Seriously, if you work at Microsoft or are in any way affiliated with them, how can you not be sick to your stomach with this, shall we say, less than subtle rip-off job of the Apple Store? First the GUI and now this. What’s next? A black turtleneck and New Balance’s for Ballmer? Or maybe he should go the sympathy route and ask for pancreatic cancer and a new liver too. You’re ruining anything decent that was still at that company, Steve. Resign now because it’s only getting worse.
Some notable items from today’s new product introductions.
iMac
The 27-inch version is an absolute knock-out. The silly little things they refine — like taking the screen all the way to the edge and removing what was only a tiny sliver of aluminum framing, swapping in alumium on the back, integrating the SD slot in the perfect way, etc. — make an already great design that much better.
It’s amazing it took Apple this long to throw a wireless keyboard and mouse in with the machine.
At some point, perhaps when the line gets a 30-inch model, the iMac’s “chin” will completely disappear. It’s gone from a Leno-sized chin in the early white 17-inch days to a petite Jacko-style nub.
There’s no doubt in my mind there will be an Apple-branded television sitting in your living room in the future. Whether it’s a year or 10 years from now, there’s a team who’s working on executing that vision. As it is, even though it’s complete overkill, the 27-inch sucker is just screaming to be hung in every Mac lovers bedroom.
Lastly, if you’re the Mac team at Apple, doesn’t it piss you off that the iPod gets its own event each September for playing the same “refine the line and add in a cool feature or two” game? I’d be mouthing off big time if I were Bob Mansfield and Scott Brodrick. I hope Phil Schiller buys them a round of drinks or at least gives them a really tight hug.
MacBook
Nothing spectacular here. They took a razor to the body, trimmed off some corners, added unibody, hit the bottom with a touch of the rubber undercoating from the AppleTV and AirPort Extreme/Time Capsule and killed the trackpad button forever. Is that bad? Not at all. This is a great machine for a grand.
Considering it’s still plastic, I will be curious to see what kind of impact the unibody will actually have on the machine’s rigidness and creak-ability.
Oh, let’s not forget the integrated battery. With the amount of portables Apple’s selling, they’re going to see a nice chunk of revenue from replacement batteries in the next few years.
Mac mini
The price on this guy should have really dropped to $449. You would think that with $34 billion in the bank, Apple would share the love with its customers. Instead you can get a nice machine for a little too much.
That being said, I do like that Apple is showing a little more commitment to the line and are adding new models. If I was running a small business, I would have already purchased the server configuration.
Magic Mouse
I don’t know about this. Yes, it looks beautiful (except for the weird, sled-like runners on the bottom). But Apple doesn’t really have a pedigree for making good mice. Matter of fact, no one in the history of the computer industry has consistently made worse mice than Apple. Even without picking it up, I’ll tell you that the “flick-scrolling” is nice and going by Engadget’s video, the two-finger swiping will suck ass.
AirPort Extreme & Time Capsule
I don’t even want to look at what’s new with the AirPort Extreme. Somehow I’ll convince myself that I need to own this. My network already runs pretty well — I can do 1080p streaming from a Drobo running off an iMac to a Mac mini running Plex, and I’ve got the dual-bands covered — but I’m sure there’s something in there that will give me the itch.
Apple Remote
What’s there to say about this, other than it’s probably just as bad as the previous version? There is the $20 pricetag, which might make this the only Apple-branded accessory that is priced right.
If you’re the sixth-largest U.S. city and have the third-biggest downtown area in the country, you would think the world’s hottest retail brand would have a significant presence in your city. Not so with Philadelphia and Apple.
Ever since Apple opened their first store in 2001, buildings in Philly that would have seemed to fit the company’s retail requirements have come and gone, forcing would-be customers to travel to the suburbs or New Jersey, or deal with the sub-par experience at privately-owned Springboard Media.
At the start of the year, there seemed to be hope. Rumors had Apple close to a deal that would have landed them in the retail space of 1619 Walnut St., a 9,000 sq. ft. spot that had been home to Georges Perrier’s Brasserie Perrier for 12 years. (The restaurant’s below-market lease had expired and they chose not to renew at terms that would have been 4-5x the previous deal.)
