512 Pixels

Stunning.

Macworld:

According to the “Gadgetology” study—culled from Retrevo’s own users—34 percent of students buying laptops are planning to purchase a netbook. Another 49 percent want a full-sized laptop, and the majority of student laptop buyers aren’t considering a Mac. Students surveyed for the report indicate that longer battery life, small size and light weight are all factors affecting their buying decision, according to Retrevo CEO Vipin Jain, who called 2009 “the dawn of the netbook.”

“Fifty-eight percent of them plan on spending less than $750,” said Jain. Apple offers no laptop in that price range—its least expensive MacBook with educational pricing is $949. Only 18 percent of those students surveyed have a budget exceeding $1,000, according to Retrevo.

This seems contradictory to Apple’s explosive growth in this market. Just last year, Morgan Stanely said 40 percent of college students planned on buying a Mac for school.

Update: The Macalope chimes in.

TUAW:

Who knew that there were first-generation iPods still for sale on store.apple.com! This is the very first iPod model, introduced in 2001. I don’t know how they ended up there, or why they’re selling them, but they’re shipping “within 24 hours” and are available for $129.00. Remember, this is the model with the “scroll wheel,” it’s not touch sensitive, and you have to physically turn it with your thumb or finger. Note that the image Apple is using on the store is actually for a third-generation iPod, but the product description and model number are for the first-gen. Also, these iPods are refurbished, they’re not brand new.

It includes a 5GB iPod (for Mac only, the Windows-compatible versions came later) w/rechargeable lithium battery, original scroll wheel, headphones, an Apple iPod Power Adapter, an Apple FireWire Cable (2 meters), a Manual (iPod Getting Started), CD-ROM Disc w/iTunes (version unknown, but let’s take a guess and say “old”), and a One Year Limited Warranty that by rights should have expired years ago.

Apple has to keep service parts for 7 years, so my guess is that these were service parts that were simply collecting dust.

Here’s some info on the first iPod — it makes my 40GB 3rd generation iPod look all shiny and new.

Macworld has posted a great list of tips for buying a used Mac:

Never buy a Mac that’s undervalued unless it’s coming from a family member or a longtime friend you trust. How do you know what the going rate for a used Mac is? Check eBay. Look under the “Completed Listings” link, which will appear in the lower-left area of the window after you’ve searched for something. Searching eBay and craigslist.org (which is in various cities around the country) is a great way to see what the acceptable price range for an item is.

When buying the Mac, consider whether you’ll need to put any additional money into it for repairs, possibly including an older Airport card (not the Airport Extreme, which some older Macs, including the iBook G3, do not support), additional RAM, or anything else. That, plus whatever you’ve budgeted to spend, should give you a more realistic idea of what your total expenditure will be.

In addition to their suggestions, you can always have an Apple-Authorized Service Provider take a look under the hood. The Genius Bar usually doesn’t do that sort of thing, but individual shops are usually more than happy to help a new Mac owner.

The Commercial Appeal:

Memphis stepped to the top of education elite today when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offered the city schools a berth in its $500 million effort to improve U.S. teacher quality.

Under a memorandum of understanding the district is asked and foundation plan to sign, the district can expect to receive nearly $100 million over seven years to enhance teacher recruitment, professional development and school leadership.

“This is extraordinarily good news for Memphis City Schools and the city of Memphis,” said Cash from his home late today.

This is excellent news for the city — our schools here in Memphis are in woefully bad shape. I’m hoping this money is handled wisely with oversight from the Gates Foundation. There’s a lot of corruption in Memphis politics, and $100 million is an awful lot of money to keep up with.

On another note, there’s no denying Bill Gates is doing wonderful things with his fortune — which is more than you can say for Steve Jobs. One would hope Jobs and other millionaires in Silicon Valley would take Gates’ lead on programs like this.

New York Post:

A Queens man needed a doctor after a house call from a surly Verizon repairman who pummeled him – and never fixed the problem, according to a lawsuit.

Damn.

