The Brooks Review

Year: 2010

  • Some MacBook Air Benchmarks For You

    Looks like the base configuration of the 13″ MacBook Air fairs well considering its size. Be interesting to see how well the 2.13GHz version does.

  • Chris Bowler’s iPad Life

    Please welcome Chris Bowler, he was kind enough to participate in this weeks iPad Life.

    Tell me a little about yourself, what do you do, where do you live?

    My name is Chris Bowler and I am a Christian and a father of 6. I run a little boutique company called Fusion Ads and an online store called the Idea Cafe. I’m a novice front end web developer and have a passion for many things, software and coffee chief among them.

    My family and I live amidst the forests of northern British Columbia (Canada) and enjoy the blend of modern convenience in a small town.

    What was your reaction when the iPad was launched?

    Mostly, meh. I mean, it was gorgeous and such a well designed piece of hardware, but it was clear from the start that I was not the target audience. I do very little consuming of media (TV, movies, magazines, games etc.), so a lot of the focus of the iPad did not apply to me. I didn’t have much need for another toy or satellite device.

    Of course, we all knew that creating content would be possible on the iPad (as Chairman Gruber keeps harping on), but for the first while, it would be much harder to do my creating on an iPad than on my Macbook.

    In the end, I did get one since Fusion Ads were going to be included in iPad apps. I wanted to be able to see the ads in beta apps before they hit the public.

    Which model did you order and why?

    The low end 16GB wifi version. It cost the least and I have no need to use the iPad in any location. If I do work from outside my home office, it’s always at a cafe with free wifi.

    How are you using the iPad on a daily basis?

    Even though I don’t consume a lot of media, I do read a lot. So my iPad is usually where I thin out my feeds — it’s like a filter where I dismiss the articles that don’t interest me or read shorter, less intensive posts.

    And thanks to OmniFocus, my iPad is now a key part of my work day. I keep an eye on my tasks there and do all of my weekly reviews with the iPad. It’s the first app where using the iPad version is easier and has less friction than the desktop counterpart. I give the biggest kudos to the OmniGroup team for creating an interface that just … flows.

    As well, I foresee myself using it in face to face meetings with clients. It’s an ideal way to show and discuss content with others.

    Can you give me a quick run down of the apps that you use the most?

    Mail, OmniFocus, Reeder, Twitter for iPad, Simplenote, Dropbox, Instapaper, YouVersion and most recently, Yojimbo.

    Which app is your favorite?

    OmniFocus, by far. Obviously Instapaper is great, seeing as the iPad is a great device for reading. But I had been perfectly happy consuming news before the iPad. OmniFocus changed the game for me.

    Do you have any bag/stand/case recommendations for people?

    I only use a stand and I’m very happy with it. It’s the Loop from Griffin. Although it looks a little large, it’s a pleasure to use. It’s sturdy and will not worry you about falling etc.

    What features do you want to see in a future iPad?

    Just two: iOS multitasking and the Reeder feature from Safari on the desktop. I have a few sites I read regularly that would be a pleasure to be able to block out all the noise (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/nfl). And I believe multitasking is self-explanatory.

    Thanks again to Chris for taking the time to give us a little insight into his iPad life. Be sure to follow him on Twitter.

    More iPad Life

    To see more people’s iPad Lives take a look here.

  • Shawn Blanc’s Take on OmniFocus

    This is not just another review – if you are thinking about whether to go with one task management app or another you need to read this first. It is an epic write up of one of the most valuable tools on my computer. OmniFocus is not just a great task management app, but it is a great reason to own a Mac.

    As Shawn Blanc says:

    But what I have found with OmniFocus is that once you’ve taken the time to learn it and acclimate to its features, it just may be the best thing that ever happened to your task list.

    Amen.

  • The Forgotten Souls of 1 Infinite Loop

    This morning I was looking at the Apple Store website and noticed a few things that just seem to never really get any attention – which made me wonder, has Apple forgotten about them?

