While investigating the story behind the photo of a Mac-using David Simon that I posted on the blog last week, I e-mailed Greg Spence, the man responsible for the post-production of Simon’s next project, an HBO mini-series called “Generation Kill.”

Rather than discuss what one would expect – his possible use of high-end Macs equipped with Final Cut Pro and other high-end Apple video tools – Spence instead described how he and his colleagues depend on Apple’s consumer products.

In particular Spence said iChat is an integral part of his daily work, serving in multiple capacities.

“We use iChat religiously in our cutting rooms, as do most sound and picture editors and assistants,” Spence wrote in his e-mail. “Sometimes it is as short-range as a person in an intense screening or editorial meeting sending messages to someone just outside the door, or it can be as distant as across the globe.”

But I was surprised to learn that iChat is more than just a great communicator; it also can play a role in the production process, at least on some projects.

“On lower budget pictures we use iChat to record ADR [additional dialogue recording] from actors around the world,” Spence said.

“We sign on iChat, set up cameras, the director talks to the talent, they record the line... after each line the recordist simply drops it into the iChat window and we pull it down in Los Angeles. Lots of low-budget shows do this now and save up to $1,200 per hour. It isn’t super fast, but for a few lines it works great.”

Yet Spence has another use for iChat he considers the more vital than any other. In the middle of a five-month stay in London to work on the “Generation Kill” project, he is 5,500 miles away from his family in Santa Monica, Calif.

“I have regularly scheduled iSight conferences with my kids,” Spence said. His wife sets up her laptop at the breakfast table in Santa Monica, which coincides with his “tea time” in London.

“It makes all the difference in the world,” he said.

Posted by David Zeiler at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

On Friday my Mac Pro upgrades arrived via UPS from Other World Computing – a 4 gigabyte memory kit and two 500 gigabtye Seagate Barracuda hard drives.

I installed them over the weekend – perhaps the easiest hardware upgrade I’ve ever performed. Thanks, Apple.

With the hard drives installed, I moved on to Phase 2: installing a copy of Windows XP Professional on one of the auxiliary drives using Apple’s Bootcamp utility.

Bootcamp worked as advertised, though I’m not sure I’d recommend it to users who aren’t particularly tech savvy. I can see such people getting very nervous during the install process. As Apple warns, making the wrong selection from one of the DOS-looking text menus along the way could wipe the Mac operating off your hard drive. I’d hate to be the tech support guy taking that call.

Once Windows XP was installed, the Mac Pro rebooted into Windows (creepy, I know). That’s when things turned sour.

Within seconds, Windows started to nag me with warning balloons bout the lack of anti-virus software, the urgent need to “activate” Windows and how great it would be if I took a “virtual tour” of Windows to learn about all its great features. Ugh.

The Windows Annoyance Factor rose quickly. I wanted to change a few of the system settings, so I went to the Control Panels area. Finding the Control Panel you want is easy enough, but navigating all the tabs and secondary menus is a nightmare. If you’re lucky (and persistent) you just might find the setting you’re looking for. It’s much easier to locate items in Mac OS X’s System Preferences.

After noticing a lot of essential services weren’t working (such as the Internet), I decided to actually read the Bootcamp instructions I had printed out. Yep, I needed to insert the Leopard disk that came with the Mac Pro to install the proper drivers.

Windows rebooted again, and voila! Everything worked.

That done, I moved on to Phase 3: installing Parallels to enable the use of Windows in the Mac environment without rebooting.

The Parallels installation went smoothly, but after I installed Parallels Tools – the software magic that enables the seamless integration of the Mac OS and Windows – the Windows Annoyance Factor reared its head again. Windows had detected a significant change in my hardware and now needed to be reactivated. (I later discovered a warning to this effect in the copious Parallels user manual.) I had three days until my copy of Windows stopped functioning.

I clicked on the warning balloon to reactivate, which should have been easy. Instead, Windows altered me that I had exceeded my allotted number of activations and needed to contact Microsoft for instructions. I had activated it for the first time just an hour earlier!

