Category Archives: Apple Inc

Help me Mac mini; you’re my only hope

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I’ve owned a desktop Mac since Apple’s initial creation back in 1984. During this 30 year stretch, I’ve replaced each Mac with a newer model about every three years, occasionally more frequently. Until now! My current desktop Mac is a 2009 Mac Pro. It’s five years old and, at the rate things are going, it may be another couple of years before I replace it. Each day I keep it, I break my personal record for holding on to a Mac.

On the one hand, this is a testament either to what a great job Apple did with this version of the Mac Pro or how little computer technology has changed over the previous five years. Or a bit of of both. In the past, a major force behind my decision to replace each Mac was how out-of-date and under-powered my existing machine had become. For example, if my Mac did not have a USB port or a DVD drive or a processor fast enough to stream video or sufficient RAM to run Photoshop, I knew an upgrade was in my near future. Something like this has eventually happened to every Mac I’ve owned. Until now.

My current Mac Pro shows almost no significant sign of aging. I did upgrade to an SSD drive a couple of years ago. Aside from that, it’s pretty much the same computer it was when I first bought it. And, except for a few minor things such as a lack of a Thunderbolt port, there is nothing that newer Macs have that I especially crave. As long as my Mac Pro can run the latest version of OS X at a decent speed, it should be good to go for a long time.

Still…at some point, unless I give up on desktops altogether and go with just a MacBook, I’ll want (or need) to get a new desktop Mac. In fact, I’d probably get one tomorrow if there was a new Mac that fit my wants and needs. And here’s where I have a dilemma. Which Mac, if any, would I get?

As a Mac geek (I can show you my membership card), I’ve always gravitated towards the highest end models. I preferred the flexibility (such as for adding or replacing monitors), expandability (for adding additional drives and cards) and superior internal specs of the Pro. That’s why, when Apple announced its completely redesigned Mac Pro last year, I initially assumed this is what I would be getting. I was ready. However, for reasons I wrote about previously, the new Mac Pro is not for me (nor is it for most other people who place similar demands on their computer). As Dan Frakes explained:

“…even if you’re shopping for performance, unless you regularly use software that either takes advantage of multiple cores or subjects your Mac’s processor to sustained heavy loads (or both), you’re probably better off with an iMac or a MacBook Pro.”

As another Macworld article reported, the new Mac Pro is actually slower than an iMac for many common tasks in apps such as iMovie and iTunes. It concluded that: “The Mac Pro is…probably overkill for everyday tasks.”

When you throw in the fact that the Mac Pro’s internal expansion options are almost non-existent and that its cost, especially if you go beyond the entry level model, quickly soars into the stratosphere, it becomes hard for all but the most high-end professionals to justify getting the Pro.

So where does that leave me?

With an iMac? That remains a possibility. For now, I’m waiting to see what the next generation of iMacs will bring. Retina displays are rumored. That would be enticing.

Even so, I’d still prefer the flexibility of a Mac without a built-in display. In this regard, an entirely new mid-range Mac model, such as Dan Frakes’ mythical mini-tower, would be welcome. But I don’t believe Apple will ever come out with such a model. Apple isn’t going in that marketing direction anymore.

The Mac mini to the rescue?

That leaves one other desktop option: the Mac mini.

Given the limitations of the other alternatives, the Mac mini is looking quite attractive to me right now. True, it doesn’t have the internal expansion capabilities I would like, but then neither does the iMac or the Mac Pro. On the plus side, the mini allows me to choose my own monitor (or monitors), is very compact (even compared to the much downsized Mac Pro), and starts out very inexpensive (the base model is $599).

There’s just one problem. Unfortunately, it’s a big one. The machine is so underpowered that even its top of the line model is not acceptable to me. To see what I mean, let’s compare a top-end iMac to a top-end mini.

I could get a 27” iMac with a 3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz). To this, I’d go with 32GB of SDRAM and a 3TB Fusion Drive. I might be content with the standard NVIDIA GeForce dedicated graphics card, but I’d probably upgrade to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5 upgrade. Add it all up and its $3299.

The best I can do with the mini is a 2.6GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of SDRAM and a 1 TB Fusion drive. The only graphics card option is a barely adequate Intel HD Graphics 4000. Configured with an Apple Thunderbolt display, a Magic Trackpad and wireless keyboard, it costs only $2536.

