Rumours are flying around that Apple will release a tablet at their event on the 27th. They may just be rumours or complete truth, but what I want to talk about is where this tablet is going to fit in their line and who the hell is going to use it?
The idea of a tablet sounds great and I am sure if Apple make one it will work wonderfully. What I worry about is that there is just no market for one. If you want to surf the web while your out and about then you will use your iPhone; if you want to type a blog post you would use a laptop, it’s just that simple.
Where does a tablet fit in our lives? One possibility is as an ebook reader, but then you arrive at the question of the screen. What will they use? there are two choices and energy hungry LCD or a colour limited e-ink screen. If this was its primary purpose I just can’t see that many selling. Another use is for the more artistic mac owners who really want a touch screen to better create their art work, however this market share is probably so small it will not be profitable. It has also been rumoured that you maybe able to get it with a wireless carrier, if this is true it is competing with the iPhone as a wireless surfing device.
Then we come to the mine field that is price, this is a nightmare; if they price it at $1000 it is competing with fully fledged laptops and if they put it at $500 it is competing with the iPhone. A tablet sounds like a great idea, but it is a tried and failed model. I am not saying Apple should stay away from it I just hope they have something innovative and unique so it can easily be differentiated from an iPhone or a laptop.
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Choosing gifts for a “Geek” can be hard work, so we tend to actually tell our family what to buy and where from. But that doesn’t mean we still don’t have problems choosing what we really want for christmas ourselves. I am going to try and help by scouring the internet for gifts to delight all geeks around the world. My list contains some obscure but cool gifts and some more obvious ones.
- The Book Arc – this is a laptop stand similar to the mStand and Griffin Elevator, but this holds your laptop sideways leaving you more desk space.
- Films – Either blu-ray or DVD’s are great ideas, my personal favourite for this year would be Transformers.
- A Seagate 1TB USB hard drive – In general any hard drive is great for christmas as the size of our personal data is forever growing.
- Opteka .35x Fisheye – although not a great fisheye it is said to be great for the price point and ideal for new photographers wanting try a fisheye out with splashing all the cash.
- Airzooka – this marvellous childish toy shoots air at who ever you aim it at, totally ideal for family gatherings.
- Incase Laptop sleeve – sleeves are much smaller than laptop bags, and these incases ones look great with a plain design.
- XMI X-mini II Mini Speaker – These mini speakers put out some serious sound for their size and after getting one for my birthday would recommend them to anyone.
- TV Box sets – any TV series you love tends to be a great present.
Hope this helps.
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Just before the release of Windows 7 Apple announced a couple updates to some of their products. They released what are basically widescreen versions of the iMac, which have to be said look extremely nice, they also gave them a bit of a speed bump. They released a slender new aluminium Apple remote, a server version of the Mac Mini and a new MacBook with better longer battery life and a plastic unibody shell.
But most importantly they released the Magic Mouse, that is unbelievably cool. One of most talked about announcements is a flipping mouse. It is so hard to find a good bluetooth mouse these days. Logitech are the only company that sell a good basic bluetooth mouse ever other mouse wants you to plugin some form of dongle. Is it so unreasonable to use a technology that could be built into every Laptop and is in nearly every phone. Anyway back to the Magic mouse, it has the most sleek and stream line design of any mouse I have ever seen. I don’t know if I would really uses all those fancy finger gestures, but as long as I don’t have to lift my right finger to click with my left I might actually have to buy it.
What I did buy was a copy of Windows 7, there are so many version it can get really confusing but after looking around people were suggesting to get the 64-bit version on a Mac as Apple have drivers for 64-bit Windows 7 unlike Vista where there are only drivers for the 32-bit versions. In the end I bought the 64-bit Home premium version. I decided to get Windows 7 after playing with the beta which has to be said was rock solid and great to use. I need it for some of my A level subjects such as Physics where we are given a CD which, surprise surprise is Windows only and for DT where we use a lot of Windows design software packages such as “Pro Desktop”. I think I might wait till I have the official word from Apple that it is supported under Bootcamp, which is said to be coming by the end of this year.
For my birthday I got a EyeTV DTT so I can watch TV when I am at school. I also purchased the iPhone app to see if they have used all the potential that there is in an app of its kind.
EyeTV DTT
The DTT is the basic stick that Elgato offer, it allows you to watch digital TV and radio on your Mac as well as record it. Hardware wise the stick is just like having a memory stick plugged in. The software “EyeTV 3″ does not win any awards for looks but it is still not bad looking. The software consist of 3 basic windows the remote, the planner and the viewing window. In the planner if you double click on a show you can record it as a one off or the entire series, the one problem that I find is in the viewing windows you can also access a TV guide but it is slightly different from the one in the planner and you can’t set things to record in it, which confuses me a bit. Otherwise the experience is great as it is really easy to navigate from channel to channel and set up a record.
EyeTV for iPhone
The idea of an iPhone app that streams live TV from your laptop is an extremely appealing idea to me; and I am glad to report that the EyeTV app succeeds in reaching my expectation. When you choose a recorded video to watch you can read the synopsis or get straight into watching it, there is a slight pause before playback starts but part from that it was very smooth.
The EyeTV is a great alternative to buying a TV and is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying one at only £50. I would highly recommend it especially to some one who is going to university, as that is probable the perfect scenario to uses this in.