I called the toll-free number on the screen and within a minute or two was having a conversation with a computer. The computer voice told me to read an immense serial number-like code to it. After I did that, it gave me another lengthy code, which I typed into a series of 8 boxes. After that my copy of Windows was activated again.

At work, I never fuss with my Windows PC – the IT folk have it set up the way they want it, and that’s fine.

But having experienced a Windows installation at home, I’m learning first-hand at least one reason why many PC users have switched to the Mac. They’ve grown weary of the Windows Annoyance Factor.

Posted by David Zeiler at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                    

One week before Steve Jobs takes the stage in San Francisco for his annual Macworld keynote, the Mac universe is abuzz with the usual rumors and speculation.

Regulations governing Apple pundits require that I contribute to the collective cacophony or forfeit my license to blog on Apple. In that spirit, here’s my take on what might be coming – or not – on Jan. 15:

Mac Pro update – Apple completely shocked me by announcing new pro towers (and server models) this morning. I don't recall Apple ever making such a major product announcement just one week before a Stevenote. So these rumors panned out early. The twin quad core CPUs (giving this Mac 8 cores of processing power) are standard as expected, but there is no mention of Blu-ray DVD support. Steve will mention this, but not spend much time on it.

Retail stats – Steve will probably open the keynote with a rundown of assorted statistics demonstrating Apple’s prodigious business successes. We will hear about how many millions of people visited Apple’s retail stores, and that half of them were “new to the platform.” Steve will tell us how many new stores opened in 2007, and may announce new stores in such countries as China, Brazil and Mexico.

He should gloat about yesterday’s Bernstein Research report that showed Apple’s annual sales per square foot of retail space light years ahead of other retailers. At $4,491 per square foot, Apple not only clobbered Best Buy at $991/sq. ft. but also handily outshone other upscale retailers such as Saks ($388/sq. ft.), Coach ($1648/sq. ft.) and Tiffany and Co. ($2,746/sq. ft.).

Leopard stats – Steve will tell us how many copies of Mac OS X 10.5 have been sold since its launch at the end of October. Whatever the number, it will be the best operating system launch in Apple history. Leopard also will have had the fastest adoption rate of any Mac operating system version.

Office for the Mac 2008 – Craig Eisler, the new general manager of Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit, will join Steve onstage to introduce Office for Mac 2008. There will be a tedious demo.

Other software – Since iWork and iLife both were released in August, we won’t hear of them in the keynote. In fact, it’s hard to say what other software might get mentioned, since Apple got most of its upgrades out over the summer. He might spend a few moments on the prosumer video editing program Final Cut Express, which was updated in mid-November.

Video – The other week I predicted some major video-related announcements at the Stevenote. We will hear about the new iTunes movie rental service, heretofore unannounced by Apple but widely reported in the mainstream media. Various news reports over the past few weeks have said Apple is on the verge of making deals with almost all the major film studios, including 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount and Sony, MGM and Lionsgate. Availability is the major question here; if the deals aren’t final, the service may not launch for a few more months.

Apple TV – Going hand-in-hand with the iTunes Store movie rental news should be an announcement of a new, improved version of the Apple TV. This is not a shoo-in, but it would make a lot of sense for Apple to fix this product by adding the ability to record TV shows (like a TiVo) and access the Internet independently of a computer. The pièce de résistance will be integration with the iTunes Store, so that music, videos and movies could be ordered directly from the user’s sofa with the included remote control.

New iPods – You got ‘em in September. Let’s not be greedy.

iPhone updates – Some think Steve will announce a 3G iPhone next Tuesday; my gut feeling is that it’s too soon. Even if he does announce it, you won’t be able to buy one for several months. One thing we will get at some point during the keynote: stats on how many iPhones have been sold, and a recap of the product’s launch in the U.K., France and Germany. Steve might announce the next nation(s) set to get the iPhone (Spain? Italy? Japan?), but I haven’t read any rumors that further deals are near.

Steve will definitely mention the software development kit that will allow third-party developers to write programs to run on the iPhone. Although Steve has said the SDK would be available in February, he might wow the crowd by announcing its immediate availability.

