and are VERY fast, the browser view in the finder now has resizable columns, the "Genie" effect now gives a new option for a very fast and clean reduction to the Dock called the "Scale" effect. I personally liked it both for its non-distracting operation and speed. Very clean and effective for serious users.

The Dock can now be moved from the bottom to either the right or left sides, depending on your preferences. Now I am beginning to like what Apple is doing with the Dock. It has been evolving from annoying gimmick into a useful feature, the result of Apple listening to us.

Another feature that has been added is the option to hide those annoyingly primitive three letter appendages stuck at the end of a file name. Apple had to provide them for compatibility with older Unix op systems and Windows op systems, both of which are dependent on that archaic and unreliable method of identifying file types. System administrators will need to be able to see them but for an average Mac user's general needs they are as useful as the proverbial "teats on a boar."

Mac OS X Compatible Software

Over a thousand new Mac OS X compatible programs are now available including Mac OS X specific stuff from the Big Boys, like Adobe, Quark, Microsoft, etc. Apple's plan to push developers into realizing that Apple was serious about making Mac OS X the primary operating system has finally gotten developers, who are notorious for resisting anything really new, to embrace Mac OS X although some acted like they thought they were embracing the Iron Maiden.

Rack Mounted Servers

Mac OS X is an industrial strength operating system that would lend itself well to use in server farms. It would make sense for Apple to provide a rack mounted server system as one of their products and rumors have floated around that Apple does plan to market a rack mounted server system. The only catch is that a MacWorld Expo isn't the ideal venue for announcing such a system. I would guess that if Apple does indeed have rack mounted server systems in the offing that Apple would choose Seybold in August as the best venue. We will have to wait until then to see if this particular rumor has merit.

Until Apple branded rack mounted server systems appear you can check out and article in MacWorld U.K., "MW Expo: Servers on the rack" that tells about Marathon Computer having stepped in to fill the need. After all, with an industrial strength op system like Mac OS X 10.1 and Mac OS X Server 2.0, industrial strength rack mounted servers and server farms are needed to take full advantage of what Mac OS X can do.

Marathon has been showing off their rack mounting systems using Apple PowerMac minitowers ( B&W G3 & G4 systems) in their GRack at MWNY. The GRack is a mounting frame made of aircraft aluminum designed to hold any G3 or G4 system in industry standard 19 inch racks. The GRack has adjustable rear ears and telescoping slide rails that allow access to the units as easily as pulling out a cabinet drawer. It uses a standard Apple 15" flat screen monitor (or any VSA compliant flat screen monitor) that can be folded out of the way if space is a problem.

In fact, it appears that at least one firm that needs a big server solution at affordable prices may have already discovered that using rack mounted G4 Macs under Mac OS X Server is an ideal solution. Verizon Information Service, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications, has been switching to using rack mounted G4 server farms as an economical way to increase service and cut costs. See "Verizon Tries An Apple, Likes It..." in the Short Takes section at the end of this article.

Et cetera...

There is more great stuff that did appear at MWNY, but trying to describe even a small portion of that would take more space than all of the writers at Applelust combined have to use.

Joe Carson