iLounge

Thoughts on NLU’s BodyGuardz Film Covers for MacBook and Pro

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.29.08 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

So who’s the big winner in the battle of the MacBook clear full-body film protectors? The surprising answer: no one. After trying NLU Products’ $50 BodyGuardz and ZAGG’s $55 InvisibleShield, we’re here to report that while both products have strengths and weaknesses, neither delivers the ideal level of protection and quality we were hoping for. We’ve discussed InvisibleShield at length in a prior article; this one looks mostly at the BodyGuardz.

For their respective prices, each company sells you a tube containing several pieces of pre-cut film shaped to fit your MacBook or MacBook Pro computer, as well as a water and soap spray solution to wet the films’ adhesive backing, and a squeegee to work out the air and water bubbles that naturally result from the application process. Notably, NLU’s film packages looked more professionally assembled than ZAGG’s, and we had no issues getting exactly the right films from NLU; ZAGG seemed confused, twice, by references to the prior-generation MacBook Pro film.

More pictures and details are available by clicking on the title of this article or on the Read More text below.

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Early Words on NLU’s BodyGuardz for MacBook + Pro

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.22.08 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Our mini-series on protecting the MacBook family continues today with a few words on NLU Products’ new BodyGuardz for MacBook ($50), which we’ll follow up soon with a more detailed article and additional information on the MacBook Pro version. You may recall last week’s mentions of InvisibleShield for the MacBook, which we’d previously noted was a good start on protection, but not quite enough, particularly for the $50 asking price. Well, we wound up pulling the InvisibleShield off of the MacBook entirely; after three weeks of use, some of its edges were attracting lint and other debris, and one of the strips was losing clarity and junked up underneath. It wasn’t completely satisfactory, so we tried Speck’s SeeThru Satin, instead. That one’s thick and attracts oily fingerprint smudges.

So, for the time being, the SeeThru Satin is off the MacBook, and NLU’s BodyGuardz is on. We were contacted by NLU, which said that its version covered more of the MacBook than the InvisibleShield, including half of the side with the ports, the top surface above the DVD drive, and more area around the keyboard. It also said that the clarity of the film was better, and didn’t go yellow or orange. We also found that the holes seemed to be a bit more precisely cut, which was nice.

Other than that, it looks like the two options are going to turn out roughly par on coverage. Unlike the InvisibleShield, NLU doesn’t cover the Apple logo, the battery release hinge, the rear antenna cover, or the side battery indicator lights—of these, the omission of the Apple logo, which the company claims is due to a risk of damage to the logo, bothers us the most. We’ve removed stickers like the InvisibleShield from the Apple logo with no issue, but we can guarantee that the logo will get scratched up if nothing’s covering it. And while Zagg may have coloration issues, the NLU set—otherwise much more nicely packaged—was covered in black specks of something when it arrived, which needed to be dusted off. We’ll have to see whether any got under the film during application.

Neither of these options come with two full sets of film; they both include only one set, so you’d better get the application right the first time. Similarly, neither company protects every millimeter of the MacBook’s edging, and both fall short of properly covering all of each side. Pictures of the initial application process are included here, and by clicking on Read More below; we’ll have more to say when we’ve done the MacBook Pro application and given both a full opportunity to dry. Will it be a tie, or will one alternative be decidedly better than the other?

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A Follow-Up on Speck’s SeeThru Satin

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.19.08 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Yesterday, we shared some details on Altec’s Expressionist series of Mac-ready speakers. Today, we wanted to close out the story on Speck’s SeeThru Satin case for MacBooks, which is Speck’s version of Incase’s previously released Hardshell Case, selling for the same $50 price.

There are things about SeeThru Satin that we really like. The case is sculpted nicely to match the body of the new 13” aluminum MacBook, features similar anti-scratch rounded feet on the bottom, and has heat dissipating vents for the MacBook’s body. Speck’s mold provides contoured slots for the SuperDrive, IR sensor, and passive front latch, plus the ability to access all of the MacBook’s ports on the left hand side.

