Streakmachine

Macworld: If it ain't broke, don't fix it - Ancient computers still in use

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:11:59 +0100

Macworld: If it ain't broke, don't fix it - Ancient computers still in use:

An utterly fascinating view into the lives of some old computers, still going strong today. I highly recommend a read!

The amazing time we live in

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:15:54 +0100

I wrote an article for the great Bagel Tech Network. Please check it out and if you like it, consider supporting the network with a donation. It’s high quality stuff and good people behind it, well worth any and all support you can lend!

Thinking about LTE

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:37:47 +0100

A lot of people love to have the latest technology, which includes companies as they can use them on comparison sheets between their products and the competitors products. Anything you can offer than the competition cannot must be a huge boon, right? Well, how about it it doesn’t really benefit you or add to the whole user experience?

One of the new buzzwords in the mobile tech part of the industry is LTE, Long Term Evolution, which is set to succeed the 3G networks that have been around for a while. While you might think this is something new, it has been in the works since 2004 and has been deployed in the wild since late 2009. Looking at the basic specifications of LTE it could become the first truly universal mobile communications system, although there are still a number of variations. One thing that might vary between carrier and country is the frequency it’ll run on, pretty much like it already is today. The solution to this could be solved in a similar manner as we have done for some time, with chips that operate on a multitude of frequencies.

While all this is fine and dandy, it’s the real world benefits that are the interesting thing, and LTE doesn’t disappoint in bandwidth. I have seen real world examples of 50MBit downlink speeds, which I must say if quite impressive and very snappy. These speeds are starting to challenge WiFi in terms of how much data your device can suck down per second. So it’s a really fast connection technology, but everything isn’t just roses and pizza. The by far biggest problem with LTE at the moment is the nearly insane drain on battery life. But don’t take my word for it, just go check out any review of a smartphone equipped with LTE and you will see pretty much the same phenomenon: LTE is blazingly fast and eats up your battery faster than horde of starving people can out-eat a pastry shop!

If you are wondering why Apple and a few others have yet to include LTE in any of their handsets, I have a feeling that the hefty power consumption is the leading reason. While the advantages are indeed obvious and good, the downsides by far outweigh those advantages. Add to the mix the two factors of network availability and cost of usage and it’s probably an even more unappealing offering right now. I emphasize, right now! As LTE becomes more widespread those two factors will become more and more irrelevant.

But in a smartphone I just don’t see LTE making all that much sense right now. There are some use cases, yes, but for the most part it’s a technology that’s not “there” yet. The networks are very limited in where you can find them, specially when you look at a global scale. If you live in any of the areas where there is an LTE network available I’m sure you would love to have use of in your every computing device. But would you really get a huge benefit from these fairly insane speeds? Streaming content might be a bit faster and your buffering of videos is bound to finish quicker, but otherwise? A webpage won’t load all that much faster, unless you have an enormous problem waiting for a second or two.

If you intend on using your smartphone as a gateway to the Internet for another computer, that’s a bit of a different story. Then you might actually benefit from the current higher data transfer speeds. But as smartphones stand with the fastest speeds good old 3G has to offer, it’s quite enough for most users needs. Downloading gigabytes of data while out and about doesn’t strike me as something truly necessary, which is where LTE really excels in comparison to the older wireless data transfer technologies.

Don’t think of me as some sort of middle-ground luddite, because I do think that having insanely fast data communication is the way forward and the way things will undoubtedly be in the near future. For some scenarios I do see a clear purpose and use for LTE and the higher data speeds it offers. I just don’t see it for smartphones yet. The current LTE chips just drain the battery too fast for it to be truly usable in a pocket computer, which one could easily argue that the modern smartphone is.

LTE is very much the way of the future, but using it as a mallet to swing at products that don’t have it is just a marketing ploy. The only major difference most users will notice with LTE is that they need a power outlet nearby at all times, or stock up on a lot of extra battery packs if the device allows them to be interchanged by the end user. The data speed does, in my mind, not outweigh that huge downside. As long as the snappiest 3G network is around, it’s pretty fast and you will have some power left in your battery after a few short hours.

