My Thoughts! - by Prakash G.R.

OK. Leopard Beta is out. Steve came up to the stage and showed the 10 great features out of 300.

• Finder. Steve heard the FTFF cries. Now the Finder is WOW! Windows Explorer is a history now
• Core Animation. The true power of Mac. As per the demo, it was unbelievable. Movies playing in the screen and doing a search on the tags of those movies - all live!!! We need apps to take this power and deliver it to the user.
• Spaces, Dashboard, Time Machine - nothing much new to mention. Just as we seen earlier.
• Safari. The performance figures are quite impressive. And they are releasing a Windows version to kill IE! No, I’m not going to switch to Safari even on my MacBook. Not until all the Firefox extensions that I use, work in Safari.
• iPhone ships with full fledged Safari. So create web apps. No iPhone SDK. Steve, are you kidding?

Verdict: I’m not going to upgrade to Leopard. Let me wait till the next version with more compelling features. Ah, for that matter, not going to purchase an iPhone on Jun 29th.

written by Prakash G.R.

It could be addictive. Its interesting to see the pictures taken with effects applied. Here are some pics.

written by Prakash G.R.

After a long thought, finally I’ve purchased a 2 GHz White MacBook. It did make a dent in my wallet, but I was sure that I won’t face any problem. I unpacked it in my office and started working with this. Installed Yahoo Messenger; added my Google Account to iChat, downloaded Eclipse, configured the office printer & wifi at home without any trouble…

When I thought working with Mac didn’t have much troubles as I initially thought. Until I tried to use Google’s Page Creator. The error message said:

Oops!
Sorry, your web browser is not yet supported.

Our programming wizards tried their darndest to get Google Page Creator to work with as many browsers as possible. But alas, even the most expert practitioners of web sorcery must sleep now and again, lest their JavaScript magic run dry.

So, for now, you’ll need either to download a new version of Firefox or download a new version of Internet Explorer (Windows only), and then come right back.

Hey, you guys at PageCreator team, if you didn’t know it, there is a nice toolkit for Ajax called GWT which gives you compatibility with most of the browsers. How about trying it? Its nice and it comes from a company called hmmmmm Google.

written by Prakash G.R.

Apple’s iPhone user interface is said to be copied from LG’s KE850. Both are full screen phones with similar buttons. I thought there should be something from Nokia as well. I was looking into Nokia’s site and found a similar model - N800. At $400, this is cheaper than the iPhone and its available in the market now.

BTW when I loaded the site, this is what I’ve got:

Watch out for the numbers dudes. Not-A-Number is definitly not a number to be displayed in the progress bar!!!

written by Prakash G.R.

When people were typing in commands and looking at the “Bad command or file name”, Apple introduced the GUI and the mouse to the computers.

When people were trying to click on the small buttons to scroll the list of artists to select the songs, Apple introduced the click wheel to MP3 players.

When people were trying to use the buttons and call people, Apple introduced a full-screen touch screen to phones.

Now that Apple Computers Inc, is officially renamed to Apple Inc, you can expect much more life style products from Apple. They are going to revolutionize the way we’ve been living so far.Whats next?

iHome:  You switch off the oven/water heater/lights from an small device?

iCar: Turn you head left you car will turn left. It will automatically adjust the speed and gear according to the angle. No wheels!

iPower: You have a wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, etc. How about powering a device wirelessly? Yes, the next Apple laptop will have no wires to the power adapter.

OK. I can come up with so many things, infact anyone can. But I’ve got a very special idea for Apple. An idea that is worth trillions of dollars: How about a iWife. All it needs to do is understand and execute one single command: “Shut up”. I believe that there is a huge market for this product. What say?

PS: iWife is technology patented by Pranni and a royalty of $50 should be given to him when ever you say/write/type the word.

written by Prakash G.R.

Been following thru all the live coverage of the MacWorld. Oh boy! I wish I were there.

Only Steve can run this show. Getting a “wow” from teh audience every now and then; brining up CEO of Google and Co-Founder of Yahoo in a single stage; signing up a contract with Cingular without even showing a prototype; and more importantly, reinventing something. Steve. Only Steve.

I’m longing to see the video of this keynote. Although there were no ‘one more things’, this would be THE best keynote of Steve.

There is nothing much to be talked about iTV (called Apple TV), rather its all about iPhone. The websites are going to talk about it a lot for the next few months, so no much details here. It costs $499 will be available in India only in 2008. Will I buy it? I may! After all, I bought an iPod for almost the same price 3 years back. This iPhone is a phone + iPod + wifi + bluetooth + … (and holy cow, it runs a full fledged Mac OS X!!!)

written by Prakash G.R.