    The Forgotten

    • Apple Wireless Keyboard: I know how do you make improvements upon a keyboard? And yes I know that Apple recently changed the requirements from a 3-battery keyboard to a 2-battery keyboard, but other than that this little aluminum and white plastic tray has stayed pretty much the same. I would have really loved to see a model with a number pad on it, or hell I would love it if they added a backlight to the wireless keyboard – that would be sweet.
    • Mac Pro: Yes indeed Apple does continue to offer speed bumps and other performance enhancements, but the design has been the same for quite some time now. Yes, it is a good design and really easy to add stuff to, but are you telling me that the crew that just made the MacBook Air can’t do something a bit smaller than the current 60lbs model?
    • iPod Classic: Back at the iPod event a couple of months ago Steve Jobs said that they were updating all the iPods – yet there was no mention of the iPod Classic. A quick check of the Apple website shows that you can still buy one in 160gb and 160gb configurations. The very least they could do if continue to update the HD size – 250gb would probably cover most DJs these days.
    • iWork: The latest version is iWork ‘09 as in 2009. I am not saying that iWork needs to be updated every year, but if you are not on a yearly release schedule please show some wisdom and don’t make the version the same as the year it was released in. Also, please take Numbers a little further because I really hate to use Excel.
    • iDVD: Yeah this probably isn’t long for the world given Apple’s distaste for all drives that spin.
    • iWeb: You would think that Apple would want to have WYSIWYG web tool, but it seems they have just stopped caring about it. iWeb, though not a great tool, is a good tool for many amateurs who simply want to have a nice site to share with their family – why does Apple not care about that?
    • Aperture: I know that Aperture is regularly updated, but let’s be honest here – Aperture is no where near in the same league as LightRoom anymore for digital RAW processing. Aperture was awesome when it came out and I still like it much more than LightRoom, but, that this is a big but, it is no where near as good as LightRoom and causes my MacBook Pro fans to spin up at the slightest thought of using it. I know they say slow and steady wins the race, but Aperture is just slow.
    • MobileMe: Christ.
    • AirPort Express: Where is the video out port for streaming video to a TV (oh yeah it’s called an Apple TV) – why even buy this over the Extreme? Why even sell this? What the…
    • Time Capsule: Has this even really been updated since it came out? I still hear the same complaints and general dissatisfaction with the Time Capsule. This could be a really great product, but it is not there yet. This product feels like it is one guy in the Janitors closet that works on it. Poor guy…
    • Apple In-Ear Headphones: They aren’t even prominently displayed in the stores. I think Apple could do something really great, if they actually made these sound great and lowered the price it would force other companies (ahem Shure) to lower their prices a bit.

  • Might The Mac App Store Lead To A New Class Of Micro-Apps?

    Mg Siegler is curious whether the Mac is about to see a deluge of cheap apps, specifically cheap games, when Apple launches the Mac App Store. In a word I think we will definitely see a deluge of these sub-$10 games.

    Why?

    Because the question I am often asked by ‘normal’ computer users when they switch is: “where is solitaire?”

  • “So it’s not an ability thing, just a speed thing?”

    That was the question my wife posed to me the other day when I was rambling on about whether or not I should get the new MacBook Air. It was the question (well the answer really) that made me go ahead and place the order. What was being implied was that there really isn’t anything that I do that I would not be able to do on the MacBook Air – rather just some of the things would be a bit slower (a lot slower in some cases). ((Things like FPS would not be a great thing to run on it – I would guess.))

    It was one of those questions that opened my eyes and changed my decision process. From that point it was: would I use my computer more if it was lighter and smaller, or if it was bigger and faster? Simple answer, the easier it is to take something with me the more I will use it these days.

    I ordered the 13” MacBook Air (2.13GHZ 4GB RAM 256GB SSD) and I ordered the top of the line model not for maximum speed, but for maximum life of the device. ((I tend to keep computers for about 2 years before replacing them.))

  • Additional, Additional Thoughts: Do I Become an Air Instead of a Pro?

    This has really been bugging me since yesterday when I posted that I was probably going to order a new MacBook Air. Do I really need to give up the horsepower of the MacBook Pro for the mobility of the MacBook Air?

    How much of a difference is it?

    Will I be happy with a 13” screen instead of a 15” even though they are both 1440×900?

    Why do I want the MacBook Air instead of the MacBook Pro?