While it’s possible to cover more of the MacBook than Speck has, it’s probably not easy to do so with a conventional plastic shell. (Film, at least if properly cut, would be an alternative.) The rest of this story can be found by clicking on the headline, or on Read More, below.

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On Altec Lansing’s Expressionist Bass + Classic

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.17.08 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Unlike iPod and iPhone audio systems, computer speakers—multimedia speakers, to use the more common term—are only occasionally of interest to our editors. There are now hundreds, perhaps thousands of models released every year by companies both big and small, and it’s extremely difficult to draw any big picture, comparative conclusions about a given model’s performance relative to its price. The best one can authoritatively say is that a certain speaker delivers enough apparent cosmetic, sonic, and functional appeal to merit a given price tag.

Altec Lansing’s new Expressionist series multimedia speakers are an obvious effort by the company to move beyond sonic, price, and functional considerations into cosmetic ones. These aren’t the boxy speakers of the past, whether angled to match Mac monitors or blackened to match those of PCs.  Expressionist Bass (aka FX3022) is a $130 pair of four-driver speakers that look almost steampunk in design and shape; Expressionist Classic (aka FX2020) is an $80 pair of two-driver speakers that use blocks of transparent plastic to suspend tube-shaped black cans above your desk’s surface. Both of these speakers sound good for their prices; it’s ultimately the styling that’s either going to win you over or turn you off.

We discuss both of these speakers in detail below; click on Read More or this article’s title for the rest of the story.

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The Times, They Are A-changin’ (Goodbye, Macworld Expo?)

By Bob Levens | 12.17.08 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

The news that Apple is not going to be at Macworld 2010—or any future Macworld expo—may have shocked some, but I wasn’t that surprised. That Apple made no attempt at attendance back at London’s MacExpo 2007 event may have been the writing on the wall. Sure, you may say, it’s London, but this is one of Apple’s biggest territories, and Leopard was released on the Friday of the Expo, November 26. To not have Apple show up felt somewhat odd, at least to this Mac user. Back then, the word on the floor was that Apple now had a bricks and mortar presence in the UK, and no longer needed an event like MacExpo to show their wares. They could have an “expo” every day in one of their UK stores.

What did the organizers do? They rejigged “MacExpo” into “MacLiveExpo.” Then for 2008, they renamed it “Creative Pro Expo in association with MacLiveExpo and Linux Live Expo.” I haven’t seen any reports from the 2008 event in London so can’t gauge what the attendance figures were like. Is this a portent of things to come with Macworld Expo in the U.S.?

Apple surely has stepped back and looked hard at what the Expo means to the company. The costs of the floorspace must be large, plus the cost of building the booth and providing the manpower required for the four days of the event. As is obvious, the company doesn’t need all of that to draw cameras for its announcements. Earlier news that Belkin changed its approach to the event is also interesting. Belkin had a pretty big presence on the floor, plus a second floor ‘loft’ space for meetings. This year, the company is absent from the exhibit hall. Judging from the list of other exhibitors, Belkin isn’t the only company that sees Macworld—perhaps all trade shows—as a poor investment.

At the London event in 2007, there were gaps in the floor where companies had pulled out at the last moment. We’ve seen a few vacancies at past shows, but will there be bigger gaps now in the twin halls of Moscone? Will the exodus begin the year that Jobs will not be giving the Keynote? And will IDG be giving away booth space for free or something close, to unknown people who would never be able to afford their prices in a normal year, just to maintain an impression of a popular event? There is already evidence that such is the case; little dots on the show floor map suggest that anyone with a web site and delusions of grandeur can now claim to have a “booth” at Macworld.

Unfortunately, finding the answers in this case will be slightly more than the cost of a day return train ticket into London. For many people attending the San Francisco event, there’s a long journey ahead. For myself, it is an 11-hour flight, parking for 9 days, hotel rooms for the week and cash for beer, err, food. I was already questioning attending this year’s show before yesterday’s announcements; will it be worth bothering when the Expo has nothing from Apple? Especially given Apple’s bizarre, seemingly spiteful way of counter-programming its announcements directly from Cupertino on the very days of the Apple events it doesn’t attend? The message seems to be simple: feel free to go to the Expo, but the real news will be on your computer for free.

