This Week in Lumps
#34 [15/01 - 21/01]
· Every year, usually the second week of January, the Macworld Conference trade show hits San Francisco, giving Apple staff a chance to parade Apple Mac goodies for the ever increasing fan-base. Last year, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to the masses, along with AppleTV (then named iTV), and announced a change of name for the company from Apple Computer, Inc. to simply Apple, Inc.
This year, along with a few other items, Steve Jobs unveiled a new ultra-thin notebook, the £1,200 MacBook Air — touted as the world’s thinnest notebook computer, taking the crown away from Sony in the process. The wow factor is definitely orbiting around this announcement: a notebook that can (bizarrely) fit inside an envelope, a laptop so small it beggars belief that it hasn’t lost any of the main plus points from previous Notebooks. Saying this, it is Apple’s first notebook since the original iBook to lack a FireWire port, as well as lacking an Ethernet port and a security slot, although add ons (such as a USB-to-Ethernet adapter) can be purchased separately. It’s promoting itself as a wireless machine, being able access the optical drive of another Mac or Windows PC that has the Remote Disc program installed, allowing the installation of applications from a CD or DVD (meaning these drives are absent from the biscuit-thin device).
Even the man himself found it pretty flawless:
“It’s an amazing feat of engineering.”
However, what I’ve seen around blogs and websites over the last week has been a less-than-emphatic response. Now, these aren’t blogs aimed at Anti-Mac heads, or Microsoft fan-boys, nor are they websites famed for being incorrect on numerous occasions. These are sites I value the opinion of as a neutral.
Firstly, the cost. £1,200 is a lot of money for anyone. Sadly, £1200 is just the basic model: no thrills, no dancing girls, no lollipops. £1200 and you get a travel companion, something to use when the main computer is out of reach. Therefore, it’s clear to see what kind of market this product is going to be aimed at, even the lack of Ethernet ability will put off even the most well-off student. The other end of the spectrum, well, I dare not even tell you what the cost, in fear of your jaw breaking the keyboard. Which leads me onto the second point, the current market. As you’d have thought, there are alternatives. Gizmodo has a couple of great articles about comparison between the Air, and some of it’s current rivals. The results show that better options can be found, and anyone with a slight interest in getting the best deal (usually being the cheapest) will already be aware of these machines. This appears to be the technological equivalent of a George Foreman Grill: you don’t really need it, in fact, you can make do with what you own at the moment, but it’s aways great to name drop it into a conversation to impress people. Just don’t mention the price.
So, the world wide web’s opinion. Matt Warman from the Telegraph website:
“Size matters when it comes to technology, as anyone who had a mobile phone before 1990 will testify. But Apple is adored by its frighteningly ardent fans precisely because it doesn’t just do what every other tech firm should be doing anyway. The iMac, the iPhone, the iPod, its operating system Leopard – all of these products changed the consumers’ landscape. MacWorld 2008 just didn’t. It’s like somebody took a bite out of Apple’s creativity.”
Charles Arthur for the Guardian preferred to focus on the wireless side of this announcement:
“The lack of wires – just one USB port – does point towards a future when we try to link up wirelessly everywhere. However, the lack of built-in 3G or WiMax compatibility indicates an intriguing conservatism by Apple (though Intel first shipped a WiMax-capable chip more than a year ago, and says it will have the chip in processors this year). The future, it seems, is only a bit wireless.”
Don’t get me wrong, It’s a very sexy piece of equipment. I fully expect the demand for this machine to be really strong; in fact, I’d be surprised by anything less. But was there ever a news item about the previous thinnest notebook? Highly unlikely. Apple have reached a stage where they can spin a great release with all the hype of a SuperBowl, and never fail to land on their feet. The truth is that the market will always be there: customers will always be interested in what they release, because of the companies great reputation, but stop and think for a minute, why do you need a really thin laptop? What benefits are you personally after that a slightly bigger (and more cost effective) laptop can’t provide? Are you really going to buy a 99p envelope and practise slipping it inside and then back out?
