NVinNYC

Holy shit: Boot Camp is a beta program from Apple to allow Windows to boot on an Intel Mac.

This was highly unexpected…

For more info see this FAQ on the Apple KnowledgeBase (Via DF).

My need for a new ICBM just jumped up hugely.

Tycho, from Penny Arcade (I was going to explain it but then I realized: you either know it or you don’t) recently purchased a new Core Duo iMac. Here’s a snippet from his post about his experiences from the first week:

What I have ascertained is not that PCs as we know them lack good design, but that PCs as we know them have hardly any design to speak of. I’m not trying to be insulting. Use a Mac for a week, and we’ll talk again.

[…]

[The Mac] is extremely good at what it does, which is to say, exposing functionality.

Be sure to check out the rest of the post and the comic for some more intriguing (and humorous) insights.

I love to hear these kinds of things, especially from technologically savvy users, because it helps me keep that smug look on my face…

Update (3/6/05): New posts and comic with more on the Mac.

Apple updated most of the iLife ‘06 Suite today with bug-fix level patches for iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes and iWeb. Apple doesn’t list specific patch areas for any of the applications but I found that it does fix the jumping star-rating in iTunes smart playlists issue that I mentioned in an earlier post.

Apple’s been going a bit patch-happy lately with 10.4.5 landing yesterday so run Software Update or check the links above to get all the patching goodness.

Macworld announced the winners of the Readers’ Choice Awards today and I breathed a big sigh of relief.

For the awards, hardware winner was the Mac mini and Tiger won in the software arena, both of which were my picks among the nominated.

The relief came because there were some really poor nominations up for awards. I’m thinking specifically of Backup & Opera in the software category (see Daring Fireball as to why), and, to a lesser extent, the Mighty Mouse in the hardware category (because it’s a ergonomics nightmare).

I’ve been using Front Row for a few weeks now and I thought I’d post a few of my observations about this new program from Apple. Please note, I’m assuming that everyone reading this has at least watched the Front Row tour or tried the program itself. There were a lot of problems getting Front Row working on non-supported machines after it was first released, so I wanted to hold back this little review until all the kinks seemed worked out. At first, I thought the release of 10.4.3 would change thing but it turned out not to help much. However, now that the Front Row 1.0.1 Update has been released and an individual has figured out how to trick Mac OS X to into thinking the remote device is present, it has a relatively painless install process exists. The whole method and software needed is explained on this MacUpdate page.

First off, let me say that though I think Front Row is an awesome product, it’s still very much a 1.0 version: there’s lots of room for both refinement and new features here.

Perhaps it’s easier to define Front Row in terms of what it is not. Front Row is not a program that you’re supposed to use while sitting at your keyboard. Nor is Front Row aimed at offering a “Media Center” like experience (though it might eventually evolve into something like that if some of the commentary & speculation out there proves true).

Let’s get to the “ises” (can I make that a word?). Front Row is an alternative interface for your computer. It has been designed from the ground up to be usable with a remote from across the room. As I stated above it’s not really meant to be used while sitting at the keyboard, in fact, Apple doesn’t provide users with a way to launch it without using the remote (though of course you can get around this limitation). Apple’s played the keep-it-simple attitude here (which should be a surprise to no one) and only put six buttons on the remote. These serve as up/down & forward/back in the Front Row menu system and volume, fast forward/rewind, play/pause, & back while playing songs or videos. For the most part it works very intuitively though I wish the left & right buttons served as forward and back in the menu system instead of being useless when browsing.

Because Front Row is designed to be controlled with a remote, Apple has designed the interface with very large fonts, icons, and interface elements icons throughout the program in order to maximize usability from a distance. This works very well, but again underscores “don’t use it from the keyboard” (unless you have a wireless keyboard across the room I suppose). The other thing worth noting is that not only are the interface elements large, they are all scaleable (and vector based wherever possible) so the user experience is largely resolution independent. This is exciting because it means that Front Row should look and work great when connected to a TV (which usually have significantly lower resolutions than computer screens) while retaining it’s beauty and usability on a 30” Cinema Display. Resolution independence with vector graphics is destined to be a key feature of next generation user interfaces, so it’s nice to see Apple really embracing it here (though Tiger already supports it to some extent).

I could wax lackadaisically about where I see Front Row evolving (think Apple Media Center) but I’ll save that for another post. For the time being there are a few more concrete improvements that I’d like to see. Mainly they revolve around Front Row is still being kind of slow. My PowerMac is significantly faster than an iMac in every respect but I’ve seen videos of people running it just fine on a Mac mini or worse, so I don’t think this is entirely processor dependent. There is a lot of room for software optimization here to make it seem much snappier. I’m thinking specifically about more OpenGL optimization and tighter integration with QuickTime, iTunes, iPhoto, and DVD Player. Maybe when they release iLife ‘06 Apple can finally allow everyone to use Front Row without hacks. In any case, interesting times lie ahead!

Update: There still seems to be some problems with this install in that it makes it impossible to eject DVD’s after playing them in the updated DVD player (you have to restart to get the disc out). As such, consider this a little warning, if you don’t know what you’re doing then don’t do it.