Aidan Williams - High Acuity

Two weeks ago I got a call from my brother:

Angus: “Hi bro, the new iPhone is out.”
Me: ”Really? Great! I’ll check the site.”
Angus: “… Oh and they updated the Macbook Pros.”
Me: “What!? Nooooo!”
Angus: * starts crying with laughter *

So two weeks after we bought our new 17” Macbook Pros, Apple update them. Hahaha!

Luckily the updates were just a 0.1GHz increase in processor speed, but we decided to get in touch with Apple anyway. We were within the time period where we could return them and get them replaced with latest ones, but we decided we were too busy with work to accommodate the disruption.

Instead we asked if there was anything else they could do and they refunded us both £100! Not bad at all, Apple. Thank you very much!

On Friday, I upgraded from my first generation iPhone 2G to an iPhone 3G S. I know I could have upgraded to the 3G for free last year, but I didn’t feel the need to do so and the 2G has served me well. In fact I wasn’t even sure I really needed to upgrade to the 3G S (sorry Apple). What are we really getting here? Faster processor, slightly improved camera, video recording, a voice-recording app, voice control, compass functionality, spotlight. And most of these will be free when anyone upgrades to the 3.0 update on the older generation iPhones, so that really just leaves just a few reasons to upgrade.

These are all things we may want but certainly not things we need. This isn’t a dig at Apple though, it’s really a testament to just how well the first iPhone was built.

I decided to buy the 16GB White version, purely to have something different to all my friends. Why not 32GB? Virtually everyone in the store was buying the 32GB version and on every tariff available from O2, the 32GB version cost one hundred pounds more than the 16GB model. £100 for an extra 16GB of memory? You can find countless 32GB USB flash drives on the net for around £35, and 16GB USB flash drives for £20. So I thought Apple’s price hike was a little steep and was their way of saying to customers “If you want the best, you’ll pay a premium!”.

Well, I really don’t need the extra 16GB. I saved £100 and I have an identical iPhone to the 32GB owners with more than enough space to accommodate my iTunes library.

Having used the new iPhone 3G S over the weekend, I have to admit I was surprised with how much faster both the 3G connection is than the 2G model, and the general speed of applications. The performance of games has especially improved on the 3G S, some of which chugged on the iPhone 2G model. The camera also seems a lot higher quality, producing sharper photos with better colour depth and the video is also surprisingly sharp too.

My favourite improvement is the compass functionality though. I’ve used Google maps on the iPhone to get to meetings a lot in the past, and generally find directions to places to visit all around London. I’m shocked my iPhone-owning friends don’t use this more just to open, type ‘bar’, ‘restaurant’, ‘café’ and find a place close to their current location. Now that Google Maps has had the compass functionality integrated, I don’t have to look at the street names so find out which direction I’m facing relative to the map, I just click the compass icon and the map will turn to face the direction I’m walking. Simply point and walk – perfect!

None of the improvements to the iPhone 3G S are life-changing when compared to previous generations, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend people upgrade to it especially if you have the 3G version. Unless the iPhone is the only camera you use and you really crave the improvements and video options. And in reality all these changes really mean is that I’ll be able to find places with a little less fuss in Google maps, apps will run smoother, and maybe I’ll be posting more pictures taken with my iPhone.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with my purchase though…. Apple has made some very nice improvements to an already brilliant product. Just don’t buy a white iPhone – it looks nice at first, but it gets dusty very quickly. I think Apple will probably do something quite special with the next iteration, like a complete overhaul of the design, greatly improved camera with a flash, much higher storage capacity as flash drives become more common and cheaper, etc.

Sanj and I have spent the last year and a half debating what new computers we should invest in when we next upgraded and it ultimately came down to two choices: Should we go Mac and get 17” Macbook Pros and  Apple Cinema Displays? Or should we go PC, get great LED displays, very powerful desktop computers and buy ourselves separate laptops as well for the same price as the Apple setup?

