5 posts tagged “imac”

 I know that we've had the eight-core Mac Pros and the the MacBook Air and, in fairness, the aluminium iMac (a machine I think is stunning, but I really don't like the keyboard), but they aren't, well, new.

Bear with me, as I think this needs some explanation - yes, we have had a myriad new products, but we haven't had anything to change the world in the same way that the original Macintosh did. Or, I suppose, the Macintosh II in the way it overturned the entire print and design industry and made Desktop Publishing mainstream. The iPhone is lovely, especially now it has 3G and GPS, but it's really nothing more than a logical extension of the Newton, although the Newton had handwriting recognition and the iPhone doesn't. I love my Blue Dalmation iMac G3, but the all-in-one form factor and simple, easy-to-use-yet-powerful design ethos are merely an update of the original Macintosh and all successive iMacs are iterative, rather than revolutionary. The Mac Pro is based on the Power Macintosh, which evolved from the Quadra series which grew from the ashes of the Macintosh II, whilst the consumer/low-end systems went from Macintosh to....well, Macintosh Classic, Colour Classic, LC, Performa (essentially reboxing the same technology), to the iMac. All compact, all usefully quick without setting your hair on fire and all pretty well designed and screwed together.

 So where is the new paradigm shift? It's easy to watch the launch of the original Macintosh on youtube and think of it as hokey and rather sweet in a "aww, look at them going mad over something with less power than my phone" manner, but in 1984 the technology being unveiled was a world apart. In those days, even so-called "Personal" computers required expertise to use, as you loaded your games via a command line, or had to use a DOS Prompt to find your text documents and disparate interfaces and menus for your different packages. To put it in context, your PC keyboard used to have a clear plastic flap at the top under which you'd put your inlay (that shipped with each package you used) that told you what the 12 function keys did (at least three commands per key - the key, the key with Shift held and the key with ALT held). The Macintosh changed all that at a stroke. A child could use it, it worked logically and the interface was consistent across all packages. One of the least thought-about and most beneficial things that Microsoft hijacked when they pillaged Apple's IP during the creation of Windows was that idea of a consistent set of commands - CTRL+C for copy, CTRL+S for save, etc.

  It is very hard for those people who grew up after the fallout of the introduction of Macintosh to understand just how far-reaching its impact was - they expect things like copy/paste and drag and drop. They expect their standard key commands to be consistent and they really fail to grasp the fact that all of it, every single thing they now see as "computing" is, in some way, linked back to that little beige box that spoke like Stephen Hawking and played a bleepy version of "Chariots of Fire" when an excitable guy with floppy hair and glasses pulled it out of a bag. Yes, I am sure that people will come out of the woodwork to point out that Xerox Parc had developed the bones of the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) interface and that, no doubt, some guy had created a full windowing, multitasking interfaces for UNIX in the 1970s that I don't know about, but the original Macintosh created the desktop computer revolution as we know it.

  The Newton created the first usable PDA (before we even know we needed one) and the Mac Portable was, despite the execution, the first attempt to make a portable computer that was a full equivalent to a desktop machine (remember, at the time you could buy an Collosus PC which had a 10" CRT monochrome screen and an 8086 CPU and a couple of floppy drives and that was about the size of a suitcase, so the Mac Portable wasn't that bad).

So, the question remains, what's the next paradigm shift? Personally, I don't think it's the "cloud", with everything on the web and computers just accessing information and applications when needed - the restriction of bandwidth precludes any idea of it being faster than a decent machine on your desk working with local files. Besides, we already have web-based applications and data storage, so it's nothing new. Touch and gesture control is just a way of integrating the trackpad or mouse to the screen, so it doesn't really bring anything new and whilst we are already seeing some convergence with data push/pull from handheld/phone to web to desktop and back, you could sync your Newton to your Macintosh many moons ago. I think that where we'll see the next revolution will be in convenience. Think about it - at the moment you might have a MacPro or iMac, a MacBook of some kind for working away from your desk and an iPhone/PDA phone for keeping in touch when you are travelling. This means you have at least three devices, but imagine if you had something like and iMac with a Wacom Cintiq (the display/tablet) that acted as your keyboard/input and document "dock". If you wanted to save a web page you drag it off the main screen and onto an area of the "tablet", which might have a keyboard attached (given how thin the new mac keyboard is, it could slide out). When you then go out of the office, you unplug the tablet and take it with you and it's a fully functioning mobile Mac - low power CPU (like a MacBook Air), maybe even built-in 3G, with an iPhone-esque interface for your stored web pages, documents, etc, but which has fully-functioning desktop applications and, say, 20gb of flash drive - enough to store a few tunes, your presentations and your documents for the meeting, all in a tough A4 sized slab that fits in your bag neatly, unlike a laptop - hell it could even have solar cells to top up the battery. If it's got 3G, you could bluetooth a headest to it and make calls, then get back to the office and dock it back to the main part of your Mac where it automatically updates your files with any changes made to the copies on the tablet and recharges the tablet battery.

