Mute Witness > Gear Talk

I can’t detail out what happened, but today AT&T made me a very happy guy. They agreed to let me have an early upgrade of sorts, so I was able to place an order for my iPhone 4S and Shawn’s iPhone 4S (one black, one white)! I need to wait of course, sometime between the 4th and the 14th of November, but that’s still ahead of November 25th and that’s a hell of of a relief!

Okay, so I’m pissed.

And yes it’s a first world problem.

I’m mad because I want an iPhone 4S, and according to AT&T, I don’t spend enough to get one yet. I need to wait until late Nov. Only problem is that before the iPhone 4S was announced, I checked my eligibility with AT&T and guess what… I WAS ELIGIBLE, and now I’m not.

This wouldn’t be a problem but I already sold my iPhone 4, and it has to go out this week, and well this week and November 25th are feeling very, very far away.

The last time this happened I went back to my old burner phone, an small and useless Motorola phone, with t9 texting and the RAZR interface. It’s not pretty and and it’s not neat but it’s a phone.

This time tho, I have an opportunity, a chance to try something new and I’m going to take it and you’re gonna have to read about it.

More tomorrow. For now… bed.

Over on my podcast, Oh My Pod!, we have spoken a lot about what we thought Apple had up it’s sleeve with the iPad 2. I was very much in the camp of the rumors that there might be an iPad 3 coming in the fall and I even went so far as to say that the iPad 2 would really be more of a “iPad 1.5″. I said that it would look no different, but it would be spec updated, loaded with some cameras and not much more. Let’s be clear… I was wrong.

Of course we all know that Apple did just the opposite. They released a crazy new iPad. Thinner, lighter, dual core, cameras etc. With the release of the “all new” iPad 2 there will not be an iPad 3 anytime soon. I can’t stress this enough. I’m already tired of people saying that the iPad 2 is not much of an update and that wait for the iPad 3 in the fall. There won’t be an iPad 3 in the fall. No way Apple put all this money in to redesigning the iPad to just throw it away a few months later. That makes no business sense and as much as we feel a personal, human connection to our Apple products, remember Apple is a company, and one that makes TONS of money. And that will win out.

Here’s my advice about buying an iPad 2. Let’s be honest, you’re not going to be disappointed in buying an iPad. It really will change your computing habits and it will change HOW you use a computer. That being said, it really comes down to how much you have to spend. If you have $500+ dollars to spend, go ahead and splurge and get the new one. If you don’t have $500+ then get a refurbished or used iPad 1. It’s going to take a while for apps that will take advantage of the Dual Core processor to come around, and that being said… most apps will run just fine on the iPad 1.

That’s just my two cents, of course I WAS wrong about the iPad 2…

Well today is the day! The Apple event to detail the changes to the iPad and who knows what else.

I’ve said a few times on Oh My Pod! that I really don’t think that the iPad is going to LOOK much different. I think we’ll see the front and rear facing cameras. I’m hoping for a dual core processor and more RAM, but I’m not sure we’re going to see the thinner lighter model every one is talking about.

I am hoping we’re going to get a sneak peek at iOS 5. I want to see what Apple has planned for the next version of the iOS.

What do you think will happen?

Thursday, Apple Announced updated MacBook Pros. Across the board the MacBooks got new Sandy Bridge based “iCore” chips. As I said in my post on Thunderbolt, there are lots of articles out there if you want to know the nitty gritty of what was changed, I’m just here to give you my point of view.

The most notable thing to me is that the 15 and 17 inch MacBook Pros all have quad-core processors in them. That’s pretty impressive. The 13″ MBP gets only a iCore 5 dual core chip but still the changes in Sandy Bridge should make things quicker. Another change that caught my attention is that there are no longer the NVIDIA graphics chips that supposedly made MacBooks and MacBook Pros so wonderful. You’re now saddled with a built in Intel Graphics Adapter. This may be a moot point, for all we know they may be every bit as quick and functional as the NVIDIA chips are. While we’re on the topic of the Graphics Cards, the 15′s and 17′s in addition to the built in Intel cards now have discrete AMD chips, with automatic switching. Tho the two different models of 15 have a huge difference in graphics memory. There is also a lovely new HD FaceTime camera with 720p video!

