Category: Apple

So the folks over at iFixit (the guys who snap up each new piece of hardware Apple releases and immediately tear it apart) have their panties in a bunch because the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) recently announced that Apple's retina MacBook Pro meets their gold standard when it comes to environmental performance—and they are not amused.

While some of iFixit's concerns may be legitimate, their latest screed reads like so many sour grapes. They've had a unapologetic bias against the Retina MacBook Pro since they first tore one apart and haven't let up since.

Apple announced they were leaving the EPEAT registry soon after they released a slew of new laptops this summer, including the MacBook Pro with Retina display. We wondered why it was the first Apple laptop in recent memory not listed in the EPEAT registry: when we took it apart, we learned it was glued together and completely non-upgradeable. The RAM was soldered in, the SSD storage used a proprietary interface, the battery was secured to the case with impressively strong glue, and the case was held together using proprietary screws.

We know that Apple's products aren't green: iPods routinely fail after a couple years. Just about everyone I know has a dead iPod in a drawer somewhere. Apple's design trend is toward glued-together products with batteries that may fail after 12-24 months—they make repair so difficult that people rarely replace the batteries, opting instead to buy a replacement device.

Creating products designed to require replacement every couple years has a substantial impact. Apple publicly discloses that 61% of their environmental impact comes from manufacturing—everything from mining the coltan in smartphones and the rare-earth elements in computers to factory workers cleaning display glass with toxic chemicals. The process of manufacturing electronics is incredibly damaging to the environment. The more products Apple makes, the larger its impact.

Given their penchant for throwaway product design, it seemed inevitable that Apple would leave the green computer registry. But when they announced their withdrawal, it sparked a fierce backlash. Institutional purchasers, including the City of San Francisco, announced they were banning the purchase of Apple laptops. During a recent trip to Washington, DC, I heard from reliable sources that numerous federal government agencies, including the Department of Defense, were prepared to ban procurement of Apple products.

In a nutshell, it seems they're whining because you can't open the RMPB up with a philips head screwdriver, swap out the internals or recycle the parts and because Apple might have "greased the wheels" of EPEAT in order to get the certification. Well guys, people who want to mess around with their devices don't buy Retina MacBook Pros. They also don't buy MacBook Airs. People buy these products because they're thin and lightweight—and you're not going to get that using off-the-shelf, swappable components.

Further, I dare say the majority of people who buy Apple products have no desire whatsoever to tinker with their equipment after the purchase. If you want to swap out RAM or processors, or upgrade your storage to the latest and greatest, you buy a Dell, or some other piece of disposable plastic crap—or build your own from parts—and then congratulate yourself and thump your chest for keeping the thing alive beyond the typical life span these things are designed for. That's all well and good for a lot of people and I in no may mean to belittle that hobby (lord knows I did it for decades), but I'm now so far past any desire to do those kind of calisthenics in order to write, or do photo editing, or read my email or look at LOLcats I can't be bothered. Give me something that works and will provide me 3-5 years of service and I'm happy. When the software progresses to the point it won't run on the hardware I have (or you wow me with something new that's so incredible I'm compelled to upgrade) then I'll sell it and move on. The equipment I've outgrown could be someone else's dream.

…and Apple had time to work out the scratched-right-out-of-the-box issues I'd been reading about and the general inability to actually buy one and get it before the Mayan Apocaplyse, but a combination of my current contact with Verizon being conveniently up for renewal and learning of a not widely advertised method of ordering one and getting it the next day changed my mind.

It works like this: you go onto Apple's website and place your order between the hours of 10pm and 4am and then select in-store pickup for the next day. Apparently Apple has a certain percentage of phones held in reserve in each store for this very purpose. With even Verizon quoting me a delivery date well into November, I figured I had nothing to lose by trying this.

I really didn't think it would work, so I was simultaneously surprised and elated when I placed the order last night and the configuration I wanted popped up as available for pickup in the Lakewood store.

I had previously arranged to take today off, so this morning, after receiving the confirmation email from Apple, I drove over to Lakewood and picked up the shiny new Precious. Not a scratch or nick on it. Relieved. Setup and transfer of all my apps was about as painless as possible, and while I had some initial buyers remorse when I hit that buy button last night, I'm quite happy with the purchase.