Given the costs involved in getting to San Francisco, the state of the economy, and what I’ve already seen happen at both the London and Paris Apple events, it looks like my future travel plans won’t likely involve Macworld. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see it become a purely West Coast ‘special’ attended by folk living within reasonable distances. But then, there are other small events like that, as well. Perhaps we’ll see the reintroduction of an East Coast expo. Or perhaps it will all just go away.

So many questions and so many different answers have been generated by this news, none ultimately satisfying, or conclusive. The future is wide open, but seemingly dimmer today. As the Bob Dylan song goes, “For the times, they are a-changin’...”

New for Mac, Expressionist Classic + SeeThru Satin

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.12.08 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

As mentioned in the Backstage entry below, I’m fresh back from a brief vacation, and as of this afternoon, finally finished digging through the huge pile of iPod and iPhone items that arrived while I was out of town. That brings us to the smaller Mac pile, specifically, two new accessories from Altec Lansing and Speck.

We are especially interested in Altec’s new offering. Expressionist Classic ($80) is a pair of three-inch speaker drivers inside of translucent clear and opaque black plastic frames. The reason this grabbed us isn’t the simple, two-channel audio, but the combination of an attractive price tag and legitimately cool industrial design. Expressionist Classic looks a lot like the other components on our main glass and metal Mac desk, except for one surprise: the plastic is for some reason smoke gray rather than completely clear as shown on Altec’s web site. We’ll have more to say on this, and the previously-released Expressionist Bass, soon.

SeeThru Satin ($50) is Speck’s entry into the soft touch rubber-coated plastic hardshell game, following similar designs from Incase. New versions have just been released for the late 2008 MacBook and MacBook Pro models, and we’re currently playing with a black one on the 13” aluminum MacBook. For reasons we’ll share in an upcoming Backstage piece, the InvisibleShield has been removed from the MacBook after a few weeks of service, making some form of protection again desirable. Interestingly, Satin came with an orange cleaning cloth and instructions to remove the sand and debris that Speck apparently knew would be found inside its own packaging after the shell was opened.

More pictures of both of these new items can be found by clicking on the title of this article, or on Read More below. Details will soon follow.

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Post-Vacation Changes, or, The Koi Pond

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.11.08 | 17 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Thanks perhaps to the economy, or what I was doing while in each location over the past two weeks, my visits to Seattle and Hawaii felt more like work than vacation time. But I did have a few free moments to think about where iLounge should be going in the future, and where the iPod and iPhone are and will be going forward.

Over the past three or four years, we have collectively watched as Apple’s devices—arguably pinnacles of design and thoughtfulness, albeit imperfect ones—have been surrounded by tons of garbage. The first wave was in poorly made cases and chargers; the second in me-too, OEM speakers and electronics; today, the third is in piles and piles of forgettable, demo-quality applications. Behind the scenes, hundreds or thousands of iPod and iPhone developers are now praying for your attention and your dollars, hoping that you will help them become millionaires or multimillionaires at a time when the global economy is in frightening shape. It is a koi pond, but overloaded with fish.

Back when the iPod had few accessories, covering virtually everything seemed to be a good idea. But after the first wave or two of garbage began to flood our offices, we decided that we were not going to give equal time to everything out there; merit would become a key criterion for coverage, and junk would begin to disappear from our pages. Amongst other things, we created iDesign to focus on the industry’s best practices, and started to ban companies from coverage if they engaged in shady marketing practices to our readers, like posting anonymous comments praising their own products. We also started booting obnoxious commenters rather than letting them ruin the party for everyone else.

Now, a similar reconsideration of the iPod and iPhone worlds is in order, and I’m in the process of determining what will and won’t be a part of iLounge’s coverage going forward. We’re preparing to bring on a new editor in the very near future, and it would help to know what you’d like to see so that we can plan our future coverage accordingly.

