Back in the day (with “the day” being the mid 90’s or so), being a Mac user in a Windows-based world used to really suck.

While the Mac was clearly the superior platform on its own merits, often you would find that you needed to run some oddball piece of software only available under Windows. Some of that oddball software wasn’t even that oddball - stuff that lots of ordinary people needed, not just obscure vertical market applications.

The Mac developer community being what it was, all manner of options became available to work around this issue - Nubus cards you could slide into your Mac containing PC hardware. Emulators (such as VirtualPC) allowing you to run Windows software in a painfully slow - but functional - environment.

There was even - get this - the possibility of purchasing a PC and sitting it on your desk, next to your Mac.

Things are a lot easier for Mac users these days. With steady market-share gains over the last few years, it’s a rarity for something to come up where there isn’t a Mac-based (and, often, better) alternative. No longer are we locked into some sort of Mac ghetto - you can do most things on a Mac without problems, with very few exceptions (the major one people run into being high-end 3D games). As the contemporary Mac community tends to be a bit more cutting edge in some respects than the Windows world, there are even some niche applications for which there are no Windows equivalents.

With the switch to Intel-based processors complete as of last year, though, things got even easier.

Boot Camp

Over the years, in many respects Macs have become more and more like PCs. ADB gave way to USB. Nubus gave way to PCI. SCSI gave way to IDE. And so on. Many components can be swapped and shared between platforms with relative ease. Until the switch to the Intel processor, though, the “brains” of the two platforms were still drastically different. Due in part to IBM’s lagging production, though, Apple finally bit the bullet and switched to Intel’s processor line.

The transition was complete. Under the hood, Macs are essentially no different than your average beige box Dell PC - using higher quality components, perhaps, and with a lot more thought going into their design - but the technology is the same. So, what is stopping you from booting your Mac into a popular PC operating system - say, Microsoft Windows?

As of last year, nothing. Boot Camp, released by as a beta Apple in April of 2006 (and due in just a few months as part of Mac OS X v10.5), allows you to “dual boot” your Mac into Windows or Mac OS X. Simply holding down the option key during start-up gives you a choice. Click on one or the other and you can decide where to go from there. Within moments you will find yourself immersed in the comfortable user friendly environment of Mac OS X or the candy coated retardedness that is Microsoft Windows. Either way, you can do it on one machine.

And this isn’t just some sort of hackery, either, like an emulator. Windows runs just as fast as it would on a “normal” PC - in some cases even faster. With just a handful of very minor problems (after all, Boot Camp is still in beta), your Windows software works as well as expected. In other words, you could remain booted into Windows - on your shiny new iMac - full time, as if you owned a PC. Why you would want to subject yourself to that, I do not know, but it’s still an option.

The biggest problem with Boot Camp is that you have to restart your computer to switch back and forth. That takes time and interrupts work-flow. You can’t copy and paste between Mac OS X and Window or (easily) copy files from one platform to the other. You may only use one computer, but it more or less behaves as two.

There is, however, another way.

Parallels

What in the hell is this devilry?

This is release candidate for upcoming (due in a couple of weeks) version of Parallels, a really cool virtualization tool that came out some time last year. Upon installing it on an Intel-based Mac, you can run your Windows software without having to reboot, unlike Boot Camp.

Cooler still is the “Coherency” mode, pictured in the screenshot above, wherein both Windows and Mac OS X coexist together like some sort of bizarre multi-headed hydra. A Mac OS X menu bar at the top, Windows task bar at the bottom. Strange? Yes. Useful, though, if you use both platforms and want them to co-mingle. You can copy and paste between platforms, copy files, etc. Very cool.

If that’s just too weird for you - and it is kind of odd - you can also run Windows full screen or in a window, just like VirtualPC.

A couple of caveats:

• There is a performance hit, though it’s pretty minor. The Parallels people claim that virtualized Windows runs at about 90% native speed, which seems about right - and a hell of a lot faster than VirtualPC.
• Those applications that need direct access to the 3D graphic acceleration functionality of your video card - namely, most graphically intense games - won’t work. In general most applications work fine, though Parallels doesn’t enjoy the nearly 100% compatibility that Boot Camp provides.

The cool thing about Parallels is that, with this upcoming release, it and Boot Camp can coexist. For the most part, this means that you’ll be rebooting to play games and using Parallels for everything else.

But… Why?

As cool as Boot Camp and Parallels are, they suffer from one major problem: They’re not really needed any more.

With exception of those who like to play the latest games (which can still be hard to come by on the Mac), software availability just isn’t nearly the problem it used to be. The Mac platform is doing extremely well despite being in the minority, and these tools would have been a lot more helpful 10 years ago.

That said, they are a great insurance policy should you find yourself occasionally needing some obscure application for which there is no available Mac version.

Having given the iPhone a bit more contemplation over the last couple of days, it’s still pretty cool - but not quite as cool as I previous thought.

Apple bills the iPhone as a smart-phone. To some extent, if the feature-list is to be believed, it is indeed pretty damned smart. The Google Maps functionality is perfect for those of us living in or near large metropolitan areas, the email integration looks superb, and finally it looks like we will be getting an actual fully-functional, mainstream web browser in a phone-like handheld device.

