Friday 01/13/06
So I went to Macworld this past week. For me the new computers were a yawn. The iMac isn't for me, and I got tired of waiting for Apple to produce the portable I wanted and bought a Windows subnotebook/tablet, a Fujitsu LifeBook P1510D, last fall. (While the Fujitsu admittedly runs Windows, the hardware is fully sweet enough to make up for this shortcoming.) The new Power er, MacBook Pro lacks a modem, an incredibly stupid omission for a portable. "There's no room" won't cut it, not when they replaced the PC Card slot with the smaller ExpressCard34 slot. (Which, by the way, is too narrow for a CompactFlash card to physically fit, so you'll need an external card reader for your camera memory cards. This is not a Power MacBook Pro for photographers. Good thing Apple's not trying to cater to photographers, it's not like they make a pro photo app or anything. Oh wait.) As my roommate at the Marriott said, "what we have here is a $1500 laptop for $2500."
Anyway, some people may buy one or the other of these machines. Guess I'm no longer in Apple's target market.
On the one hand, I appreciate why Apple made the new iMacs and Power MacBook Pros look exactly like the old ones. It's a way of saying "it's still a Mac despite the Intel Inside -- see, it even looks the same." But y'know what would be cool? Colored iMacs again. But this time bold, bright colors, like sports cars. Glossy red, yellow, blue, black, in addition to the white. Hell, hot pink and baby blue, like in the '50s! Or iMacs in wood finish, from birch to ebony. C'mon Apple, think different again.
iPhoto 6, on the other hand, looks pretty sweet. Apple may get some iLife upgrade money out of me for the first time in a couple of years. At least until Lightroom ships.
Now more than ever, I go to Macworld for the parties and the people, not the new products. The show itself was only in one hall in Moscone this year, which was just pathetic.
aspcomments2 by Jerry Kindall
based on aspcomments by sneaker