The thing that disappointed me however, was that Apple did not up the resolutions of the MacBook Pro’s displays. My current MacBook Air 13″ has a resolution equal to that of the MacBook Pro 15. I would have thought that Apple would have followed suit with the new MacBook Pro displays.

I will say that the upgrade seems to be a very solid upgrade and if you’re in the market for a MacBook Pro, you’ll certainly get your money’s worth. I’ve read reports that the 13″ MacBook Pro is actually faster than the old 17″ MacBook Pro! However, if you’re not currently in the market, it might be a good idea to hold off as I think we’re going to see a major overhaul of the MacBook Pro line along with Intel’s new Ivy Bridge chipset due out toward the end of this year.

Well on Thursday, as expected Apple announced new MacBook Pros. I’ll talk about those in another post, but along with upgraded MacBook Pros, Apple and Intel announced “Thunderbolt”.

Thunderbolt (I just can’t stop thinking of the James Bond movie “Thunderball” every time I hear it), is a very high speed I/O port designed by Intel in conjunction with Apple. There are plenty of articles out there about what Thunderbolt is so I’m gonna just talk about my thoughts and not give you all yet another technical run down.

Apple combined the Thunderbolt port with a normal Mini Display port. We’re told that Thunderbolt can do parallel connections so we should be able to transfer data and video at the same time. The port shows promise not only because it’s MUCH faster than USB 3.0, but because you pretty much can plug anything into it. Conceivably you could plug in a USB 3.0 device into the Thunderbolt port, as well as something that was designed with a Thunderbolt port. The speed is such that eventually you’ll be able to plug in a giant array of drives in and they’ll function as if they were inside attached to the motherboard, you could even run Ethernet over it. Add to that the fact that you’ll be able to “daisy chain” up to 7 devices together, tho this means that there will have to be hubs or Thunderbolt ports on the devices you’re using so that you can plug the next item in. All of this however is “eventually”. I’m curious to see how fast Thunderbolt catches on and really what it means for my beloved MacBook Air and the future designs of MacBooks in general. I’m also curious to know what this means for prices of hard drives and other external items. The future is ahead of us for sure.

Lots of tech folks out there are complaining about the name… Thunderbolt, but I asked on Twitter and I’ll ask here again… how funny did “Firewire” sound when it was first uttered. The only other complain that I heard that I kinda had thought the same thing was the icon. On the MacBook Pro, it looks like a high voltage icon. Hmmm, maybe that’s not so good.

Last week I received in the mail a very cool new accessory for my Mac from the brilliant folks over at Twelve South, called the Magic Wand. I already have a couple of products from Twelve South, the Book Arc, a holder for my a MacBook, and the Compass, an easel stand for the iPad, and was quite impressed by them. The design of both products is very nice, but the build quality and materials is what blows you away. Both accessories are made of heavy, solid, high quality aluminum, and the Magic Wand is no different.

The Magic Wand is an amazing concept, an elegant tray that lets you connect an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and an Apple Magic Trackpad. This is done by using a perfectly sized aluminum tray that you sit the keyboard and track pad into. You then add a spacer to keep them from bumping into each other and viola… one, solid keyboard with a trackpad attached.

I know that you may be thinking that this is a problem that you didn’t realize you had if you had these two devices, but let me tell you how much
better these two items work when they are attached to each other. On my desk, I can push the whole contraption back under the monitor with one swipe. The trackpad never wanders off on its own! I also could see if you were using a Mac mini as your home theater, this would make for an excellent all in one keyboard/trackpad for your living room.

How much does all this connected goodness cost? $29.99. Now I know that may sound steep but let me say that you will NOT be disappointed in the quality of this or of any other Twelve South product. If you have these two devices. GO GET A MAGIC WAND. That is all.

The Magic Wand
Twelve South
$29.99

This weekend and yesterday for that matter, the Apple Rumor mill was a buzz with reports of new MacBook Pros coming this week. All signs seem to point to Thursday as the day (which is strange given that Apple usually announces things on Tuesdays) with anonymous reports of sealed pallets being shipped, instructions to not open them, delayed orders, shrinking supplies etc, it all looks pretty good.

