The Not Ready for Prime Time Players

From Russell Beatties blog [emphasis mine]
"There's still a few issues, but nothing so frustrating that I'm any less ecstatic with my setup. As a Linux user, I sort of expect them and compared to years past they're trivial. For example, the built-in sound speakers don't shut off when you plug in external speakers or headphones right now. Not great but I'm sure I'll find out what the issue is with some searching. Also, the external monitor port doesn't recognize the correct resolution out of the box - I've seen online that I'll have to manually tweak the xorg.conf file, but I haven't done it yet either. Other than that, I haven't had a single issue, and I know that these issues could "fix themselves" as well, as Ubuntu continues to develop and my weekly updates bring fixes and upgrades."

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If I've said it once, I've said it 100 times, if I have to edit an xconfig file by hand the OS isn't ready for prime time.
My most recent adventure was my work laptop which boots both XP and Ubuntu. The amount of effort it took me to get dual monitor support to work right in both OSes was nothing short of the birthing a breach cow and the actions that remain are still a nightmare.

On XP dual support needs to be reconfigured almost every reboot and depending on how your screens are setup have fun with OK on one monitor and Cancel on the other, yep it is that good.

On Ubuntu you'd better not want to use the power of your 512MB nVidia card with Ubuntu because you have to dig to get it to work right and the warnings are scary, but don't worry once you've gotten it setup and working an update will be pushed downstream that will require you to rewrite your xconfig yet again.

With both OSes you'd better get really good with the config screens and files b/c if your home setup doesn't match your work setup oh well you get to do it every time you switch it up! YAY!

If you don't want to spend your time looking for hacks to make your hardware work properly just buy a Mac and enjoy your extra time.

Wireless Router Suggestions

Since I'm most people's resident nerd I'll make a list of suggested nerd toys.
Wireless Routers:
Wireless Router (entry-level)
Wireless Router (mid-level) includes support for wireless printing and music streaming
Wireless Router (pro-level) includes support for wireless printing and a networked drive.

ILife '08 and Flickr Export

ILife '08 and Flickr Export don't seem to play nice together on my install the export dialog doesn't show up :-(

Update: w00t!, already fixed good job connected flow!

17-inch MacBook Pro (High Resolution) 1920x1200=133 PPI

My new toy is on it's way from China and oh boy is the screen going to be sick
from Daring Fireball

EMI Goes DRM Free (My Take)

The recent announcement of EMI that their iTunes music will be DRM is pretty cool here are two things of note that I haven't heard mentioned.
1) The 30 cent premium, is a "tax" for the potential piracy, it was a great PR move for them to offset this by offering higher quality files, thus making it a quality issue to gloss over this tax
2) People have complained that AAC isn't as open as they'd like. They are missing the fact iTunes has a convert to mp3 option for tracks that are DRM free.

iTV, Steve Jobs and DRM

There was a big to do over Steve Jobs denouncing DRM despite the fact that iTunes content has a DRM layer. I think though that his denouncement had more to this.
Apple is releasing Apple TV soon and clearly wants to take it the same path as they did with the iPod and iTunes, but the key part to the iPod's success was "Rip Mix Burn" The ripping part being the most important. The ability to rip your current content meant you didn't need to buy your music again from the iTunes Music Store and that getting your music there was made dead simple put a CD and click a button. Apple TV will have an issue with this because of DRM. Ripping a DVD falls into a gray area and as such is not likely to be a feature of iTunes anytime soon, but if getting your current DVD collection into iTunes was as simple a ripping a CD, Apple knows this thing would be the killer device. And I think this was the point Jobs was trying to make about DRM.

It's Too Expensive?!?!?

One of the big concepts that are being pushed on the information super driveway by "industry analysts"* is that the iPhone is too expensive and hence no one will pay for it and it will be a flop just like the Newton thus Apple will fail and this will be one of the signs that they are falling apart, and Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against Apple and destroy it.

What they are missing is that the high cost won't be an issue and is part of their branding. Haven't people learned that marketing trumps rational cost nearly every time?

If you want the cheapest MP3 player you don't buy an iPod and after looking over Amazon's best sellers list though it doesn't look like people buy mp3 player based on price, they buy them based on the fact they are iPods.

The iPhone is an extension of this. Based on the price rational why do you think the black MacBook sells at all? Because people want to have the latest toys and show them off. In general if the price is a premium but not outrageously so people will buy it. Think the Passat vs an Audi, or a Camry vs Lexus. The latter are more expensive but essentially the same yet no one predicts the fall of Audi.

Additionally analysts are saying that there are already phone companies in the market and that Apple can't compete. Um again this is probably a testament to how strong the iPod brand is, there used to be a time, in the long ago, before the iPod existed yet there were several companies (Creative and Intel come to mind) that made mp3 players this didn't seem to stop Apple from making a successful entry into the market.

Additionally the iPod doesn't seem as expensive as it is made out to be. First off the latest Blackberry is $249 with a contract. A 4GB iPod nano, which is the same capacity as the the lower end iPhone is $200. So to get the similar functionality you'll need to spend $449. And you'll need to extra pocket space. Seeing as the difference is about $50 I don't see this as being priced to expensive at all. It seems right inline with what you'd expect. There can also be a high cost for the server side software that may be needed with BlackBerry as well.

I can't guarantee the future of the iPhone, but I can promise you that if they don't sell it isn't because they are too expensive.


*I'll save my rant about industry analysts for a later date.