After a couple of post-meeting visits to the Regent Street Apple store in Soho, and a bit more prodding from me, Sanj started coming round to the idea of switching to Mac. We decided to go ahead with the caveat that if they were hard to use or caused any problems for him, I would never be allowed to make any hardware choices in the company again. Haha – sounds good to me!

We ordered two 17” Macbook Pros, two 24” Cinema Displays, two Wacom Bamboo Tablets, and two Rain Design mStands, as well as a few other extras individually.

The packages arrived from China and were left sitting next to us in our offices upstairs while we focused on finishing two projects. We finally found the time to open them up and get everything set up and installed a few days later and we are both very happy people indeed. As with all Apple products it was fast and simple and, aside from a few questions as he’s getting used to the OS-X way of doing things, Sanj is loving his new Apple experience so far.

We were very dubious about the gloss on the 24” Cinema Displays that under certain light seemed unbearably reflective. We only ordered them after checking with Apple that we could return them within 14 days with no questions asked if we were unhappy with the results. However, the gloss has not been an issue for us so far at all. The performance of the screens is astounding with incredible bright colour reproduction, very high contrast ratios and a fantastic viewing angle. The design is also stunning and with the in-built magsafe connectors we can power our Macbooks straight from the displays and leave our other Macbook power adapters at home. We’ll see what we think after we’ve been using them for a couple of months.

Click here to view the extended version of this post and see some of my old setups.

Last week Apple released the latest evolutions of their entire Macbook line and I have to say… I’m not too sure about certain elements of the design. I’m not a huge fan of the keys on Apple’s latest line of keyboards, which have now made it onto the entire Macbook line. I don’t like the look of the black keys on the aluminium casing, nor the black frame around the screen, or the screen itself for that matter. The glossy displays always look incredible on first sight, but the reflections can be a little distracting. That whole look reminds me of some of the cheap old PC imitations of the Macbook line. The specs also aren’t a huge improvement over my nearly-two-year-old Macbook Pro 17” which is a little disappointing. The optical drive is the same 8x Superdrive I have now and there’s no blue-ray drive to be seen, which has been a standard feature in most high-end PC laptops for the last year.

But let’s stretch our imaginations for just one crazy minute and assume that Jonathan Ive knows more about product design than I do and does actually know what he’s doing. I know! I know! It’s a stretch, but I think we can do it if we close our eyes, click our heels together and dream about that yellow brick road.

A couple of friends rushed to the Apple store the morning after Steve’s keynote to buy the Macbook Pros. As did my brother, who has finally made the switch to Mac and invested in the Macbook Pro, maxing-out all of the options for the 2.8GHz version with 4GB ram and he is thus far extremely happy, calling me regularly this weekend to gloat. As my flatmate pointed out to me, and I relayed to my brother, it’s quite shocking that as a gay man with a good sense of style, who enjoys extremely expensive designer suits, gadgets and technology, he has only just switched from PCs to Mac. He then told me he is going to install Windows Vista via Boot Camp for some of his work-based applications. I have understandably subsequently disowned him. It’s a tough decision, but one that had to be made. I know you understand.

There are some cool features in the new Macbooks though, most notably the ability to easily replace the hard drive, which is the fastest-degrading element of any computer, especially in terms of speed. This means that in a year or two you can shell out £50 to replace/upgrade your hard drive easily yourself. Or you could shell out £350 to £500 for the 128GB Solid State hard drive Apple are offering and avoid the speed reduction altogether. It has only one third of the capacity of the 320GB hard drive they’re offering as standard with the high-end configuration though.

Shame there’s no 17” yet, but I’ll be looking forward to seeing how they update it in January.

One of the other things Apple design beautifully are their retail stores. They recently opened stores in Beijing and Sydney, and they both are on par with the standards in architecture and design set by their stores in the US and EU.

Apple Store Regent Street, London

Apple Store Fifth Avenue, New York

Apple Store San Francisco

Apple Store Miami

Apple Store Massachusetts

Apple Store Beijing

Apple Store Sydney

Bloody tasty if you ask me!