One more thing ... One product the rumor sites have convinced themselves is coming at Macworld is some sort of Mac subnotebook, something smaller and lighter than a MacBook. This device could incorporate the same touch screen technology used in the iPod Touch. It could use flash memory in place of a hard drive, or at the very least will use flash memory to speed boot times. It will use a LED display (Apple has committed to using the more environmentally friendly LED technology in all its displays.) Despite the prevalence of rumors about this, no one is quite sure what such a beast will look like. But the odds are high we will see some incarnation of a MacBook Mini.

For anyone who’d like to follow the keynote live (it starts at 9 a.m. PST, or noon Baltimore time), several Web sites will be posting updates during the event. I prefer Engadget, but a full list of sites offering coverage will appear on MacSurfer the day of the event.

Posted by David Zeiler at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

A lot of people don’t like the new iMovie. Mac user forums and blogs are rife with comments from distressed users calling iMovie ’08 a “downgrade” from iMovie ’06. Although the new version has some flashy features, it’s true some significant capabilities have vanished. Such iMovie staples as DVD chapter markers as well as a timeline that showed graphically how your video and audio clips lined up are gone.

A few comments culled from Apple’s iMovie discussion boards:

"So I paid for an upgrade and received less bang for the buck. iMovie '08 is not iMovie '06. It's barely a movie editor. I'd call it a 'wizard for idiots' who do nothing but shoot a bunch of video of their kids' birthday parties and don't really care about the final results."

"Please, please, please Apple! Fix what can only be a giant mistake. Leaving audio control features out of iMovie is a deal breaker for me. I am in shock that you have gutted this program and then sold it as 'iMovie' at all."

"I paid for an UPGRADED VERSION of iMovie; and I'm afraid this is not even close to an upgrade."

Disgruntled users expected an evolutionary version of iMovie with more features added to the old; what they got was an app aimed squarely at amateurs who need a quick and dirty video editor to throw together something for YouTube or their personal Web page. Yet fans of the new version say they like it for just that reason. Skimming through any discussion of iMovie ’08, one finds an equal number of proponents. They like the new features, such as “skimming” over video clips with the mouse to see its contents and the way the new version stores clips in a library similar to the way iPhoto works. Most tellingly, many of iMovie ‘08’s defenders actually prefer the shift in emphasis from features and effects to ease and speed.

Comments from the other side of the table:

"I think this program is a beauty, slick and sophisticated. Maybe not as many bells as iMovie 6 HD, but it is so fluid."

"Delve into the program itself, and you'll find that this is a serious upgrade to iMovieHD. Much of the features are yet to come, but this platform is simply amazing."

"iMovie '08 is exactly what I had hoped for and is the reason I rushed out to buy the new iLife package as soon as possible. I didn't realize that it was missing some editing features, but I never got over the hump with iMovie before, so I won't personally miss them."

The consternation over the major changes to one of iLife’s oldest components shows how attached users can become to how a favorite piece of software works. I haven’t used iMovie ’08 myself yet, but having used the old version for years I can understand why many are upset. For more involved projects, you do need more control than the new version provides.

But what Apple did to iMovie makes perfect sense when you look at its full range of video editing products. At the low end is iMovie, sold as part of the iLife suite for $79 and included free on all new Macs. At the high end is Final Cut Studio 2, a $1,299 suite of professional video and audio programs. In the middle is Final Cut Express, a $299 prosumer version of the high-end software that leaves out some of the more advanced features in exchange for a lower price tag.

From Apple’s perspective, the trouble with iMovie is that it was a bit too sophisticated for novices and a bit too basic for many prosumers, many of whom nevertheless would prefer not to pay $299 for Final Cut Express. Prosumers hoping for an iMovie one step closer to Final Cut Express got something intended for an entirely different customer that, frankly, Apple had largely neglected. So now they’re annoyed -- with some justification -- that in customizing iMovie for newbies, Apple has left them with a decision between using outdated software (iMovie ’06) or forking out real money for Final Cut Express.

