Falling prices knock Mac pundit in the head

Posted November 28, 2006 By The Macalope and has 8 comments.

Today’s dime-store speculation is brought to you by Remy Davison at Insanely Great Mac (link via the Apple Blog which really should know better than to lend credence to this) who speculates that falling prices for 17-inch LCDs will cause Apple to discontinue the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Moreover, as notebook market trend is ‘bigger is better’, the opportunity for Apple to make the MBP exclusively 17″ is there, given the falling prices.

This smells remarkably like the market consisting solely of Remy Davison and a couple of d00dz he talked to. Since when are people rushing out to buy bigger and bigger laptops?

The Macalope was not able to find a break-out of MacBook or PowerBook sales between the 17-inch and the 15-inch models, but he’d be willing to bet his left antler that Apple sells far more 15-inch models than 17-inch.

The point is that Apple would no longer really need a 15.4″ widescreen MBP if a 15″ MacBook eventuates. It would be redundant, much as the 12.1″ PowerBook found relatively few customers in the end, as the much cheaper 12.1″ G4 iBook had virtually an identical feature set.

Please define “15-inch MacBook”.

It’s astounding to the Macalope that Davison gets through this whole spiel without noting a very important difference between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro.

Forgetting even the FireWire 800 port and the ExpressCard slot, the MacBook uses GMA graphics while the MacBook Pro has dedicated graphics memory on Radeon cards. A 15-inch MacBook does not replace a 15-inch MacBook Pro unless you have blurred vision from too much wacky tobaccy. Davison would have a whole slew of professionals lug 17-inch laptops around in order to perform skipless video presentations.

Falling component prices have less to do with product positioning than demand does. If they did, black paint would really be more expensive than white.

Thanks for the suggestion. But no.

Posted October 18, 2006 By The Macalope and has 10 comments.

Gartner: Apple should quit hardware business. (antler tip to David Seo via email.)

Gartner says the move should be made because Intel currently gives Apple favorable pricing that it won’t be able to maintain.

A few thoughts occur to the Macalope about this:

  • Intel may be well-incented to retain Apple as a customer for marketing and prestige purposes (having both Windows and OS X running on Intel).
  • Apple has larger margins to cut into than Dell or HP. If anyone can take price pressure, it’s Apple.
  • Apple customers are used to paying a little more for what they consider to be a better product.
  • Apple makes the whole widget… Apple makes the whole widget… Apple makes the whole widget…

So, the Macalope doesn’t see it happening.

That said, there is a demonstrable difference between openly licensing OS X and outsourcing/selling the Mac business to another hardware manufacturer. The latter is far more likely than the former, but still rather unlikely.

[Added the word "openly" as the Macalope was trying to allude to the licensing of the 1990s with multiple licensees competing against Apple but didn't make that point clearly.]

Threat level reduced to "Aluminum"

Posted September 19, 2006 By The Macalope and has 7 comments.

The Macalope’s new non-explosive battery arrived yesterday, causing a great sigh of relief from Mrs. Macalope who had been giving the old one a wide berth ever since the announcement of its potential to be the family Yule Log this holiday season.

Apple’s instructions ask that you drain the battery before sending it back, leaving the Macalope to wonder why the company left out that little safety tip in the emailed instructions for the exchange program.

Oh, sure, it’s OK for the Macalope to sit around with a fully charged incendiary device on his lap, but god forbid it get within Steve Jobs’ zip code.

Now the Macalope’s trying to remember the shamanistic ritual of initiation you’re supposed to go through with a new battery to make sure it’ll last 4-evah.  He thinks it’s charge, drain, charge, drain.

Or is it drain, charge, drain, charge?

Or maybe it’s drain, drain, charge, charge, charge, drain, charge.

[Edited for spelling.  It's just not the Macalope's day...]

A kwality product

By The Macalope and has 2 comments.

Not that the Macalope isn’t sympathetic to the argument that the “iTV”‘s ability to stream a quality picture to HDTV sets is in question, but there are a couple of counter-arguments to be made to Davis Freeberg’s turd in the Apple special event punch bowl.