So, loyal readers, I’d like to hear from you. Post your requests for future expansion/contraction here, or in an e-mail to . Thanks in advance!

Protecting the Metal MacBook: InvisibleShield, Part 2

By Jeremy Horwitz | 11.20.08 | 8 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

As you’re no doubt already aware, iLounge—unlike other publications—is not willing to tell readers to rush out and buy the things we review. Our belief is that you’re smart enough to know whether something meets your needs and budget, and it’s our role to provide both facts and informed opinions to help you make your own decision. By the same token, if we really like or love something—the marks of our “recommended” or “highly recommended” ratings—we’ll tell you as much right away. Our high recommendations are rare, and the number of products receiving C, D, or F grades hit an all-time high this year.

Those words are a necessary prelude to our more detailed look at ZAGG’s InvisibleShield for the metal 13” MacBook ($55). After posting some pictures and a handful of details on the initial installation process yesterday, a couple of readers chimed in to knock the price and/or concept behind this product, which provides a clear layer of film coverage that renders Apple’s aluminum design largely scratch-proof. “$55 for 25 cents worth of plastic,” said one, while noting the value of screen protectors; “A 55 dollar piece of plastic to ruin the looks of your macbook?!,” opined the other. “That’s like putting plastic over your couch. Come on people get a life.”

We’re fairly certain that ZAGG and its most dismissive critics are never going to agree: it is very obvious that people are buying, using, and enjoying these clear film protectors, even though the prices are unquestionably high. So InvisibleShield is a classic “eye of the beholder” product, one that some people may see as worthless, but other people will welcome with open arms. Our own perspective is someplace in the middle, but as you’ll see from the review that follows, there are very good reasons to like film covers like this one. Read on for the details.

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Protecting the Metal MacBook: InvisibleShield, Part 1

By Jeremy Horwitz | 11.19.08 | 2 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

I had hoped to be able to share a complete end-to-end discussion of ZAGG’s version of InvisibleShield for the 13” metal MacBook ($55) with you today, but the installation is still ongoing.

Even having gone through the process with numerous iPod and iPhone variants of the same product, trying to get all the pieces of this clear, scratch-resistant film onto the computer is no easy feat. The major challenges are alignment and keeping the pieces of film clean given their size and tendency to bend during application. I’ve actually gone back a couple of times per piece trying to get alignment right after an initial misstep.

Why go through this trouble? To keep the MacBook in nearly perfect condition without the need for a thick case, of course. For now, I’ll leave you with a collection of photographs showing off the initial part of the process—most can be seen by clicking on the headline of this article—and additional details will be forthcoming soon.

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On the Election

By Jeremy Horwitz | 11.05.08 | 6 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

It’s a great day to wake up in America. Congratulations to our new President-Elect and Vice President-Elect on making history.

On Pricing and the App Store

By Jesse David Hollington | 10.31.08 | 5 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

As we wrap up our 2009 Buyers’ Guide and look back on three months spent reviewing hundreds of applications, I’ve been pondering the ways in which Apple has changed the game in the mobile applications market.

As some of our readers will know, I’m a very long-time PDA user, going back to the days when Palm was owned by U.S. Robotics. The device was actually called the “Pilot 1000” and had a whopping 128 KB of RAM—yes, that’s “KB” as in “KILObytes.” I bought my first Pilot 1000 for what it could actually do by itself, and only later discovered the fact that I could add more applications onto the device. Well, the result of that was that I quickly needed to upgrade to the 512KB model Pilot 5000, as I was pretty much hooked on the idea of third-party applications that expanded what my little pocket-sized friend could do.

Over the years, as the world of PDAs expanded and other vendors such as Microsoft entered the market, an entire ecosystem built around third-party PDA apps sprung up, with thousands of third-party developers focused on PDA applications, and numerous sites like Palmgear.com and Handango specializing in nothing more than providing store-fronts for these types of apps.

