Mokka mit Schlag » Mac

Amazon is listing Retrospect 6.0 for the Mac as discontinued by the manufacturer, though they still have some in stock. Hmm, looks like maybe they just don’t have the new 6.1 version yet, because I do see that on EMC’s web site. Furthermore, I notice that “Customers with Retrospect 6.0 can use their existing license code and download Retrospect 6.1 for free from our Updates section.” No need to push the panic button just yet.
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Loop Rumors reports that “Unlike today’s Mac Pros, the cooling system will direct hot air through vents at the top of the machine, much like Apple’s Cube of yesteryear.”

I expect and hope that Loop Rumors is wrong. The problem with vents on top is that I (and many other users) put things there.

Putting the exhaust vents on top blocks useful space. By contrast the space on the back of the machine where the vents are now is relatively free.

Eddie Hargreaves has a nice write-up of nine Windows features Mac OS X should adopt. I agree (or at least don’t disagree) with eight of them. However the one I part company on is #5, “Refresh keystroke/toolbar button for Finder windows”. Eddie explains:

Nearly every major revision of OS X has touted an “improved Finder” and one of the improvements has been the updating of folder contents. But there are still occasions where a file has been updated and its appearance in a Finder window goes unaltered. Windows toolbars have a refresh button that can be used to update the contents of the window. Since Apple has already copied the concept of making Finder windows look and act like browser windows (forward/backward buttons) they should add a refresh or reload button. They wouldn’t even have to create a new toolbar button icon, since they could just use the one from Safari. They could even use the same keyboard shortcut, since Command-R is currently unused in the Finder. Ideally, a refresh button shouldn’t be needed in the Finder at all, but we’ve seen four major revisions of OS X and it still hasn’t become unnecessary.

Sorry. That is totally the wrong solution to the problem, and totally a Windows way of thinking. You do not put an extra button in to make the computer do something it can and should do automatically. If there’s a problem with auto-detecting the need for refresh, then you fix the underlying problem so auto-refreshs happen automatically. You do not complexify the interface. The product is done when there’s nothing more to take out, not when there’s nothing left to put in.

Apple’s catching some flak for charging $1.99 (down from the $4.99 initially rumored) for turning on 802.11n functionality in existing laptops. They claim it’s the result of Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules that prevent them from adding new functionality to an existing product. This interpretation of the Sarbox rules has been challenged,.

I’m not an accountant or a lawyer, but I suspect Apple’s wrong here. Regardless, though, I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case. I do believe Apple genuinely believes, rightly or wrongly, that Sarbanes-Oxley requires them to charge for this. However, Apple does have a dishonest track record of charging $20 shipping and handling fees for “free” updates. If they really want to be clear that this is just a technical fee they’re required to charge, not another scheme to extort money from customers to make an already purchased product work well, there are two things they should do:

1. Reduce the fee to $1.00. This is the generally recognized nominal price for indicating that you have to charge something, but don’t really want to. For instance, it is what juries award in damages when they want to indicate that the plaintiff is legally right, but is basically a putz and is wasting their time with a trivial suit they were largely responsible for in the first place.
2. Make sure the updater is not copy protected, and look the other way as it is freely distributed on file sharing networks.

$1.00 is still annoying, but I think that price would make clear to everyone that Apple really doesn’t want to charge for the update. They’re just being forced to by their interpretation of the Sarbanes-Oxley laws.

The iPhone will not allow third party applications to be installed. That much we know. Does that matter? Yes, but maybe not as much as it used to.
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The AppleTV is underwhelming. You mean I have to pay $300 for yet another box to balance on my already crowded dresser along with the cable box, VCR, DVR, and DVD player? All so I can buy movies from iTunes and network movies with my Mac? Sorry, that’s not nearly enough value for the money. For $300, it would have to replace at least one, preferably all, of my existing boxes. I’d actually be more interested if it ran the other direction. That is, if it let me broadcast my TV signal to the computer. That would let me ditch one cable box (the one hooked up to my computer).

The iPhone is cool, and I was almost ready to buy one until I noticed it required a 2-year Cingular contract (and wouldn’t be available till June). I guess the rumors that Apple would sell it unbundled and unlocked were false. The UI may well be a quantum leap over everything else on the market, but the business model is the same consumer-hostile crap we’ve been seeing for years. I expected better of Apple.

No new Macs. No new software. I guess new PowerMacs, Minis, and MacBooks will trickle out over the next few months when they’re ready. No new iLife. No new iWork. No new Leopard. (Maybe that will arrive at WWDC.) Will anything else be announced by Apple at the show? I hope so. So far, I’m feeling let down.