512 Pixels

I love that his last name is Stark.

Our second-born:

Dear Microsoft,

First, let me say this: I use iWork ’09 almost exclusively. While all-Mac at home, I am the lone Mac user in my office. I simply export things as PDFs or Office documents and keep on living in the cozy world that is iWork. If you want me, you have to fight for me.

Secondly, I’ve watched the video of your hipster developers and product managers recently posted on the Mactopia website, and I’ve run a handful of the beta builds of Office 2011 over the last few months.

And none of it wants me to kick iWork out of my Dock.

Here are some suggestions:

User Interfaces Guidelines, Guys

Office 2008 was a mess at launch. Palettes broke if Spaces was turned on under Leopard, and several menus were just plain confusing.

The half-baked Ribbon concept is still rough in places. I know 2011 is shipping with the Ribbon theme in full-force. Make it work. You can’t copy what ships on the PC. Mac OS X is different than Windows. Let me repeat that: Mac OS X is different than Windows. You can use a Ribbon — just make it act like Mac apps are supposed act. You can use palettes, just make them work like Apple-built ones.

OS X’s UI works. It’s time to adapt.

Make Outlook for Mac Awesome

Good job on trying to make Outlook play nice with Spotlight and Time Machine. Better late than never, I suppose — so get it right. Spotlight’s been around since 2005 when Tiger was released, for crying out loud.

I’m hopeful that Outlook for Mac will finally let Mac users be able to live in Exchange land happily ever after. Entourage never really got that right — which is crazy. Microsoft, you do make both products, right? Mac users and PC users should have the same abilities in an Exchange environment.

You know what could be Outlook’s killer feature — above and beyond Exchange? Google integration. I know you and the big G don’t see eye-to-eye on much, but I think you have more in common than you think — wanting to beat Apple.

Mail works well with Gmail, but IMAP can’t fake everything Google does in the browser with email. Address Book and iCal can sync with Google, but third-party apps make it tolerable.

It would be awesome to login to Outlook with my Gmail username and password, and get all my email, contacts and calendars. Get the IMAP right, get syncing right and I would love you forever. So would a lot of Google users on the Mac.

PowerPoint is an Awkward Teenager. Keynote is the Hot Prom Queen.

Look, I won’t lie — I never open PowerPoint on the Mac. Keynote kicks its ass.

To get back on top, take it to the next level — add deep media integration, easy-to-design builds and tasteful animations. The templates you showed off in that video look like a great start. If you’re going to include clipart, make it good clipart. And make it easy to find and easy to use.

And don’t even think about Word Art. Dear God, don’t even think about it.

Keep Excel Good

Numbers isn’t a great product. Apple knows it — take advantage of this. Make Excel as good on the Mac as good as it is on the PC. VBA is coming back, right?

Efficiency and the Cloud

Office 2008 has a whole bunch of tools designed to make working in groups easier. I’m not sure anyone has ever used them. If you’re going to include them this time around, make them easy to use and evem easier to understand. Integrate with Dropbox or some other cloud service that people actually use.

iWork.com sucks. You can crush Apple here. Make online Office a reality, or tie into Google Docs. Or both.

In Conclusion

Microsoft, I know you are used to being on top. Here, on the Mac, you may outsell iWork, but you sure don’t outclass it — at least at this point. Make Office 2011 to capture the hearts of Mac users who understand why Office 2008 isn’t the best thing on the planet, and I’ll plunk down some cash later this year with your name on it.

Motorola, in their new ad:

At Motorola, we believe a customer shouldn’t have to dress up their phone for it to work properly. That’s why the DROID X comes with a dual antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like to make crystal clear calls without a bulky phone jacket. For us it’s just one of those things that comes as a given when you’ve been making mobile phones for over 30 years.

Boom.

The Apple PR Machine:

“Safari 5 has been a big hit, and user response to the innovative new Safari Reader has been fantastic,” said Brian Croll, Apple’s vice president of OS X Product Marketing. “We’re thrilled to see so many leading developers creating great extensions and think our users are going to love being able to customize Safari.”

Interestingly, Apple PR has a nice long section of their press release devoted to Bing:

“We’re excited to continue working closely with Apple to bring visually compelling Bing experiences to Safari,” said Jeff Henshaw, general manager of Bing User Experience. “The Bing Extension for Safari brings Bing search intelligence to everyday browsing with Safari. When a user selects text in Safari, Bing instantly recognizes what they might need and pops up helpful, informative tips, from real time maps and driving directions to real time translations to direct web search results.”

The new version of Safari is available from Apple’s website, or via Software Update. The Extension Gallery can be found on Apple’s site as well.

As is usually the case with Safari updates, a reboot is required — that’s two days in a row on my MacBook Pro. Sigh.

Macworld:

At the same time, this marks the end of the road for the 24-inch and 30-inch Apple displays. According to Apple vice president of hardware marketing David Moody, those products will continue to be sold until supplies run out, at which point the new 27-inch display will be Apple’s only standalone offering.

In short, you can only buy glossy, glass-covered displays from Apple. And only in one size.

Neven Mrgn:

Apple came out with updated Mac Pros and iMacs today. I’m an iMac man myself, so that’s what I checked out. Looks nice! Of course, The League of Internet Commenters is busy finding flaws and comparing it to similar offerings from Apple’s competitors. Hardware isn’t my strong suit, but I know half a thing about website design. So let’s look at the websites for Apple’s primary desktop computer, and the same from Dell and HP.

Spoiler alert: Dell and HP suck at web design.