Thus, I watched with some interest last spring as Apple announced their concept of an iTunes App Store. On the one hand, the idea of buying a PDA application online was nothing particularly novel. However, as with most things that Apple does, the approach was just different enough to be intriguing. The business model was quite simple: developers would only be able to sell their applications through the iTunes App Store, and Apple would take a 30% cut of revenues. In return, however, Apple would handle all of the order processing and digital store front, collecting the money and simply handing the developers a check every so often.

Other than the prohibition on selling applications through any other channel, this wasn’t really that different from what Handango and other sites like it had been doing for several years. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the App Store: the average price of applications dropped dramatically.

If you search Handango and other sites like it, you will discover that it’s not at all uncommon to find relatively simple applications like alarm clocks selling for $10 or more for other devices, and $30-$40 applications for Palm and Windows Mobile devices are not at all uncommon. These are prices that we would now consider absolutely absurd for similar iPhone applications.

This discrepancy becomes interesting when you consider that people were and still are buying these applications for other platforms. Further, there’s no evidence that Apple has forced any kind of low pricing model on its developers—to the contrary, there was buzz early on that Apple was trying to persuade developers to charge more. The only pricing restrictions on the App Store are minimum $0.99 and maximum $999.99 price tags, and a requirement that prices be set to easily-rounded increments, meaning simply that you won’t see apps being sold for $7.39, for instance.

When you really sit down and think about it, the really interesting part is that it is the iTunes App Store business model combined with market forces that has led to this. Nobody told developers that they had to set their prices low—most of them just did so naturally, possibly expecting that they would make their money on volume of sales rather than higher profit margins. That appears to be the case; people selling $5 apps are carting away $250,000 in a month or two. Not bad.

The iTunes Store has always held a relatively unique position among online vendors in the way in which it is seamlessly integrated into an application that every iPod and iPhone user already has. You don’t have to search Google and wade through dozens of possibly irrelevant hits when looking for something. Further, developers do not have to rely on their customers knowing about third-party applications or sites that they can get them at. With the iTunes App Store, everything is right there in front of the user with generally no more than a few clicks of the mouse.

The result is that volume sales are easily achievable, since every developer is instantly on a mostly level playing field and has access to an established customer base of millions. For most developers, it’s the digital equivalent of being able to set up a shop selling home-made jewellery in the middle of Macy’s.

The other important factor that I think has contributed to driving prices down is the lack of any kind of shareware-style trial mode for software. While the App Store easily allows for free applications, these are simply given away. There is no way for a developer to provide a limited free application and later allow the customer to unlock additional functionality. In fact, selling features outside of the App Store is expressly prohibited by Apple. Some developers have worked around this by providing limited “Free” versions of their applications, and then paid “Pro” versions, but it seems that most developers have simply kept their prices low in the hopes that for a couple of bucks, most users will give the application a chance, sight unseen.

Other applications such as Twitterific, Exposure, and Griffin’s iTalk have taken the ad-supported approach. All of these applications are available for free if the user is willing to live with some unobtrusive advertising. While Twitterific and Exposure offer $10 paid versions which remove the ads, this is really ALL that these versions do, making them more of a “donationware” concept than anything else and allowing users who like the app to pay $10 to support the author’s future development. Based on what we’re seeing so far, it seems like $10 is too much to ask to remove ads from these apps; the developers might make more money if they lowered that price and thus appealed to more people. Other than the ability to easily provide an application to users for free, the ad-supported model is not so much a function of the App Store, but rather the iPhone’s extensive wireless capabilities. In order for an ad-supported model to work, you have to be putting your app on a device that has a relatively persistent Internet connection.

The bottom line is that whatever the reasons, the App Store model has driven the average price of mobile applications dramatically down. Throughout all of our application reviews, it has become pretty clear that with the exception of “professional” level applications, $10 is now a maximum realistic price at which an application should be sold—$8 is better for higher-end games—and at that price people expect outstanding functionality. Whatever other problems the App Store may have, this particular model has been generally good for pricing in the mobile device market.

Shhhh… We’ve Soft-Launched the 2009 Buyers’ Guide!

By Jeremy Horwitz | 10.30.08 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Good evening, loyal Backstage readers.

