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“This will be the start of something amazing.”
That was my first thought when I used the iPad for the first time a few months back. The experience of touching your data, touching the internet and feeling this connection with your computer was truly astounding.
A few months later, having given the work iPad back I found myself doubting my earlier impressions. There is more the Mac can do right? Well, sorta. I have temporarily replaced my MacBook Pro with an iPad until my MacBook Air arrives next week. For the past few days I have found only 2 things I haven’t been able to do outside of work (and work will change soon by the sound of things, but that’s another story):
- Edit Airport base station settings
- Download torrents
I can only imagine that Apple will eventually find a better (nay, elegant) way to setup an Airport network, torrents may be a different thing though. That said, I have no issue paying for content if it’s made available to me conveniently and Apple are on their way to making that dream a reality.
I have read more than one interesting article recently regarding the iPad’s future and the future of Mac OS. The most notable of course was John Gruber who recently wrote a piece for MacWorld magazine. Johns basic premise is that the Mac still has a place as a heavy lifter for things the iPad can’t or won’t do and that eventually Mac OS may disappear.
I’d agree with that. Of course there are things that the Mac OS will do that the iPad can’t, but those will soon be fewer than many are crediting I believe. More than that though, Mac OS has been a testing ground for all much of what makes iOS great for nearly a decade, and I can only see that being more true as the two world slowly collide; like tectonic shifts.
The future for the iPad is bright, and I really can see it becoming integral to my personal workflow over the coming years. I have spoken about the benefits of working on an iOS device before, and I will again soon, but I really think the benefits out way the cons.
The only things I have come to dislike about the iPhone also happens to be the reason I like it so much: I get everything in one bucket. Work, play, family, it’s all available to me on my iPhone. Sadly, it means it’s all mixed up on my iPhone too which has its own issues. My personal stuff can be a small but costly distraction during the working day, while work emails can be a real annoyance at the weekend. so far the iPad has been 100% personal for me, and for now I’m happy with that.
I really do love podcasts. I was never a fan of radio, purely because there weren’t many shows that interested me, and they were all on at odd times. Podcasting fixed all that, and brought audio shows to light for me.
From Adam Christianson’s MacCast to TMO’s MacGeekGab, I have subscribed to many tech podcasts. TWiT, Buzz Out Loud, Systm… there are so many. Over the past year I have let much of that go, as I have gravitated toward video online more and more.
Recently I have started listening to more podcasts again and there is one person to thank for that: Dan Benjamin.
Dan runs an internet broadcasting network (much like TWiT or Revision3) called 5by5. The company began in 2009, off the back of the first series of podcasts Dan produced with John Gruber, called The Talk Show. Since then Dan and John have completely reinvented the The Talk Show, which is remains their flagship, and added many shows more besides.
Dan now produces 14 shows of various kinds, all based around things associated with geek culture. Dan is joined by Jeffrey Zeldman to produce The Big Web Show, Christina Warren for Briefly Awesome, Marco Arment for Build and Analyze and many other interesting, famous and entertaining guests for his interview show The Pipeline.
These shows are incredibly well put together, with very high production values and have a feeling of being produced by a very small, but high quality studio. Everything is so well executed, down to the album artwork and the website. I have no idea where Dan finds his intro music, but it’s completely inspired and sets the tone right from the off.
I can’t recommend these shows highly enough. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed if you are in any way geeky or interested in tech and the internet.
Every now and then I decide to try using a different browser for a while. It always ends in the same conclusion: I prefer Safari overall. The interesting thing is that it’s always for a different reason.
The past few weeks I have been using Google Chrome. It’s a really great browser. I love how fast it is, how self-contained, and the omnibus is brilliant. I also enjoyed the extensions. I used:
The problem is that all these extensions feel slow and fugally. Consistently delivering false positives and false negatives is not what you’d look for in a notifier. That said, Google Mail Checker became such a part of my workflow that I actually stopped using Apple Mail for a while. Overall though, they just don’t work.
There are a bunch of little things I love about Chrome, mostly the Omnibar - that just begs to be ripped off, it works so well. I love how it’s a search bar as well as an address bar - that just makes sense. I also love how well it deciphers what I mean, or want as a result. I also love how it colour-codes the information in the bar for easy reading. Wonderful engineering done properly.
I much prefer the tab behaviour in Chrome. If you Command-click a link in Chrome in tab 1 of 2, the new tab will open between the two existing tabs. New tabs will always open just right of the current set. It’s much easier to navigate this way.
I can also sync all my info and prefs through my Gmail account - a great touch.
A few weeks later, I have moved back to Safari now, with some small differences, and I am enjoying it a lot. I have installed a bunch of Safari Extensions to replace the ones Chrome offered. These extensions work so much better that I can’t say I miss the Chrome ones at all.
I now have my bookmark shortcuts back, which means easy access to top used websites with even less typing. I miss the omibar and the tab behaviour from Chrome but have made up for it in flash elimination.
John Gruber recently wrote about how to go Flash-free on OS X. I highly recommend it. Most sites serve up HTML5 content seamlessly. YouTube5 extension does a better job of serving non-flash content than their official HTML5 beta, and you don’t get the in-video ads either. If you get totally desperate (iPlayer) you can always turn to Chrome (which has it’s own built-in Flash support). It’s a brilliant experience I can’t recommend highly enough.
I work for an ASAP, repairing Macs all day and warning customers to backup their machines, be careful of drinks near their machines and so on. All the usual nuggets of common sense come through automatically - it’s the same few speeches over and over. Well don’t think for a second this doesn’t come from experience.
About 5 or 6 years ago I was sat on the couch sending emails on my PowerBook. It was only 6 months old and I had carelessly left the power adapter cord strewn across the room. The mail came, the dog went nuts and when running for the door, tripped over the cord, ripped the laptop from me and smashed it on the floor. Expensive, but repairable.
A few years ago, Chris, one of our techs got married. He took all the honeymoon photos off the camera (deleted them) and stuck them in iPhoto (pre-Flickr integration). 2 days later his hard drive died - no backup. We tried for weeks to recover those photos but to this day his wife hasn’t forgotten his incompetence.
Yesterday, I was sat at work, minding my own business. I reached over my desk and grabbed my headphones. Somehow, the headphones brought with them a giant mug of tea (ironically, it was a Microsoft Office branded mug). My MacBook Pro fizzed and popped. I managed to get the hard drive out in time to save it (though dropped it and damaged the motor I think). Oddly, my backups were in a state of transition and I failed them (all 4 of them). I’m recovering the data now and a new laptop is on order.
The point is that we don’t lecture for no reason - we’ve been there. We’ve paid the money and felt the pain. That’s why we are so cautious with customer machines.