I've been DuckDuckGo-ing!

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:39:00 +0100

A while back I decided to use DuckDuckGo as my main search engine, not so much out of concerns of Google turning into SkyNET any day, but rather out of curiosity about the alternative search engine. I will admit that the design of DuckDuckGo also appealed to me, harkening back to days of yore when Google offered a much more uncluttered and streamlined web search experience. Something I do miss.

If you are using any other language than English, at least in my humble experience, you are in for a bit of a bumpy ride on DuckDuckGo. While it sometimes give you a decent suggestion, it more often just directs you to something completely unrelated, often on Wikipedia. The further away from English you move, it seems like DuckDuckGo has more problems getting things right, which is something Google primarily has a lot less of an issue with. Due to this limitations I find myself returning to Google’s search whenever I need to look something up in Swedish, which I wish I could have done just as easily in DuckDuckGo instead.

Leaving the wish for better functionality when searching in non-English languages, there are some very nice and compelling reasons to use DuckDuckGo as ones main search engine. The best part is by far the much more accurate search results, compared to Google and Bing at least. While Google tends to do ok for the most part, I find that DuckDuckGo does even better and just points me towards more relevant things. The index is not as large as the massive database Google has built up over the years, but I would say that DuckDuckGo does a darn good job anyway.

Being a pure search engine, there are a lot of features “missing” in comparison to the more seasoned search engines. There is no image search, which is a bit of a hassle at times, but there is one very cool features that more than makes up for it. DuckDuckGo supports a ton of “bang commands”! In case you don’t know what a bang command is, it’s more or less an exclamation mark followed by a word or symbol indicating a specific action you want the system to take. If I would like to search for videos on YouTube, I would just search for “!youtube -search term-” and have DuckDuckGo display all the relevant results. Nifty! I tried reading through their whole list of supported bang commands, but it was just too long. If you have something specific you want to search for, bang commands are your friends!

It might not always be the best for every possible search, but it does offer something that is different and works really well. As long as you learn some of the tricks, DuckDuckGo lets you search at blazing speeds, without troubling with you with a lot of tracking and hooking you into their system for monetization purposes. I highly recommend checking out the DuckDuckGo privacy policy, as it’s worth a read.

All in all I think switching my default search engine over to DuckDuckGo has been a good experiment. I tend to find what I’m after a bit more often than I did with Google, unless I need to search for something non-English. I will continue using DuckDuckGo and see where it takes me from here on, and I have a feeling it’ll be a pretty nice acquaintance in the future too.

Besides. There’s always Bing if things go really screwy. Right?

The Verge: Nintendo 3DS is the fastest system to sell 5 million in Japan

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:00:05 +0100

The Verge: Nintendo 3DS is the fastest system to sell 5 million in Japan:

Not too bad for a system that a lot of people wrote of as a failure after two months. Personally I think the 3DS will be an interesting system to keep your eyes on in the near future. Hopefully it’ll have as long a life as the DS.

Thinking about freedom and computers

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:38:26 +0100

There is a fine line to walk between protecting people from bad things and letting people have total and complete freedom. Of course there are also many different ways to define the very concept of freedom when it comes to the world of computing in particular. Given absolute freedom in any computer system, a lot of people would undoubtedly end up damaging the system itself, simply because they don’t have a certain degree of knowledge in the field.

I would like to point out that I do indeed believe in many kinds of freedom and that people should have it, but our realty is not one of absolutes. A binary world it is not. There are so many levels of what is “reasonable freedom” while letting people do useful things instead of having to constantly butt heads with the device they are trying to do it on.

Freedom as defined by some would be that you have such absolute control over every single aspect of the device that you can literally do anything to the device. This includes load any software you want onto it and run it, modify any aspect of it that you see fit to change and also preferably that whoever made the device lets you access the source code for the software and that the specifications and blueprints for the hardware is readily available. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this notion, just in the way that a lot of people assume that everyone wants to actually do these things or even care about them.

