If there’s one way to summarize one of my biggest questions about what was announced at Steve Jobs’ keynote on Tuesday, this has to be the best way. Overall, this year, I was never really excited about this year’s keynote, and there’s not much there to excite me. Time Capsule definitely looks interesting, and (when I can afford it) may actually improve my recent 1.5 Larry-head rating on Time Machine, although I’m not in a position to get it for the time being. I have a number of qualms about the MacBook Air, and as for the Apple TV, iTunes rentals, and iPod touch/iPhone updates, I’m maintaining a solidly neutral stance on those.

Now, hold on Douglas, you’re thinking, why aren’t you coming out and either praising or bashing Apple the way you normally do? Well, for most of these, I can see pros and cons on both sides, so for me, the jury’s still out on my opinions of these. I’m holding off until I get a chance to play around with things before I start to come to conclusions, and I will be sharing these conclusions on this weekend’s “Macworld in review” episode of PreviewCast, and later elaborating here on my blog.

As for trying them out, that’s what I’m going to be doing tomorrow! Indeed, tomorrow, I’ll be going with the Aragon group (about six of us in total, plus chaperones) to Macworld to tour the exhibit hall for the day. This will be my third consecutive excursion to Macworld’s Expo floor, and according to what all the websites are saying, we’ll actually be able to play around with the new stuff, rather than just looking at a rotating object in a bullet-proof* glass case. Which actually sounds exciting.
* I have no idea if the case was bullet-proof or not, and am just making this up.

However, this year, I hope to spend some more time talking to the people whom I really think should be the stars of the show: all of the little developers. (Merlin Mann likes to call the “little devs” section of the show floor Tiny Town.) It’s THEM that make the show possible, because it’s their contributions of their applications that helps the Mac platform succeed. So, I’m hoping to spend more time there this year.

I have one class tomorrow–Calculus, my first period class. After that, the group of us are carpooling up to the Millbrae BART station and taking BART to Powell Street, a block away from Moscone Center (and right next to the SF Apple Store). Last year, we tried to drive to Macworld and had the worst nightmare with parking. We’ll get there shortly after the 10 AM exhibit hall opening, get all checked in, and then have just under four hours to do stuff to our heart’s content. We’ll gather up around 2:15 to head back to BART and catch a 2:30 train back to Millbrae, and then we’ll drive back to school and get back there around 3:30.

I have not yet exactly decided what I’m going to do there. (Well, actually, I have, but I want to save some stuff to talk about in an “after Macworld” blog post!) However, I definitely intend to visit a number of booths. I plan to definitely check out Office 2008; after all, I don’t feel right truly making fun of something until I’ve had the chance to play around with it with my own hands, and I also want to find out, in plain English, what “Special Media Edition” means. I also want to find out if the Omni Group is offering any nice discounts on their new OmniFocus, which sounds like a really exciting app (and did you hear that it won a Best of Show award), and of course come home stuffed with a Macworld 2008 shirt. (I outgrew my Macworld 2006 shirt. As for my Macworld 2007 shirt, in February, it got a huge red stain after an alcohol thermometer broke in Chemistry class and splattered all over my shirt. Yeah, Macworld 2007 was just NOT a good one for me.) Oh, and I intend to gather up as many freebies and handouts as possible! There was some great stuff last year, so I wonder what I can scrounge up this year.

There’s also been lots of other things happening in my life recently, which I’ll try to catch up on in other blog posts, as it is time for me to hit the hay.

However, I will close by mentioning that this is my 300th blog post since I resalvaged this blog back in October 2006. My blog has had a number of incarnations before that, but I’ve never been able to keep a blog steady enough to keep going continuously for 300 full blog posts, which have been put together in 15 months. (You math whizzes can figure out that I’ve averaged out at 20 posts per month, or about 2 posts every 3 days. It’s not quite at one-post-per-day, blog365ers, but it’s pretty doggone close.) Thanks to the many of you who have been subscribing and sticking with my various ramblings. I do this blog mostly for myself, but it’s great to be able to bring you along for the ride and be able to share things that may interest or entertain you.

