512 Pixels

Benj Edwards:

Even a decade after its debut—Steve Jobs unveiled the Cube at the July 2000 Macworld Expo in New York and the desktop shipped a month later—the Cube still stirs passionate debate between its detractors and defenders.

Shawn Blanc, in an interview with Brett Kelly:

An oversized desk is the only sort worth owning. For one, they’re there for you when you need that extra space for papers and other work (when you need the space, there never seems to be enough). Secondly, when your oversized desk is clean and empty, the unused acreage is a sight to behold.

When a small desktop is clean it merely looks tidy, as it should. But when an oversized desk is clean? That’s conversation worthy.

I have a large desk at home and at work, and Blanc’s right — you can’t lose going big.

Fellow Memphian and nerd Jen Simmons said this on Twitter last night:

I guess Android vs iPhone is the new Mac vs PC. Except iPhone is PC.

Which, of course, blew up the Memphis+Nerd Twitter conversation last night.

I think comparing computers and mobile devices is a fundamentally flawed activity. Smartphones and computers are similar devices, but at the same time, they are very different. Computers are usually long-term purchases, but without strings attached. Computers don’t come with cell phone carriers. Computers aren’t hopelessly out-dated in just 2–3 years like smartphones. Don’t like the Mac? Buy a PC. Don’t like Windows? Move to the Mac. Most people aren’t tied to a single platform in the age of webmail and online photo services anyways. Mark Sigal posted a whole long thing on is just a few months ago. Go read it.

That said, let’s talk about computers and mobile devices.

When the iPhone was launched in 2007, it was no doubt very Mac-like in the eyes of most consumers. It was well designed, easy to use, simple and sexy. It was expensive, but a certain group of users — mostly people concerned with things like design and usability — saw the extra money well-worth it.

Today, the iPhone is still like the Mac in many ways. The things that made it Mac-like in 2007 are still relevant.

However, the iPhone is also a lot like the PC, to Jen’s point. It has a dominant position in the market. It has way more apps than other mobile platform. You see them everywhere — even in the hands of people who have no idea how to use all of the features available.

Philosophically, Android is pretty close to Windows. The OS isn’t very polished. There are tons of hardware options, all powered by an OS built by a single company — just like Windows. The apps aren’t as pretty as iOS-based apps, and the whole thing can get unstable after a while.

Then there’s WebOS, which is a beautiful, slick OS on really crappy hardware. It’s like the Mac in many ways — most WebOS users are hardcore enthusiasts who love the platform. WebOS’ market share is so small, it is hard to argue that it is relevant anymore (if it ever was).

So is the iPhone the new PC? I don’t think so, because I don’t think it really matters. The smartphone arena is a very volatile, young market. Lots can change. Hell, the iPhone is only three years old. Comparing them to desktop computers is unfair to both categories of products.

But it is a lot of fun to debate about.

Dave Caolo, on his favorite keyboard:

First is the sound. That lovely wooden-stick-on-a-hollow-log “thonk” that announces each keystroke is yet to be duplicated. It’s satisfying in a way that affirms your productivity. Much like the jackhammer operator feels content at the end of a noisy day’s work, I feel that I got much accomplished with all that thonking and clacking.

[…]

I also love the keyboard’s feel. Apple’s Bluetooth keyboards are nice, but the keys barely move when pressed. In contrast, the Extended Keyboard’s keys just drop when pressed, providing wonderful tactile feedback. They then spring back with perfectly appropriate force. I’ve used some keyboards that either repelled my fingers on the upstroke or yielded like cold oatmeal when pressed. They’ve all made me long for the ancient artifact in my office.

I can’t agree with him more. I use an Extended II both at home and at work. The keyboard is comfortable, spacious and noisy.

Griffin’s now-discontinued iMate, a simple USB to ADB adaptor makes hooking the keyboard up painless. The excellent Keyboard Maestro lets me tie Extended II’s function keys OS-level shortcuts, just like on Apple’s modern keyboards.

The first Mac I did serious work on was a 450 Mhz Blue and White PowerMac G3. It was a few years old when I started laying out pages and mixing audio on it, but with OS 9 and 512 MB of RAM it was by no means a slouch. Even so, it wasn’t able to do much more than one intensive thing at a time. The computer’s limitations necessitated doing one thing at a time — the hardware just couldn’t cut it.

After about 18 months, I upgraded to a 1 GHz Titanium PowerBook G4 with 1GB of RAM. I was blown away by the sheer power of the thing. Everything was faster, even in the then-current OS X 10.2, which was rough around the edges. When booted into OS 9 (that model was the last Apple notebook with that ability), the machine flew.

The extra horsepower made a huge difference in my workflow. I could be answering emails while Adobe Premiere (I know, I know…) flattened mixes into MP3 files. Importing photos into QuarkXPress was instant. OS X booted quickly. Everything was different due to the speed increase.