    Ah that last question, that is the only one of the above that I can actually answer. I want to go Air instead of Pro because:

    1. Everyday I carry my MacBook Pro to and from work and the MacBook Pro is heavy.
    2. I rarely do anything more than write and surf the web on the MacBook Pro.
    3. I never take the MacBook Pro anywhere to use it because it is simply too big.

    Why am I hesitant to get rid of the Pro for the Air?

    1. I do use InDesign and LightRoom about every other week.
    2. For work I use Parallels and awful lot.

    So right now my thinking is this: call around and see if any of the 4 Apple Stores near me have the 13” in the configuration that I want. I would prefer to do this over this weekend than I would mid-week. If they have one go and pick it up, clone my MacBook Pro HD to it and start going. If I don’t like it then I return the MacBook Air to the Apple Store and pay the 10% fee (or see if I can sell it online for less of a fee). If I do like it sell the MacBook Pro.

    If I can’t get the MacBook Air in store this weekend, there is a small chance I may say forget it – I don’t know why. That is just how I feel right now.

  • Additional Thoughts on the New MacBook Air

    I have just returned from a hands-on at my local Apple Store with both the 11.6” MacBook Air and the 13” MacBook Air. I went to the store with the thought that if the MacBook Air could handle a few ‘tests’ that I wanted to run I would buy one on the spot – unfortunately they took MacBook Air’s out of the box and the employees were carrying them (they were not tethered down yet) due to this there were no ‘Pro’ apps installed so I could not run my tests.

    The Baby 11” MacBook Air

    First things first the 11.6” MacBook Air (herein called the ‘11’) is a 16:9 aspect ratio – a full HD ratio like the 27” iMac (the 13” model is a 16:10 ratio). This was something I did not know, this aspect ratio makes the 11 look pretty silly. It is super wide and very shallow, the proportions just look off on the machine.

    I was not interested in buying the 11 so I didn’t spend much time really playing with it like I did its larger sibling. What I will say is that it is tiny, really tiny. In fact the screen is so small that I just don’t know if you would really want to work on it for prolonged periods. There was a time when 768 pixels was a pretty good screen resolution on the verticals, unfortunately for the 11 that time was 4-5 years ago.

    Just looking at the Apple startpage on the 11 and I knew that there was no way I wanted that computer, the whole thing just felt entirely more cramped than the iPad – though this was in part due to the fact that the Dock was not hidden on the screen and thus took up a large portion of the bottom. The positive to the 11 is that it has a fantastic footprint, it really is one of those computers that you look at and think “how is that possible.”

    The 13

    The 13” MacBook Air (herein called the ‘13’) was in quite the demand, I had to wait a few minutes to play with it. I was testing the base model 13 (1.86ghz and 2gb RAM) and I must say I was impressed with the speed of the machine. Having played with the older MacBook Air I was expecting a rather disappointing speed, but the SSD really makes that machine snappy (as SSDs tend to do). As I said there was only the base load of apps (with iLife) on the machine.

    I opened up PhotoBooth and recorded a short 10 second video on the built in camera, popped it into iMovie. Once in iMovie I cut the clip up a few times and added transitions, at no point, no matter how fast I went did the machine stutter on me. Now this was not HD video, but those little transitions usually make a slow machine pause no matter what. At this point there was a line forming to check out the machine so I didn’t have time to export the video file.

    What I can say is that the performance impressed me, I would say it is fast enough for most everyone out there. I doubt that there will be that many times where even I would regret not getting the MacBook Pro. The apps that I did open snapped open faster than they do on my MacBook Pro (even with my SSD). This of course is not subjective, but that is certainly the way it felt.

    The 13 also wakes up incredibly quick. It definitely comes to life faster than my MacBook Pro. I also tested to see if you could open the screen with just one finger as Apple advertises. You can indeed do it, but if you go to slow the base will lift just before you get to the 90° point. Still I could see how if you did it fast enough you would be able to open the screen to the 90° position with no problems.

    My Overall Thoughts

    Color me impressed with these machines. My Mac life went from a 12” PowerBook G4 —> Mac Pro (first Intel line) —> MacBook Pro 15” (again first Intel model) —> 15” unibody MacBook Pro (current machine). The new MacBook Air is no Mac Pro, or even a my generation unibody MacBook Pro, but I would say it is handily faster than the original Intel MacBook Pros and faster than the PowerBook felt back in its day.