From a users perspective, your work becomes seamless, you're not having to use USB sticks, or email yourself files to transfer from desktop to laptop and you don't even need a phone. It's nothing new, really, as it's a logical extension of the old Powerbook Duo/Duo Dock system, but I think it's something that would appeal to home users (surf the net from the sofa or stream movies to the tablet whilst the main machine burns tunes to CD or suchlike) and business users, for the reasons described previously, alike.

I know that it's technically not a new paradigm in computing in the same way that the original Macintosh was, but I think that something that is so flexible and useful would become indispensible to consumers, students and professionals and the fact you wouldn't need to physically transfer files from one machine to another takes a lot of the pain out of using a computer for practical tasks and makes it much more acceptable to those resistant to technology. I think it would be the first step towards making the Macintosh as ubiquitous as the TV remote or the microwave - which is no bad thing, as such a product would form a sound base for stronger Pro-grade machines, or even tie-ins with car manufacturers to create in-car Mac/GPS entertainment systems, for example.

After a fairly heavy weekend, this seemed like a sensible suggestion, but I'm willing to hear your point of view!

 There are a lot of magazine articles (not to mention books and websites) that are dedicated to the theme of getting started as a digital design agency, either as a freelance going it alone, or as a group of designers forming their own business. Mostly, these are concerned with things like building your company website and ensuring your logo translates well from the screen to a printed business card or letterhead. Now, I'm not knocking such articles and, to be honest, some of them even inspired me when I was getting started in the wonderful world of work. However, most of the focus is given to the "design" part and, for the most part, little is given to the "agency" part. They talk boldly about sticking to your creative roots and espouse the idea that good creative will always win the pitch. Obviously, when you are selling to aspiring digital designers, such articles offer hope and encouragement to your readership. It has been in the back of my mind that, as someone who has run his own digital business, before moving into the folds of the big Ad Agencies and working client-side in the digital marketing world, that I might be able to offer a slightly different viewpoint and that, potentially, I could help those people who are looking to start out on their own (or even those who are starting out in the industry full-stop) by writing a book. A sort of learn-from-my-mistakes effort. I doubt I'll make millions, but if it helps some future icon of the industry get started on the right course, it'll have served its purpose.

 Fundamentally, there are a few lessons that can be quite hard to stomach but which are undeniably true. Of course, I'll expound on these in my magnum opus, but I'll give you the benefit of my insight here and you can let me know what you think.

Lesson 1: You don't need to be creative, you need to be organised

 We've all been to those great agency offices, where they have segways to get around, or organised Fussball tournaments and where you can create your own office cubicle out of over-sized Lego bricks, etc. The fact is, you'd love to work there, but if you run your own small business like that it'll be out of business within months. If you want an office where more effort is placed on fun than work, get a job working for one of those places, as they will inevitably be part of a huge multi-million pound company. If you want to work for yourself, or start a business, you'll be looking at VAT returns more often that you organise inter-office ping pong tournaments. The sad truth is that a lot of creative people think that they are being stifled by the company they work for, so they go off to set up their own company that works how they want it to. The problem with that is that your local Tax Office and your bank don't care if you had to work late on a deadline, or that you felt your profit-and-loss would look better as a Flash animation - all they care about is that the paperwork is correct and things are paid on time.

