:: Friday, September 27, 2002 ::

iPod, Cubase, OS X on Intel, switchers everywhere and a shameless personal appeal

Yup, I broke down and bought one :: OK, so I could have saved my money instead, or paid off some debts, or even taken a nice vacation. But I couldn't help it. It was just soooo shiny. Yes, I broke down and finally bought an iPod. It's not the new monstrous 20-gigabyte model, but I don't own 4,000 songs to put on the thing anyway. So far, it's a wonderful and elegant piece of engineering. I especially love the interface and the simplicity of the jog wheel navigation. Everywhere I pull it out, people ask what it is. And it sounds great, too.

The final piece of the puzzle :: In my estimation at least, the final piece of the OS X puzzle will fall into piece next month when Steinberg releases Cubase SX. The aquifying of the ubiquitous audio application will fill the last remaining hole in the X lineup: professional multi-track audio recording and sequencing. Musicians have traditionally been huge supporters of the Macintosh platform, but almost none of them have made the jump to X because none of the powerful multi-track audio apps have made the transition. Cubase SX ships on Oct. 10.

Intel inside? :: The hubbub continues throughout the tech world on whether Apple should leave Motorola in the dust and hitch a ride on the Intel bandwagon. Business Week columnist Charles Haddad makes his case for the move here. I think it would be a good idea -- Motorola is obviously busy and developing the Power PC on a schedule to match the PC competition is not exactly a priority for them. But I believe Apple should make it possible to only install X on Apple-branded machines, instead of letting every PC in the world have at OS X. That would be a disaster. One of Apple's advantages is that it has control over both the hardware and the software of its product. I can only imagine the hell Apple engineers would go through trying to write in support for every third-party piece of PC hardware out there. Yikes.

We will assimilate you :: Apple's switch strategy seems to be working, at least on an anecdotal level. When I bought my iPod at Comp USA last week, the person in line behind me had an eMac in his cart. The person in the next line over was buying an iBook. It was strange, but everywhere I looked in the store, it seemed that someone was buying or looking at a Mac. Comp USA's one attendant for its Mac area couldn't be in enough places at once. I had to wait about 15 minutes just to get his attention from the other Apple shoppers so I could ask him to get the iPod for me from the back of the store.

Also, on the Cocoa developer mailing list this week, we found that one of our members was a PC refugee who had co-authored several books on PC programming and is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer. He signed his message with "Yes, I'm a switcher (and never looking back)."

Some other notes of worth: Java co-inventor James Gosling was recently spotted at a Java conference in Japan using Mac OS X for a presentation on stage. And Slashdot gurus Hemos and Cmdr Taco are apparently contemplating a switch to OS X.

Shameless personal plug :: And finally, something completely different. My newest column is a bit unorthodox, but since this is my Web site, I can pretty much do as I see fit. I apparently have been looking for love in all the wrong places, so I figured I'd use my bandwidth on United Mac to see if there is a beautiful Mac Goddess out there somewhere for me...

:: Steve 3:31 AM [+] ::

Taming the Big Cat

Jaguar is here, and it's finicky :: Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted, but I've been busy. I've been wrestling with the new monster of an OS upgrade that Apple has released, OS X 10.2, or "Jaguar." While Apple's best effort at OS X so far, it still has some rough edges and seems to like everything "just so." Read my experiences, and some tips for keeping Jaguar in line on your machine, in Taming the Big Cat.

Exchange on the way for Mac OS X? :: MacWindows is reporting that Microsoft is now porting Outlook and its exchange server software to OS X, a much needed development for the Mac. As it stands now, there is no client available for the Mac that can interface with the MS standard used by many businesses.

iMacs even bigger? :: The Inquirer is reporting that Apple is readying a 19 inch version of the flat-screen iMac. Yikes. Got to start saving some money...

And one last thing... :: In the "Please, God, no" department, we have Wal-Mart, which is now offering a computer running the Lindows operating system, which also is based on UNIX, for less than $200. Yes, it's cheap. Will it work? I'd love to talk to anyone crazy enough to buy one of these things and ask them about it. Who knows, maybe I'll scrape together some change from my couch, go buy one, and then report on it here. Then again, maybe I won't.
:: Steve 8:57 PM [+] ::