No matter what Apple releases, no one is ever satisfied.

simX

simX

Unofficial Mac Genius
When looking over this site, the majority of comments I see about this keynote is the $100/year charge ($50/year for the first year if you are an existing iTools member) for .Mac .

NOT ONCE have I seen somebody mentioning iCal or iSync in a post, besides mine. This is sad. iCal ROCKS, from what I saw. I can't WAIT to get my hands on this application. No more goofing off with Palm Desktop and not actually wanting to organize myself. iCal will be a godsend. And did you see those web features? Sending calendar data, viewing multiple calendars on top of one another, one-click posting of calendars? That's so awesome! And all of that is free, as usual!

Come to think of it, I think I'll probably pay Apple the $100/year subscription just for providing me with 6 (read it, SIX -- iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iSync, iCal) free digital hub applications. Think of it as paying for these awesome applications, and getting free internet services to boot.

iSync is going to rock too. No more Palm Desktop at all anymore! I don't need that ho-hum application -- now I can sync my cell phone (which I will never, in my right mind, buy), PDAs, and even my iPod (which I currently have) with all calendar, address book, etc. data. All with Jaguar being released in late August and iSync being released in September. That's going to rule!

And while I knew a lot about all the features of OS X 10.2 already (I TOLD EVERYONE IT WAS GOING TO BE CALLED 10.2!!), I liked the demos of iChat, Mail (even though it didn't work :p ), and iTunes w/Rendezvous. The Rendezvous network printing demo was amazing, too. I can't wait for things like that to come out.

The last thing that I almost jumped for joy about: the iMac wide-screen edition. It has a 17" flat-panel with a wide-aspect ratio, AND it has a GeForce 4MX card to boot! (No processor speed upgrade, but that's OK.) All that for $1999, just a smidge under 2 grand before taxes. That's an awesome deal.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: 20 gig iPods at $499 with solid-state scroll wheel, remote, and better headphones. 10 gig iPods with solid-state wheel, remote, and better headphones for $399!! 5 gig iPods with better headphones (no remote or solid-state scroll wheel) for ___$299___. Wow!


Now, when I look at what I said above, all I can say is this:

All of you who are lamenting the fact that you won't be able to have a free mac.com e-mail address anymore: I feel your pain. But when you blow it out of proportion, it's just downright idiotic. Just once could you think about the incredible amounts of time put into developing iCal, iSync, and iTunes 3.. and you get that all for free? Now is a $100/year fee THAT MUCH for the added benefit you get with those digital hub applications? I think not.

As I said before, think of the annual fee as paying for the 6 awesome digital hub applications.

And get some perspective, too. .Mac is not grounds for switching platforms (and you'd be really moronic for thinking that .Net is going to be any better!).

Thank you.

By the way, I might add that I think Apple should, at the very least, continue to leave mac.com e-mail addresses free of charge. Maybe reduce the space to 3 MB or something. I'm not defending Apple in this decision, just putting it in perspective. If we Mac users shout, we WILL get our voice heard, and maybe Apple will relent on this. But if you expect Apple to keep hosting all your data on their servers for free, you really need to get a good look at the state of the technology market today. It's a wonder that Apple did this for so long.
 
haha...I can see you needed to get that off your chest SimX ;-)

I agree with you for the most part, but I suspect that reason you don't hear rave reviews about some of the things you mentioned is that for people like me they aren't going to be much of a factor. I don't have a PDA...I don't do scheduling on my computer, and I still (prepare yourself) use a paper organizer *gasp* ;-)

I don't see myself ever using iCal or iSync...at least not in the near future. I would be more than happy to plunk down $100 (if I had it) in appreciation for the iApps (that do rock)...but I simply can't do that every year. I barely make it on the student loan money I get now, and I can't afford this on top of my ISP cost, cable TV, car payment, gas, electric, water, etc...

I am excited about Jaguar and can't wait to get my hands on it...but once again, if it's 130 bucks I don't see that happening any time soon (hopefully I'll get a cheaper upgrade price for students or something).

So don't get me wrong...I'm sure there are a lot of people here excited about the things announced at the expo...it's just that the monetary aspect might have dampened spirits a smidge.
 
If you look at it that way.. your right it's a sweet deal.

But if you think about it when they first came out with @mac.com and gave it to us for free. We all thought Apple was wonderful for providing us this great service. Once we got hooked on it, now they want to charge for it.