 Also, the next time you visit one of these big, funky, agencies, you'll notice that the finance staff and the teams that negotiate the contracts are generally wearing smart business wear and are surrounded by binders and filing cabinets. Much like an office, really. The sad truth is that the creative and technical teams in such businesses are given a lot of freedom and that when you take the plunge to work for yourself, you're more likely to end up more involved with paperwork and internal organisation just because you won't have a team of people doing it for you.

Lesson 2: The best creative doesn't always win the pitch

 Here's a secret - you don't always have to have an award-winning piece of creative to get paid. In fact, some companies would be scared off by things they see as too left-field or outside of their comfort zone. Also, more pitches nowadays are being won on the strength of delivery methodologies and Project Management in the agency, as larger businesses especially are wary of giving business to "wacky" creatives who then go over budget or push back on deadlines. They would rather have less outlandish and more derititave creative if it's guaranteed to be under budget and delivered on time, flawlessly. So, be realistic in your estimates and provide exacting details of what you are proposing and what is going to end up costing extra. Outline deliverables clearly and limit the creative work to fit the budget unless the client agrees to extend the budget before you do the extra work. It's all simple stuff, I know, but it does make the difference between turning a profit and going broke. The hard part is reining in your creative urges to suit a budget - you'll be tempted to think "well, I'll just do this for them and make it look nice", but that's billable time not being paid for, or a potential argument over the value of the estimate compared to the final bill. A lot of agencies are now pitching their Project Management skills as hard as they are pitching their creative abilities. So, the secret of success might be to ensure you think about contingency plans and always have the budget foremost in your mind, as opposed to going crazy with the Sharpies and creating a million Mood Boards.

Lesson 3: Newest isn't always best

 You don't need that Eight-Core Mac Pro with 30" display. You don't always need to work in CS3 and, you can make calls on something other than an iPhone. Given that a lot of clients will have restrictive IT policies that means they won't have up to date browsers or Flash players. So, given that and the fact that a lot of adservers only allow Flash 8, why spend thousands on the latest and greatest gear and software just to do the job of making a few Flash banners for a client? Unless you're the size of Saatchi and Saatchi, you only need the minimum tools to do the job in hand. Of course, it means you're not going to win the bragging contest down the pub, but you'll be turning a profit.

 The fact is that, whilst I'd love a 17" MacBook Pro to take to client sites, an iPhone 3G for use as a PDA and the mother of all MacPros on my desk, I can run a multimillion pound project using nothing more sophisiticated than Mac Project II on a Macintosh Classic. I could do my company accounts on it, too. If you want a "funky" office, equip your reception area with Tangerine G3 iMacs running Airport cards, so that the secretary can check their email and use Word and visitors can surf the company website. Your designers might want £4000 of MacPro, but they can work on £1000 of quad CPU G5, or even a brand new iMac. And the machines will look just as nice on the desk, for those people who worry about such aesthetic niceties.

 There are plenty more ideas I can share and, because I'm a nice guy, I'm happy to, but I'll be getting on with the book soon enough, as I've finally finished writing a custom project delivery framework for a multinational company to work with their rostered agencies and have some evenings to myself again!

 Sorry there weren't too many jokes, but I thought it'd be useful to some of you to give a different angle on setting up in business for yourself. I hope it doesn't put any of you off, as the truth is it's a great adventure, but you just need to focus on the important things that aren't necessarily why you'd thought of going into business for yourself. Good luck!

 

No, it's not the latest guidebook on how to advance your office career, it's about this story on the Mac User site. The short version is that Apple are potentially going to overhaul the ageing laptop designs to come inline with the new MacBook Air and the new iMacs. Possibly.

 As a piece of reporting, this ranks alongside the likes of "some bloke in the pub told me..." and "a friend of a friend said...", but there is possibly some reason to this rhyme. The Macbook Pro design is, to all intents and purposes, something like seven or eight years old now - it's basically unchanged from the days of the PowerBook G4 when it changed from titanium to aluminium. The "new" MacBooks are not much changed from the old iBook G4 and, I'll be blunt (as I have one of them thanks to work), the only good thing about the design from a usability point of view is the trackpad. The keys are unresponsive and badly spaced, the 13.3 inch widescreen feels cramped and there is a nice sharp edge at the front of the palmrest that cuts into your wrists as you type. So, there is definitely room for improvement, but what should the machines be like?