If we are to face a fact of life, a whole lot of the population of the world doesn’t care in the least about the low-level intricacies of any given computational device, nor would they know what to do with source code for any given application if they were presented with it. They are people who just want to use the tool in question to accomplish something in their lives. Be it surf the web, send e-mail, edit a video they shoot earlier that day or whatever other activity an average person might want to do with a computer. Wouldn’t we be limiting their freedom by forcing our views of how everything needs to be open upon them? Since they have to learn how every part of the system is interconnected and programming in some form before they are able to take advantage of these available freedoms, they are no more free than a person using any given non-free or non-open software or system. Limited in different ways, sure, but limited none the less.

Effectively forcing someone to learn a bunch of things, put down a lot of time into it before they can make use of this built-in freedom, isn’t particularly free at all. More of an elitist way of making people adhere to how you view the world instead of catering to their needs in a easy to use system. One does not exclude the other. There is no need for only one to exist and not a combination of the two. Why couldn’t there be truly free and easy to use software, a best of both in the same package?

I love how some initiatives and organizations are working to give users the best possible experience while enabling the best middle ground of both worlds. Freedom to do anything, while letting those who do not have the necessary knowledge take advantage of the power that exists in the device. Android in its “pure” form is a fairly good example of this, although it is often lacking in the department for ease of use, more often than not it gets things fairly right. Ubuntu is another project that has at least to some degree married the concept of easy to use for most people with the freedom of doing whatever you want with the system. The thing is, they are continuously improving and advancing with each iteration. But a lot of people would probably not label these two projects as truly free, because they “enforce” a certain way of doing things and the projects are controlled from a central organization. Funny how freedom can be so many things, to so many different people, isn’t it?

Assuming that everybody wants the same thing or that everybody has an interest in learning the deep details of computing is a false assumption as big as it can be. Most people just want to use and are quite pleased with that. A lot of people must grind their teeth at all the companies who are successful in the common marketplace without being a strong advocate for their particular brand of “freedom”. Freedom can also mean that a product enables the user to just frikkin’ do things without having to get a degree in computer science.

I’m not saying we should take away all the “sharp objects”, but forcing them upon people who don’t want or need them doesn’t strike me as a particularly good way to encourage freedom. Build the basics for the user who only wants to use things and let those who label themselves as power-users, techies, nerds, or professionals access the deeper level stuff. It’s not really too hard a concept to grasp, although it does seem like it’s beyond a great many people, sadly.

I would just like everybody to stop using freedom as their personal bat with which to swing at anyone who likes to do things in a different way.

Regarding the iOS-ification of OS X

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:51:40 +0100

Some have argued that in Lion we saw the beginnings of an “iOS-ification” of OS X, which Apple now appears to be continuing with in Mountain Lion. I have seen a lot of arguing back and forth whether this is or isn’t the case and many good points have been made from both camps. Since I’m an Internet trouble-maker, I thought I would give my humble opinion on the topic.

Yes, there are a lot of features that are coming to OS X from iOS, but I wouldn’t quite go so far as to say that OS X itself is turning into iOS. I think the term “iOS-ification” implies that OS X is turning into iOS, rather than staying the way it is. What started in Lion, I think, was Apple starting to streamline the general user experience for all people, although mostly for those who get a Mac after they get an iOS device. The differences between how they do a great deal of their tasks are pretty big and I think it is more fair to say that Apple is applying features to OS X where they make sense, and those features appeared on iOS first. The look the same and work in a similar way as they do on iOS in order to enable as smooth and non-confusing user experience as possible.

Changes as big as the ones Apple are implementing right now are undoubtedly quite scary for a lot of people, simply because it is different from what they are used to. I don’t think this means Apple is “dumbing down” OS X or turning it into iOS, but more along the lines of making the first threshold smaller for most people. Sure, experienced users and professionals will most likely find themselves a little put to the side since Apple doesn’t cater to their needs specifically. But as stated in Star Trek; The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

In the grand scheme of things I imagine that nothing will really change and we will continue having the two separate systems chugging along next to each other. One designed for the conventional personal computers like desktops and laptops and the other for the tablet computers and smartphones. This is not a mutually exclusive concept and the two can very much co-exist fine right next to each other without merging or leaving only one standing, thunderdome-style.