This is my gripe. If mac mail was a fee service from the beginning, I would have zero issues with this, but now I have to tell everyone that I am changing my email address (yet again). There is absolutely no way that I will pay $100 a year just so that I use a @mac.com email address. I will not now nor ever have a need for any of their other services. I just do need them.

I think this is where a lot of people are not happy with. Not everyone needs a bundled package of services. Not everyone uses every free program that Apple provides. Not everyone plucks free $100 dollar bills from a tree.


Apple is a wonderful company and I wish them no harm, but they are making a bad move by cutting off this basic service. If you have read the complaints you may notice that they all pertain to email... not that they are going to lose iDisk... not that they are going to lose their webspace...

Just voicing out my opinion and my feelings. SimX is still correct though and that Apple has done a lot in terms of free apps, but I wonder how that will look in a couple of years. iPhoto for $49, iCal for 49, etc... or maybe just a bundled suite called iApps for $199. Just remember, if they can do it now with iTools (once free now $100) what will stop Apple from doing it to all their free services and apps???
 
iCal doesn't impress me, its nice to have a vendor neutral calendar app, but what details that are available now are pretty slim and it doesn't seem to have any reall advantage over Palm Desktop (save for the pretty colors) or Entourage. The way that the appointments overlap looks like it was done because it looks good, and not because it makes it any easier for the user to view them. When it comes out I willl definatly check it out, but for now, with the Entourage Hotsync update, Entourage will work fine with me.

One big question I have is wheter it will use a standard calendar format, so that I can set up a webdav server and publish my calendar to clients other than iCal.

Oh, and most of us rational thinkers knew it was going to be 10.2, you didn't have any big news for us there, but it is interesting that they have the lepard print on the box, and from I can see it looks like it still says Jaguar on the box.

One other thing, what the hell is a solid state scroll wheel? Does it no longer move and just senses your finger moving around the disk, or is it something else. How does this improve it from the one it had before?
 
:)

and it is pathetic that we (yes, WE) are treating Apple so poorly. After all they've done for us? come one!

btw, it would be more cost effective to get the 10 gig one than the five gig one, because a remote plus a case would probably be $100 on the spot, so pay for the 10 gig and get 100% more space along with accessories.
 
I agree. Most people blow everything way out of proportion.

I hope that Apple will still let us keep our mac.com email addresses though.

iCal is cool, but I don't really like how the orange/blue/red blobs look. Maybe they look better in person, but on the stream, I didn't like how it looked very much.

iSync is cool as well, but I don't have a BlueTooth cellphone, PDA, or similar device.
In fact, I haven't even seen a phone in stores around here that has BlueTooth.

Rendesvouz(whatever :p) is awesome, and I can't wait till that comes out.
Can't you just imagine the university networks full of Macs, with students sharing all their music over the network. :D

All in all, this was a good keynote. I think that people have come too used to seeing new Apple hardward announced. Apple has never said that they will always announce new software at a Macworld keynote, so there's no real reason to be disappointed.
 
at first i admit i wasnt all too happy re: .Mac and charging
100 / year. However, SimX... u are right. Considering
what we get for free does make up for it. And I'm looking
forward to iCal myself.

thanks for putting it all into a different perspective.
 
Originally posted by LordOphidian
iCal doesn't impress me, its nice to have a vendor neutral calendar app, but what details that are available now are pretty slim and it doesn't seem to have any reall advantage over Palm Desktop (save for the pretty colors) or Entourage. The way that the appointments overlap looks like it was done because it looks good, and not because it makes it any easier for the user to view them. When it comes out I willl definatly check it out, but for now, with the Entourage Hotsync update, Entourage will work fine with me.

One big question I have is wheter it will use a standard calendar format, so that I can set up a webdav server and publish my calendar to clients other than iCal.
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From the keynote, it just looks like iCal is much more intuitive than Palm Desktop. It's just the overall single window "playlist" style thing that I really like and that Apple's got me sold on.

Oh, and most of us rational thinkers knew it was going to be 10.2, you didn't have any big news for us there, but it is interesting that they have the lepard print on the box, and from I can see it looks like it still says Jaguar on the box.
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Actually, there were a lot of people predicting that this would be Mac OS X 10.5. I just wanted to gloat for a bit. :D

And that IS interesting that they are using the code name. I love the Pixar-rendered Jaguar texture, though. :D

One other thing, what the hell is a solid state scroll wheel? Does it no longer move and just senses your finger moving around the disk, or is it something else. How does this improve it from the one it had before?
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No moving parts. Much less vulnerable to wear and tear, dirt that can get in, etc. It'll be very nice.
 