First, the Macalope notes that you can almost exactly replace “iPod” for “iTV” and “CD-quality” for “HDTV quality” in Davis’ argument. Davis notes this and says:

If you let someone hear a CD track and an iTunes track and ask them to rate each on a scale of 1 to 10 you will get very little difference between the two. If you show someone a show in HDTV though and then in non HDTV you will get a much wider differential.

The Macalope is sure that’s true, but while the HDTV-owning portion of the market is growing, not everyone owns one yet and even if consumers do notice the difference it may not matter that much to them if it provides another feature: ease of use. That doesn’t make them “idiots”.

Hell hath no fury like a tech purist surveying a compromised solution.

[ADDENDUM:  the Macalope, for example, owns an HDTV set.  He's downloaded TV shows from iTunes and - while he's noticed the quality is not as good as DVD - it's been acceptable.  The movie downloads are supposedly four times as good and if they're good enough on Steve Jobs' TV, they're probably going to be good enough on the Macalope's.]

Most importantly, however, all that’s known so far is that Google and Apple are in talks. If you follow the links all the way back to the Engadget piece that started it all, you’d see this is the key graph:

All we’ve got to go on so far is a quote from Google’s consumer product chief, Marissa Mayer, who has confirmed the two companies are “engaged in talks.”

Engadget’s coverage focuses on video, but if that’s all there is to go on, this could just be related to the advertising connection speculated in the post below (although the Macalope suspects they must have meant “video talks” or the whole piece is jumping to conclusions). Also, it doesn’t mean it’s related to streaming existing Google video to the “iTV”. It could be something entirely new.

If Davis wants to jump off the “the ‘iTV’ is gonna flop” balcony, that’s his business. But the Macalope would preach a little patience.

UPDATE:  Customers download 125,000 poor quality, over-priced movies from the iTunes Store in its first week (antler tip to Daring Fireball).

Ha-ha!  Idiots!

UPDATED AGAIN: Via Daring Fireball, here’s another source talking about the Apple/Google “talks.”

But again the key graph is nebulous:

Google’s consumer product chief, Marissa Mayer, tells me that indeed, the two companies are engaged in talks.

Mmm. “Talks.”

“Talks, talks, talkie, talks.”

“Oooh, we talked about our hair and boys and all the great stores down at the mall. And then we had a pillow fight!”

Hmm.

[Edited for spelling.]

Paging Robert Morgan

Posted September 12, 2006 By The Macalope and has 7 comments.

That convergence you ordered ten years ago is here.

For those who don’t remember Robert Morgan, he wrote a rumor site ostensibly aimed at investors and then a column for MacWeek before it became eWeek.  He preached the convergence of computers and consumer electronics in long, sometimes rambling posts.  But these were some of the rumors the Macalope was weaned on when he was but a young Mac buck.

Morgan wrote around the time of the original iMac’s introduction when the rumor mill heavily bet that it would be a set-top box.  Witness this CNet article from 1998 which is both astoundingly wrong and accidentally prescient:

Apple Computer (AAPL) is working on portable and TV set-top entertainment devices that offer Internet access and play everything from music CDs to DVD movies, as the company refashions itself for the convergence of consumer electronics and PC technologies.

The top-secret project could throw the computer maker back into the limelight of the high-tech industry if, as planned, the company combines a WebTV-like Internet access device with a CD or DVD player to create an easy-to-use, low-cost computing device, sources close to Apple said.

Apple declined to comment, but one source said the convergence project is code-named Columbus.

Columbus turned out to be the iMac.  On the prescient side, the article notes:

“Studios need critical mass. It’s hard to justify new channels (for distributing) content if the subscriber base is small,” said one entertainment industry source.

Which pretty clearly describes how it’s Amazon and Microsoft that face the uphill battle here in 2006.

So, it’s been a long time coming – and it’s still not actually here yet – but the Macalope will be hefting a flagon of mead to Robert Morgan along with the modest portion of crow he’ll be eating tonight.

Because the Macalope was certainly wrong about wireless video vs. wireless audio.  Judging by Gizmodo’s specs, it appears the “iTV” doesn’t have a hard drive (although Gruber speculates it has one for caching) so it is, in fact, receiving streamed video from a Mac and, for smaller content, from the iTunes Music Store.  Certainly the “TubePort” was also wrong, though, and simply based off last night’s crop of rumors.  No dongles and no “iDisk-like storage component hosted by Apple.”