Give yourself some time to adjust to the changes, or just turn off the new and unwanted features completely. You will still be able to work with files and do all that kind of stuff as you please for some time to come. Just because Apple has added a lot of features doesn’t mean the old ones go away completely or that OS X will be revamped over night and you no longer have access to all the things that make OS X great.

Besides, there are other operating systems out there and nobody is forcing you to use OS X, except perhaps if you are forcing yourself, but that’s a different story.

A computer for the average person

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:04:50 +0100

I’m sure there isn’t a shortage of views and perspectives on what is or isn’t “the best” for the average consumer, regardless of what the topic might be. For a long time I have been thinking about what would be the possibly best computer available on the market today and depending on when you have asked me the answer would have been different. Right now, I consider the Apple iPad to be the best choice for most people. With that said, it’s of course not the best computer in every situation and for every imaginable scenario. Your mileage may vary, as always.

Hardware

The basic design of the iPad is a very robust mono-block with very few mechanical parts that will wear and ultimately break. Excellent since that means there are fewer sources for failure and annoyance, often associated with trips to the repair center. There is also no fan that generates a nasty background noise whenever you use the iPad, which is also a very large plus for the device.

Battery life beats most of the available laptops on the market and quite a few of the alternative tablet computers as well. Nearly regardless of what you choose to do with an iPad, you will get close to 10 hours of battery life before having to hunt for power outlets and juice it up again. Lasting through a full 8 hour working day is no problem!

One problem that a lot of people might bring up is the lack of a physical keyboard, which would come in handy if you are frequently entering a lot of text into a computer. While the iPad lacks this, you are more than free to hook up any standard bluetooth keyboard to it and merrily type away as you please. Given the option you can either slim down and bang away at the screen, for when you want to be really portable, or you can bring a small keyboard along for the ride and let your fingers play on physical keys instead.

And of course it’s a nice and bright, high quality display that makes photos, videos and pretty much anything look really darn good. Quite appropriate for video conferencing, which many people do in their professional life, or perhaps just to talk to friends and relatives at a distance. Speaking of which, the iPad also happens to come with two cameras, so you have some pretty nice options for both video capture as well as video calling, although I would recommend a better video camera if you intend to take video with a bit more quality.

Software

It was more difficult to recommend the iPad as a sole computer to most people before iOS 5 was released. When the final hurdles were finally overcome and the wire was cut, the iPad became a “free” computer in its own right and untethered from any other computer in order to do its job. On a system level, I consider the iPad quite apt at the job of being the only computer for a good number of people. All system updates are performed on the device itself without any need for connecting to another computer for that simple job alone.

With all the thousands of apps available in the App Store nowadays, there is no shortage of available software. Pricing for a good deal of it is well under what one could expect given the quality and usefulness of the apps. Finding the app that’s right for you might be more of a problem and I really do think Apple should improve the discoverability of the App Store. Right now it’s pretty much a nightmare to find the app that will do the job best for the individual in question.

There is definitely no shortage of apps for creating music, video or text. Hooking the iPad up to most kinds of display equipment for presentations or showing video is not a problem either, as there are plenty of apps for that too. Participating in podcasts in not a problem and neither is editing them, but there might be problems in recording several people at once, unless they are all in the same room.

While I realize that I’m not an average person in this regard, today I see no lack of software that would truly hinder me from switching to an iPad as my primary computer. Unless you depend on very custom software in Java, desperately need Flash to live your computing life or have to run a specific app in Mac OS X or Windows, I’d say that you can find whatever you need to do what you want and need in the App Store.

If your main computing tasks involve surfing the web, checking out videos on YouTube and using Facebook, then I think the iPad is as close to perfect as you are right now able to find on the market.