The last month has been exhausting. Behind the scenes, we’ve been working very long hours to bring you the 2009 iPod + iPhone Buyers’ Guide.

Now it’s here. The PC and Mac-ready versions are available right now, a little ahead of our official October 31 release date. Our special iPhone and iPod touch-formatted version is coming shortly, and will be linked from the same page.

You’ll find two shots of V-Moda’s never-before-seen Vibe II inside—one hidden later in the Guide—along with Griffin’s Navigate wired display remote for iPhones and iPods, and a ton of other really cool stuff. Literally thousands of rated products. Cool new features such as the Top 100 Apps + Games. Winners of those $5,300 in contest prizes. Just lots and lots to digest, all free of charge, as always.

We’ll make the formal announcement on the iLounge.com home page a little later, but we wanted to let you get an early taste of what we’ve been cooking up. Enjoy. 

In the Labs: Altec Lansing’s Expressionist BASS

By Jeremy Horwitz | 10.17.08 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

We can’t claim to totally understand the design vibe behind Altec Lansing’s inMotion MAX, but Expressionist BASS ($130, aka FX3022) makes a bit more sense visually and conceptually. We’ve been playing with a pair of $600 Focal XS multimedia/iPod speakers for the last couple of weeks and enjoying them, yet Expressionist BASS seems like a way more mainstream concept: dump the need for a subwoofer by just integrating two firmly stabilized sub-class drivers into the bases of cone-shaped left and right desktop speakers.

Altec has placed 1.5” drivers at the top of each of the cones, firing forwards from steampunk-styled grilles, and 4” drivers at the bottom, with fin-like feet to provide stabilization. The result is nice, warm sound, though there’s no remote control, no way to play with the audio balance—volume and power controls are all you get—and of course no iPod dock for the setup. Hence, it’s here on Backstage. We’re going to continue to try it out for a little while and see whether it’s worthy of supplanting some of our other multimedia speaker favorites. More pictures of these interestingly designed audio towers are available by clicking on this article’s title.

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The MacBook That Apple Got So, So Right

By Jeremy Horwitz | 10.16.08 | 34 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

We don’t write much about Macs at iLounge, but I wanted to make an exception today to pat Apple on the back for doing something very right: the new aluminum MacBook. No pictures for this article; you can see the machine here.

Say what you will about the economy, the need for a Mac netbook, and Apple’s iterative approach to new product releases; in quick summary, the economy’s rough, a cheaper Mac would have been really smart, and the company definitely has become Machiavellian about dragging out user-requested feature bumps. If you can look past all of those things, the new 13” MacBooks are staggeringly close to the ideal portable Mac—so much so that three or four iLounge editors have either bought them or are planning to do so as we speak. All of us have Macs, but we never upgrade simultaneously, let alone to the same machine, which should be a sign that Apple has accomplished something amazing with this product.

It is, as Steve Jobs mentioned, the metal 13” that we’ve all been waiting for. It is, as history shows and the economy requires, a lot more affordable than the $1799 PowerBook 12” that people such as us lusted after but never purchased due to price and overheating problems. And it is, most importantly, a totally awesome computer. I’ve been using mine for the last day and completely loving it. The reasons:

Obvious things: the design. I’m not going to tell you that the new MacBook is amazing physically, because Apple introduced most of the new design touches in the MacBook Air, and thus most of this machine’s improvements appear derivative. But it’s obvious that everything about the past MacBook has been vigorously and wisely reconsidered for this model.

In a video, Jony Ive talks about making the machine as simple as is possible. It’s entirely true. The Pro’s old magnetic latch? It was a nifty design trick, but ultimately a non-useful moving part, and worthy of elimination here. The old battery indicator on the bottom? It’s much better on the side of the machine, and looks nicer now, too. MacBook’s IR sensor and sleep light are now subtle, rather than glaring, as are the iSight and microphone. Everything just seems so smart.

Obvious things: the size and weight. The new MacBook is lighter than its plastic predecessor, and correspondingly much lighter than the 15” Pro, which actually got a little heavier with this year’s update. And while the footprint isn’t as small as I would prefer—I could live with a 10” or 12” screen—I’m okay with it.