    When I was done playing with it I was going to buy the 13 – unfortunately you can’t get any RAM upgrades from the store, the are custom order online only. You can however get all the hard drive and processor options in the store (I imagine that you will be able to get all options in the near future).

    After playing with it I think I will just order one next week or this weekend. (I will probably go with the 13 1.86ghz 4gb and 256gb HD)

  • Some Good Quick Links

    Instead of a deluge of links as I clear my Instapaper Backlog here are some links that I think are worth time if you have it – perhaps not must reads for all if you don’t have the time.

    AppleInsider looks at the new scrollbars in Lion

    I must say – I like them, I think that the scroll bars in Snow Leopard are very inconsistent with the rest of the OS styling.

    Stephen Hackett weighs in future touch based Macs:

    Even with Lion’s new features, Mac OS X is simply not ready for touch. Menus, window controls, lists and complicated toolbars are too small of targets to be usable with a finger. The remarks Jobs made about 7-inch tablets and small targets can be applied to the desktop, too.

    Danny Sullivan reviews the new Sony Google TV:

    A menu appeared asking me to enlarge a box on the screen to match my actual screen size. Then I got another menu asking how I wanted to connect, through a wired or wireless connection. I went the wireless route. Next, I was asked if I wanted to update my software. Sure!

    After about a 10 minute download, that Google TV logo came up again. And I had to do the screen size thing again. And enter my wireless details again. Hmm — annoying. The “update” seemed more like a fresh install.

    TechCrunch has video of them using the new HP Slate 500

    Pro tip: you only have to watch the first minute to know that this thing will not out sell the iPad.

  • HP Slate = Ballmer’s iPad

    It costs $799 and I didn’t read anything else about it – why? Because I say the pictures of it and stopped caring.

    Gruber says that this picture of the permanent slide out panel (that serves no purpose) sums up the device. I say it is this picture depicting the fact that you need a STYLUS to use this tablet.

    [Updated: 10/22/10 at 11:12 AM] This thing only has 5 hours of rated battery life! Pathetic.

  • No Flash Player With Mac OS X

    John Gruber after receiving confirmation that new Macs will not ship with Adobe Flash Player installed:

    This also absolves Apple of responsibility for the distribution of Flash Player security updates. Recall the controversy last year when Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) shipped with a slightly older version of Flash Player, with a few known security vulnerabilities. Henceforth, Flash Player security updates for Mac OS X are Adobe’s problem, not Apple’s.

    That is ominous enough – I was curious to see if the MacBook Air in the Apple Store had Flash on it or not, but I have yet to be able to get my hands on one (a source tells me the stores in Seattle are getting shipments and will have them on display this afternoon).

  • “Like Hiring Temps as Your Design Consultants”

    This is so good I couldn’t NOT post it.

    Edward Tufte:

    The WP7S layout and typography have a looseness found in posters, commercial art and marketing, an inappropriate metaphor for a handheld information and communication device. In the splashy panoramas, there are hints of design-by-focus-group (which is like hiring temps as your design consultants). Instead of impressing focus groups, designers should do a thought experiment: Imagine what Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive would have to say about your interface. As Jonathan Ive said: At Apple “we don’t do focus groups.”

    That is just the opening paragraph.

  • The Windows Phone 7 Home of an Ugly Ass Keyboard

    In AnandTech’s epic review of Windows Phone 7 they showed of the keyboard – which gave me reason enough to never want Windows Phone 7. The 2D nature of the OS is great and looks very nice through most of the UI – but goodness that keyboard…

  • Adobe v. Apple Round 2?

    Nilay Patel in breaking down the important Mac App Store rules for non-developers has this little quip:

    Seriously, we can’t wait to see what happens when Adobe and Microsoft submit their application suites to this store.

    He can’t wait because both app suites have notoriously buggy programs in them (Word, Photoshop). It certainly will be interesting if Microsoft and Adobe even bother submitting. Though I can’t see how Microsoft would be OK with Apple’s Pages being in the store and not Word. Likewise for Photoshop and Pixelmator.