I would usually agree with you Simx ..people are never happy ....but think about what you wrote:


Come to think of it, I think I'll probably pay Apple the $100/year subscription just for providing me with 6 (read it, SIX -- iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iSync, iCal) free digital hub applications

I'll probably pay Apple the $100 for providing me with free digital hub applications

DOESN ' T MAKE ANY SENSE TO ME...you pay to get something that is FREE???

You pay something that USED TO BE FREE???

Even when M$ bought Hotmail...it kept it FREE

What is Apple doing..... getting people with the ...."free demo" and if you want it now...you have to pay for it?? screw @mac.com mail... i ll find something else.... screw .mac web space... i ll get mine with all scripting support from other servers screw all this thing that userd to be free FOR A REASON and now i have to pay for it.....

See Simx is not the 100 buck ... i have them and i am willing to give them my money ...if and i underline IF it is worthed....and actually ... i sink?? that i ll NEVER use or iCal...tha i probably will use once? (i photo ...i used it once )
@mac.com mail?? that was cool.....but it was also free...... .mac web space? NEVER EVER USED.... iDisk?? cool idea....but never really used it either... what do ya think....should i pay??

Well if 100$ is normail for a mail service .. i would probably pay... but 100 $ for a mail acc is uncaccettable
 
Originally posted by devonferns

I hope that Apple will still let us keep our mac.com email addresses though.
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They will if you pay for the service, and aparently you get a discount if you stay with them (for the first year).


Rendesvouz(whatever :p) is awesome, and I can't wait till that comes out.
Can't you just imagine the university networks full of Macs, with students sharing all their music over the network. :D
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Yes I can imagine that, and the IT/Network person in me is crying, and these arn't tears of joy. This had better be damn configurable, otherwise we will have some massive security holes real quick. And i'm not quite sure I am looking foward to the load on the switches when the users start playing music off eachothers computers and things.

Rendezvous sounds like very nice technology and I would bet on it being very slick. But I fear that they will make it too userfriendly and not give us enough options to restrict its behavior.
 
Originally posted by simX


From the keynote, it just looks like iCal is much more intuitive than Palm Desktop. It's just the overall single window "playlist" style thing that I really like and that Apple's got me sold on.
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But from what I can see, iCal is only a calendar, which is just one part of Palm Desktop or Entourage. So if you only have the Palm Desktop Calendar open, you also have a single window (discounting the tool bar) playlist style app, that also has an interface for installing files on your Palm.

Also I dislike the use of Brushed Metal, but seing as that seems to be the New Aqua(tm), I guess they had to use it.

No moving parts. Much less vulnerable to wear and tear, dirt that can get in, etc. It'll be very nice.
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No moving parts? So its bascially a trackpad shaped as a ring? Interesting, but I would wait to get your hands on it before you say its all that much of an advantage, it seems to me that it might feel clunky and slow.
 
but Pro Apps cost money, and besides, Apple is probably working on them, remember Emagic and Logic and all those others?
 
Originally posted by ksv
Cool new software, but Apple is forgetting the professionals.
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All in due time, ksv, all in due time. Plus, you don't need that extra power just for an Apple PDA, do you? ;)
 
Originally posted by simX


All in due time, ksv, all in due time. Plus, you don't need that extra power just for an Apple PDA, do you? ;)
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I can guarantee you that if Apple had announced that today there would have been A LOT of happy people here SimX ;)



...unless the screen was too small, the unit was too big, it didn't look cool enough, and it didn't have enough built in memory...:rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by xaqintosh
but Pro Apps cost money, and besides, Apple is probably working on them, remember Emagic and Logic and all those others?
Click to expand...

I'm talking about hardware ;)
 
One thing that appeals to me is the free virus scanning using Virex. I had to buy Virex for OS 9 because Norton Antivirus would lock up or freeze the entire system. I trust Virex more than Norton. I'm sorry, but I do.

When I was on the dark side, I had all kind of products from McAfee. They worked great, for the most part. I was more than happy to continue with them on the Mac. So that is one thing.

Another thing is the iDisk. I have a webpage that I work on daily. On occasion, I put songs in my public folder for people to download.

Can you imagine how many songs I could store with 100MB of storage?

At first, the price tag seems radical, but when you look at the big picture, it is not a bad deal at all. :)
 
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