 Well, an educated guess says that the new machines will look like pumped-up MacBook Airs - possibly tapering in the same way as a sop to ergonomics, but mainly to add some sophistication to the MacBook consumer range - I'd guess at an all-alloy case, with black screen surround, widescreen glossy-only displays (LED backlit), iMac style keys on the keyboard and the multi-touch trackpad. I'd also guess that the days of the light-up Apple logo are numbered, as on the iMacs, they even killed off the "sleep" light as a nod to environmental awareness. Shame, really.

 So, that's what they will probably be like, but is that what they should be like? To answer that, let's look back at what machines Apple have made that have led to imitators and devoted fans and at those which are not exactly lamented in their passing.

 From the consumer side, the big winners would have to be the mutlicoloured iMacs, the original Macintosh/Mac Classic and, I would also add, the iPod Nano. Consumer stuff can be limited(ish), as long as it is easy to use, looks friendly and is cheap. The one benefit of the current white MacBook design is that it looks as much at home on a child's bedroom desk as it does in a Soho coffee bar and, whilst the inside edges may cut your wrists, the outside is all radiused curves - it begs to be held.

From a professional standpoint, I'll be honest and say that most businessmen tend to still like the sombre designs as it gives a sense of being responsible and mature. I've won more pitches in a suit and tie than those "modern" types who showed up wearing combats and trainers. Yes, you can wear that stuff at your place of work and, when you are coding CSS or designing sites in Flash, you can do it just as well in shorts and flip-flops, but the truth is that if you turn up to the client wearing dayglo T-shirts and skate shoes when you're 35, you a) look like a pillock and, b) will come across as not taking the deal/client seriously. So, with this in mind, the aluminium MacBook Pro is not a bad design, but aluminium laptops as a rule can look rather cheap or become scruffy easily. Which is why your business Vaio will be gunmetal grey, or black and your HP, Dell, Toshiba or Lenovo/IBM will also be black. It ages better than easily-scratched silver, it looks serious and sensible and it doesn't look like it was made by FisherPrice. Which is why the Pismo/Wallstreet design of PowerBook G3 still looks good today (I use one on my commute and it gets more admiring glances than the white MacBook I also have to haul about) - it was sombre and sensible, but the curves made it sexy and, more importantly, the Bronze keyboard is, without doubt, the best I have ever used on a laptop, if not just the best keyboard I have used ever. The palm rest is perfect, the thumb-clickable button is perfect and it is the one Mac I have owned that people still go "wow, that's cool" about when they pick it up and use it.

 So, how would I design the new Apple laptops? Well, I'd be tempted to basically add the new multi-touch track pad to the Pismo casing, keep the screen at 14 inches, 4:3 (as with letter-boxing, the DVDs will look the same as on the 13.3 widescreen MacBook), but at higher resolution (1280*1024, maybe) and running at least a GeForce 6 mobile card - cheap, but enough to do some low-end gaming on, unlike the intel integrated crap. Use a slot-loading DVD-RW drive and colour it in the way the old iMacs were - translucent white/grey with coloured insets (where the soft-touch areas on the old Pismo were, maybe) and add backlight to the keyboard and Apple logo - in short, it's great ergonomically, it's fun and funky for kids and the latte-lovers amongst us and, as it's in a range of colours, it'll match the Crocs on your feet and the interior of your Audi TT. In effect, it makes it a consumer item like the iPod Nano. Oh, and offer a non-glossy screen option.

