[opendtv] Re: News: Macintosh and iPod Drive Apple
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 08:24:59 -0400
At 4:58 PM -0700 5/5/07, Kon Wilms wrote:
Many interesting observations about the first Apple TV box...
I am sorry to say that MCE which comes free and bundled with Vista
completely blows the AppleTV Frontrow/Backrow away. Both in
capabilities, and from an ease of development point of view. Vista
MCML is going to result in a mass of plugins. All Microsoft needs to
do is get a good price point AppleTV alternative. They already have
SDKs, forums, developer utilities, example plugins with full source
code, and even free Express Edition tools. What more can someone ask
for?
This may be true from a developer perspective, but it is consumers
that make products successful.
I have seen nothing on a PC that compares to the Front Row user
interface and the way it exploits music, photos and video on
networked machines in the home (both MAcs and PCs).
To be honest, I did not buy a first generation iPOD, nor will I buy a
first generation Apple TV. I do, however expect Apple TV to evole
into a product that I WILL connect to my big screen TV.
And since Front/Backrow have already been made to run on a regular
Mac, users who want performance are purchasing Mac Minis and running
the AppleTV 'OS' on that. So I see no-one having the interest to build
a grassroots community since no-one will optimize code for the
AppleTV.
A Mac mini is a good alternative for today. We will see how things evolve.
And speaking of Macs versus PCs in general...
I have just lived through a rough month without a laptop. I'd like to
believe that Apple Technologies/features made this month a lot
easier, but I'll let the audience vote on this.
My 7 year old Powerbook dies a week before NAB. I was able to back up
everything before I killed it (I was going to replace the power
supply board). I moved my files to my wife's iMAC, which already had
accounts set up for her, myself and my daughter. So when I logged
into my account everything that was on my old Powerbook was there -
although I did need to add a few applications to the root system
which were never installed on the iMAC.
When I left for NAB I updated all of the files that had changed onto
the original Powerbook hard drive, which is now mounted in a tiny
Firewire enclosure. At NAB I just booted a friends Powerbook using my
drive and kept working. When I got back I re synchronized the files I
changed on the iMac.
My new Mac Book Pro arrived Wednesday. I turned it on and it went
into a new system configuration mode. After selecting the language
for the OS the next screen asked if I had an existing Mac that i want
to copy my files from. So I updated the hard drive with the latest
files then plugged it in. I should note that all Macs can be placed
in "Target mode" which allows them to be connected to another machine
via Firewire - when this is done they look like another hard drive.
Any hard drive with a full OS install on it looks just like a
computer running in target mode. So I just plugged the hard drive in
and it was recognized and started updating the new MacBook. 26
Gigabytes of file transfers later, it continued the "install
process." Actually it just booted up.
Everything was working. all of the network and e-mail settings, all
of my preferences. even my customized desktop image. The only time
consuming issue was the 45 minutes it took to copy all of my files.
It is this type of user experience that keeps me using Macs.
Contrast this with one of my clients, who just installed Vista on a
recently purchased name brand PC. After several weeks of pain and
agony, he is going to re-install XP.
Regards
Craig
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