Conclusion

The hardware is slimmed down and contains very few things that are likely to break particularly fast over time and with normal usage. In terms of software there are few obstacles for most people and you can find the kind of app you desire with some looking around on the App Store and checking out reviews online. Unless you are really depending on one particular app or class of apps that just don’t exist or perform well on an iPad, you are good to go.

For the same price as an iPad you could instead pick up a conventional laptop for your computing purposes and by doing so you could gain some nice features such as access to other applications and having a physical keyboard built into the device itself, as well as more storage space. The downsides are that it will undoubtedly not be anywhere near as portable or present you with the same snappy and fluid experience that the iPad offers. And let’s not forget about the battery life and the noise factor.

While not everyone might be able to live their computing life from an iPad, I do think that most people can and they would save themselves a lot of headache by going down that path. If there was a better option for most people on the market, I would be happy to recommend that instead, but as things stand right now I don’t think there is any product that beats the iPad on many points enough for it to be classified as better. Maybe this will change in the near future, maybe not.

Google+, what the heck are you doing?

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:35:42 +0100

Google+, what the heck are you doing?

A day with Mountain Lion

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:38:58 +0100

Apple announced (Mac) OS X Mountain Lion. Twitter exploded and the web went mad.

John Gruber and a bunch of other tech journalists got a personal preview last week.

Jim Dalrymple has been tinkering with Mountain Lion since last week. The Beard refused to comment.

Jason Snell wrote a very nice article about the new OS.

A lot of people whined about Apple releasing a new version of the OS. A lot of people whined about that Apple releases anything. A lot of people whined about Apple. I did the dishes.

The details of OS X Mountain Lion are being dissected and everything is being over-analyzed, just like always. A lot of people hate the new name, hate the design, hate the linen, hate Notification Center and hate everything else too. Oh, and some people hate Apple for being Apple and accuse those who care for being in a cult and worshipping at the altar of Steve Jobs.

Some people think Apple is trying to steal Microsoft’s thunder by doing this. (no link since that would mean I would have to read some of it, and I fear for my mental health)

Linus Torvalds most likely doesn’t care and he will probably focus on making Linux even better instead of reading about what Apple does or doesn’t do. RMS has not issued any comments and I don’t care if he does, for that matter.

The universe hasn’t exploded, Gnab Gib hasn’t occurred and Ragnarök is still in the planning stages.

iPad rumor frenzy - Mid February 2012 Edition

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:47:00 +0100

This week has seen an explosion of iPad 3 rumors, which we can pretty much thank one single article in the Wall Street Journal for. An article that covers the whole spectrum of iPad-related rumors, might I add.

I really do wish some people wouldn’t start taking what has been reported in the WSJ as absolute truth, simply due to that Walter Mossberg happens to write for that same publication. If you bother to read who is behind this particular article, you will find no mention of Mossberg anywhere and most of the quoted people are either analysts or “people familiar with the matter”. If you want to jump the gun and make the bizarre conclusion that this is not firm and substantial evidence that Apple is intending on releasing a smaller iPad, go ahead. I won’t stop you! Just don’t be shocked if it turns out they “only” release a new iPad at the same, boring 9,7 inches as the previous models.

But before I get too deep in lamenting the fundamental lack of common sense and afterthought on the Internet, let’s dive into the article itself and see what we can find, shall we?

Officials at some of Apple’s suppliers, who declined to be named, said the Cupertino, Calif., company has shown them screen designs for a new device with a screen size of around eight inches and said the company is qualifying suppliers for it.

Unnamed people at unnamed supplier of parts said Apple was looking at other size display panels. Firm stuff, clearly!

Apple is working with screen makers including Taiwan-based AU Optronics Co. and LG Display Co. of South Korea to supply the test panels, the person said.

Please note the wording in “test panels”, it’s kind of important.

An Apple spokeswoman in California declined to comment.

Color me surprised…

Analysts said a tablet with a smaller screen would help Apple expand its market share in the increasingly competitive market.

And as we all know, when analysts say anything about Apple and what Apple does, they are always right.

