Monday, October 17, 2005
Where exactly in the living room does the Mac belong?
After a few days of allowing the latest Mac-related announcements to sink in, here's where I'm at:
- So much for the notion that Apple was going to sit on its hands with Mac hardware until the PowerPC is gone. I mean, the new iMac might not be a completely redesigned computer, but it's a completely redesigned definition of a computer. And it's clear now that Apple's grand scheme goes way beyond just the iPod. The iPod may be the portable peripheral for all things media, but the Mac now seems destined to become the stationary peripheral for all things media. Both the Mac and the iPod are just a peripheral for your content now, and it's going to beome increasingly incongruous for someone to own one and not the other, and a whole lot of those millions of Windows-using iPod users are going to be figuring that out rather quickly now. This ought to be fun to watch.
- Am I the only one who scratches his head every time Steve Jobs refers to something "OH-tomatically" happening? Is this some kind of obscure regional dialect that only exists on the street he lives on? I wonder if the people who work directly under Steve ever hesitate to use the word in front of him, for fear of pronouncing it differently than he does. Seriously, has anyone ever heard anyone pronounce the word "automatically" the way Steve does?
- Odd that Jon Rubinstein would choose now to retire. Maybe I'm assuming too much based on hair color, but Rubinstein isn't exactly Fred Anderson here. Fred looked like he was old enough to want to cash out his chips and head for an island paradise, but Rube doesn't look like he's much past forty. What I particularly don't get is that he was moved from running the Mac hardware division to running the new iPod division merely a year ago. You'd think he'd be feeling reinvigorated right about now, not calling it a day. One theory says he asked to be moved to the iPod division because he'd become bored with the Mac, and even working with the iPod couldn't keep him intrigued with the concept of, you know, working. Maybe kinda tough to do when you're a millionaire. Another theory says he was moved to the iPod division, ahem, involuntarily and the move didn't take. As is always with these things, we'll never know until someone writes a book, and then we still won't know.
- As brilliant as the new iMac is, the cancellation of the eMac is every bit as much bizarre. There's now officially nothing that makes sense about the Mac desktop lineup under $1300. Please don't write in. Even if you believe that the Mac mini is god's gift to desktops, you still have to look at the prices of the lineup ($500, $600, $700, $1300) and shake your head and wonder if these price points weren't drawn up on the back of a napkin while everyone was drunk and playing twister. You can talk all you want about add-ons, built-to-order, and what-not, but the bottom line is that Apple doesn't have a desktop machine whose base price comes within $300 of the thousand dollar mark on either side. There's only one price point for consumer desktops that matters, and it's $999, and Apple seems more intent than ever at missing that mark by as wide a margin as possible. It's not that Mac desktops are overpriced or underpriced, they're just mispriced. Getting rid of the eMac made sense if and only if the new iMac launched at $999, and that didn't happen. Thirteen hundred bucks was a great price for the iMac back in 1998, But this isn't 1998, and for some reason the iMac still costs $1300. If that's what it has to cost because the heat from the G5 requires an ultra-expensive internal design for the machine, then so be it, and it all gets worked out in the Intel wash. But you keep the eMac around in the mean time. What's most bizarre of all is that on the Mac laptop side, Apple gets it perfect by pricing the iBook at -- you guessed it -- $999. Again, please don't write in.
- I've read some opinions that as great as the new iMac is, it's missing one critical element: live television. It seems some folks want to be able to replace their television with an iMac. Sounds good in theory, but I'll tell you, there are far too many times where I'm using both the computer and the television, and I don't mean that I'm alternating back and forth, I mean that I'm actively using them both at the same time. Like right now, for instance, as I watch SportsCenter while I type. Having my computer and my television be the same machine would make situations like that awfully...messy. I know Apple could likely come up with some way to make it work intelligently enough, but there ain't no way I wanna be doing what I'm doing at the current moment on a single screen, with TV in a little window as I type of whatever. So for now, I'm happy with the idea that the new iMac is meant to sit next to the television, not in place of it.
So will I be buying a media center iMac for my living room? In a word, no. I've always believed that the computer belongs in the living room -- but its proper location is on the coffee table. In other words, a laptop. I know, I could have both an iBook and an iMac, and use the iBook as my traditional computer and my iMac as my media center, but I really truly do not like having my data and user space spread out across more than one computer. I want to be able to take my entire user experience, fold it up, and walk out the door with it, and that only happens when your laptop is your only computer. All the tricks and treats and syncs and shares and jury-rigs in the world won't change that fact. If you're a desktop user, you can own a laptop but it'll never offer you your full user experience. And if you're a true laptop user, then it has to be your main machine or you're just fooling yourself with the notion of portability. I look forward to a time when a laptop is no longer behind the curve on the technological advancement chart when it comes to new stuff like media center capability. Build all that Front Row stuff into my iBook, with the ability to (occasionally) redirect all that content up onto the screen of my regular television, and I'm on board.
But regardless of just how the whole "true multimedia" experience ends up playing out, we'll get there soon enough one way or the other. Now, more than ever, I'm convinced of that. And after what we saw this past week, it might all be coming sooner than any of us could have ever expected. Don't let its familar looks fool you, the new iMac is the beginning of a whole new age of Macintosh. Now, if we can just get the darned thing down to $999 so the rest of the world will want to join the party.