From TUAW:

Last week I wrote an article criticizing Apple's new Maps capability explaining why it was a deal-breaker for me and why I was leaving the iPhone. That article generated hundreds of comments (in agreement and disagreement), tweets, and emails to me and TUAW, some going so far as calling for me to be fired. Since that article was published, the criticisms of Maps have exploded, so much so that Tim Cook released a rare public apology from Apple and pointed users to mapping apps from competitors. While that may help stem the bleeding until Apple can figure out how to fix its Maps mess, there are two things about Tim Cook's statement I want to address.

The first is that Cook's apology shows that Apple truly cares about its users. You know those times you mess up and realize how hard it is to apologize for your mistake? It's usually pride or embarrassment that gets in the way of apologizing. Either way, it's still incredibly hard to admit you were wrong. Now multiply that feeling by a million, knowing that your apology — the admission that you were wrong — will be reported by every major newspaper and tech blog in the world.

On top of that, when your company is almost always right in its business choices, admitting a mistake is a huge mark against it. Add to that the suggestion that some third-party companies products — some of them from your major competitors — might do the job of your mobile OS's primary new feature better than your product does. Put those all together and you might have an idea of how monumental and significant Tim Cook's apology was.

That shows just how mature Apple is and exactly how much the company cares about the user experience its customers enjoy. I've written in depth about Tim Cook before and this just solidifies my opinion about him. He is the best CEO on the planet and the person to lead Apple into the future.

But here's the second thing: As much as I believe in Tim Cook and appreciate his acknowledgment of the Maps fiasco, his suggestions that users check out other mapping or web apps aren't a real solution to the problem. Most of the mapping apps highlighted by Apple are really navigation apps. They get you from point A to point B. They can get you from St. Louis to Chicago. That's not the problem with Maps. The real issue is the lack of extensive localized and accurate POIs and the ability to search thoroughly for them. A POI is a point-of-interest, which can be something major like a monument or a park, or something smaller like the corner drug store.

None of the apps suggested by Cook have the POI database that Google does and obviously, neither does Apple Maps. Also, none of the apps have the search capability for POIs that Google does. And if you're one of the iPhone's tens of millions of users living in a major city like New York or London or Singapore and don't own a car, you don't care about driving between cities — you care about being able to find any of the four dozen businesses that could be located on the single city block you're on.

Another suggestion from Cook was to add the Google Maps web app to your home screen. The reason this isn't a real fix is because a web app doesn't have the fluidity, interactivity, or ease of use that a dedicated maps app does. If you think I'm wrong, I challenge you to use nothing but the Google Maps web app on your iPhone for a week. You'll soon agree with me as to how much it hampers your iPhone experience.

Apple's only solution—and I think they know this—is to return to Google. They need Google's extensive POI database and its search capabilities. Whether that Google solution is getting a standalone app in the App Store or integrating Google Maps back into iOS while offering Apple Maps as a secondary option is something Apple needs to decide. But Apple needs to decide quickly, because it is not going to be able to build a POI database and map search capabilities that can compete with Google in just a few months, or even a few years.

I'll close by saying that it's a shame that the Maps mess overshadowed the iPhone 5 launch. From an engineering and design perspective, the iPhone 5 is the best smartphone ever made. It's a work of art. It just needs for all of its core, built-in services to work, accurately and completely.

Apple unleashed both iOS6 and OS X 10.8.2 today.

I don't have a whole lot to say about iOS6. My aging iPhone 4 is unable to take advantage of many of the new features the software is touting. With upgrades like this, I'm just happy if they don't break anything. (Sadly, something I came to expect with Microsoft for the last twenty-plus years.) I'm sure I'll have a more formed opinion of the OS once I replace the phone with the new model.

And as for OS X 10.8.2, it added Facebook integration to the Mac operating system and cleaned up a few stray bugs that were still plaguing some users who upgraded to Mountain Lion last July. Facebook integration—much like Mountain Lion's Twitter integration—is something I'm not likely to use much. It's no secret that I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, and if I want to waste time there, I'll go onto the website itself. And frankly, there's nothing I need to post there that's so important that it can't wait the additional two seconds it takes to do that.