  • App Store for Mac highlights two major App Store flaws

    Should be interesting to see how Apple deals with upgrades in the Mac app store. The demos/trials part though is less interesting as I would assume it will work just like the iOS App Store where people will have ‘lite’ versions of the app that is free if they really want to get a demo software in there.

  • Thoughts on the Mac App Store

    Thoughts on the Mac App Store for N00bs

    Switching to a Mac is very easy – in my experience most people can fully adapt in just two weeks of normal usage, with 50% of all switchers feeling comfortable after just 10 days. That said the most difficult thing to explain to any Mac user is how to install a new app. There is more than one way to do it, but let’s assume a person downloads a new program from a website, here are the steps the must take:

    For .DMG Installation

    1. Double click the ZIP file (if there is one, skip if Safari auto-extracts for you)
    2. Double click the .DMG file
    3. If .DMG’s Finder window doesn’t come into the front, find that window
    4. Now sometimes you get instruction in this window, other times you don’t, but one of two things need to be done.
      1. Drag the app to your ‘applications’ folder
      2. Double-click the installer
    5. Now you are done.
    6. Except that you need to eject the .DMG
    7. Then delete the .DMG file

    For ZIP File Installation

    1. Double click the ZIP file (skip if Safari auto-extracts for you)
    2. Drag the Application to your ‘Applications’ folder or Double-click installer.

    The Problem

    None of these steps are obvious to new Mac users – none. The DMG method is the most complicated, yet most common method. It is so common because it is the only method that offers the developer a chance to tell the user how to install the application.

    I cannot tell you how many times I have heard new Mac users say these things:

    • “I installed a new program, but then I restarted my computer and it got un-installed, how do I keep that from happening” (They were launching the app out of the .DMG file)
    • “Oh that application is in my downloads folder.” (Zip file method and they left the app where it got ‘installed’)
    • “Oh it is right here, I dragged it to my desktop so I could open it.”

    What a headache all of these are for experience Mac users.

    The Mac App Store Will Help

    It will help, but not completely solve the problem. The Mac App Store will help make sure apps get in the right spot when they are installed, and help by putting the icon directly in the dock (according to the Demo). What the Mac App Store won’t do is fix the problem for all the developers that are not in the App Store.

    A Mac App Store will also help keep programs updated. A common thing that happens in my household is that I will ask why my Wife hasn’t updated a particular app to the newest version and she will say: “I ran Software Update.” She of course means that she ran Mac OS X’s software update, not the one for that particular app. And how is she, or any other new Mac user, supposed to know that Software Update is just for Apple programs?

    Don’t even get me started on uninstalling apps…

  • The Touch Gestures in Lion Look Like a Pain

    One thing that I noticed when Mac OS X Lion was being demoed yesterday was how difficult of a time the demo person was having utilizing the multi-touch gestures on the Magic Mouse. Take a look at the video from yesterday, you can clearly see that when he is trying to perform the swipe to the side to change to and from a fullscreen app he has to do it a couple of times to get that gesture to take. Not every time, just some times.

    It is also important to note that this is a guy who has theoretically spent a lot of time practicing this very gesture. The demo of Lion starts around the 1 hour mark in the video and at various times you can see him struggle. Now the problem is not with the multi-touch sensors in the Magic Mouse, but with the fact that the Magic Mouse itself moves – it is made to move. Gestures are ten times easier to perform on the Magic Trackpad or just the normal MacBook Pro trackpad. On the Magic Mouse though they are not quite that easy.

    Which all begs the question: if Lion is supposed to be all about more multi-touch and more iOS – why wasn’t the Magic Trackpad being used in the demo?

  • The MacBook Air Full Flash – Hardware Only

    I guess Apple decided to help everyone out and not make then have to install Click2Flash – instead they just ship the new MacBook Airs without Flash. I bet Adobe is pissed. I wonder if this is the direction Apple will take moving forward with 10.7 Lion?