In every aspect except price, the Mac mini is distinctly inferior to the iMac. But the mini is only cheaper because of its lesser specs. An iMac with specs matched to the Mac mini costs around the same: $2549. For me, I’d gladly pay $760 extra for an upgraded Mac mini that matched or exceeded the specs of the iMac. [There is also a server version of the Mac mini, but I’m leaving that speciality model out of the discussion here.]

So the question becomes: Why does Apple maintain this Mac mini vs. iMac disparity? Why not beef up the mini? As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t a good explanation. Apple ought to be at least a little embarrassed by the Mac mini.

In Apple’s defense, some point out that the Mac mini hasn’t been updated for a long while. That’s why there is such a disparity. It’s true. The last mini update was almost two years ago: October 2012. The expectation here is that, when Apple finally gets around to releasing a new mini, the machine will achieve feature parity with the iMac. Of course, this doesn’t explain why Apple has dragged its feet on a mini update. Perhaps, given low sales, Apple hasn’t made the mini a priority. I don’t know. In any case, if and when Apple finally updates the mini, it could also update the iMac, maintaining the feature disparity. In other words, an updated mini might not resolve the matter.

Another explanation for the disparity is that the Mac mini is designed to appeal to the most cost-conscious segment of the market. Given their low-demand use of a computer, these users are content with minimal specs in exchange for saving some money. Apple is simply giving them what they want. The mini may especially appeal to PC switchers who already own a viable display, keyboard and input device. With an iMac, these users would be forced to get (and pay for) a new set of these peripherals. The mini saves them this expense.

The cost-saving logic makes some sense but I don’t see it as the total explanation. Apple could still keep entry level prices at their current low level while simultaneously offering a  top end model superior to the one now available. But who, you may ask, would want and pay for this souped-up Mac mini?

Me.

And I suspect there are many others like me who, having decided that a Mac Pro is no longer a realistic option, are looking for an alternative that is not an iMac. My guess is that, if Apple came out with a next generation Mac mini that had specs equalling or outpacing the next generation iMac, it would sell more than enough units to be classified a success. There is an opportunity here for Apple to expand the Mac mini market to people, such as myself, who are sitting on the sidelines with aging, but still usable, Mac Pros and iMacs, waiting to see what comes next.

A final “explanation,” given by many pundits, for why the Mac mini remains underpowered, is that Apple doesn’t want the mini to cannibalize sales of its presumably more profitable iMac lineup. I’m not convinced this argument holds water. Regardless, while I may be an outlier, I’m currently buying nothing instead of the souped-up Mac mini I would likely have purchased by now. This certainly isn’t helping Apple’s bottom line.

In the end, I remain cautiously optimistic that, among the slew of products Apple has promised to release before the end of this year, we’ll see a new and much improved Mac mini. My hope remains that, hidden beneath the mini’s current garb, a Jedi knight is waiting to be revealed—and that it will rescue me from my desktop Mac dilemma.

The 3 biggest takeaways from WWDC keynote

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Dreams really do come true.

That’s the mantra I kept repeating to myself as I watched this year’s WWDC Keynote. Make no mistake: this was a historic keynote. It’s hard to overstate what Apple did today. An incredible number of groundbreaking features were revealed for both the OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 — due out this fall.

Consider this for starters: Apple announced Health (new iOS “health and fitness apps that can communicate with each other, with your trainer, and even with your doctor”), HomeKit (software that provides control of home automation devices from your iPhone or iPad) and an entirely new programming language (Swift). These announcements alone (actually, even just one of them) would be sufficient to satisfy most companies as the entirety of a media event. And yet, for this year’s WWDC, Apple only had time to briefly mention them. If you blinked,  you missed the topics altogether. That’s how much was going on here.

But I digress (which is very easy to do with today’s announcements). Back to my dreams coming true. Of the new features Apple announced, three in particular stand out for me. That’s because they each represent Apple delivering on items that have been on my wish list for more years than I care to count.

Continuity

Over the years, I have written numerous articles about the potential “iOS-ification” of OS X. Loosely defined, the term refers to making OS X run more like iOS. As I pointed out, this could be either a good thing or a bad thing.

Apple could have chosen to make OS X increasingly mimic iOS system attributes — such as a lack of access to system software and the removal of the Finder. To me, that would be a disaster.

The better side of iOS-ification is to have OS X work ever more seamlessly with iOS, while not changing the basic OS X structure. This is the direction Apple has been going in previous iterations of OS X. Maps is a perfect example — with its ability to send a directions map directly from OS X to your iOS device. Another example is the similarity of interface and shared content of Notes across both OS X and iOS apps.