The trackpad. You would never, ever know that this was made from glass unless someone told you. It feels like a slightly smoother version of the prior trackpad, save for the shift of the button to the pad’s undercarriage, both changes highly welcome. There are issues with the pad—I find that it randomly causes text on web pages to scale upwards in size—but I’m convinced that they can be remedied in software. Multitouch remains a gimmick for now, but fun to play with.

Speed, drive, and screen. I went from a 2.4GHz MacBook Pro to a 2.4GHz MacBook. I haven’t run benchmark tests, but the new machine feels at least as fast as the old one, and has an extra 90GB of hard drive space. While Apple would have hit the hat trick on this machine by bumping the screen resolution up, I am actually very pleased with the glossy display, which I had resisted across several prior purchases and unnecessarily feared would impact my productivity. Apart from the lost pixels, it actually looks better than the screen on the Pro.

Of course, there are a couple of bummers. The absence of any non-USB expandability, namely FireWire connectivity or an ExpressCard slot, will definitely bother some users. Speaking for myself, dragging around the 15” MacBook Pro was so tiresome that I started formulating my escape plans months ago. No more ExpressCards, which I really never liked, and always found hot to the touch on removal. Any external hard disk I bought had to have multiple interfaces, including USB and FireWire. Et cetera. I’m disappointed that I can’t at least make a FireWire 800 connection from my big drives to the MacBook, but I can live. Maybe this Ethernet port can be put to some good use…

The other one is the Mini DisplayPort as a replacement for the old DVI connector. It’s no shock, given Apple’s history of choosing obscure connectors and going for things that are small, but for the time being it means that my 23” Cinema Display is useless, at least until Apple releases that adapter cable. I’m not planning to buy the new LED 24” as a replacement for my 23”, but as soon as Apple gets the 30” out the door—if the price is right—I’ll be there.

Overall, I’m extremely satisfied with the new MacBook. Having owned a number of Apple laptops in the past, starting with (seriously) the Macintosh Portable, I think it’s the company’s best portable computer ever. Check back with me in a few months and we’ll see if anything catastrophic has gone wrong, like the hard disk or video card problems (yes, a faulty nVidia 8600M processor, it seems) I’ve been dealing with in my MacBook Pros, but I have a really good feeling about this machine.

Apple + AT&T’s iPhone Antitrust Class Action Smackdown

By Jeremy Horwitz | 10.03.08 | 4 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

If I wasn’t busy working on other things at the moment, I would write more about this:

Apple + AT&T Lose Early Attempt to Fight Antitrust Class Action Lawsuit.

I’ve read through it. Apple and AT&T haven’t lost the case yet, but the language of the court’s decision is pretty brutal. A few of the findings:

(1) AT&T can’t force plaintiffs to submit to arbitration rather than a full trial, because the AT&T service contract requiring arbitration was unconscionable under California, New York, and Washington State law.

(2) Plaintiffs can proceed against Apple under antitrust law regarding voice and data services for restricting users’ ability to use their iPhones on competing networks.

(3) Plaintiffs can proceed against Apple under antitrust law regarding iPhone applications, for restricting users’ ability to use unapproved third-party iPhone applications.

(4) Plaintiffs can proceed against Apple under the common law, as well as the Computer Fraud Abuse Act and the California Penal Code, for damaging unlocked iPhones with version 1.1.1 software.

Say what you want to say about lawyers, but the way this case is settled has the potential to radically change the entire mobile phone industry in the United States—as well as Apple’s business practices regarding current and future iPhones. I say “settled” because this ruling radically increases the chances that Apple and AT&T will feel compelled to resolve things without letting the case go further through the trial process, and one can only hope that the plaintiffs’ attorneys don’t get so excited by the prospect of settlement dollars that they pass on achieving the larger (precedent) goals of the suit. Millions of iPhone customers have a stake in seeing Apple and AT&T act reasonably regarding contract terms, unlocking, and applications, and as this court has explained, there’s evidence that they previously haven’t.