Greg Ferro - Work to Live

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Musing on Apple "Spring Forward" MacBook and Watch announcements

Mulling over the Apple shindig yesterday followed by a quick read of my RSS feed this morning. Some bullet points.

Apple MacBook

  1. looks good for people who need more than a MacBook Air and less than a MacBook Pro.
  2. Leap forward to remove fans completely. Major technology advances in screen, battery and case.
  3. Dual stream 802.11AC wireless
  4. Removes all the connectors. New connector is multi-purpose and will be annoying during long meetings when you want to charge and present (or charge and connect to the Ethernet network) at the same time. (Of course, everyone has Apple TVs in the ceiling these days don't they ?)
  5. New keyboard switches have my attention - I will buy the external keyboard with these switches when it is (hopefully) released.
  6. Apple continues to drive massive change in power consumption on laptops with new screen and battery designs. Market followers like Dell, Lenovo & HP will be annoyed to see Apple pull further away.
  7. Gold finish will be hugely popular in Middle East and Asian countries.

From what I can see, the maximum memory is only 8 GB which means I won’t be buying one. I am struggling with 16GB today.

Reviews of the taptic feedback (Six Colors)on the Force Touch trackpad suggest that it is good. I rarely use the trackpad, do not like to use it and do not care much. I have a desktop trackpad but never found a way to make it useful.

Apple Watch

My view on the Apple Watch is “meh”.

  1. Its an accessory to your iPhone today. The demonstration was lots of nice gimmicks to me.
  2. The Bluetooth and WiFi link to your iPhone will increase battery drain and piss me off.  (I disable Bluetooth & Wireless when travelling for this reason)
  3. It might be fun/nice/neat to play with one. And there are many foolish people who will do so.
  4. Lots of neat tricks demonstrated on stage but none of them resonated with my situation
  5. I don't see/perceive/imagine/conceive a use case that is strong enough to pay £339 for even the cheapest 42mm version
  6. I don't like wearing a watch. I tried wearing an cheap watch recently and it annoyed the heck out of me.
  7. I'm sure that Apple has addressed that watch bands are uncomfortable to wear when keyboarding.
  8. I agree that it is a "personal experience" in a similar way that every iPhone is a personal experience.
  9. I cannot perceive how an "iPhone accessory" at £500 per unit every two years will be mainstream. I can see a niche market.
  10. It might not be an accessory over time but I think that the limited UI space means it will always be an accessory

Most people I know do not wear watches. Will they return to watch wearing ?

AppleTV

  1. I have one.
  2. I don't use it because its crap.
  3. Don't care about "HBO" - whatever that is. I'm guessing its some sort of movie thing.