JamesX

It’s now been a couple of days since I got my hands on Apple’s latest rendition of OS X, Leopard, so I thought I might share some of the things I’ve discovered as well as some of the things that are slightly frustrating. To commemorate the occasion, I’ve uploaded a new header pic that shows off the fancy new default Leopard background (albeit edited slightly).

The Good

• Stacks - I have to say that overall, stacks are quite a useful feature. My Downloads stack has already saved me numerous clicks through the Finder so I’m quite happy with that little addition.
• Cover Flow - Now this one I was thinking was just going to be another one of those “pretty features” but I have found myself using Cover Flow view a couple of times already. It’s particularly useful when bounding through folders of images trying to find the one you’re after.
• Quick Look - It sorta goes hand in hand with Cover Flow and it’s another one that I’ve quickly started using. It’s particularly good with video files, in fact I’ve even started watching TV shows from quick look because it’s faster than loading VLC. Just don’t click out of the window… the sky will fall on your head if you do!
• Address Book - It now has Google Maps natively (out goes my old plug-in) and finally has a little date selector for birthdays. That one used to drive me nuts.
• Spotlight - Spotlight now selects the first item by default which makes it much faster to launch apps. I’m one of those serial “Run command” people so I love to launch apps this way. The added calculator functionality is also a nice little trick.
• iChat Effects - The new video effects are really fun. I can’t see myself using them all that often but they keep giving me a good laugh. If only Apple left the hologram effect in the final build.
• System Preferences - Apple seem to have done a huge tidy up around system preferences and it has certainly addressed a number of issues. The old system used to be cluttered and some of the preferences were categorised under very unusual tabs (Firewall was under Sharing for instance and now it’s under Security). It just seems more logical now and the Networking tab, where I seem to spend a lot of time, is particularly friendly.

The Bad

• iCal - iCal would have made it into the good list but it has one serious flaw that is frustrating me somewhat; there’s now like 3-4 clicks involved in editing an event. The only workaround I’ve found is to select an event and press Cmd+E but that’s hardly a solution. I’d like to be able to edit my events more easily like I could with the drawer.
• Mail - The random To-do/Notes functionality that has appeared in Mail seems to do nothing but mimic functionality that already exists in Stickies and iCal. This leads me to the question, why have it there at all?
• Spaces - This is one of those features that I can actually see myself using. I often have a lot of windows minimised while I’m not using them and shifting them off to other spaces seems like it’d make sense to me. The only problem is, I can’t figure this thing out. I can drag an app from one space (that is, if it has a window - Dreamweaver and Photoshop don’t seem all that easy to move around) to another only to find when I click on it, it comes back to the space I’m working on instead of changing to that space. I can set an app to appear on all spaces but it only appears on one. I can lose several windows from the same app over different spaces. In fact, I can do pretty much anything that is counter productive and doesn’t seem to behave how Apple say it should. Perhaps it’s just my set up, I don’t know. I’m hoping an update will address these ones.
• Apache 2 - Ick! What was going on here? It seems that Apple have upgraded to Apache 2 in Leopard and it wreaked havoc on my off-line web development environment. Not only did it kill my virtual hosts, it also stuffed MySQL and it took me quite a while of Googling and calling in for backup (enter Richard) to get it back to normal. If you need help with this one, head over to Remy Sharp’s Blog for some tips.

The Ugly

• Dashboard - Dashboard seemed to go all nasty towards a good 60% of my existing widgets. Some have font problems, others have alignment issues and some just don’t work at all. It’s a shame that widget developers are having to play catch up to get these simple things working again.
• The Dock - or should I call it the ridiculously shiny piece of metal at the bottom of my screen. I really don’t like the new dock. It is overpowering to look at on my glossy iMac screen (it doesn’t look so bad on my MacBook Pro) and so it had to go. Luckily it’s an easy fix with the following command: defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock
• The Menubar - My next gripe is with the transparent menu bar. I can understand the logic behind making it transparent, but I don’t understand why I’m being forced to look at it. I haven’t found a way to disable that one yet, so I’m currently using a black background under the menu to mask the transparent parts.

I haven’t had a chance to test Time Machine yet. I need to go spend some more cash on an external HDD or two. I’m sure I’ll post more as I delve deeper into the OS. Overall, I’d say that I’m pretty happy with Leopard. 75% is how it used to be, just cleaner and looking a lot better. Another 20% is new and perhaps has a few teething issues and the other 5% is just wrong, missing or poorly implemented. But hey, compare it to Windows Vista (any edition for that matter) and it’s still light years ahead. Microsoft, I think it’s time to get a bigger photocopier.

Yes, that’s right, my shiny new iMac has arrived. It was taking it’s sweet time getting here and after the initial backlog of orders, it’s finally made it to my desk. That’s not to say it wasn’t hard work getting it here. You see if my brother had been awake when TNT tried to deliver the package (at 1.15pm) yesterday it wouldn’t have been a problem! But no, so after many calls back and forth, I managed to get them to let me go pick it up today - in Hallam!! Ah the things you do for your toys. :)

Anyway, the thing is totally awesome. I wasn’t too sure about the glossy screen but after going to DesignWyse to look at one before I ordered, I’m quite happy with how it’s turned out. It really depends on the lighting conditions in the room, and well, mine has its back facing the window so there’s no glare problems here.