In fact, the only time you’ll be pushing it inside an envelope is when you’re mailing it in to them to replace the battery.
~
· According to a press release from the UK Film Council this week, cinemas in the UK enjoyed a strong 2007: taking £904m – up 8% on 2006. This may sound like generic news, but it wasn’t long ago that the news was full of decreasing cinema (and theatre) numbers and to even compare with the massive hit 2006 turned out to be, this is really uplifting news, and if you’re after more, you’ll be in for a treat: 2008 is going to be even better.
Starting 2008 off with a bang the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, who’s back catalogue shines with such bright hits such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowski, and some misses like The Hudsucker Proxy and Intolerable Cruelty. The basic layout of the film is laid down early:
“A resourceful redneck called Moss stumbles across the eerie remains of a drug deal that has gone very wrong. The Mexican gangsters have shot each other to bits. Their prone bodies are starting to bloat. The air is thick with flies. A ton of heroin is stacked in the back of a pickup truck. A hopeful corpse is gripping a briefcase containing $2 million in $100 bills. The wary Moss ignores the drugs and walks off with the cash. The most psychotic hitman in the history of motion pictures is assigned by a mega-rich corporate giant to find the money and kill Moss.”
If that doesn’t whet your appetite then you could be suffering from something incurable.
The simple story before this film was released was this being the make or break release for the brothers. Sure enough, they have a lot of good films under their collective belt, but the problem lied in those the critics weren’t altogether keen on. The headlines were that if this one were to not be the next big film of the year, let alone Oscar material, the brothers should go back to the drawing board. Luckily for us, this was never to be the case. The Americans saw this released in November, and most, if not all of the critics classed it under ‘masterpiece’. It currently has a whopping 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and now it’s been set free in the UK and Europe, it’s set to make the Coen’s even more of a household name than before, something that they couldn’t have dreamt of whilst writing Rasing Arizona, back in the 80′s, and yes, talks of ‘Oscar potential’ have not been far away. Some parts of the film are so heart-stoppingly tense and dramatic you wish more cinemas had mute buttons, or cushions to quickly duck behind. Maybe that’s me stretching the truth too far, because you can’t take your eyes away from this film for one second, no matter how much a toilet break is needed. Violent, thrilling but with a sense of patience, powerful, gripping yet poetic, and blackly funny, this film will stick in your head for many nights ahead.
Starring in this bladder-bursting release are Tommy Lee Jones as the Sheriff, the bounty hunter Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald (who you may remember from Trainspotting, and who nails the Texan accent superbly), the brilliant Josh Brolin, and the even better Javier Bardem, possibly one of the scariest characters I’ve seen in a film. This film is storytelling at it’s finest; I can’t really put it any better than Empire:
“The Coens have rediscovered their mojo, with, dare we say it, a new maturity.”
No Country For Old Men arrived on these shores on 18th January 2008. It’s in all the cinemas decent enough to show it, so go and see it.
~~~
That was the week in lumps, a week in which: Scrabulous is hanging by a thread, the legend Michel Gondry will star as a guest editor of YouTube, Carmen Electra may have a daft name, but she looks great without makeup, Jamie Oliver lets rip on his staff for using cheap eggs, Facebook is in the doghouse, the RIAA website was wiped clean by hackers, scientologists are no better than nazis, and the BBC iPlayer is proving to be hugely popular, as it deserves.
That’s all for another week: if you’ve liked this entry, or have fond memories of any others I’ve posted (such as week 21, where I talk about In Rainbows, or maybe week 7 where I discuss the new Metallica album coming out later this year), then please tell a friend, and help me promote this site. This isn’t about getting a certain amount of visitors to get my AdSense hits up – as you’ll notice the site is spam-free, and will stay that way. I’m not interested in making money (I have a job for that), what I’m interested in is others finding out about this place, spreading the word to others, and hopefully getting a bit of a following. I know this doesn’t happen overnight, but every little helps, and if you could do that for me I might even send you a present*.
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*said present will not be a Apple Air, my job doesn’t pay me that well…
A.D. Winn
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