Great location. Good size. Historic building (the Mike Douglas Show was filmed there in the 60’s and 70’s). Only the deal never happened. I’m not sure why, but it was possibly due to structural issues with the building itself. For instance, in June, three marble panels of the facade, measuring three by six feet each, fell 80 feet to busy Walnut St., necessitating a full re-do of the building’s exterior front that is just now beginning. (Amazingly enough, no one was injured.)
Now comes word from within the commercial real estate world about a new Walnut St. location for Apple just steps away. From what I’ve heard, chances are you’ll be seeing Apple set up shop at 1609 Walnut St., a two-story building that had most recently been a TD Bank branch. The building seems to fit the aesthetic of other big city spots that Apple has and assuming a lease is close to being finalized, we could be looking at an opening next spring. It’s certainly long overdue.
(Though the owners of 1619 Walnut failed to land Apple as a tenant, the building’s new look will be heavily influenced by Apple. Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the architecture firm who did Apple’s Fifth Avenue, SoHo, Ginza and Regent Street storefronts, as well as Bill Gates’ home, will be designing the facade. Early sketches bare a striking resemblance to the Mac Pro tower design.)
That laundry list of model names is HTC’s complete lineup of mobile devices. Confused? Unless you put some honest effort into memorizing what’s what, there’s no clear way to figure out and remember which phone works on what carrier (some models come in versions that work on multiple carriers; some don’t) and which operating systems they run (some run Android, but most use some version of whatever the Windows mobile platform is called now). And let’s not even talk about the hardware differences.
I know HTC’s business model is to supply a wide spectrum of phones to a variety of different carriers. It’s obviously going to create a lot of SKU’s and the need for unique names. But you can’t expect the average consumer to decipher over two dozen models and figure out what’s what. Someone in HTC’s marketing department needs to read the 2009 version of Apple’s playbook; not the 1989 version.
And here I thought the last Woolworth store closed down in 1997. Next you’re going to tell me that this Woolworths in Australia is run by Gil Amelio. If he’s not running the joint, I bet he’s at least bagging groceries for them.
Motorola looks to be playing the “maybe if we make the face of our new phone pretty close to what an iPhone looks like, some grandmothers at a Walmart in Iowa will be confused and think it’s actually that gadget with the apps” card.
More shots are available here. In it’s defense, it does have a slide-out keyboard that totally makes me want to hop right on MySpace.
What a scoop! These guys broke the story wide open that Digg is developing an iPhone app. Stop the mother-effing presses. You’re telling me one of the top 50 sites online is going to join the other 85,000 apps in the Store with an app of their own? I can’t believe it.
If I worked for Digg or had anything at all to do with the business side of it, I’d be wondering why it’s October 2009 and the company hasn’t produced an app yet. Lame.
If Microsoft wanted everyone to forget Windows XP even existed and instead focus 100% on Windows 7, you’d think they’d take the fresh start as a chance to change everything, including the retail packaging.
To me, the boxes below look pretty much like XP. Or, at least, they don’t look different enough for me to be walking through a Best Buy and say to myself, “Oh wow, look at that, it’s the new Windows 7 box.”
But aesthetics aside, there are two functional and engineering changes I can’t believe Microsoft isn’t making.
Have you ever tried to open one of these Windows (or Office) boxes? You don’t have a clue if you’re supposed to press it, pull it, slide it, crack it or set it on fire to open the damn thing. From the looks of that stupid curved box, this probably still remains true with Windows 7.
For a piece of software that ships on one DVD (and most likely, very little documentation), you’d think Microsoft would want to give a nod to the environment and scale the size of their packaging down from the circa 1990 King’s Quest V-style box. I’d bet you could fit 12 Snow Leopard sleeves in this piece of Windows 7 luggage.
And here, the slim, trim and obviously-different-than-its-predecessor, Snow Leopard packaging.
