Hadley Stern's Profile

First of all welcome back, Chris! All you readers may not know this but Chris just finished writing a book for O'Reilly, Apple Hacks, which you are hereby ordered to buy now, enjoy and rate appropriately on Amazon, Book here. Now onto the issue. Regardless of the busy savvy of making a move I too would like to see a so-called sub-Mac-Pro. I want a machine that I can open up, add some hard-drives too and tinker with. But I do think Apple is not going to create this type of machine. I think Steve's view is either you are a Pro who needs the fastest hard drive connections, video cards, expandability, etc or you are a just a consumer user who needs something that works. The notion of a prosumer machine is interesting but my guess is Apple doesn't care to understand that market. In the spirit of Mac users who like to Hack it is getting tougher and tougher these days. The Mac Pros are just too expensive and opening up a Mac mini requires a freakin' putty knife!

Hah, no April fool joke everyone....thanks for the nice feedback!

Wolp and others, its fine to disagree but lets keep any site attacks or personal attacks out of it....it gets old real quick. The ironic thing is I just returned on the Red Eye from San Francisco where in between trying to sleep, and watching my first iTunes rental on my iPhone (which worked great btw) I started writing a piece about how great the Air is. That piece will appear soon. I truly believe the Macbook Air has to be seen, and picked up, to be appreciated. As for your points about price, Tanner, it costs more to make a product that is more compact. The technology innovation required to pack that much power into such a light-weight package is not easy, and once you pick up an Air you'll appreciate it more. I do agree that 80GBS is a little slim, and I was surprised to see no option to upgrade to a 160GB drive (maybe it's too thick?). But I think the real reason is that this machine is supposed to be someone's alternate machine, not their dedicated machine. To be used when traveling. That said I could easily survive with an Air as a dedicated machine. 80GBS is fine, the processor rocks (which is where people should be concerned if there was a compromise) and it is super-light and beautiful.

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Great article, Chris and some great comments too. I think an interesting observation from a commenter concerns the success of Linux in the webserver space. Indeed Apple Matters has always been hosted on Red Hat Linux. When the site needed a dedicated server a few years ago I really wanted to have it served on a Mac but it just wasn't realistic. I, like many, am getting a little tired and bored with the notion of one operating system over all others. Each have their place, yes, even Windows. For example, if I was building a dental practice, and wanted to have a completely digital practice (digital xrays, monitors in rooms, integrated reservation and finance system, etc), I'd be hard pressed not to go Windows. If I was building a super-duper webhosting company from the ground-up I'd be dumb not to go with Linux. Where does that leave the Mac? If I was starting an ad agency I'd be dumb not to go all Mac, and if I was looking for the best home computer experience I'd be dumb to not go Mac. This is not to say that Mac's don't belong in server farms (they do for research), or in business (they are awesome business machines), it is just to say there is no one answer for anything and this is ok. It doesn't mean that Linux sucks and the Mac doesn't. Or ever that Windows sucks anymore. It means they have their place.

Everyone, please lets keep the comment civil, no personal attacks. Thanks

First off, Chris, great piece of writing here. I also don't quite get it. The one thing is, though, is that it doesn't really matter. Once you have the iPod touch and you hack into it (which is very easy), you will, I assume, be able to install the Mail app and be done with it. Addressing those who don't think its useful I disagree. The iPhone at home with my wifi connection has practically become the first thing I look at for email. Its in my pocket when I'm at home, and I can just do a quick check without going to my computer. Also, if one of my kids wants some company while falling asleep (sometimes happens with our 3 year old) I can sit on the couch in his room and go through some email while he nods off. But aside from whether it is useful or not it is just plain odd that Apple didn't include it. I'm not sure if it was because of fear of canabilizing iPhone sales, or just not wanting to make the iPod touch anthing more than an entertainment device....but then why is Safari on there?! All in all I think this line of iPod is full of compromises. You have the kick-ass interface of the iPod touch without the kick-ass storage of the classic without the kick-ass internet apps of the iPhone. On Macitt.com I think Beeblebrox said it best: "The iPod Touch’s screen and interface + The iPod Classic’s capacity + The iPod Nano’s price = The perfect iPod."