 As for the pro-level machine, well, I'd lose the hard-edges, rounding it off to make it ergonomically friendly, as well as sytlish, I'd make the case from metal, sure, but I'd anodise it - scratch-resistant coatings are around in most colours, but a dark grey or black would suit the business ethic. I believe Marin had a nigh-on indestructible finish on thier mountain bikes about ten years ago - possibly this could be used. Or you could go wild and have it black with that "oil on water" finish to make it stand out, as it would only show colours at the points it caught the light. 15 inch and 17 inch only - both widescreen, both powered by the best mobile GeForce available - 15 inch gets 256mb 8800, 17 inch gets 512mb version, for example. No professional Apple laptops should ship with less than 1.5Gb of RAM as standard. Ship them with fast 120GB hard drives, 40GB pre-partitioned off for Boot Camp/Parallels/VMWare Fusion (albeit without Windows being installed) - your Macs can use Windows, Apple, but a PC can't run OS X natively, so make the process easy and you'll convert business users. Bundle the laptops with iWork, as well as iLife and return to the Pismo-style drive modules - if I don't need a DVDRW drive, I might like to swap it out for an extra battery - or at least bring back that Pismo ability to hotswap the battery without the machine shutting down for ten seconds or so - very useful for the roadwarriors out there, I know. Oh, and one final thing, if Apple has the tie-in to AT&T Bell and O2 for the iPhone, why not offer a mobile web function to the laptops - a pay as you go 3G/Edge connection, so Apple laptop buyers don't have to go and get one of those easily lost/stolen USB modem things. That would be a really useful feature, akin to the days when the iMac sold because all you needed to do to get the internet was plug it into the phone socket and it would set up an account, etc, for you - offer the same for mobile web warriors!

 I sincerely doubt we'll get any of this, but if I were Steve Jobs, it's exactly what I'd do....still, no doubt we'll find out soon enough! Feel free to send me your comments - I'd love to hear your views on what they should do.

 Well, here we are in 2008 and, as a technophile, what have I bought? That's right, two Macintosh computers taht are at least five years old. The big question is "why?" and the answer is, simply, because they work.

 

The fact is that I am a little wary of trundling around london on the tube with a £750 Vaio laptop for when I am working at the client sites. With this in mind, I wanted something cheap, reliable and quick enoguh to run Office, etc - nothing strenuous, but I might add the need for a DVD player to while away the long commute back home. This list, along with a long-held love of the pre-Intel Macs, meant that I looked on eBay for a nicely specified G3 Pismo. I ended up with an upgraded laptop that has a 500Mhz, 512Mb of RAM, a DVD/CDRW combo drive and 60GB hard drive. Given the legendary Pismo reliability and the fact it still holds a great charge (let alone the ability to hot-swap out the DVD drive for a second battery) and I am more than happy - not bad for £100! Especially when you consider that it's running OS X 10.4 and is more than happy running my copy of Office for Mac.

 

 Whilst I was on the prowl on eBay, I also picked up a 600Mhz iMac with 640Mb of Ram in the rather nifty "Blue Dalmatian" colour scheme. I was going to give it to my mother to act as her web/letter-writing machine, but having used it, I think she can have my old G4 Power Mac instead - the little iMac is more than snappy enough for me to blog on, etc, and I am currently trying to decide between buying a new 24" iMac outright or financing a huge MacPro (and erring towards the latter) and, until I make that choice, I am in need of a little box to sit in my hobby studio to let me watch movies, surf the net and suchlike - once I have my new Mac, I'll either keep the iMac for web surfing and the like (so as not to clog up my new machine with crap), or put it in one of the guest rooms at our house with a selection of games on it - it's something I have seen done before and I like the idea of it, especially as I have always gotten itchy fingers when I have stayed away from home and been unable to check my email, etc. I know a lot of my friends will appreicate it.

 Then, once we have a kid (or kids), they can have it with some nice learing-freindly games on it - I am thinking of things like Cosmic Osmo, although I might need to run that in OS 9, rather than OS X. I am a firm believer of not letting kids spend their days watching TV - play sport rather than watch it, children! However, I do think that children should be encouraged to use a computer as soon as possible and, ideally, it should be an older amchine taht is not doing everything for them - I grew up with BBC Micros, Commodore 64s, Sinclair Spectrums and pre-Windows PCs. I remember Windows 3.1 being state-of-the-art and, because of this, have never felt fazed by a newer machine - every child should learn to use a command-line, or at least a non-plug and play system - it means that anything they will face in a normal working life will simply not scare them. Let me put it like this: once you have written an essay in Wordperfect 5.1 and done your mail-merge using DataEase on a Dos PC, being asked to do a letter in Word is never going to get your palms sweaty. Not only that, but you'll be able to fix your computer without recourse to expensive helpdesks or call centres.

 Still, a lot of this doesn't apply to Apple kit, as it just works. Then again, they are friendly, useful and, unlike a PC, still capable of being of use fve or ten years after they were made, unlike a PC which will devalue quicker than a Lada and generally stop working entirely after five years or so. If all you want to do is surf the net, buy yourself an old iMac for £50. Happy surfing!