Even though I fall into this group myself, I can see the practicality of revamping iMovie into something more intuitive. Let’s be honest: the core of the Mac message is making the manipulation of digital media so simple anyone from a schoolchild to a grandma can figure it out. It’s incumbent upon Apple to make sure that each of the iLife apps fits that criteria, and iMovie didn’t.

It’s the correct strategy for Apple, with the only snag being the inevitable backlash from long-time users of iMovie who were bound to feel cheated. Knowing this, the company made iMovie ’06 a free download for buyers of iLife ’08 (although anyone who bought a Mac within the past year or so already has the full iLife ’06 suite). That’s not what these folks wanted, but at least it’s a peace offering. And I bet most of the feathers ruffled over this issue could be smoothed over by one more conciliatory gesture from Apple: a price drop on Final Cut Express to $199. Wouldn’t that make you feel a whole lot better?

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

Today I learned that AppleWorks 6, Apple’s veteran production suite has been officially declared “end of life.” Its page on Apple’s Web site now redirects to the iWork suite page. Though not surprising in view of the recent addition of the Numbers spreadsheet to iWork, it nevertheless brings a bittersweet end to a legendary program.

Introduced as ClarisWorks in 1991, the software offered an early Mac alternative to Microsoft's offerings. ClarisWorks differed from most other productivity suites in that it combined six programs -- word processing, database, spreadsheet, drawing, painting and a terminal program for communications (later replaced by a presentation program) – into one integrated app. The components of Microsoft Office, by contrast, function as separate apps.

For true computing graybeards, the program’s pedigree can be traced even further back, to the original AppleWorks for the Apple II released in 1984. Back then the main competition wasn’t anything from Microsoft; it was a spreadsheet program for DOS-based PCs called Lotus 1-2-3. For a while that original version of AppleWorks was the top-selling productivity suite of its day. I bought AppleWorks 1.0 the same day I bought my Apple IIc in 1985, and later used another descendant, AppleWorks GS.

ClarisWorks spent most of its life as a Classic application, built for Mac OS 9 and its predecessors. Apple dusted off the old AppleWorks moniker for the suite in 1998, and with version 6, released in 2000, the suite became Carbonized so it would run in Mac OS X. Amazingly, Apple also sold a version of ClarisWorks/AppleWorks for Windows starting in 1993. So an eventual Windows version of the iWork suite would not be unprecedented.

While I use Microsoft Office often, I still use AppleWorks 6 occasionally. My advice to Mac users who remain attached to the program is to make sure you’ve upgraded to the latest version (6.2.9). You still can use it as you always have. Just because Apple has left it behind does not mean you have to. I can see some people continuing to use it a decade from now.

Some folks on Low End Mac, where Dan Knight wrote an early obituary for AppleWorks the other day, have called on Apple to make the code on abandoned programs such as AppleWorks free and open source so that interested parties could continue to update and improve it. I heartily agree. What does Apple have to lose but the goodwill of many of its oldest and most loyal customers?

Posted by David Zeiler at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

By the time Steve Jobs took the stage Tuesday morning to announce new Mac products, everyone knew that new iMacs were on the agenda. Because Steve had invited the media to Apple’s campus, a rarity he usually reserves for such momentous occasions as the debut of the iPod, expectations were high.

Sure enough, Jobs introduced a revamped line of iMacs just minutes after he began his presentation. The new iMacs now have glossy screens, aluminum cases, are significantly thinner and feature an optional wireless keyboard. The 17-inch model is no more; Apple now offers two 20-inch models and one 24-inch model. Perhaps the most notable news here is the pricing: at $1,799 the 24-inch model is $200 cheaper than its predecessor; the midrange 20-inch price remains the same at $1,499 (and as usual offers the best balance of price and features). The low-end 20-inch iMac is $200 more than the cheapest 17-inch had been, but the same as a beefier 17-inch offering. Overall, you’re getting more iMac for the money, and that’s always a good thing.

Still, the new iMacs are hardly a huge leap forward. But things got much more interesting once Jobs moved on to the software: updates to both the iWork and iLife suites, which many had not expected until later this year or even the Macworld show in January.