And no “true” video iPod.  We’ll just have to soldier on with these “fake” video iPods.

HD video requires transfer rates of 25 mbps and regular ol’ fashioned non-extreme Airport and mixed Airport/Airport Extreme environments only get up to 11 mbps.  So, while the Macalope hates to say it, it’s time to ditch that stylish but antiquated key lime iBook.

UPDATE 9/13 – Correction:  25 mbps is for uncompressed HD.  Commenter Jeff notes you could copy the movie file over 802.11b in less time than it would take to watch it, so you should be able to stream it.  He also points out the use of the term “802.11 networking.”  Is that because it’s 802.11b and 801.11g or because it’s 802.11a?

Special Event Eve

Posted September 11, 2006 By The Macalope and has no comments yet.

Ah, Special Event Eve. Much like Christmas Eve. Visions of a [sometimes] bearded gentleman who wears the same thing every time [one a black turtleneck and jeans, one a red suit] delivering presents [that you'll either pay for monitarily or emotionally].

The Macalope is here to go out on a limb with his educated guesses about what Apple will deliver tomorrow.

  1. Movie download service – Unfortunately for Apple, this will come as a surprise to no one. At least the rumor sites aren’t to blame this time. What would be surprising is if Apple is able to deliver a studio besides Disney. For those looking to see how Apple conducts a real leak, the Macalope suggests looking at this instance. Amazon made a pre-production announcement and Apple made the headlines read “Apple, Amazon to Deliver Online Movie Stores.”
  2. New iPods – Will this be the long-heralded “true” video iPod?. Someone please shoot the Macalope at the thought of the year-late rumor site triumphalism. As with any large woodland creature, you’ll need at least a 12-gauge.
  3. Not an Airport-streaming video system

Come again, Macalope? But all the late night buzz is about the wireless video streaming device! Get with the program!

Well, speaking of the program, the Unofficial Apple Weblog may have one.

But the Maclope’s not buying “TubePort”.

Let’s get this straight. TubePort streams – presumably via Airport Extreme – video content that is being streamed to your Mac from an “iDisk-like storage component hosted by Apple.”

That’s a whole lotta streamin’. The Macalope hopes they don’t accidentally cross the streams in his living room, causing his sofa and plasma TV to shoot off in opposite directions (OK, no one is more aware than the Macalope that two Ghostbusters references in fifteen posts is not good).

Also, if it’s Airport-based, why two dongles? All of the Macs this system would be likely to work on have Airport Extreme cards included.

And if mom and dad decide to watch National Treasure downstairs while the kids are trying to watch The Lizzie McGuire movie upstairs, that’s two movies streaming through the same Airport connection in two different directions – once from Apple to the Mac and then from the Mac to the TV.

Personally, the Macalope doesn’t want his Airport network so active it gives him a tan. Nor does he want to watch jerky video that makes Nick Cage stutter more than he did in Peggy Sue Got Married.

There are, of course, no certainties in this game, but the Macalope suspects that if there is wireless transfer shown tomorrow, it’ll have to do with music, not video. And that if there’s a Mac-to-TV connection for viewing videos, it’s wired.

Now, the Macalope must be off to bed. You know what they say about Special Event Eve. If you don’t go to sleep, it’ll never come.

"Each of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back…"

Posted August 29, 2006 By The Macalope and has no comments yet.

The Macalope is now reminded of that line from “Ghostbusters” as he slings the pack containing his PowerBook mit explosive battery on his back every morning on his way to the office.

The thing is, the Horny One has become too accustomed to the “laptop lifestyle” to simply use his PowerBook tethered to the desk. And heaven forfend he should have to shut it down. That’s a once-a-month affair and only then to install an OS update.

So, for the next 4-6 weeks, the Macalope is living dangerously. He’ll take the battery out at night to keep his woodland home from burning to the ground, but the rest of the time it’s FLAME ON!

The Macalope was doing a little math in his antlered head and realized that 1.8 million 300 gram batteries is 1,188,000 lbs worth of landfill. Yikes. The Macalope would hate to live in the third world country that’s going to have to handle that. Although, with the state of consumer protection there, they might just resell them.