Now I am going to put it out there, I’m not in the market for a new MacBook Pro. I’m ridiculously happy with my MacBook Air and I’m not sure I can go back to a laptop that’s not as light and thin as my Air. However, one of the rumors did catch my attention and got me to wondering. BGR is reporting that the new MacBook Pros will come with an small 8-16gb solid state drive to run the OS with a standard hard drive (or optional solid state drive) to hold the rest of your data.

This would certainly boost performance but it begs so many questions! This situation would work fine out of the box but what if someone like my dad needed to restore his Mac. Would the installer just know to do this? Would your average Mac user “get” where to put stuff? I wonder if the OS would appear to be on the normal hard drive and be basically non accessible to a user?

All that being said, I DO think that Apple could and should pull this off. The performance increases I’ve seen by going all solid state have been huge. But would they be as noticeable if Applications were on a regular hard drive? I checked and my system files are about 16GB right now is 16GB enough? I guess we’ll have to see.

As I mentioned a previous blog post I got a pair of Jay Bird SB2s the other day but one of the ear buds were not working, well I got a new set on Thursday and I’ve used them for a few days and i wanted to tell you all about them.

The SB2s are as some have told me a little bit odd looking. I however very much like them. They look mostly like a headband, Mine are glossy black (I do have a high gloss fetish) on the outside and a soft foam/rubber material on the inside (SB2′s come in a variety of color combinations) and are fairly comfortable to wear. My only complaint about wearing them is like every other over the ear headphone I’ve ever worn, eventually my ears get a little sore.

The right earphone contains the controls, a power/action button, next and back button and a volume increase/decrease button. The pairing of the headset was fairly easy, hold down the power/action button for more than 6 seconds (the light will alternate between red and blue) and then select it from your iPhone/iPod touch’s device list. That’s it. You’ve paired it to your iPhone/iPod touch. Functions work pretty much as you’d expect. Press the power/action for play/pause, next and last track move forward and backward in your tracks.

About volume. The iPhone/iPod touch has it’s own volume adjustment that is completely independent of the headphone’s adjustment. Think it of how you can plug in a aux cable and adjust the volume of the output and of the stereo you’ve connected to. It’s not at all a problem, just be aware of it.

The sound quality for music is pretty good. I was impressed. It sounds every bit as good as the standard Apple headphones that I usually stick with. The bass is nice, not super thumpy but not lacking either. As for the phone, the quality is also “not bad’ I can ear fine but I notice that people’s voices and sounds around them have a more “electronic” sound. It’s more high pitched than with the regular headphones, nothing you can’t get used to, again just be aware. People on the other end said I sounded fine and the mic picked up my voice well.

The are only two places that I was disappointed in the SB2′s was really where I’ve been disappointed with ALL bluetooth headphones I’ve tried… when paired to my MacBook Air, I get MONO sound only. Even if I choose “Use as a stereo device” I get just mono horrible sound. And when I try to use them as my input/output device with Skype, it causes the app to crash… and speaking of Skype, try as I might, I can’t get the sound from the Skype iOS app to come out thru the bluetooth headphones, no matter what.

All in all I’d give the Jay Bird SB2s a solid 4 stars. I’m sure there are better (and worse) bluetooth headphones out there but the SB2s are solid and I can see them being my headphones of choice for quite some time.

Jay Bird SB2

Yesterday I read a blog post on TUAW that CNet reported that Apple is getting ready to announce a new High Speed connection technology very soon. TUAW and quite a few other sources are speculating it’s the new Light Peak technology by Intel. Light Peak is a single universal replacement interfaces such as SATA, USB, FireWire, and PCI Express. It has a very large bandwidth and you can daisy change connections together. It is supposed to be based off an optical connection (hence the “Light”) but currently has been developed in copper.

It certainly makes sense that Light Peak would be a technology that Apple might like to use given their relationship with Intel as well as Light Peak’s more universal usage scenario. As PCs move to USB 3.0, Apple needs to do something to catch up.

Add this to rumors that new MacBook Pros are coming this week and it should be a very interesting announcement.