Like a lot of users, my initial upgrade to Mountain Lion caused a precipitous drop in battery life. I think that was addressed in the .1 update a few weeks ago because yesterday I'd forgotten to plug my laptop into the mains and hadn't realized it until nearly 5 hours later when the low battery level warning popped up. That is at least back to where it was under Lion, so if this .2 update gives me any more time, it's gravy.

Perfect timing. The contract on my iPhone 4 ends next month.

I've had Apple's latest big cat loaded now for one week, and I have to say that I've yet to have any real problem with it. While I know others have had nightmares upgrading their machines and are less than impressed (my experience a year ago), mine went off without a hitch. After using it for the last seven days, I can say the word that best describes it is snappier. Everything about it is faster, and I see a level of refinement that was sadly lacking in Lion.

The one feature I like the most is the Notification Center. Granted, I don't get a whole lot of email these days, but it's nice to see the emails pop up when they do arrive à la the notifications in Outlook on Windows. I also think Power Nap is pretty cool, although its function was something I erroneously believed had already been a part of the OS prior to this.

Another thing I really appreciate is the Twitter integration. I tweet a lot, so it's pretty cool that it can be done from so many places within the OS.

Wired has a good rundown on some of the lesser-known features here and I highly recommend checking it out.

I haz.

To be honest, I was a little worried about upgrading after the fiasco I went through last summer when I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion, but the word that best describes today's experience is anticlimactic.

This morning I fired up the App Store, paid my $19.99 and the download started. It took about 30 minutes, and after making a backup copy of the installer and closing everything I had open, I started the install and left to attend to a user who had to have nearly 3 GB worth of archived mail always available on her laptop (don't ask). By the time I got back, my Mac was waiting at the login screen.

Everything works. This was one of the most painless OS updates I've ever gone through.

Microsoft who?

Good job, Apple.  Bravo!

…this is what our wedding will look like. Minus the dress.

Ben and I made a trip out to Flatiron Crossing today and stopped in at the Apple Store to check out the company's latest orgasm-inducing creation, the 15" MacBook Pro with retina display.

At the risk of losing my fanboy status, I have to say that after picking it up and thoroughly examining the machine, I came away rather unimpressed. While it is indeed a beautiful piece of engineering, and nothing I opined the other day has really changed, I was expecting to be blown away by the retina display and it simply didn't happen. I guess the best way to sum it up is that any envy I might have felt as a 13" MacBook Air owner prior to actually having seen the new laptop has completely disappeared.

Yes, it's thinner and lighter than its predecessor. But in that regard it's no Air.  And as for the display? Maybe it's just my eyes but I didn't see enough of a difference between it and a regular display to justify the added expense. So to be completely honest, it was a very nice machine, but not nice enough to make me want to rush out and buy one.

That being said, would I refuse one if it was given to me, or—if I had a few thousand dollars laying around—not buy one for Ben as a graduation gift? Of course not. But it's definitely not that much of an improvement over what I currently own to leave me pining away for one.

What is it with all the critics crawling out of the woodwork to hate on Apple's gorgeous new 15" MacBook Pro?

I mean seriously, the level of animus directed at this machine is ridiculous. Why?

Because geeks and fanboys can't mess with it. You can't upgrade the RAM or the hard drive flash storage except when you initially buy it. What you purchase is what you have to live with. Memory is soldered to the motherboard (as it is in the MacBook Air family) and the Flash card is currently proprietary (at least until some third party supplier steps up with replacements).

One of the honchos over at iFixit even opined that this was the "least repairable" laptop in the world. Or something.

Boo hoo.

We are rapidly reaching the point where our computing devices are becoming appliances. When was the last time you tore down your refrigerator to repair it yourself? How about your microwave oven?

Exactly.

If you want a light, thin, and very, very portable laptop, there are going to have to be tradeoffs. You can't fit a traditional hard drive and sockets for interchangeable RAM in a device a quarter of an inch thick. This is where Apple is going with their laptop lineup, and frankly I think it's amazing.

It's simple: if you don't like it, don't buy one.

Better yet, why not buy one so you can write a hateful review and then box it back up and give it to me?

…Receiving Stolen Property.

…I am forced to unpack another piece of cheap plastic crap from Dell at work, I am reminded how Dell is not—and will never be—Apple. Dell equipment arrives in standard brown corrugated cardboard boxes with dozens of twist ties and styrofoam inserts that shed bits of themselves all over everything the minute they're removed. Compare that to the simple, elegant beauty of Apple's packaging.