My dream was that Apple would continue down this road and avoid the dark path altogether. Happily, this is precisely what Apple has done. With OS X Yosemite, Apple not only expanded similarities of apps across platforms, but doubled down with the introduction of an entirely new set of features called Continuity.

One aspect of this (called Handoff) allows what you do on one platform to be instantly picked up on another. This means, for example, you can start working on an email on your Mac and finish it up (and send it) from your iPhone.

Via Continuity features, you can also access capabilities from one platform to use on the other. For example, with Yosemite and iOS 8, you’ll be able to answer and make phone calls on your Mac via a connection to your iPhone. Your Mac can also make an instant Hotspot connection to your iPhone, for online access when no Wi-Fi is available.

[Update: Almost forgot to mention: AirDrop will finally work between iOS and OS X devices.]

This is potentially huge for Apple. If all of this works anywhere close to as well as it appeared in the demos, it will have the added benefit (to Apple) of selling more Macs. If you currently own an iPhone and a PC, it forces you to consider how much better your workflow would be if you instead had an iPhone and a Mac.

iCloud Drive

At least since 2010, I have been complaining about iOS file-sharing — especially sharing documents between Macs and iOS devices. I have lamented about how complicated (and sometimes impossible) it has been to make such transfers. More recently, while noting improvements to document sharing, I still lamented remaining limitations — such as that files saved to Documents-in-the-Cloud are accessible only from the app that created the document. This meant, for example, that there was no way to take a TextEdit document saved to iCloud on your Mac and open that file in any iOS app.

My dream was that Apple would someday relent and provide Dropbox-like access to files in iCloud. With iCloud Drive, Apple appears to have granted my wish. [It’s sort of a mashup of the now extinct iDisk with iCloud’s Documents in the Cloud.]

Although I still have questions about how exactly iCloud Drive works, it is at least a welcome step in the right direction. On the Mac, it appears that you drag documents to the iCloud Drive window/folder. Having done that, you can work on (and save changes to) these documents directly from within that location. More importantly, iOS apps can bring up an iCloud Drive panel to have access to (and thus be able to open) these same files, regardless of the app that created the file on the Mac. At last!

Extensibility

Over the years, one of the most frustrating features of iOS has been the inability to extend the reach of third-party iOS utilities system-wide. Two obvious examples: Wouldn’t it be great if you could easily access TextExander shortcuts from any iOS app? Or access 1Password’s data from within Safari?

I have maintained hope that, despite the restrictions due to sandboxing, Apple might some day allow such options. With iOS 8’s new extensibility, Apple appears to have delivered on this third dream of mine. I’m not yet certain whether it will allow TextExpander or 1Password to do what I want, but it’s definitely moving in that direction. As demo-ed at the Keynote, you’ll certainly be able to do things like add filters to the Photos app, add your own choice of third-party apps to Shared sheets, add custom widgets to Notifications, and even (trumpets blaring here) add system-wide third-party keyboards!

This is huge. Mega-huge. It will take awhile before third-party developers update their apps to take advantage of all of this. But it could well turn out to be the most significant new feature in iOS since the App Store opened.

Wait! There’s more…

So those are three items at the top of my WWDC announcements list. But they are hardly the only ones that generated excitement. Here’s a sampling of other features that are sure to generate buzz in the months ahead:

• With the new Messages app, you’ll be able to speak a message and have it delivered as audio to the recipient. No need for you to type or even dictate your text message.

• With Family Sharing, you can share data with up to six other people — allowing all to automatically share photos, calendars, reminders, music, movies and more.

• With QuickType, iOS devices will predict, based on your prior typing, what you intend to type — before you even enter the first letter of the next word.

• Among the expanded options in Siri, you’ll be able to use Shazam to analyze and recognize songs.

• With Apple’s new Metal SDK, games will be able to process information up to 10X faster, allowing for true console-level performance in iOS.

..and on and on.

Apple didn’t address every item on my wish list. Multi-tasking (as with a split-screen) and simplified copy-and-paste (especially across apps) remain as big items for the future. But I’m fine with that. When I look at all Apple delivered this year, I’m more optimistic than ever about what Apple can do in time for next year. At this rate, I may even be able to throw out my wish list altogether in a year or two.