The biggest surprise was the addition of a spreadsheet, called Numbers, to iWork. That makes the suite fully capable of replacing Microsoft Office. While the subject of yesterday’s post, NeoOffice, remains a usable (and free) alternative to Office for the Mac, iWork now becomes a much better option than it had been. If you throw in Apple’s free Mail program, iWork now has an answer for all four Office for the Mac components -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. And each of iWork’s components can read and save in Office’s file formats. And despite the addition of a third component, the price of iWork remains a mere $79, far less than the $399 list price for the full retail version of Office 2004 for the Mac. While businesses may continue to need Microsoft’s package, most home users will find iWork a more than adequate substitute and far easier on their budgets. If Jobs really wants to get Microsoft’s goat, he could release iWork for Windows. Maybe in 2008, eh?

Jobs also announced an update to the Apple’s iLife suite – iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand and iWeb. He demonstrated several nifty new features, particularly the “Events” in iPhoto, which allows better organization of thousands of images, and a completely revamped iMovie that makes it much easier to browse video files and create movies faster than before.

But the major news here was all of Jobs talk of “Web 2.0” features. Apple has added more integration and sharing features to its online service, .Mac, so users can create an online photo gallery that syncs with iPhoto. Friends can contribute to your online album; the images will automatically download to your Mac. If you have an iPhone, you can access your gallery there, too.

Similarly, iMovie has picked up more sharing features. You can send your movies pretty much anywhere you like, including to your iPhone or to the .Mac Web Gallery. Along with further enhancements to iWeb, Apple’s Web site creation software, it’s clear that Jobs has gotten the message sent by such phenomena as MySpace, FaceBook and YouTube. People want the ability to make stuff (photos, videos, blogs) and share it with the world. Apple was a pioneer in the concept of the “digital lifestyle,” and now has the tools – the iLife software paired with its .Mac online services – to capitalize on that concept having gone mainstream. And the iLife suite comes free on every Mac, offering yet another incentive to switchers from Windows.

Although no one will hail today’s iMacs as any sort of breakthrough, they and their Mac kin, primarily the MacBooks, bring in a major portion of Apple’s profits. The software announced today – what you can do with a new Mac -- will be the reason people will buy them, and should help maintain the Mac’s momentum in picking up more market share.

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Safari for Windows was THE bombshell of Steve Jobs’ keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier today. While Jobs explained the move by talking about his desire to increase Safari share of Web browsers, there must be more to it than that.

As most everyone knows, Web browsers are given away for free. Apple has invested some degree of its limited resources to create a Windows-compatible browser that will generate exactly $0 in revenue and will serve to annoy the restless, competitive giant that is Microsoft.

At least when Apple made the iPod Windows-compatible, it was to grab market share with the goal of making piles of money, a plan that has succeeded spectacularly.

Ironically, Microsoft discontinued support for Internet Explorer on the Mac shortly after Apple introduced Safari in 2003, seeing little point in devoting resources to a product that had no monetary or strategic value.

So what is Jobs up to, anyway?

The only explanation is that Safari for Windows is that it’s bait, a means of luring Windows users into sampling yet another Apple product. According to Apple, the iPod/iTunes combo has helped bring many Windows users into Apple Stores and many leave Mac owners – “switchers,” as Apple likes to call them. Analysts call this the “halo effect.”

Safari has even more potential to siphon off Windows users into the Mac universe. While music is popular, not everyone will buy an iPod and use iTunes. But virtually everyone who uses a computer uses a Web browser.

I’ve seen a lot of grousing from Mac users in forums over the past six months that Apple has “abandoned” the Mac in favor of pushing its multimedia fare (iPods, downloadable movies, Apple TV, the iPhone). When you step back for a minute, though, it becomes clear that all of Apple’s extracurricular activities serve to push more people towards the Mac. Safari on Windows is just one more element of that strategy.

When I get the time I will watch Jobs’ keynote on via QuickTime on Apple’s Web site. I will have more thoughts on his other announcements tomorrow.

Posted by David Zeiler at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)