Year: 2012

Chris Taylor for Reuters:

Americans are shelling out big bucks annually to outfit the entire household with Apple products. And they are spending hundreds – if not thousands of dollars – more each year for the unexpected Apple “taxes” – add-ons that lock them into the Apple system: iTunes downloads for music, movies and games, along with subscriptions and accessories.

Then there are the replacement costs for lost or broken equipment. For a family with multiple children, each with their own technological needs, the total annual bill can get downright ugly – like going over a familial “fiscal cliff.”

This is the biggest load of crap I’ve read in weeks. Comparing Apple customers to those in “indentured servitude” goes far beyond just bad editorial writing.

I used to spend a ton of time on the old site. It’s good to see an old name return to the Mac scene.

Shawn Blanc:

This is the first time I’ve ordered one of the photo books from Apple and I don’t think it will be the last. It’s a hardcover book, with 20 (or more if you want to add them) full-color pages, printed and shipped for about $32. The pages are full-bleed, the color is brilliant, and the construction quality is top notch.

We have one with some of our wedding photos in it, and I’ve given them as gifts. The quality is great, and they couldn’t be easier to build in iPhoto. That said, there is an issue. Here’s Shawn:

The photo book isn’t really an Apple product, it’s a product Apple makes. And I am embarrassed to give it as a gift which, when first opened, is an advertisement for Apple. It’s like Apple’s version of a product with “special offers“. People see this book and they see it’s “Made on a Mac” and maybe it gives them one more reason to buy Mac.

I understand why Apple plasters its logo on this stuff, but it’s annoying. These are great coffee table books, and somehow the company’s logo makes them feel cheaper. Thankfully, some of it can be turned off.

Thomas Brand:

The era of Genius turning screws is coming to an end. Macs are becoming harder to get into, and instead of being repaired at the Apple Store most of the computers Apple sells these days are being refurbished at a central repair facility. Faulty iPhones, iPods, and iPads are replaced at the Genius bar, and shipped off to be disassembled and remade into refurbished devices with new cases and batteries. These refurbished computers return to the Apple Store to be used as iPhone, iPod, and iPad replacements. The cycle of replace, repair, refurbish, and replace is made easier by services like iCloud that keep all of a user’s data safety backed up. Customers have no qualms about receiving a device many of them think is new, just as long as they get to keep all of their personal data, songs, movies, and apps. It may be some time until all of Apple’s machines are replaced this way, but the new 21.5 inch iMac shows that Apple is moving in that direction.

Damn.

Andrew Cunningham at Ars:

Here’s our biggest problem with the new iMac: making a laptop thinner and lighter is immediately noticeable. You touch and move a laptop constantly. Not everyone wants a laptop that values its size and weight more than, say, a faster processor or larger screen. But we can all at least agree that there is a very real place in the market for those thin and light devices, just as there’s a place in the market for gaming laptops or budget laptops. To achieve a more portable laptop, compromises like a lack of an optical drive or user-upgradeable memory are acceptable and even desirable.

In a desktop computer, though, the pursuit of thinness at the cost of features makes less sense. The vast majority of the time, it’s going to be sitting on your desk, and users will be interacting with a separate keyboard and mouse, pausing only occasionally to plug something in or adjust the screen’s angle. Giving up desirable features like user-upgradeable RAM just to make a thinner desktop seems like the wrong move, even if it’s one that only IT people and power users will notice or care about.