Diana Wu, an analyst at Capital Securities in Taipei, says that consumer demand for Samsung’s 5.3-inch Galaxy Note and Amazon’s 7-inch Kindle mean “consumers want a tablet that is smaller than the existing 9.7-inch iPad.”

Wanting a smartphone that’s too big and wanting a tablet that’s made by Amazon means you want a smaller iPad? Got it!

Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire has a seven-inch screen size and is priced at $199, well below the iPad’s entry-level price of $499.

Thanks, I can do basic maths too.

After this point the article runs into how Apple, and pretty much every other electronics company, manufactures its wares, by letting other companies build these wares for them. Of course they “cleverly” intertwine the current tempest in a teacup which revolves around the working conditions in these factories and that Apple has been singled out for blame. Because as we all know, Apple is the source of all bad things in the wold and deserve to be punished for everything…

Summary

So basically this whole article starts off saying that Apple has been looking at making iPads with different size displays, which pretty much anyone with a functioning brain could have guessed. It then goes on to summarize the current status of the tablet market and shoves some fairly ill-conceived thoughts from analysts into the fray, while ultimately stating that Apple needs to make iPads in more sizes to stay relevant in the market. To top everything off, we are treated to a brief summary of the situation regarding the protesting and noise-making in the public sphere, aimed at Apple the factories in which their products are made.

In essence it’s three articles for the price of one, and the topic promised in the somewhat link-baiting headline is only one third of the whole. As I mentioned earlier, I have no doubts that Apple have a vast array of iPad prototypes in their secret lab at 1 Infinite Loop. They have probably built iPads in every imaginable size and screen dimension, both round and square, possibly even triangular. Nowhere in this article does it say that Apple will bring a smaller size iPad to market. A small, but rather important point in all this, I would like to state.

Can we please just stop assuming that there will be a smaller screen iPad whenever the next event takes place? Play with the idea that there will be a new iPad and that it will be better than the iPad 2. Anything beyond that fairly narrow scope is just setting yourself up for a world of disappointment since Apple will most likely not live up to your unrealistic expectations of what they will show off. Setting expectations appropriately is key!

The state of online tech journalism

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:00:06 +0100

It’s pretty crap, really.

Testing the concept of SEO

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:06:38 +0100

Apple, surface, substance, shallow people, not real computers, iPhone, iPad, iPod, walled garden, evil, freedom, Steve Jobs, reality distortion field, Tim Cook, homosexuality, tasteless, hipster, mainstream.

Micorosoft, enterprise, Windows, server, servers, security, thin client, security hole, hole in your head, Windows Phone, Series 7, tablet, computer, PC, not MAC, not mac, not Mac, asshole, cheap, virus, trojan, malware.

Stallman, RMS, awesome, toejam, GNU, Hurd, best, Linus, Linux, Ubuntu, freedom, not locked, you choose, command line, everybody knows, the best, compile your, own freedom, Android, Google, neckbeard, suspenders, smug, hippie, smelly, 1970s, garage, mainframe.

Linkbait, 10 reasons, journalism, tech, technology, serious, seriously, pundit, analysis, in depth, coverage, recent developments, event, bullshit.

Now on Steam: Dear Esther

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:32:51 +0100

Now on Steam: Dear Esther:

While the title might throw you off initially, I would advise you to check out the video of the game. As one might guess, this is not your average run-of-the-mill first person shooter, but rather a first person adventure.

The indie game scene is really bubbling with interesting and clever games right now!

Three GTA Titles Now Available on Mac!

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:03:39 +0100

Three GTA Titles Now Available on Mac!:

At long last, we now have all the Grand Theft Auto 3 games (GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas) available for the Mac on Valve’s Steam service. Good prices too, it would seem. The games might be a bit old, but they are definitely good and well worth both money and time, in my book!

Apple is preparing a 24 inch iPad

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:34:17 +0100

Fresh off the press and according to my sources, Apple is indeed preparing to launch a new iPad measuring a whopping 24 inches. A huge step up from the pervious models of iPad which have been 9,7 inch and nothing else.