Other than that, it’s just a Mac. There’s not much different about this than any other - except for me, discovering what it’s like to finally have an iSight built-in and an Apple remote that launches Front Row (not that that’s anything to write home about). At least I’m sweet for the next three years now. At around $2500 it’s a fraction of the price of my Powerbook back in the day. What a bargain!

Today was Steve Job’s WWDC keynote for 2007. Although Leopard’s new features were the focus of the show (and there are some nice things in there), the most surprising announcement was that Safari is now available on Windows! Apple are obviously wanting to increase their presence among the Windows market and I suppose this is one way of doing that. Hell I’ve already downloaded it at work.

For those non-Mac users out there, Safari is Apple’s web browser. For the even more n00bish, Apple’s Internet Explorer. :) Side by side they are really quite similar, but Safari 3 does introduce some long needed features, like re-arranging tabs and inline find which have been in Firefox and IE for some time. It’s free for everyone, so you should go and get a copy from the Apple site. Best of all, it’s twice as fast as Internet Explorer 7 - although I really couldn’t notice any real difference in speed. I did, however, find an interesting bug on Vista. When you drag the Safari window onto a secondary monitor and maximise it, it flies off the screen and you can’t click on it to get it back. I guess that’s why they call it a beta!

As a side note, Apple also have a funky new website… which is also about time!

Anyone who uses a Mac knows how useful the folder label option is. For those who don’t, it basically changes the colour of the folder name to whatever you select, allowing you to easily, graphically group folders and files in the Finder. Hey Folders! takes it one step further by changing the actual icon of the folder to match the colour of the label.

It’s pretty simple, but it works and it adds that little extra flair to your folders. Oh and even though the site says OS X 10.3, it works on 10.4 too! Best of all, it’s free, so go get it now - visit Bronson Beta.

It’s the weekend already, not that it’s been a short week, it just seemed to go quite fast. It’s only just dawning on me that I’m back working full time after 3 years and it’s only the first week back. But with that said, the first week is also over and it’s been quite busy. Of course, I’d tell you what I’ve been up to, but then I’d have to kill you, or is that they’d have to kill me? I can’t remember. :)

iPhone

Anywho, it seems my post yesterday about the iPhone rattled a few feathers and believe it or not, there are a still a few people who want to argue points with me. I feel there’s no better way to settle points than another bout of counter points so strap yourself in and read on…

The Extended List

I’m not going into any in depth analysis here, just the facts. You can make up your own mind…

• iPhone is locked to the network
• It can’t be unlocked
• No voice dialling, voice commands or memos
• It might claim to be OS X, but it wont run OS X apps
• You can’t add programs to it
• It wont connect to iChat
• No 3G capability
• It doesn’t have any games
• It isn’t ambidextrous
• It doesn’t have GPS
• The web browser doesn’t support Flash OR Java!
• The battery is not user servicable - I know I said no analysis but the is just comical. Didn’t Apple learn anything from the iPod?
• It can’t open documents (like Word or Excel)
• The camera doesn’t do video
• No VoIP support
• No iTunes store integration
• Gestures make one handed operation difficult

Okay, I think that’s enough.

What! James is unimpressed with an Apple product I hear you scream. Well for the record there are lots of Apple products I think are frustrating to use or cover such a niche that no one really cares, but this new iPhone really sucks… and not just a little bit. In fact, I’ll try to sum it up in as small a list as possible:

• The complete lack of storage space. I’m still bewildered how something so media-centric can survive with only 8GB (if you buy the upgraded model) of space. If you think about what this thing is designed to do - iPod, email, voicemail, photos, widescreen videos, applications, widgets and whatever else springs to mind - where is all this meant to be kept?
• The thing is huge. It might be thin, but it’s not exactly what I’d call compact.
• It doesn’t support 3G despite touting it as a breakthrough mobile internet device.
• The GUI looks like it’s designed for story time in kindergarden.
• Apple claims the phone is “revolutionary” stating:
  

  iPhone is a revolutionary new mobile phone that allows you to make a call by simply pointing your finger at a name or number in your address book, a favorites list, or a call log. It also automatically syncs all your contacts from a PC, Mac, or Internet service. And it lets you select and listen to voicemail messages in whatever order you want — just like email.

  Now can you please tell me what is so revoloutionary. Every phone I’ve owned in the past five years has had this functionality.

• WiFi is for laptops, not phones. If it supported VoIP natively, this would of course be a different story. All the WiFi serves to do is drain the battery and ring up endless wireless data charges in the city.
• Even if you wanted to, you can’t buy it in Australia until next year at the earliest, it costs almost $1,000 and even then you don’t know that a carrier here will even offer the product.

Is that enough to convince you? I’d be satisfied with a widescreen iPod without all the extras and a stackload of storage, and I wont upgrade until they release one! This whole phone thing, it’s been done before by every other manufacturer out there. The touchscreen, well my iPAQ had that. The only new thing here is Apple. It’s a waste of time, it could have been something really cool, but it isn’t… everyone please get over it now!