Funny again
Good news! RIM’s funny again! You know what else is funny? The Apple rumor mill and the Winotaur. All in this week’s Macworld column.
You should totally wait for our next product
Amidst rumors the Xoom’s not doing as well as they’d have liked, Motorola may be looking forward. That’s great! Don’t don’t be held back by that relationship! Live, Motorola, live!
However, its own CEO has pointed to a seven-inch Xoom coming in the second half of the year.
Terrific. Way to telegraph your punches.
It would be a “fun” device where the 10-inch model of today is targeted more at serious users, however, and would leave little overlap.
Yeah, this 10-inch iPad the Macalope plays Fruit Ninja on is waaaaaay too serious.
OK, maybe he just means the Xoom is too serious. That’s possible. Seriously… well, you fill in the blank.
OOOH-EEEE-EEEE-AAAAH!
InfoWorld: Act now to avoid tablet apocalypse
Enterprise IT managers react to Apple tablet
The reviews are in!
The Apple tablet can’t possibly be a hit! (Tip o’ the antlers to Chris Jennings via email.) Or, if you read to the end, “Apple may pull it off”! (Why is that part always at the end? The Macalope is so tired of that construction.)
When reviewing products that no one knows anything about, individuals should have to do that Jim Carrey thing where he stuck his head between his legs and moved his butt cheeks like his ass was doing the talking. Because that’s really what we’re talking about here.
Apple's mythical tablet
A bonus Macalope on Macworld this week, as the horny one looks at the tablet rumors.
Who's the boss?
This week’s Macworld piece looks at tablet rumors and speculation and the Tweetie 2.0 dust-up.
1964 all over again
This week’s Macworld piece looks at the Beatles rumor, tablet rumors and your relationship with the iPhone.
The hook
Neven Mrgan on the specialized device
But while we wait for that future, the tablet doesn’t have to be a weird half-solution. See, about a year ago I said of tablets that they’re “small enough that you can take them anywhere, and big enough that you won’t take them anywhere.” As in, you always have your phone on you, and if you need something bigger – that is, big enough to need a carrying case or bag – why not just grab a laptop? But then I heard a few comments about certain special cases where a tablet would actually be the total bee’s knees; cooler and more useful than a laptop.
Special cases such as digital sketching and painting.
…
Or take the cases of professional photography and medical imaging…
But Apple’s not really really the kind of company that’s going to make a specialized device. Apple generally makes things that have broad market appeal, so the Macalope think there’s a hook we’re missing here.
The Macalope likes to imagine an Apple pitch meeting like something out of The Player in which every movie was pitched as a combination of two previous movies. “It’s Prizzi’s Honor meets Turner & Hooch!” etc. One thing is something Apple already makes, the other thing is something they’re not involved in yet.
The iPhone was phone meets Mac. The Apple TV was Mac meets TV. Maybe the tablet is Front Row meets iPod (phrased like that it doesn’t sound like it’d win approval – maybe there’s a better way to put it) or Mac meets book or newspaper. Or Mac meets hand-held game device as Neven alludes (although, the iPhone and Touch already fill that scenario).
Whatever it is, it seems to the horny one that a simple way of phrasing it exists, whether they actually use it overtly internal to Apple or not. We just don’t know what it is yet.
R.I.P. Apple Tablet
This week’s piece at Macworld looks at PC World’s pre-birth tablet obituary, rumors of Apple at CES and the iPhone bug.
Piling on
OK, there’s bitching and then there’s primo grade-A bitching.
Macworld Already a Bummer, With or Without Apple.
“Worst. Macworld. Ever.” said one attendee after the Tuesday keynote. “This sucks.”
This displays little more than a lack of proper historical perspective. Gil Amelio ring any bells? Please, let’s not review the tape, people. It could get ugly.
It also displays a lack of proper verbiage. More correctly, the attendee should have said “Worst. Macworld. Expo. Keynote. Ever.” as he or she could not have been to the showroom floor yet.
Also, there’s all the drinking. We’re not nearly done with that.
This year’s keynote was an epic yawner.
Personally, while the keynote obviously lacked the big announcements of recent years, the Macalope found the iLife demonstration to be awesome, and the crowd seemed to agree.
No new iPhone.
Please. No serious analyst thought there would be a new iPhone.
No new iPod.
iPod? Nobody at all thought there would be new iPods.
No new iMac, and — despite lots of pre-show hype, rumor and buzz — no new Mac Mini.
Yes. A bunch of people thought there might be a new Mini and maybe a new iMac. But did Apple in any way shape or form lead anyone to believe there would be? No. This kind of sentence construction is designed to make you think that it’s somehow a failure on Apple’s part that they didn’t deliver an iMac or a Mini. It’s not.
You can be disappointed that Apple didn’t announce more (and, don’t be mistaken, the Macalope is) but you’re just being a tool if you’re claiming to be disappointed because Apple didn’t announce specific items “everyone said they were going to announce”.
The keynote also ended with a thinly veiled insult: Tony Bennett singing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” — surely a goodbye middle finger to International Data Group, which owns Macworld Expo.
Of course it seems to be a middle finger if you’re the kind of person who sees everything through the prism of motives that appeal to your high-school Heathers mentality. The horny one actually thought it was a nice send-off.
Was it a great keynote? Well, no. Phil Schiller actually did a great job delivering it. Has anyone watched CEOs from other companies? They’d be lucky to have their keynotes delivered by Schiller, let alone Jobs. Apple followers are spoiled.
The problem is he just didn’t have that much to announce. But expecting pie-in-sky items like new iPhones and iPods is just jackassery in the third degree.
The Macalope will have some more thoughts on the keynote in his piece for Macworld on Thursday.
ADDENDUM: The Macalope, while not shy about profanity, doesn’t usually point it directly at a silly pundit, but in this case he’s going to make an exception for this:
Topping it off was Tony Bennett, who came onstage and belted out a couple of songs nobody under 60 knows.
Well, a pleasant fuck you to you, Mathew. The Macalope is well below 60 and was utterly thrilled to see a legend like Tony Bennett singing classic songs. Unless you go to Vegas frequently, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see someone whose name will go down in history as one of the greatest performers. And so far everyone the Macalope’s talked to has raved about it.
Don’t be a dick.