AppleInsider:

A total of 99 percent of 200 respondents to a RBC/IQ ChangeWave survey in August said they are satisfied with their iPhone 3GS, with 82 percent of those “Very Satisfied.” That’s an improvement from the already-stellar statistics on the last two iterations of the iPhone, of which 73 percent of customers gave a superior ranking. Similarly, 94 percent of iPhone 3GS buyers said the product met or exceeded their expectations.

But the iPhone’s U.S. carrier, AT&T, was seen as the product’s biggest pitfall. When iPhone 3GS owners were asked to rank what they dislike about the product, 55 percent chose the AT&T network. That was followed by the 41 percent who felt the device’s battery life is too short, and 8 percent who said their company’s IT department doesn’t support the product.

Another lovely display of affection toward AT&T from their users.

Bare Bones Software has opened up their email client, Mailsmith, as freeware:

“Like many others, I use and rely on Mailsmith on a daily basis,” said Rich Siegel, founder and CEO of Bare Bones Software, Inc. and owner of Stickshift Software. “However, at this point it is strictly a labor of love for me. Since I’m in the unique position of being able to support it for others who also use and rely on Mailsmith, I have created a new company whose sole purpose is to provide a home for Mailsmith, while allowing me to focus on my work at Bare Bones Software, which remains my first and highest priority.”

Electronista:

The iPhone has become the most frequently used camera for Flickr photos, according to the photo site’s Camera Finder. While not providing a timeline for when this happened or its percentage of the market, the Yahoo-owned site shows that Apple’s smartphone has just recently overtaken the Canon Digital Rebel XTi in overall popularity for submissions. About 12.4 million photos have been identified as coming from some form of iPhone, with an average of 5,017 users uploading photos every day.

Holy crap.

[ via TUAW]

My work notebook was recently was upgraded to a 13-inch MacBook Pro. Here are my thoughts on the machine, in no particular order.

Construction

This notebook is the sturdiest I’ve ever used. The whole thing feels like one, solid chunk of awesome. Apple’s unibody construction makes the black MacBook I was using feel like a toy. Since there aren’t any seams on the top case, the edges and corners are very slick. The PowerBooks and MacBook Pros used to have rubber gasket around the edges which could chip and bend. Nothing like that here — the whole thing is one slab of metal.

Speaking of metal, the aluminum used feels like it is of a higher grade than used on the old PowerBooks and MacBook Pros, but I can’t prove it. It’s smooth to the touch, and doesn’t keep fingerprints at all.

I have noticed that I get a squeak out of the left hinge as I open the lid sometimes. I’ll have to keep my eye on that.

The Screen

When Apple went to glossy a few years ago, I was very unhappy, but got used to it after using a MacBook for almost a year. This display keeps the good things about glossy — rich colors, nice blacks and crisp whites.

The major change between older notebooks and these new unibody machines is that the display has a sheet of glass over it — just like the iMacs — making the plastic MacBooks screen look dull. The glass does add to the reflection issue, though.

My iMac at home sits right next to a window, but I have it angled where there is no light hitting the screen directly, cutting down on glare and reflection. The reflections are far more annoying on this machine mainly because I use it so many places. However, the LCD is so bright, it overpowers most reflections. I’m typing right now on it at my desk at work, with a light right behind me, and I can’t see any reflections on the screen, but I can see my hands (rather clearly) in the black border beneath the LCD (where it says “MacBook Pro”). It’s annoying, but I’m sure with time I’ll get used to it or at least learn to ignore it.

The Trackpad

I’m a keyboard guy at heart and love shortcuts. My goal is to touch the trackpad as little as possible. That said, the new gigantic trackpad takes some getting used to, but I’m falling for it. When using the two-finger scrolling in Safari to read through a long webpage, I find myself thinking I’m going to run my fingers right off of the trackpad, but then I find myself with inches left to go. It makes any other trackpad I use now feel cramped and old.

The multi-touch also takes some getting used to. I’ve got the zooming features off, as I found myself accidentally invoking it while reading online, which got annoying. The three- and four-finger gestures are very helpful.

The Keyboard

Like I said, I’m a keyboard guy. I’ve got an Apple Extended II keyboard plugged up to my 24-inch iMac at home, and I love it more than is natural.

