Solipsism Gradient

kiltbear wrote:

I think it could quite easily be the primary machine for a decent sized share of the market. I think we geeks forget about how most normal people operate. Surf, email, sync the iPod nano or iPhone. For the “average” user, I think a MacBook Air (with external optical), Time Capsule, and iPhone offers an easy to use elegant combination that will meet most all of their needs.

True, but wouldn’t such a “normal person” be equally well served by a MacBook, at less cost? Not that I remember what such a person is like…

Posted by kiltbear:
I think it could quite easily be the primary machine for a decent sized share of the market. I think we geeks forget about how most normal people operate. Surf, email, sync the iPod nano or iPhone. For the “average” user, I think a MacBook Air (with external optical), Time Capsule, and iPhone offers an easy to use elegant combination that will meet most all of their needs. For the average user with kids (and the money) they will have an iMac around as well. For the media center hounds, add the AppleTV.

Now that the specs are out, some fast comments on the MacBook Air.

I think most complainers about missing features are seriously mistaken; they’re thinking it’s a replacement for the current MacBook and MacBook Pro lines (and if it were, they’d be right). But it’s a matter of demographics. The Air is perhaps the first Mac specifically designed as a secondary machine – though I suppose it might be OK as a primary machine for some small segment of the market.

The comments remind me a lot of the reactions to the Smart ForTwo car. It just seats two people, its luggage space is very small, it’s not ideal for long trips, and (at least here in Brazil) the wheels are too small for driving on the usually bumpy/potholed roads and highways. But that’s comparing it to larger cars, which makes no sense. As evidenced by its success in Europe, there is a market for it that usual cars can’t even compete in. I’d buy one (or two) if I could afford it – as they’re imported, they’re actually more expensive than locally-built full-size cars.

See, the market for the Smart is very specific. It’s an excellent second car for urban commuters – no sense firing up the family’s large car (or [shudder] SUV) just for driving to work or to the grocery, or for dropping the kid off at school; at least if it’s one kid only. It’s great for people who need to rent a small car for a few days in a foreign city; inexpensive and easy to park. Childless professional couples would get two.

Same thing applies to the MacBook Air. My main working machine is an iMac G5 with a second display; getting a little old but still usable. Every couple of days I copy my working folders to my laptop (currently a PowerBook G4), work on them somewhere, and return in the evening and copy the changed files back. I also use the laptop on trips, mainly for a similar purpose.

Now this is quite different from the days where that PowerBook was my main working machine; then, I needed (and got) maximum RAM, the largest hard drive on the market, lots of interfaces, and a DVD drive. Now, I need very little of that: a good screen, a normal-sized keyboard and a network interface (which can be wireless) is enough for me. I don’t need speakers (headphones are OK), audio input, or even an optical drive.

So, the MacBook Air is aimed right at my demographic. In other words, it doesn’t substitute or update the existing MacBook/Pros; it’s a machine for a specific segment that didn’t have a “lightweight” model directly aimed at it.

I’m glad I didn’t post anything before the just-finished keynote. From my point of view, the only interesting part was the MacBook Air; looks like a great machine for traveling with. So, back to work…

First post! This year, that is. Wow, time flies.

I’m glad to report that my back is all cleared up and I’ve been working away at the upcoming Quay update. And yes, it’s another complete rewrite, at least where the background application is concerned. So far it looks like I’ll have either a beta or an intermediate version out over the weekend.

The main feature on this will be that, for normal Stacks, the whole drag-to-window/then-drag-to-dock procedure will be gone. Quay will work automagically (but optionally) on your Stacks! The positive side-effect is that you’ll also be able to drag stuff to them; the negative side-effect is that, for now, you won’t have custom icons. You can of course still build the old-style Quay dock items, with not much new for those.

The final version of this must await the launch of Mac OX 10.5.2. Not that I can comment on what exactly is changing on Apple’s side, but I’d like to reassure all Quay users that Quay will continue to offer significant extra functionality. In fact, I’ll be repositioning Quay as “the Leopard Dock enhancer utility”.

However, this raises the usual question: what do you do when you have some shareware on the market and suddenly someone – either Apple or a third party – comes out with a free solution to the same problem? There are some freeware utilities out that purport to do more or less what Quay 1.0 does, and there are 10.5.2’s rumored capabilities, but of course I’m confident that the new version will be sufficiently more powerful and polished to merit wide adoption by the market.

Something similar just happened in another segment of the Mac market: Newsgator’s NetNewsWire, the premier RSS reader for the Mac, is now free. There are some interesting comments out there. I do know a few developers that have RSS readers in the works, and no doubt they’ll have to rethink if they should continue or not. I don’t know if free RSS readers have had any impact on NetNewsWire sales in the past, and of course they’ve always had their own free “lite” version. It also seems that Newsgator’s decision was based more on their network business than on the Mac shareware market as such, so this probably isn’t a canonical example.

Still, developers entering the Mac shareware market nowadays should really think twice about such a possibility. If something seems easy or obvious to do, better to release it outright as freeware; it may not help the bottom line, but it helps build experience and buzz around your name.

Posted by santos.john:

Rainer Brockerhoff wrote:

Some time ago I published Flipr source code:
Rainer Brockerhoff wrote:

…a category on NSWindow to flip from some window to another window.

I’m not sure how many people adopted it, but the nice Karelia folks are using it in the upcoming iMedia browser. A few days ago they asked me to look into a “hesitation” effect which could be seen in the first frames of the animation in certain circumstances, and it’s now fixed… so if you used it somewhere, download it again (and tell me).

Hey webmaster, i adopted it. Thx.

Just after I posted here a week ago disaster struck, by way of a pulled muscle in my lower back – courtesy of 4.5 hours in a non-reclining airplane seat.

While nothing irreversible seems to have happened, during this week I was unable to stand, sit, lie down, work, sleep and so forth for longer than a few minutes; too few to count as useful for any given activity. The pain is finally starting to recede and hopefully will allow some work over the weekend.

I have quite a lot of preliminary work and testing done on Quay 1.1. I can’t give any details yet, of course, but the changes purported to be in Mac OS X 10.5.2 will, at the same time, make things easier in some areas and harder in others.

During the week I’ve also had time to think about installation and deployment, and decided on a new approach to those. Not surprisingly it will need Yet Another Complete Recode™. Still, I’m confident that it’ll be a better user experience. Details over the weekend (I hope).

Just saw these screenshots about upcoming changes in 10.5.2.

I haven’t finished downloading the developer’s seed for 10.5.2 yet, and even if I had, I couldn’t confirm or deny anything about it because of NDA’s; I just want to say that the upcoming Quay 1.1 release will have several new capabilities. So if you, gentle reader, registered Quay, don’t worry; the upgrade will be at no cost, and your investment is safe.

Expect news about this sometime between Christmas and the new year; it takes several days to do final testing, and polish installation, documentation and so forth.