Apple’s Mac Pro announcement makes Blu-ray an unlikely candidate for Macworld debut
Apple’s newly announced Mac Pros seem like real power houses, but one thing is preventing them from being truly state-of-the-art: A Blu-ray drive.
The current tech specs list the new Mac Pro as shipping with a regular old “Super Drive”, and there is no custom Blu-ray add-on option. Yes, there is still the standard extra optical bay found in previous models which would allow you to add your own Blu-ray drive down the road, but seeing as these new Mac Pros ship today, it looks like Apple doesn’t plan to offer Blu-ray at this point. Due to cost and size factors, it would also be unlikely that any new Mac portables announced at Macworld would ship with Blu-ray drives if the Mac Pros do not.
So it’s looking pretty bleak for Blu-ray fans. Our last hope is that somehow a new Blu-ray Apple TV will make an appearance, but we’re not holding our breath.
Rumor: Blu-ray Apple TV at Macworld
Filed under: Apple TV, Cynicism, Rampant Speculation, Rumors
Ok, let’s preface this (as always) by pointing to our less-than-stellar track record when it comes to uncovering any real dirt leading up to a Macworld… but on the odd chance lightning decides to strike once, we pass this little bit of info on to you, dear readers.
Remember the Apple TV? No? Well, it is a hobby of Steve Jobs, and he runs Apple. You can look it up here. Anyway, apparently, according to faithful Macenstein reader Anonymous, it will finally get an update at this year’s Macworld, and gain at least half of what it should have launched with. Here’s the quote:
Apple’s Top 5 current design travesties
Filed under: Apple TV, MacBook, Not Cool, Opinion, iPhone
Sure we all love Apple, but it doesn’t mean we have to turn a blind eye when they occasionally make the odd design decision. Below is our list of the top 5 most glaringly bad design decisions the company has recently (and is still currently) incorporating into its hardware. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.
5) The iPhone’s speakerphone volume is (still) pitiful
In “reinventing the phone”, Apple chose to unnecessarily re-invent the “low volume speakerphone“. Even after the alleged volume increase brought about by the 1.1.1 firmware, the iPhone’s speakerphone volume is laughable. If this is a ploy to sell more headsets, I hope Apple reaches its goal soon, as I am going nuts trying to use the iPhone in the car. The low volume doesn’t quite seem to be hardware specific, as the volume when playing movies and music via the speaker is MUCH louder than the volume the speakerphone is capable of when placing calls. This may be something Apple can address with yet another firmware boost, but if not, the iPhone 2.0 needs some new serious new speakerphone hardware.
Advice: Increase the speaker phone volume to a level usable outside of a monastery
4) MacBook discoloration.
Sure, we all love the white plastic material the MacBooks are made of (or DID a couple years ago (hint hint Mr. Ives)) but one thing no MacBook owner loves is the dingy discoloration that forms around the palm rests. Sometimes it’s easy to forget when designing something that a person has to actually use it, and that odds are, that person has sweat glands. Even those of us not suffering from Hyper-Hydrosis find that after a relatively short period of time we’re forced to raid the wife’s medicine cabinet looking for nail polish remover, or searching online for a MacBook specific polishing solution.
Advice: The MacBook has been around long enough now (and so has this problem) that a better choice of materials is long past due.
3) AppleTV low end model still has a 40 GB hard drive?!?
These days a 250 GB of drive space can cost a consumer $100 (or less). A big company like Apple could obviously score an even better deal. It’s pretty sad when the smaller and cheaper base model iPod classic comes with twice the hard drive space as something specifically designed to serve as your digital media hub. This is just plain embarrassing. If the rumors of slow sales are true, I think Apple’s marketing department has a good place to start looking for their culprit.
Advice: Apple, either bump the low-end model to 80 GB or just discontinue the project.
2) MacBook cracking
OK, just like number 4 above, this is a well documented problem, and should have been acknowledged and addressed sooner. The cracking cases issue has spurred a couple theories, but whatever the cause, it happens too often to be anything other than a design flaw.