I found the keyboards on the iBooks, PowerBooks, MacBooks and pre-unibody MacBook Pros to be squishy. This keyboard is rock solid. Having taken several of these apart at my day job, I know why. Those older keyboard either simply sat into grooves on the top case, or were held in with a handful of screws. Not so with Apple’s unibody notebooks. They’ve used literally dozens of screws — somewhere between 40 and 50 — to keep the keyboard close to the case. The result? This keyboard doesn’t buckle or move at all when I type — no matter how fast or rough I get with it.

The thing I missed the most when I went from a circa 2007 MacBook Pro to a MacBook was the backlit keyboard. It’s now on every unibody notebook, and Apple’s done a great job with this one. Some light spills out (as always), but it’s bright and crisp against the black keys. I really don’t know why every notebook maker includes this — it makes life so much better.

The Battery

When Apple announced that they were going to enclosed batteries, I was fine with it, as long as they could get crazy good charges out of their batteries.

Well, I’m happy to report the battery life on this thing is crazy good. Of course, things like leaving Bluetooth and Wifi off when not needed, turning screen brightness down and leaving the backlit keyboard off always help with battery life, but make using the notebook a lot less useful. With my screen brightness about 3 clicks below full blast, Bluetooth off (as I don’t ever us it), the backlit keyboard off and wireless on, I’ve been getting between 5 and 6 hours of battery life. Again, I could stretch that out by making some adjustments. I really think I could squeeze between 7 and 8 hours out of this thing. It really is that good.

Right now the menu bar item is sitting at 14% remaining in this charge, with 54 minutes left to go. It simply beats the pants off of any other notebook I’ve ever used.

Ports and Other Such Goodies

Down the left side of the machine are lots of goodies, but I’d like to point out the new additions.

Firewire 800 is back on the 13-inch notebooks, and I’m relieved. I have to use Firewire for work almost every day, and a machine without it is a machine I simply can’t use.

The SD card slot works just the way it should — my SD cards show up on the desktop as USB devices. And while I haven’t messed with this yet, SD cards should be bootable, since Intel-based Macs can boot from USB devices. My one gripe is that about half the card sticks out from the machine. I wish it would go all the way in and sit flush. Maybe revision B?

The MiniDisplay port is nice in that it’s so small, but I spent another $50 on some more video adaptors this week. I have a drawer full of them — Mini-VGA, Mini-DVI, Micro-DVI (found only on the first-generation MacBook Air), DVI. It’s an army of video adaptors. I’m sure the benefits of the new standard make a difference to some users, but I just plug this in (with my new adaptor) to an LCD and move on with my day. No big deal.

The Innards

This thing is fast. While the processor speed isn’t great — I have the 2.26GHz model — the faster frontside bus, faster RAM and better integrated graphics make this machine fly. In fact, it runs the latest build of 10.6 faster on 2GB of RAM than my 2.4Ghz MacBook ran it with 4GB of RAM. I’m sure on 10.5 it’s about the same, but 10.6 takes advantage of the graphics better.

Of course, I popped in my 320GB, 7200 RPM drive. The 5400 RPM drive Apple ships with this model is slower. The additional drive speed helps with startup, long file read and writes and helps the whole thing run snappier. I’d recommend a 7200 RPM drive as worthy upgrade for almost any Mac.

I haven’t used the SuperDrive yet, but I’m assuming it works just as well as any other MacBook or MacBook Pro.

In Summary

Over the years, I’ve used a Clamshell iBook G3, a PowerBook ‘Pismo’ G3, a Titanium PowerBook, both a 12- and 15-inch aluminum PowerBook, two pre-unibody MacBook Pros and a black MacBook.

I’m confident in saying this machine smokes them all — and is finally a decent replacement for the 12-inch PowerBook. Simply put, Apple is shipping the best notebooks they’ve ever built, and you’re not going to find a better machine out there for $1,199.

Only the Mac community could have enough to say to fill over 18 pages with comments about a leaked photo of an upcoming OS release’s packaging.