However, there is something missing - the opportunity to expand the capabilities of the phone via 3rd parties. Steve Jobs has said that he does not intend for the phone to be an open platform, which implies that the only software that will end up on the phone will be only that which is put there with Apple and Cingular’s blessing (likely, for an additional fee).

As much of a Mac fan as I am - and generally impressed with Apple’s products in general - I have no illusions that they can or will provide everything that people would want in a smart-phone. Would I buy a Mac if I were limited to only using Apple’s applications (iTunes and the like)? Absolutely not. BBEdit beats TextEdit, iTerm beats Terminal, Photoshop beats iPhoto and so on. The strength of the smart-phone concept rests almost entirely on the ability of 3rd parties to offer ways to extend and improve upon what comes with that phone.

The problem is that this scares Apple - and it really scares Cingular, Apple’s chosen cellular network provider.

Were the iPhone truly open, its capabilities could easily be used in conjunction with a 3rd party VoIP (Voice over IP) application, allowing you - if you are near one of the increasingly more common wireless access points dotting the American landscape - to make phone calls without ever giving a dime to Cingular. If anyone, Skype and their contemporaries would stand to benefit. iPhone users would benefit even more.

Were Apple to allow that - or better yet, facilitate it - it would truly turn the mobile phone industry on its head in the favor of consumers. As it is now, Apple is providing a “closed box” at the behest of Cingular, and as cool as the iPhone is to behold it is not particularly revolutionary.

Beyond VoIP, there’s another matter of games, technical tools (I really want a quality SSH client, and wouldn’t expect Apple to offer one), etc. As poor as the Treo and other smart-phones may be in comparison to Apple’s offering, they do provide a large number of 3rd party developed applications - quality applications, at that - that fulfill the needs of those that Palm and the like could not. This has spawned a sizable industry of independent developers, which is exactly the sort of mindshare Apple needs to cultivate.

I hope this is simply a matter of Apple gaining market-share ahead of time so that they can eventually dictate to Cingular how this whole thing should be done (as they more or less have done with the recording industry). I hope that a later software update will open up the iPhone - and its associated APIs - to 3rd parties. Until then, though, the iPhone itself isn’t nearly as interesting as it could be.

…

On a side note: I think Apple is being absolutely ridiculous in its apparent infringement of Cisco’s “iPhone” trademark. There are actual products out there - phones, even - bearing the “iPhone” name. Apple is in the wrong on this, and it blows my mind that they’re trying to pass it off as a valid use of the term.

Speaking of mobile phones, I’ve updated MobiLog! to version 1.0.1. This is a bug-fix release. Release notes are as follows:

Version 1.0.1

• Some users reported problems with mobilog.pl not reading configuration values when executed via cron. This should now be resolved.
• Improved error reporting when unable to connect to database or email account (both in mobilog.pl and mobilog.php).
• Minor changes to ensure Atom v1.0 specification compliance (tag and date values). If a feed doesn’t validate for some reason, please let us know!
• Improvements to generated summary file XHTML to fix minor display ‘oddities.’

So, if you’ve had trouble with getting cron to work right or with the generated Atom syndication feed, this upgrade should fix it. For those not familiar with it, MobiLog! is a free, open source moblogging (mobile weblogging) tool.

…

On a related note…

I’m considering what features to add to MobiLog! next. I could probably add RSS syndication support in pretty short order, as well as some options for integrating it into existing (more traditional) weblogs.

I’m also considering adding the ability to post comments, though in doing so I would like to nip the comment spam problem in the bud from the very start. The most effective spam control I’ve seen is through the use of CAPTCHAs, though there are accessibility issues inherent to that technique. I suppose I could add a fall-back option for manual comment approval, but ultimately I’d like to prevent moblog owners having to manually wade through and delete spam if possible.

If anyone has any thoughts on what they’d like to see added to MobiLog! - or how to best deal with the comment spam issue - let me know.

Apple certainly chose a good time to change their name from “Apple Computer, Inc” to just “Apple, Inc” - this year’s keynote was more or less devoid of anything Mac-specific. I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t at least get a preview of Mac OS X Leopard’s progress, but given what else Apple had up their sleeves this year I can understand why their operating system was put on the back burner.

Apple TV (formerly known under the code name “iTV”).

Basically, this is a media extender for Apple’s iTunes software, allowing you to view/listen to your music collection, movies, TV shows, etc.

Truth be told, I’m a bit underwhelmed. At this point in time I barely ever buy anything through iTunes - I’m not a huge fan of DRM being wrapped around my music collection, and a lot of the music I listen to isn’t even available on there. I feel much the same way about movies. This isn’t that big a deal as long as I can rip my own music and movie collection and view them using the Apple TV.

Now, where I could see the iTunes store (and by extension, Apple TV) being useful is in replacing my monthly cable and Tivo bills, allowing me to subscribe to only those shows I am personally interested in. I don’t feel the need to “own” TV shows quite as much as I do my music and movie collection, and as I really don’t watch a whole lot of TV I would likely save a lot of money.