I didn’t update about what was the “fun-innovative-things” that Apple introduced in the special event I mentioned earlier. Although with the introduction of the iPod speakers, Apple is taking a dominant place in the living room, analysts say its a much hyped event. I too think so. Speakers specially made for iPod are not new - Bose and Altec Lansing had it for a long time. Apple is just following the trend. The mac mini’s with Intel Dual Core were much expected. So people who has got much expectations were disappointed. What lies ahead of Apple?

Something which we have to note is, that from Intel, AMD, to Microsoft is trying enter into the living room and connect all the available entertaintment devices like your music system, home theatre, DVD player and TV. Till recent past, Apple has not ventured that arena. With the introduction of Front Row software, it also jumped into it. The newly introduced intel based Mac minis now packed with Front Row and a remote control. Now think of the possibilites. During the next Mac World Expo, Steve Jobs clad in is usual dress says “Just one more thing” and introduces a wi-fi enabled iPod with Bonjour running in it. Then he says “Just one more thing” and shows the new Mac Mini loaded with a TV tuner card and the Front Row software can now pause live TV and can record your favourite TV shows at your absence. He says it has a huge 1 TB disk space, so you can record a lot of programs. The crowd roars. To make all the apple fans to dance in joy, he show a live demo. The Mac Mini exquipped with Airport extreme, connects to the wi-fi router and you browse the iTunes store and buy a video song - all with a wireless remote. Your Mac mini is already connected to your TV thru the S-Video port, so you immediately play it in your TV. Meanwhile, thru wi-fi, the song is automatically synced with the iPod across the room. You can pause and record TV shows. Your friends have come home and the photos you shot during your vacation is still in your laptop. No probs. Using Bonjour thru Wi-fi, your Mac mini automatically discovers your Laptop with zero configuration (even if its running on windows!) and you import photos in the shared folder with iPhoto and display it in the TV.

Its not in the far end. It all takes an wi-fi iPod and Mac mini with a Tuner card. If that happens, I’ll be getting a Mac mini (and if its less than $400) for my home The next Mac World expo is due in another 10 months. May be Steve has got more for me during that wonderful day!

written by Prakash G.R.

Apple is famous for the marketing hype they create for the product launch. Steve Jobs Macworld keynote was observed thru live blogs by millions this year (including me). But the ‘Just one more thing’ was not that great surprise, as the intel based Macs and laptops were on highly expected list. Surprisingly enough, Apple has sent invitations to media persons for a launch of some “fun” product. Whats that? Just like everyone else, I am curious and waiting for Feb 28.

written by Prakash G.R.

I remember, in my college days, we had a paper and a lab on Television! The staff was explaining the class about how the degauss in the picture tube and a button for that. Nazir, the witty guy of our class, was telling, “if you can’t avoid a bug, keep it button and name as a feature. looks like the marketing guys of the TV company are intelligent”. Forget the TV companies. Look at Apple. First they introduce a hard disk based player. Following it enormous success, they plan to introduce a memory stick based player. They created it under the same brand and named it as iPod Shuffle.

The interesting thing is while every other memory stick based players push in every available feature, they removed every feature in it. Except, play, pause, forward, rewind buttons, the only other button is Power On. Clever. They removed the display. Wonder how the use will select the song? Well, they can’t. The player will arbitarily load a song and play. Its keeps on playing the songs in Shuffle Mode. They removed the display and saved some $ and they save more $ by having no functionality for managing playlists, selecting the songs etc, and call the shuffle mode as a feature. The intelligent idea is that they stress that its the important feature in the product.

The another nice product from Apple is the brand new Mac Mini.

At $600, its very tempting me to buy. I’ve fallen in luv with Mac when the first time I worked in it. Let me see, whether I get it or still wait till some G* cube, which is affordable. Of the G* things, G4 was the cutest one. G5 is also ok & its the latest. May be I’ll get a G9 or G10. The Mac Mini is called BYODKM - Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard and Mouse. Mac enthusiastics already started a website called byodkm.net Just like the Apple guys, the apple devotees are also crazy. Don’t think so? Look at the iPod Shuffle Jewellery:

The funniest thing is not that just the fans are crazy. Even the people from the opposite gang also !!! Look at this pic:

written by Prakash G.R.