  Apple recently launched the new aluminium iMacs and very nice they are too – all brushed metal and glossy black, it seems strange that the same material combinations were used so effectively on my old Bang and Olufsen stereo, but then again, that was one of a few pieces of technology to be recognised as a design masterpiece and displayed as “art”, so maybe there is something in it. Or maybe I, like all the other thirtysomethings associate such aesthetics with quality through some memory of seeing such a stereo that belonged to a friends’ dad and coveting it. Who knows? The end result is that, as with the release of the first OS X, Apple have once again created a product that (in the words of Steve Jobs) “looks so good you want to lick it”.

 

  In days gone by, the review would have taken a bit of a downturn, if I wasn’t a total Apple fanatic, where I’d have to say that it was a lovely design, but it was expensive compared to the performance I could have got from a similarly-priced Windows PC. If I was a rabid believer in the Cult of iSteve, I’d probably have trotted out some line about performance not being all about Megahertz and being more about usability (and, admittedly, I’d have had a point), but ultimately I’d have had a really tough job of convincing you that the machine was worth switching away from Windows and the world of the dirt cheap PC in preference for a machine that looked nice but seemed over-priced for the performance it seemed to give on paper. However, those days are over – with the death of the G5 (something I actually feel a bit upset over – I like true RISC architecture and wish IBM/Motorola could have got it up to speed), we’ve now got a Dual-Core Intel processor with some nifty Apple architecture around it, so we’re talking about a machine that uses the same CPU as a PC, but which uses it better. Not only that, but if you absolutely have to have Windows, because of a Windows-only application (Microsoft Project springs to mind – we really could use a port of that, Mr Gates!), then you can simply install Windows on a partition or run any one of a number of programs that allow you to run Windows as an application on your OS X installation.

 iMacs in previous iterations were always a bit underwhelming – great if you just wanted to surf the Web, type letters or send emails, but a bit lacking in grunt if you wanted to play games, or work with video or large PhotoShop files. If you were anything approaching a creative professional, you had to lash out and buy a PowerMac  and a separate monitor costing thousands of pounds. The new iMacs, however, ship with high-end ATI Radeon graphics (128mb or 256mb, depending on your preference) and the minimum of a 2.0GHz Dual-Core processor means that you can revel in PhotoShop on your lovely glossy 20- or 24-inch screen. Not only that, but because the hardware is all DirectX 10 compliant, you can play the latest Windows games if you boot to XP or Vista (whichever you choose to install). No longer do you have to wait three years to get a game that was released on PC and now costs £10 when the Mac version is £40 – it could be the ideal compromise: Work on a Mac, play your games on a PC, all in the same machine.

  A quick note about the screen as there is a lot of mixed reaction about it on the internet and in various reviews. Yes, it’s glossy, so it can make it harder to match colours across media when working, but the Sony Vaio I am writing this on has a glossy screen, too, and I would rather have the higher image quality when viewing video and have a few viewing-angle issues than go back to the dull screens I used before - the same can be said for the iMac screen. Also, if you are that worried about how things might look when you work on digital work that has to match print work, then either use the Pantone number or a hex code to define the colour used in the print work and simply ensure you work to that. It’s not difficult and the rewards offered by the glossy screen far outweigh the negatives. Photos look vibrant, DVDs look fantastic and even a task as menial as writing a letter in Word or Pages becomes a joy to behold. Trust me, as long as you don’t aim a lamp at it, you’ll be fine – whether the screen is matte of glossy, it’ll still wash out to grey if you sit in strong sunlight or by a window, after all.

 There was an advert for electric shavers in the 1980s where the CEO would say “I liked it so much I bought the company”, well, I am going to follow his example and put my money where my mouth is – I will order myself a 24” 2.8GHz iMac with 2GB of RAM and 750 GB hard drive as soon as possible. After a few years away from the fold, I have returned to Macs and the joys of OS X and given a choice between a second-hand G5 Powermac and 20-inch Cinema Display or the new iMac, I would pick the new iMac any day of the week.

 A wise man once said: “In a world without wall, or fences, to constrain our imagination, who needs Windows and Gates?” – come with me and bask in the glow of Apple!