Apple Briefs

A few interesting tidbits from Macworld this week:

1. Time Capsule

Steve Jobs introduced Time Capsule in the keynote speech on Tuesday. Time Capsule is Apple’s new wireless network storage device that is intended to be used with Time Machine. One thing troubles me, though. Before Leopard was released, the developer versions of Leopard allowed Time Machine to be used with USB hard drives connected to an Airport Extreme. That functionality is not present in the release version of Leopard.

At first, many people thought there must be a technical reason - perhaps it required more testing. Now, it seems, that the motivation was purely financial - encouraging people to buy Time Capsule. I bought an Airport Extreme in anticipation of being able to use it to backup the computers in my house. Now it looks like I might have to use something other than Time Machine. Perhaps I’ll buy Chronosync licenses for the rest of my computers.

2. There be Dragon(s) Here!

One of the big names in speech recognition is Dragon Naturally Speaking. Many lawyers use Dragon while drafting letters, pleadings, motions, and other documents. Unfortunately, Dragon hasn’t been available on the Mac … until now.

MacSpeech, makers of iListen, announced a new product at Macworld – MacSpeech Dictate. MacSpeech iListen has received good reviews, but many have reported it being a little slow at times. For Dictate, MacSpeech licensed the Dragon speech recognition engine from Nuance. Simply put, Dragon is fast.

If you have been interested in dictation software but have been disappointed with the options available on the Mac, you may want to take a look at MacSpeech Dictate. You probably won’t be alone, either – Dictate won a Best of Show award at Macworld.

3. Ntractive Elements SBM Nnounced at Macworld

Tuesday at Macworld, Ntractive announced Elements SBM, their entry into the CRM software market (SBM stands for Small Business Management). Elements is a Web 2.0 application, meaning it utilizes advanced web application technologies. Because of this, Elements’ strength seems to lie in the ability to access your data from anywhere. Still, from the information available on the Ntractive website, it appears that some desktop integration is present. Ntractive is currently accepting sign-ups for their public beta. There is no word on when the beta is likely to begin, though. I am not sure that the Web 2.0 thing fits our needs, but I will still be signing up to take a look.

4. Fujitsu ScanSnap S300M

At Macworld, Fujitsu announced the ScanSnap S300M, a portable version of its popular ScanSnap scanners. The two main things you need to know about it are: 1) it runs off USB power; and 2) it doesn’t come with the full version of Adobe Acrobat. The ScanSnap S300M is expected to ship in March.

Edit: How could I forget the ScanSnap?

The MacWorld San Francisco keynote speech was today, and, as expected, Steve Jobs introduced a new Mac sub-notebook called the MacBook Air. I won’t go into all the details of the MacBook Air because you can learn everything you need to know at the Apple website and the Apple Store. Instead, I just want to share a few impressions and surprises:

1. As rumored, the MacBook Air has an optional external optical drive. What surprised me was the price – $99 – which is very competitive with everything else on the market.
2. The Big surprise regarding the optical drive was Remote Disk, which allows the MacBook Air to share the optical drive of another Mac or PC on the same network. I think we should expect to see few sales of the external optical drive because the MacBook Air seems like a much better second computer than a primary personal computer.
3. The multi-touch trackpad was a nice feature. Rumors had suggested some kind of multi-touch capability on a new Apple product, but people weren’t sure whether the rumors were linked to the sub-notebook or some other product being developed. I don’t see much need for the extra multi-touch features. I already use two-finger scrolling on my MacBook Pro. Rotating and zooming makes sense on an iPhone, but how often do people need to do that on their computer?
4. The MacBook Air ships with 2GB of RAM and isn’t upgradable. It’s nice to see Apple ship a laptop with a reasonable amount of RAM, but design considerations probably drove the decision more than generosity (if you can call “not price gouging” on RAM upgrades generous).
5. According to Steve, the MacBook Air gets 5 hours of battery life. If this is true and unaffected by the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (see, e.g., Wikipedia), I’ll be pretty excited. I regularly got 2+ hours out of my 12″ PowerMac with the wireless on. Getting 5 hours of wireless use without adding ugly external batteries (I am looking at You, Michael Dell) is quite an accomplishment.
6. There was some concern over the fact that the battery was not user-replaceable. However, many sites are now reporting that Apple will replace the battery for $129 (parts & labor included in the price). That’s a tidy sum, but paying $129 every 1-2 years to keep your laptop going is a small price to pay for the size and convenience of the MacBook Air.
7. Finally, we come to the price. I was hoping the MacBook Air would come in a little cheaper (in the $1600-1700 range). Having watched the keynote, though, I can understand the price point. A lot of engineering went into the MacBook Air, and, judging from the reaction of the crowd, I think Apple will have no trouble selling many, many MacBook Airs at $1799.