I know there are nay-sayers out there, grumbling that Apple did not announce any new hardware at the Keynote. I admit that this surprised me as well. At least it did until I considered the full weight of what Apple did announce. Given the scope of what was covered in a fast-paced two hours, there was no room for new hardware. I’m not worried. Before the year is over, I am certain we’ll see new iPhones and new iPads, and almost certainly a new Apple TV, new iMacs, and some sort of wearable technology.

WWDC started the ball rolling with its almost overwhelming number of software announcements. The hardware will soon follow.

No other company besides Apple has such complete control over both the hardware and software ends of the market. This is what allows Apple’s devices to work so well together. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the product integration we saw on the WWDC stage today. That’s why I believe today’s announcements will allow Apple to go beyond its current lead in innovation and lap the competition altogether. They are that significant.

Deleting, archiving and reinstalling iOS Apps

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Recently, Kirk McElhearn posted an article discussing what to do with apps that you no longer want but are still in your Mac’s iTunes Library. He pointed out that, when a forgotten and unwanted app shows up in your Updates list, you can Control-click the app’s icon to delete the app directly from the Updates view. You don’t need to shift to the All or List views to delete the app. Good to know.

However, this got me thinking that it was time I did a major clean up of my own app collection. I have over 600 apps in my iTunes Library and I no longer use the majority of them. I suppose I could simply delete the dormant apps. However, the hoarder in me wanted an easy way to keep track of what I’ve deleted as well as retaining the capability to quickly reinstall deleted apps without having to re-download them from the App Store. In other words, I wanted some sort of Archive/Unarchive function.

Unfortunately, iTunes does not provide such a feature. Still, after a moment’s thought, I realized I could manually perform an equivalent action. This may already be obvious to you. If so, you needn’t read further. For the rest of you, here’s what to do:

1. Go to your apps list in iTunes and select the apps you want to delete, either singly or in groups.

2. Control click to bring up the contextual menu. Select Delete.

3. From the first window that appears, select Delete App.

4. From the second window that appears, select Move to Trash. But do not empty the Trash.

5. Repeat as needed until you are done with all your deletions.

6. Open the Trash window. Drag all the apps there to a new folder (title it App Archive or something similar). You can locate this folder anywhere, even on a hard drive separate from the rest of your iTunes Library.

That’s basically it.

Now, whenever you want, you can open the App Archive folder to see a complete list of all the apps you’ve deleted. Additionally, if you double-click any app in the folder, it will reinstall itself in your iTunes Library. The archived copy of the app will remain in place, so you’ll need to separately delete it if you no longer want a duplicate in the Archive folder.

If the app has been updated since you deleted it, you should soon be presented with the opportunity to update the reinstalled app.

The decline (and fall) of the DVR

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Remember the videocassette recorder (VCR)? What a glorious piece of technology. For the first time in human history, people could record TV shows for later viewing (“time-shifting”). Freed from the shackles of when the networks offered programming, people could instead watch shows whenever it was convenient. Hooray!

The revolution moved on

And yet…about the only place you’ll find a VCR today is at electronics recycling sites. What happened? The revolution moved on. DVDs replaced cassettes.

While DVDs were a vast improvement in playback quality and convenience, they were almost never used for recording TV shows. For starters, DVD recorders were far more rare than the ubiquitous players. No matter. As it turned out, most people had never used their VCRs to record shows. It was just too complicated. Unless you planned to be home for the starting time of a show, you had to figure out how to record while you were away. A successful time-shift required that you (a) remember to insert a blank tape and rewind it if necessary (b) make sure the tape was sufficiently long to record your show, slowing the record speed as needed and (c) set the VCR to the desired television station or input setting.

Even after you overcame these hurdles, the Mt. Everest of hurdles remained: Figuring out how to program the device to start and stop at the correct time. The majority of people gave up at trying to get rid of the pesky blinking “12:00.” Even if you succeeded, you had to do it all again each time you wanted to record a show.

So most people wound up using their VCRs and DVD devices almost exclusively for playback of prerecorded material. And that’s where things stood until…

The revolution moved on…again

The digital video recorder (DVR) arrived! Suddenly, time-shifting was drop-dead simple. Want to record six different shows each on a separate station? No problem. You can even set up a season pass to record a series without needing to know exactly if or when episodes will air. And you can almost instantly select to playback any of your recordings. Fantastic!