Recently I started reading posts over at Apple's MacBook Air Support Forum for, as they say, "shits and giggles."

OMG.

Do people really buy this machine without knowing its capabilities (and, more importantly, its limitations)? Apparently so.

Some examples (verbatim):

• I have sims 2 disks. And i recently got a macbook air which i realised doesnt have a disk holder thing. I dont want to illegally download it. Does anyone have any ideas so i can play it on my laptop?
• How can I add a firewire port to MacBook Air?
• I am confused about the new MacBook Air. It would appear it does not have an internal DVD/CD drive as most computers do. Does this mean after the price of this Mac Air I still would have to purchase an external DVD/CD player to load software or play DVD's and CD's ??? That seems like technology is going backwards and the owners just want more money.
• i recentely brought a apple macbook air 13 inch 128gb and am running low on gb. Is there anyway to obtain more as even software updates are taking too much gb up!

Do people just walk into an Apple Store and say, "Oooh! Pretty!" and drop $1200 without researching the product first?

Knowing that the internals of the Air are not upgradable, I anguished for months before I got mine.

Will 4 GB RAM be enough? (Yes, because I didn't see any real difference when I upgraded my old 4GB MacBook Pro to 8GB.)

More importantly, will having only 256GB of storage be sufficient? (I had a 320GB hard drive on the MBP that was only about 2/3 full, so yeah…after some much needed archiving of old stuff to an external drive it was more than sufficient.)

Will not having a disk player impact the usability? (I used the disk slot on the MBP only a dozen times to install software, and only once to watch a movie. Worst case scenario I have an external DVD drive that I can pull out of storage for occasional use or drop $79 for Apple's proprietary player if it ever becomes an ongoing need.)

Ben can attest to the fact that I had several rough weeks adapting to the Apple ecosystem when I first abandoned Microsoft, so I can't read the forums with a totally jaundiced eye, but some of the postings tell me that no matter how intuitive or user-friendly Apple makes their products, there will always be a certain demographic—the same demographic that undoubtedly would quickly embrace a product like pre-chewed food—that simply will never get it…

Because, as Ben and I are fond of yelling out the car window, "THINKING IS HARD!"

You know I'd eventually have to peek inside The Precious.

Actually, I needed to re-seat the bottom panel because it's been creaking a bit (a known issue), and since I had it off I figured I might as well take a picture…

This happens on a daily basis. Sometimes several times a day. It can be as innocuous as moving a file from one folder to another, or simple opening a file in Preview. None of the so called fixes I've read about online work.

It was a compromise to go to Bridge when I moved from Windows and it's awesome Thumbs Plus program. I've searched, and I can't find any other substitute for Bridge in the Mac universe.

Maybe I've missed something.  Suggestions?

For all the years I've been using iTunes, I've been reluctant to check off the "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" option under Advanced Settings out of fear that it would shred my library.

Well, feeling a little cocky (and researching how to move the CEO's iTunes library from a Windows laptop to his band new MacBook Air), I decided to throw caution to the wind tonight and run it.

OMG. Instead of shredding the library, it brought order out of absolute chaos.  I had incorrectly assumed all this time that iTunes unfortunate penchant for importing a single album into a half-dozen different folders was just something it did.

What a dork.

You can stop laughing now.

The other day I happened to hover my cursor over the battery icon on my task bar and I was surprised to see "Service Battery." I tried all the home-brew fixes suggested on the interwebs, but to no avail. I realized I was going to have to make a trip to the Apple Store. I was not looking forward to this, or to potentially being without my laptop for an extended period—especially on a holiday weekend. But the one glimmer of hope I had was reading online that if I got the machine in early enough, the non-user-replaceable battery could usually be swapped out that day.

I went ahead and made an appointment to bring it in, and this morning we arrived at the Cherry Creek Apple Store promptly at 10 am. While it took about 20 minutes after checking in to meet with a Genius, and I was expecting the worst, not only did they have the battery in stock, the in-house tech was able to swap out the battery—not in hours or days, but in about fifteen minutes…and because I had the foresight to purchase Apple Care when the laptop was new, it cost me nothing.

Bravo, Apple.

This type of service is why I am a Fanboy.

Time flies when you're having fun.