8. The big shock came from seeing the price of the 1.8GHz model with the SSD drive. One of the benefits of SSD drives is their superior reliability. If that’s the only benefit, I don’t think many people will find the price justifiable. I look forward to seeing battery life and performance tests for the new drives. Hopefully Bare Feats will get their hands on one soon.
9. I am confused about Apple’s choice to list two models. Both the 1.8GHz processor and the SSD drive are upgrades on the base MacBook Air. They could just as easily have had a single model and make everything an upgrade of that model, like they did with the Mac Pro.

I look forward to the day I can visit our local Apple Store and see the MacBook Air in person. If they’re shipping in two weeks, that day can’t be too far off …. can it?

Rumors of a sub-notebook computer from Apple have been floating around the Internet for quite a while. Last month, rumors indicated that Apple was going to announce the sub-notebook at Macworld, which takes place next week. Recently, a new twist to the rumor has appeared. Like many other sub-notebook manufacturers, Apple will apparently be offering an external optical drive for the Mac sub-notebook. The one thing the rumors haven’t made clear is whether the external drive will be an option or come standard. That ambiguity, combined with my own personal interest in the outcome, makes that a great first Apple Briefs poll question.

I am considering getting a smaller notebook than my current MacBook Pro. I have wondered myself a few times if I am better off getting a MacBook instead of the new sub-notebook (MacBook Mini?). Previously, I was drawn to the pro laptops from Apple because the graphics chips and keyboards were vastly superior to those in the consumer models. Now, however, the keyboards are mostly comparable (I love my new iMac keyboard, which was seems based on the work done for the MacBook). The graphics chip in the sub-notebook is also likely to be closer to that in the MacBook due to heat and power-consumption issues.

Ultimately, I think I am not likely to want an optical drive in a sub-notebook. If I was going to use it frequently, I would probably just get a MacBook. However, I don’t think I would want to use it frequently. In that case, it would be spending most of its days in a drawer in my office. Undoubtedly, whenever I wanted to use it, the optical drive would still be in that drawer in my office – safe, but unusable. But, that’s just what I think. Let everyone know what you think by voting in the poll!

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One of the first things we bought when setting up my wife’s law practice was a Fujitsu ScanSnap. When my wife first told me she needed a ScanSnap, I responded that we had a scanner – you know the kind, one of those free printer-scanner-copiers you can get when buying a Mac (both the Apple Store and MacMall frequently offer this promotion). I was then informed that preparing an estate plan requires lots of scanning – to the tune of a few dozen of pages for each estate plan. A flatbed scanner clearly wasn’t going to be sufficient, so we got a Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M.

MacWorld posted a review of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M over the weekend. Our experience with the S510M has been generally positive, but it hasn’t worked as well for us as it did for the MacWorld reviewers.

When the S510M first arrived, I was pretty amazed. The scanner was fast, pretty easy to use, and came with a copy of Adobe Acrobat. There have been a few frustrations, though. The MacWorld review states that the S510M is “much less prone to sending through multiple sheets at a time.” I don’t know how well the earlier ScanSnap models performed, but the S510M could still use some improvement. Pages that were stapled, paper-clipped, or three-hole-punched will sometimes go through the scanner together. Fixing the problem usually involves either several tries or carefully feeding the sheets in one at a time.

Overall, we’re happy with our ScanSnap S510M. Even with the sheeting feeding problem, using a ScanSnap is still much faster than using a flatbed scanner.

Save on a Scan Snap: Through the end of the day today, MacMall is offering the ScanSnap S510M at only $390 after a mail-in rebate. I wish that promotion had been going on when we bought ours. If you miss the special, the regular (non-rebate) price of $440 is still a pretty good deal.

Rumor has it that Apple will be introducing a sub-notebook at Macworld San Francisco in January. The new device will supposedly be ultra-thin (on account of not having an optical drive) and sport a flash memory drive. Flash memory is more expensive than a traditional hard disk drive, but it is faster and uses less power (spinning a disk 600 times per second uses a lot of power). The best news is that the entry price point will apparently be about $1500. Still, I imagine that a fully-loaded model will still run at least $2000, if not more.

I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to buy a new sub-notebook. I currently use a 15″ MacBook Pro. Before that, though, I had a 12″ PowerBook (which, I have on good authority, will bend when you drop it from a height of four feet onto a wood floor). After using a 12″ PB, I barely consider my MB Pro a “portable.” I can technically take it places, but it always feels like I am carrying luggage with me. I barely noticed my 12″ PB. I also have a very sleek backpack from my 12″ PB days that I hope will be big enough for the new sub-notebook. I normally try to avoid first-generation Apple hardware, but I think I might make an exception in this case.