The proof of this story can be seen in this article from BBC, where you can clearly see some disgruntled workers in the Foxconn factory protesting for their rights, and displaying prototype iPads in the wild.

No matter what other functions might make it into the final version of the iPad 3, we can now rest assured that both battery life and retina-class display are very sure and definitely going to happen. While the portability of this new iPad might be a bit questionable, I’m sure Apple have figured out some very clever way of dealing with that problem. Perhaps some updated and improved variant of the SmartCover.

Regardless of when the next iPad event will take place and what will be unveiled, I’m sure we can all agree that Apple has yet another winner on their hands. Remember where you heard it first, folks!

[Via: Jeff Carlson]

Revert to Saved:The freemium model and how it threatens iOS gaming

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:00:48 +0100

Revert to Saved:The freemium model and how it threatens iOS gaming:

I have some fear and some annoyances about how gaming in particular is changing on the App Store and this article pretty much touches on all of them. I recommend a read!

[Via: Federico Viticci]

Dad shoots daughter’s laptop after reading her Facebook rant

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:22:14 +0100

Dad shoots daughter’s laptop after reading her Facebook rant:

I think it’s rare these days to see parents really and firmly putting their foot down and telling their kids when they cross the line. This short video puts some hope back in my view of humanity. Mr. Tommy Jordan, I salute you and what you did!

Fortune Tech: Apple is now worth more than the GDP of Sweden

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:28:43 +0100

Fortune Tech: Apple is now worth more than the GDP of Sweden:

I really got a kick out of this, being a Swede and all. Is Apple an economic juggernaut much? I think so!

Mac OS X and ARM

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:12:29 +0100

Back in 2010, a student by the name of Tristan Schaap wrote a thesis about porting Mac OS X 10.6 to run on the ARM architecture as a result of his internship at Apple for six months. The full details about this was brought to light a few days ago and I picked up on it from Apple Insider in their article about it. While the article it itself doesn’t say too much about the topic per say, it made me think about the whole OS X on ARM stuff again.

Some people believe that soon every Mac will have an ARM chip powering all the apps running on our Macs, be it a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro or iMac. They have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and very skilled personnel in the last couple of years and they make and design their own chips to some extent already. In some regards and aspects, the time could be approaching when Apple flips the big switch and moves everything over from Intel, just as it did with the big move from PPC to Intel a few years back.

The research and work Schaap did was in making Snow Leopard run on a Marvell ARM chip, which he succeeded in doing after some extensive work. Since this took place about two years ago, I have no doubt in my mind that Apple has a version of Mac OS X 10.7 humming away nicely on ARM and most likely have had it doing so for some time. Remember that the technical foundation of Mac OS X is a highly portable codebase that has been running on both x86 and PPC, probably a few more that I just don’t know about. If Apple is true to their form I believe they still work with the “just in case” mentality and have actively been porting Mac OS X to any architecture that could, at some point or another, in the future give the company a competitive advantage.

The real question in all this is if Apple deems the ARM architecture ready for prime-time in terms of mass deployment. While the current ARM chips do indeed slurp power at a very reasonable rate and perform nicely, they might not quite be on par with what Apple already offers in any Mac currently sold. As long as the trade isn’t a great step in the right direction in terms of power consumption and processing power, there won’t be a big switch. Not yet. Remember the reasons for moving away from PPC in 2005? Not just for the performance, but for the performance per Watt, essentially how much power you get out of the chip per Watt of power it consumes.

I see it as very realistic and quite possible for Apple to shift every Mac over to ARM in order to continue making them the best machines they can possibly be. Big moves like this has happened before and Apple is not one to shy away from difficult things. Products could be thinner and lighter, while still having good or even great battery life and not even need a fan to cool the internals down. Such a computer would definitely be one Apple would like to build.

Currently I see no other platform that could benefit Apple in the same way that the ARM architecture does, so perhaps the question is not so much about “if” Apple will build Macs with ARM, but rather “when” Apple will build Macs with ARM. Just don’t expect any such devices any time soon. Apple does what it pleases, when they deem the time right for it and that they can make some products that are really outstanding, not before.