The problem is, once you go beyond the more popular sitcoms and dramas (”Lost” and such) the selection on iTunes is pretty poor. A search for the shows Glenna and I watch turns up the following:

• Mythbusters - only 13 episodes, all from the 2004 season. A quick look shows that there are only four different shows total to be found from the Discovery Channel.
• How It’s Made - Discovery Channel show that hasn’t made its way to iTunes.
• Survivorman - Discovery Channel show that hasn’t made its way to iTunes.
• Globe Trekker - Very high quality Travel Channel show. Not even listed.
• Cops - Yeah, it’s a guilty pleasure, there to remind me that in a parallel universe it could be my shirtless and toothless self being cuffed in front of my trailer home after a domestic violence call. Either way, iTunes doesn’t have it.
• Lost - Pretty much the only mainstream drama we’ve been hooked on. iTunes has been very good in keeping up-to-date on this series, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

Podcast support does open up great possibilities for independent media producers, but so far there hasn’t been much “must-have” material in that realm, either. That may take some time.

Either way, the upshot is this: iTunes has almost nothing I’d want to watch - and they’ve been offering video for over a year now. Until it can replace my DirecTV and Tivo subscriptions, I just don’t see a need to get the Apple TV. That said, I hope they sell millions of these things in order to bankroll future Mac development.

iPhone

Now, this I am excited about.

Back in 2001, Apple released the iPod, bringing portable digital music players to the mainstream by designing an easy to use and functional interface. Earlier products did the same sort of thing, but they didn’t do it nearly as well. Now, they’re the undisputed market leader (spawning no shortage of laughable attempts to dethrone them).

With the iPhone, Apple is seeking to make a dent in a much more established market - that of the mobile phone. Given what I’ve seen, I have no doubt that Apple is going to own this huge market in the long term. Here’s why:

• It’s a market they know how to cater to. In recent years mobile phones have become commonplace amongst mainstream consumers, particularly teens and 20-somethings. Since the iPod, Apple has gained tremendous mind-share among these types of people. Expect the iPhone to become the “hot new thing” among the trend-followers, just like the iPod - and just wait until they start coming out in multiple colors.
• It’s a market saturated with substandard crap. Has anyone ever used a mobile phone and actually enjoyed the experience? The user interfaces these things feature are terrible, leading me to believe that somewhere in the world is a team of crack-addled monkeys doing the design work. I’ve never had a cell phone that to one degree or another I didn’t have to fight. For all their faults, when Apple puts their mind to it they can engineer a truly exceptional user experience.
• It’s a smart-phone that regular people will actually want to use. Like the Treo before it, the iPhone is a “smart-phone” - its functionality is not limited to just making calls, but doing all sorts of other things that people typically require computers for. Email, web access, etc. Since the whole thing is essentially a giant touch-sensitive screen, though, there’s actually enough room to see what you’re doing. A side effect of this is that the iPhone is actually really small - something that almost no other smart-phone can boast.

The feature list is pretty amazing: phone, SMS, voicemail, photos, support for music/video playback (essentially making it an iPod), Safari web browsing, Google maps, widgets (providing weather, road conditions, etc), wi-fi support, portrait and landscape display modes, IMAP/POP email, a 2 megapixel camera, a calendar, etc.

One thing that impresses me is that this phone actually runs on a scaled down version of Mac OS X - the operating system that powers the Macintosh. In a sense, you’re really getting a tightly focused little Macintosh computer in the palm of your hand. It remains to be seen how much of this will be opened up to developers (please, Apple?), but it could make for some exciting possibilities for the geekier set amongst us.

Really, though, the best way to get a feel for how impressive this thing is is to take a look at Apple’s site - or watch the keynote when it’s posted later today.

The bad news: It’s going to cost $500, and that’s for the entry-level model. $600 for the best version. One wonders if they’ve taken pointers from Sony’s team. Still, prices will fall and (unlike Sony and their precious Blue-Ray) every bit of the functionality the iPhone provides will benefit the owner from the very day they get their phone. Factor in the fact that it pretty much doubles as an iPod nano, and it’s not really that bad. Either way, it’s not going to be available until June so you have some time to save up if you plan on getting one.

Other stuff

With the above two “big” announcements, a few other things of some interest were slipped in.

Apple has introduced “AirPort Extreme” (god, I’m so sick of the whole “extreme” meme - please, someone make it die), upgrading their AirPort wireless access point solution to support 802.11n networking. Not super exciting in its own right - right now, I don’t even come close to maxing out my 802.11b wireless network - but in the long run this will enable much more media-rich applications (things along the lines of Apple TV).

New iTunes content from Paramount. Meh. That this is a big deal at all a year out sort of underscores my point about there not being a diverse enough amount of material for sale on iTunes. I hope this changes in the long run.

Apple is now the fifth largest music reseller (via iTunes), leaping ahead of Amazon. Apparently they’re selling approximately 5 million songs a day. Not bad.

Finally, as mentioned, Apple has changed their official name from “Apple Computer, Inc” to “Apple, Inc” in recognition of the fact that they’re much more than just a computer hardware vendor these days. I’m surprised it took this long.