  • How the New 11-inch MacBook Air is Not the New 12-inch PowerBook

    Before the ‘Back to the Mac’ keynote kicked off today I lamented on Twitter that I really didn’t see the point of an 11.6” MacBook Air. To which Shawn Blanc responded:

    @BenjaminBrooks The 12” PowerBook is considered one of the favorite Apple laptops of all time. Though now we’re all used to big screens…

    Which could not be more true, I had a 12” PowerBook (my first Mac actually) that I bought because the hardware was so good on that machine. Now though an 11.6” screen just seems silly, no? I can see what Shawn is getting at when he says “we’re all used to big screens” because at work I use a 24” Cinema Display and my MacBook Pro has a 15” screen. My MacBook Pro screen feels tiny when I use it.

    I think all of that is irrelevant though, there is certainly a large contingent of people that use small screen computers everyday without ever hooking up to a larger screen. And yes the new MacBook Air is an incredibly portable laptop by any standard – especially with the great battery life it has. The real thing that would keep me from ever buying an 11.6” MacBook Air is that I have a 10” MacBook Air already, it just happens to be called an iPad.

    Ok, Ok an iPad is not the same as a MacBook Air running OS X – I agree. But what I would use that tiny 11” MacBook Air for is the same thing that I currently use my iPad for. Consuming news and writing. Given that there is no reason for me to buy it – in fact all I need is a bluetooth keyboard / keyboard dock and I am set.

    The 13” MacBook Air though make a whole lot of sense to me – the screen is large enough in those and the power is to a point (with the upgraded processor and RAM) where it really makes a tangible difference.

    The Portable Executive

    Justin Pennington brought up this point on Twitter:

    @BenjaminBrooks If it really is 11” with 8-10 bat I’ll get some other members of the management team switched (I’m at 2/5 now including me).

    Ok I can buy that execs would really dig the 11” MacBook Air – but, and this is a big but, wouldn’t they rather just have an iPad with a nice desktop back at the office?

    Stephen Hackett posted this:

    The difference of course is all about software. For some people, iOS just doesn’t meet their needs. The new 11.6″ MacBook Air offers all of the features of Mac OS X in the smallest package ever. For people who need a full-blown computer that can go just about anywhere, the Air is an obvious choice. For everyone else, though, the iPad is really, really hard to ignore.

    Spot on. I could not word it better, and I am glad I caught this before I finished typing this post.

    Heir to the Throne

    For me the 11.6” MacBook Air is not the heir apparent to the 12” PowerBook that I so dearly loved. The 13.3” MacBook Air, that just may be the heir to the throne. Right now I have a 15” MacBook Pro 2.8ghz 6gb RAM and 240GB SSD HD – a very fast machine – I have been thinking for quite some time about getting a Mac mini for my office so I don’t have to lug the MacBook Pro to and from work. The MacBook Pro + iPad is a weighty combination.

    Guess what, if the 13” MacBook Air can run Photoshop/Aperture/LightRoom at a decent speed then I will buy one of those without thinking twice.

    The 11.6” MacBook Air for twice the price of an iPad does not offer enough of a productivity boost in my eyes. The 13.3” with the larger screen stands a chance to offer enough of a boost that the tradeoff from the 15” MacBook Pro may just be acceptable. Of course this is all assuming that I would get rid of my MacBook Pro, in all likely hood I will add the 13” and just keep it at the office, and on trips.

    Back when the 12” PowerBook was the kingpin you had the option of 12”, 15” or 17” PowerBooks. There was no iPad, or iPhone. That is what made the 12” so damned good – there was nothing more portable and more powerful than the 12” PowerBook. Now though that is not the case, many people just travel with an iPhone and have no problems. In fact the iPad would be perfect for travel if I had a way to edit RAW image files on it (LightRoom really). I don’t need a ton of image editing powers, I just need to be able to do what LightRoom can do (which is very powerful, not full blown Photoshop).

    That is the very reason I don’t think the 11.6” MacBook Air is the heir to the 12” PowerBook – there are far better portable options. The 13” though is not the direct heir, but pairing it with an iPad and you should have all you really need.

    Should.

    So who has the benchmarks to find out what these tiny things can do?

    Note: Having finished typing this up I am 90% sure that I could survive with just 13.3” MacBook Air – I am headed to the Apple Store as soon as they have them to play with.

  • FaceTime for Mac

    Go download your beta for the Mac now.

    [Updated: 10/20/10 at 1:33 PM] It will also ring your Mac even when the program is closed – most excellent.