There remain a couple of drawbacks to DVRs. For one thing, unlike with a VCR, you need to pay a monthly fee, typically to your cable company, in order to make use of the DVR. But, by now, this is a minor extension to what people are already doing. More troublesome, it’s almost impossible to make external copies of your recordings. This means that you can’t, for example, make a backup copy of a show or lend a recording to a friend—as you could easily do with videocassettes. And, should your DVR break and need to be replaced, hold on to your hat: you lose all your recorded content.

And that’s about where things stand now.

[Note: TiVos are better than most other DVRs in terms of offloading content. The latest Roamio TiVos can send recorded video to your iOS devices. And almost all TiVos can transfer shows to your computer, albeit it a painfully slow rate. Good, but still not an ideal solution.]

The revolution keeps on moving

The rumblings that signal the next major technological shift are already here: internet streaming and cloud-based video services such as iTunes, Netflix and HBO GO. Devices such as Apple TV and Roku are now serving as DVR alternatives in many households, despite the lack of any recording option. As these services and devices continue to improve, DVRs (as well as DVD and Blu-ray players) will eventually join VCRs in the dustbins of the not-too-distant future.

More substantial change is on the way. Here’s a glimpse of one possible future:

Imagine a cloud-based service that stores every movie and television show ever recorded/filmed/whatever (except perhaps movies currently in theaters and the most recent episodes of TV shows). Now imagine that you can access this immense library merely by paying a monthly fee. I expect the fee to be fairly steep by today’s standards, around $100/month. But it will be comparable to what most people are paying now for similar access (via a combination of payments to Netflix, Hulu, renting and buying movies, etc.).

As a subscriber, you will be able to stream any movie or TV show (without commercial interruptions) to any of your Internet-connected devices (TV, computer, tablet or smartphone).

You’ll also be able to watch content when you’re offline, for no additional fee. To do so, you’ll just download your desired items to your digital device. There will be some limitations here. As with current rented movies, the downloads will “expire” after a brief period of time, say a month. And there will be a limit to how many downloads you can have active at one time (perhaps a half dozen). Still, this should be more than adequate to cover your viewing for those occasions when you don’t have an Internet connection.

What about those movies you have to “own”—perhaps because you’re worried they might get removed from the cloud service someday? Once again, not a problem. There will be an option to purchase content, just as you can now do from the iTunes Store. However, because you’re also paying a monthly fee, I expect the purchase price to be cheaper than the current going rates.

There you have it: one service for just about anything you might want to watch (except for live sports and news shows), available just about anywhere and anytime you want to watch it. And no need to remember to record anything. Nirvana.

Roadblocks

The essential technology to implement this system exists today. In fact, for music, via services such as Spotify or Rdio, you can already pretty much accomplish what I’ve described here. Offering the same capability for video is not as simple. It will almost certainly require upgrades to the current Internet bandwidth. But that’s coming. I don’t consider this a dealbreaker.

The bigger question mark is whether the existing content creators and providers (Comcast, TV networks, Hollywood studios, etc.) will ever willingly go along with such a system. At present, given their track record, I’d have to say no. They will certainly put up a fight — a big fight — similar to what they are now doing with Aereo. But they do this with every outside challenge to the status quo, dating as far back as when Hollywood railed against television as a dire threat to its survival.

[Note: Aereo, although much more limited in scope than what I have proposed here, offers a feature not included in my proposal: it can function as a cloud-based DVR for live broadcasts. If this too became widespread, it would be another nail in the coffin for the traditional DVR.]

Still, I remain optimistic that, when a strongly desirable technological advance becomes practical, as is the case here, it cannot be blocked indefinitely. As the forces of change gather steam, the opposing parties will reluctantly make the necessary concessions while at the same time figuring out a way to continue to make money. Yes, there will be some losers as well as winners. But that’s how progress happens.

Something of this sort may well be what Apple has been trying to cobble together with its yet unannounced but long-rumored venture into television. If so, it would explain why they are having such a difficult time bringing it to market. Getting all the relevant parties on board is a balancing act that even Steve Jobs might have been unable to pull off. Regardless, I expect we’ll see the fruits of Apple’s labors sometime within the next year.

The other possibility is that Apple fumbles the ball and someone else (such as Comcast) picks it up and runs with it. I hope not. The result probably won’t be nearly as good for consumers as what Apple would have done.

Whoever succeeds and however they do it, one thing is certain: Change is coming and, when it arrives, it will be curtains for the DVR.