I could be more productive because my computer was faster.

Apple’s move from the G3 to the G4 processor was perhaps the company’s last great processor migration. It was a mind-blowing change for even normal users. Even moving from high-end G4s and G5s to Intel’s CoreDuo chips didn’t bring the radical horsepower increase the G4 brought.

The clearest example for me is the iMac G4. Starting at a meager 700 Mhz with the initial model, it was on a totally different playing field from it’s G3-powered ancestor. However, the last model — clocking in at 1.25 Ghz — made the early models feel archaic in comparison. The iMac G5, while faster on paper, didn’t feel much faster in everyday tasks.

Likewise, current iMacs — powered by Intel’s Core i3, i5 and i7 processors — aren’t radically faster in everyday usage than my 2.93 Ghz Core2Duo iMac.

Yes, the new machines can rip DVDs faster than my current rig. Yes, they can export footage from Final Cut faster, but the wait time on those tasks is so much shorter than it was just a few years ago, does it even matter anymore?

For the majority of computer users, waiting has become a thing of the past. Most people will never come close to maxing out a modern computer. With the high-end pro users as the exception, no one needs all of the power they have on the other side of their keyboards and mice. Opening files and applications is fast on any modern machine. The Internet isn’t going to load much faster with more RAM installed.

(Raw power aside, feature-based upgrades have slowed down. Today’s iMac looks and works pretty much like an iMac from 2007. The industry has moved to incremental updates as the evolution of technology has slowed down. Apple isn’t alone — just look at what Dell is selling today and look at what they were selling 4 years ago.)

The future — at this point — looks pretty boring. SSDs don’t offer enough of a performance increase to justify the additional cost yet. Yes, Snow Leopard’s Grand Central Dispatch is very cool, but even low-level programming changes like it don’t mean much in everyday life. As companies and consumers shift from the desktop to mobile devices, the slowing down of computer evolution will continue. It’s a cycle, and the loser is the personal computer.

In short, upgrading to a new computer used to be exciting. Today, it doesn’t bring the radical change it once did.

And that makes me a little sad.

My Apple Newton:

So you want to buy a Newton and get it going?

From the Google Public Policy blog:

It is imperative that we find ways to protect the future openness of the Internet and encourage the rapid deployment of broadband. Verizon and Google are pleased to discuss the principled compromise our companies have developed over the last year concerning the thorny issue of “network neutrality.”

The two companies aren’t quite ready to embrace full-blown net neutrality on the wireless side of things quite yet, however. Darren Murph at Engadget:

Where things really get interesting is when they touch on the wireless angle; essentially, they’re admitting that the very proposals they are putting forth for wireline shouldn’t apply to wireless just yet (aside from the whole “transparency” thing). It seems that the prevailing logic is that there’s simply not enough spectrum for this idyllic “play fair” scenario to truly work, so fewer restrictions would be necessary for the wireless internet space to blossom as the wireless side already has. Moreover, we get the impression that these guys feel the wireless space as a whole is simply too competitive right now to withstand any red tape.

This doesn’t go far enough. 3G and other wireless cell networks should be no different than broadband.

Update: Nilay Patel makes sense of it all, once again.

Nira Sheth for the WSJ:

AT&T Inc. said Friday it doesn’t expect to suffer a “material negative impact” from the end of its exclusive arrangements to carry handsets, including its lucrative deal for Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

[…]

“We do not expect any such terminations to have a material negative impact on our wireless segment income, consolidated operating margin or our cash from operations,” AT&T said in the filing with regulators on Friday.

I’ll take some of whatever they are smoking, please.

The New York Times:

Mark Papermaster, the Apple executive in charge of hardware for the company’s flagship iPhone, has left the company in the wake of widely reported problems with the antenna of the recently introduced iPhone 4.

It is not clear if Mr. Papermaster was ousted or left on his own accord.

Word is he was let go.

University of Georgia [PDF warning] has new research out about journalism graduates:

The percentage of spring journalism and mass communication bachelor’s degree recipients who reported having at least one job offer when they completed their studies dropped in 2009 by nearly 10 percentage points compared to a year earlier. Only 46.2% of the bachelor’s degree recipients had a job on Oct. 31, 2009, which was more than 10 percentage points fewer than a year earlier. The level of full-time employment for bachelor’s degree recipients in 2009 when they returned the questionnaire was 55.5%, which was down significantly from the figure of 60.4% a year earlier. Such a low level of full-time employment has never been recorded since 1986.

I know a lot of people I went to journalism school with failed to find jobs in the field, and are simply doing other things. It’s not good.

Via Reuters:

Steve Jobs has his own idea and he’s a brilliant guy. There’s just an element that we’re not very happy about, as people. We are holding out. Don’t hold your breath… for anything.

Is there anything that woman can’t ruin?

As usual, Nilay Patel brings sanity to a confusing legal situation.