Advice: Apple, change the MacBook’s latching mechanism and lid bezels
1) Combo drive on the MacBook
Yes, this is not nearly as horrible as your computer physically falling apart like number 2, but it just screams “tacky”, something Apple fans pay extra to avoid. It is hard to find a PC for under $650 that can’t burn a DVD (or at least give you the option for an extra $25 or so). Apple’s stubbornness in sticking with the “good, better, best” sales scheme has forced it to create perceived value by holding their “Superdrive” for ransom, not allowing it to be even an option on their low-end MacBook. Apple was first to ditch the floppy, but is the last to ditch the CD-ROM? What happened to cutting edge? Their computers are marketed as being the ideal music, photo and movie editing platform, yet we’re forced to burn 6 CD’s instead of 1 DVD? (what ’till Greenpeace realizes this waste of resources!). Besides, Apple bundles iLife with new MacBooks, but iDVD is useless on the low end model. I smell rip-off.
Advice: Kill the combo drive, it’s enough already.
Creating a rich man’s “poor man’s” Apple TV
Filed under: Apple TV, Tips/How To, Users Helping Users, iPhone, iPod Touch
Faithful Macenstein reader Phil writes:
Hi Doc,
I tried finding info on this on Google and all known mac forums, but have not found anything so far. I am wondering whether I can use Dot.Tunes to stream video to my iPod touch (they say I can: http://www.dottunes.net/ipod_touch.html) and then use the Apple composite cable to connect the touch to my TV, creating a poor man’s Apple TV.
Do you know whether this is possible?
Thank you,
Phil
Hey Phil,
Well, first off, I wouldn’t call that a “poor man’s” anything, as the iPod touch costs the same (or more than) the Apple TV, and the new AV cable is $50. But as to your question, if Dot.Tunes says so, we’d tend to believe them. In addition to playing back videos in the iPhone/iPod touch’s “iPod” app, the cable works while playing back YouTube videos and QuickTimes from the web when connected to your set.
As for the case of your streaming scenario, we’re running El Gato’s EyeTV 2.5 with the ability to stream recorded shows to the iPhone from a computer via Wi-Fi, and it too works when connected to a TV set with the new iPhone/iPod Composite cable. EyeTV uses Safari to handle the interface and bring up the QuickTime API, so assuming Dot.Tunes is using something similar, you should be set.
Hope that helps.
P.S. In response to our article, DOT.TUNES was nice enough to extend a 25% off offer to Macenstein readers. Click here for more details.
-The Doc
iTunes Store Tops Three Billion Songs
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Apple TV, News, iPhone, iPod, iTunes
Posted by Dr. Macenstein
Apple today announced that more than three billion songs have been purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store, presumably 2 billion of which are from Fergie.
“We’d like to thank all of our customers who have contributed to this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. iTunes features a catalog of more than five million songs, 550 TV shows, and 500 movies, and it recently surpassed both Amazon and Target to become the third largest music retailer in the US
If these numbers continue to hold up, Apple’s iTunes sales will surpass the number of chickens on the planet (currently estimated to be 8 billion) by 2010. Amazing.
Apple TV “Holy Grail” discovered – You can now use an external USB drive
Posted by Dr. Macenstein
Tom Anthony, one of the daring tech-”crusaders” over at Apple TV Hacks apparently remembered that in the Latin alphabet, Jehovah starts with an ‘I’, and has now discovered the Holy Grail of Apple TV Geeks – namely, the ability to not only use an external USB hard drive as the primary storage for Apple TV media, but also the ability to retain full syncing capabilities as well. That’s right, you can now have terabytes of (reasonably) cheap external storage for your Apple TV.
As far as Apple TV hacks go, this is in our mind not only the most useful, but perhaps also one of the more straight forward and do-able hacks out there. In order to complete the hack, you will need to have enabled ssh on your Apple TV, plus an Intel Mac running 10.4. (and an external USB hard drive, of course).
So kudos to Tom. We are now slightly closer to actually buying one of those wacky little machines. Check out the instructions here.