Tags: Apple, Aragon, BART, blog, exhibit hall, expo, itinerary, Keynote, Mac, MacBook Air, Macworld, News, opinion, plans, School, Time Capsule, Webmacster87.info

Many many props go to Macworld writer/editor Christopher Breen who just posted his editor’s notes entitled Is Apple on the Wrong Path? I think that this was an excellent article that really clearly puts everyone’s feelings towards many of Apple’s recent decisions, in particular the iPhone bricking issue, in words and presents an argument that makes perfect common sense. It definitely does it better than that “Is Apple the New Microsoft?” article that Computerworld’s Mike Elgan posted awhile back, which made totally unclear points. This article is really clear, and I really hope that Apple reads it and understands that what they did last week to iPhone owners is not cool, and is going to turn people against them. Apple’s success has gone to its head, and they need to wake up and start thinking about the actual consumer and what’s best for them, not what’s best for Apple or AT&T.

Tags: Apple, bricking, Christopher Breen, decisions, iMovie, iPhone, Macworld, opinion, stupidity

Now, I’m sure that many of you have probably seen this video before, on the web, on TV, you name it. Now, I know that I tend to not put political comments on this blog, but this is one case that I have a number of comments about. But then, today during my English class, my teacher brought up this event because we’re in the middle of a unit focusing on the theme of “rebellion,” and she even showed the video off to the class. I didn’t watch the video with the class because I had seen it the night before. We were then asked to comment on the video, in particular to respond to was it necessary for this guy to get tased, however I didn’t write anything on there to turn in, because many more opinions about the incident began to form in my brain than could be written down on a small scrap of paper in 2 minutes.
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Tags: article, brutality, English, human rights, injustice, opinion, police, political, School, taser, UCLA, University of Florida

Well, there’s now a number of sites that are now selling unlock keys for the iPhone, as TUAW reported, and a number of people have been wondering how long it will be until Apple posts an iPhone software update that overrides this hack. But personally, it is my opinion that it would be more beneficial to Apple to allow the iPhone unlocks than to stop them, and here’s why.

Apple has an exclusive agreement with AT&T to have the iPhone be restricted to AT&T’s network only, and I would assume that that means that in the agreement, Apple is also obligated to override any hacks that may cause the iPhone to be unlocked to other carriers. Obviously, we can’t see the specific details of the agreement, but I would think that if Apple wasn’t obligated to override these unlocks with software updates, then that would be because there was specific language in the AT&T-Apple agreement. But let’s try both scenarios.

Suppose Apple is not obligated to override the unlocking hacks. That means that suddenly, the possibility of an iPhone opens up to many more people. The people who love the thought of having an iPhone (those things have a 92% approval rating, after all), but perhaps are stuck on an existing contract, or just can’t stand the thought of contracting their life (okay, their money, anyway) to AT&T, now have a solution. They can buy an iPhone, unlock it, and then they’re good to go! This totally opens up Apple’s iPhone market a bit more, and I’m sure Apple would like that.

But then, suppose Apple is obligated under the agreements to override the unlocking hacks. What if they just refuse to do it? After all, for a cell phone network<->creator agreement, Apple certainly has more control over the iPhone’s software than most cell phone manufacturers. So what could AT&T do to force Apple to override the unlocks? Nothing. About all AT&T could do would be to terminate the exclusive agreement. But then, that would mean that Apple would now have a finished toy that’s already sold a million units in just over two months to dangle in front of the faces of the other companies like Verizon and T-Mobile, who no doubt are suffering due to Apple’s newfound iPhone dominance, and they’d be willing to sign up with Apple in a minute, which would, again, expand Apple’s potential iPhone market. Obviously, AT&T couldn’t kill something that’s been so successful for them just like that, so they’d probably have to let Apple allow the unlocks to stick around (see the previous paragraph).

Regardless of these, the fact that the iPhone has now been unlocked puts Apple in the advantage. Apple will win with a larger customer base, regardless of whether AT&T cracks down on them or not, and AT&T will lose. The only way that Apple can lose (and have AT&T win) is if Apple does go ahead and crack down on these unlocks, but that would be shooting themselves in the foot, and given Apple’s lax policy towards hacking the Apple TV, I think that Apple is probably going to be smart enough to live and let live for this time around.

Tags: Apple, article, AT&T, hacks, iPhone, opinion, unlocks