After a few days of allowing the latest Mac-related announcements to sink in, here's where I'm at:
- So much for the notion that Apple was going to sit on its hands with Mac hardware until the PowerPC is gone. I mean, the new iMac might not be a completely redesigned computer, but it's a completely redesigned definition of a computer. And it's clear now that Apple's grand scheme goes way beyond just the iPod. The iPod may be the portable peripheral for all things media, but the Mac now seems destined to become the stationary peripheral for all things media. Both the Mac and the iPod are just a peripheral for your content now, and it's going to beome increasingly incongruous for someone to own one and not the other, and a whole lot of those millions of Windows-using iPod users are going to be figuring that out rather quickly now. This ought to be fun to watch.
- Am I the only one who scratches his head every time Steve Jobs refers to something "OH-tomatically" happening? Is this some kind of obscure regional dialect that only exists on the street he lives on? I wonder if the people who work directly under Steve ever hesitate to use the word in front of him, for fear of pronouncing it differently than he does. Seriously, has anyone ever heard anyone pronounce the word "automatically" the way Steve does?
- Odd that Jon Rubinstein would choose now to retire. Maybe I'm assuming too much based on hair color, but Rubinstein isn't exactly Fred Anderson here. Fred looked like he was old enough to want to cash out his chips and head for an island paradise, but Rube doesn't look like he's much past forty. What I particularly don't get is that he was moved from running the Mac hardware division to running the new iPod division merely a year ago. You'd think he'd be feeling reinvigorated right about now, not calling it a day. One theory says he asked to be moved to the iPod division because he'd become bored with the Mac, and even working with the iPod couldn't keep him intrigued with the concept of, you know, working. Maybe kinda tough to do when you're a millionaire. Another theory says he was moved to the iPod division, ahem, involuntarily and the move didn't take. As is always with these things, we'll never know until someone writes a book, and then we still won't know.
- As brilliant as the new iMac is, the cancellation of the eMac is every bit as much bizarre. There's now officially nothing that makes sense about the Mac desktop lineup under $1300. Please don't write in. Even if you believe that the Mac mini is god's gift to desktops, you still have to look at the prices of the lineup ($500, $600, $700, $1300) and shake your head and wonder if these price points weren't drawn up on the back of a napkin while everyone was drunk and playing twister. You can talk all you want about add-ons, built-to-order, and what-not, but the bottom line is that Apple doesn't have a desktop machine whose base price comes within $300 of the thousand dollar mark on either side. There's only one price point for consumer desktops that matters, and it's $999, and Apple seems more intent than ever at missing that mark by as wide a margin as possible. It's not that Mac desktops are overpriced or underpriced, they're just mispriced. Getting rid of the eMac made sense if and only if the new iMac launched at $999, and that didn't happen. Thirteen hundred bucks was a great price for the iMac back in 1998, But this isn't 1998, and for some reason the iMac still costs $1300. If that's what it has to cost because the heat from the G5 requires an ultra-expensive internal design for the machine, then so be it, and it all gets worked out in the Intel wash. But you keep the eMac around in the mean time. What's most bizarre of all is that on the Mac laptop side, Apple gets it perfect by pricing the iBook at -- you guessed it -- $999. Again, please don't write in.
- I've read some opinions that as great as the new iMac is, it's missing one critical element: live television. It seems some folks want to be able to replace their television with an iMac. Sounds good in theory, but I'll tell you, there are far too many times where I'm using both the computer and the television, and I don't mean that I'm alternating back and forth, I mean that I'm actively using them both at the same time. Like right now, for instance, as I watch SportsCenter while I type. Having my computer and my television be the same machine would make situations like that awfully...messy. I know Apple could likely come up with some way to make it work intelligently enough, but there ain't no way I wanna be doing what I'm doing at the current moment on a single screen, with TV in a little window as I type of whatever. So for now, I'm happy with the idea that the new iMac is meant to sit next to the television, not in place of it.
So will I be buying a media center iMac for my living room? In a word, no. I've always believed that the computer belongs in the living room -- but its proper location is on the coffee table. In other words, a laptop. I know, I could have both an iBook and an iMac, and use the iBook as my traditional computer and my iMac as my media center, but I really truly do not like having my data and user space spread out across more than one computer. I want to be able to take my entire user experience, fold it up, and walk out the door with it, and that only happens when your laptop is your only computer. All the tricks and treats and syncs and shares and jury-rigs in the world won't change that fact. If you're a desktop user, you can own a laptop but it'll never offer you your full user experience. And if you're a true laptop user, then it has to be your main machine or you're just fooling yourself with the notion of portability. I look forward to a time when a laptop is no longer behind the curve on the technological advancement chart when it comes to new stuff like media center capability. Build all that Front Row stuff into my iBook, with the ability to (occasionally) redirect all that content up onto the screen of my regular television, and I'm on board.
But regardless of just how the whole "true multimedia" experience ends up playing out, we'll get there soon enough one way or the other. Now, more than ever, I'm convinced of that. And after what we saw this past week, it might all be coming sooner than any of us could have ever expected. Don't let its familar looks fool you, the new iMac is the beginning of a whole new age of Macintosh. Now, if we can just get the darned thing down to $999 so the rest of the world will want to join the party.
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