Eric Slivka:

In particular, recent MacBook and MacBook Pro models receive support for the inertial scrolling that debuted on Apple’s current MacBook Pro models, in addition to the new three-finger window dragging gesture that it included on the Magic Trackpad. The MacBook Air, as well as “Early 2008” MacBook Pro models gain only inertial scrolling. The feature, already present in similar forms on Apple’s iPhone OS devices and the Magic Mouse, allows users to “flick” while scrolling as the trackpad senses the momentum of the gesture and smoothly scrolls through long documents and libraries.

A welcome addition to my 2.8Ghz 15-inch Mid 2009 MacBook Pro, but one that probably would never have come without the Magic Trackpad.

According to Rik Myslewski, it didn’t suck:

The MessagePad 120 had the longest lifespan of any device based on Apple’s Newton platform: from its October 1994 release in Germany (January 1995 in the US) until June 1996. The 120 thus deserves the respect of those of us who remember that exceptional platform, one that improved over time — but not enough to overcome its rough beginnings.

The 120 was also the first MessagePad to be upgraded to Newton OS 2.0 (up from 1.3), in late 1995. This significant improvement over the first OS’s iterations was sadly ignored by most of the gadget-buying populace, whose minds had already been made up by the media Scheiße-storm over the shortcomings of the original Newton OS.

Patrick Rhone:

Apple is rewiring our brains for touch.

Just like with the iPhone and iPad, Apple is steadfastly reinforcing the idea that touch is the way we interact with our computers. The Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad are just one more step in that direction. In fact, I would not be surprised if, before we ever see a touch based iMac, we see a keyboard without keys. A completely touch aware input experience in order to prepare the masses for the “next big thing”. That big thing is input devices as we have come to know them going away for good.

So, this begs the question, “Why not just make a giant desk sized iPad type iMac now?” Here is the answer: It is a minor adjustment to behavior and learning to make such moves with a brand new device, because the general public will see it as “new device, new input”. It is much more difficult to take something that has followed only one input method (keyboard and mouse) for twenty years and suddenly thrust something this new upon them. Revolutions generally start with a few new ideas that pick up steam and grow larger as they roll down the hill. The Magic Trackpad is the visual representation of the revolution to come.

I concur with all of it.

The LED Cinema Display

Coming “soon,” Apple’s new 27-inch glossy LED IPS 16:9 display will set you back $999.

Apple PR:

With built-in MagSafe charging, iSight camera, speakers, and USB ports, the LED Cinema Display is ideal for MacBook and MacBook Pro users,”said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With its massive 2560 x 1440 resolution, the new 27-inch LED Cinema Display is a perfect fit with our powerful new Mac Pro, and it gives iMac users an easy way to double their screen real estate.

The $799 24-inch model is still on sale at Apple’s online store.

The Revamped iMac

With Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors powering the new machines, my bet is that they are still crazy fast. New ATI video cards are making an appearance here, including the very beefy ATI Radeon HD 5750 in the new quad-core iMac. This video card has a mind-blowing 1GB of video RAM.

The 27-inch model now includes a build-to-order SSD option as the primary (or secondary!) drive, both of which are firsts for the iMac line.

Apple PR:

Dual-core Intel Core i3 and Core i5, and quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 processors set a new benchmark for iMac performance. The processors feature an integrated memory controller to access the system memory directly, allowing the new iMac to take full advantage of its faster 1333 MHz memory. New discrete ATI Radeon HD processors deliver incredibly smooth, crisp graphics for the most demanding 3D games, creative software and technical applications. iMac displays feature IPS technology to deliver a brilliant image across a wide 178 degree viewing angle. The SD card slot on the iMac now supports the SDXC format to handle the latest high-capacity storage cards. Customers of the 27-inch iMac have the option to order a 256GB solid state drive (SSD) as a primary or secondary drive. The iMac SSD supports up to 215 MB/s data transfer rates for faster startup and application launch times.

All 4 of the new iMacs are for sale online now.

Apple Still Makes the Mac Pro?

The Mac Pro has been languishing for almost a year without an update. Today, Apple changed that. I’ll jump straight to the press release:

At the heart of the new Mac Pro’s performance are next generation quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors running at speeds up to 3.33 GHz. These multi-core processors use a single die design so each core can share up to 12MB L3 cache to improve efficiency while increasing processing speed. These systems feature an integrated memory controller for faster memory bandwidth and reduced memory latency; Turbo Boost to dynamically boost processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz; and Hyper-Threading to create up to 24 virtual cores. The Mac Pro now comes with the ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics processor with 1GB of memory and customers can configure-to-order the even faster ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of memory.

For the first time, Mac Pro customers have the option to order a 512GB SSD for the ultimate in reliability and lightning fast performance. With the ability to install up to four SSD drives in the system’s internal drive bays, the new Mac Pro can provide ultra high-speed disk bandwidth and random disk performance, two times faster than the average performance of a standard disk drive. Mac Pro also now features two Mini DisplayPorts and one dual-link DVI port. The additional Mini DisplayPort output allows customers to connect two LED Cinema Displays without an additional graphics card or adapter and the dual-link DVI port supports legacy DVI-based displays up to a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels.

1. Holy crap.
2. DVI is legacy?
3. Holy crap.

Well, it’s real. Apple:

The new Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer. It uses the same Multi-Touch technology you love on the MacBook Pro. And it supports a full set of gestures, giving you a whole new way to control and interact with what’s on your screen. Swiping through pages online feels just like flipping through pages in a book or magazine. And inertial scrolling makes moving up and down a page more natural than ever. Magic Trackpad connects to your Mac via Bluetooth wireless technology. Use it in place of a mouse or in conjunction with one on any Mac computer — even a notebook.

The beginning of the end for the mouse?

Update: I totally forgot to mention that Apple is selling a battery charger for a cool $29.