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April 2, 2008
People often complain about the price of Apple products, so one of the best options to pick up that laptop (or desktop) is to find the refurb items on their site *here*. However, I think someone screwed up.
That’s the only reasonable thought I can come up with for a $649 refurb 1.66ghz Core duo mini w/ 512mb or ram & 80gb HD. Especially when you can purchase a brand new mini for $599 w/ 1gb ram, 80gb HD and a 1.83 core 2 duo. Maybe that refurb would be reasonable at $429?
Published by
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February 11, 2008
I finally did it. I broke down and bought an iphone. I’ve toyed with them in the store, but had a perfectly decent SonyEricsson, so never drank the cool-aid. Then it started, my SE began getting lots of static when I answered a call - but it was fine if I answered using the speakerphone. I hate it when people use the speakerphone in public, I really dont want need to hear your conversation and refused to be ‘that guy’. So it meant a trip to the Apple Store…I had to go see the new macbook air anyway!
So yeah, i’m the owner of an 8gb iphone and damn…the interface is just incredibly easy to use. Phone manufacturers up until now had better feel ashamed for creating such horrible UI’s!
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January 15, 2008
There was a great disturbance in the force today when thousands of geeks screamed out in joy. I was one of those geeks. But my audible announcement of joy has trailed off a bit.
For those not in the know, today was Sir Jobs keynote speech at Macworld where all the new and glorious instruments Apple Co. will use to suck money from my bank account are released to the world. Today’s biggest announcement was the heavily rumored ultra-portable Apple notebook computer, here-to-for dubbed the ‘Macbook Air’.
As I sat at my desk refreshing 3 different websites who were passing along the information to us unable to hop a jet to Cupertino, reading through the impressive stats. 20 million songs downloaded from iTunes on Christmas day, 4 million iphones in 200 days giving them a 19% market share, 5 million copies of Leopard installed. All very nice, but i’m here to see the new/updated hardware.
First came Time Capsule - It’s a 500Gb/1Tb hard drive with airport 802.11n so that all your household macs can be backed-up in one place using Time Machine. This is the kind of thing that makes Apple a ‘cool company’. They make nice looking hardware that simplifies tasks that can sometimes be ackward or time consuming. Right now, I’ve just got my macbook but have been considering getting a mac-mini. If I do, perhaps I’d consider getting this…though more likely, i’d just get an regular external HD for the mac-mini.
Next we were given iphone/ipod touch updates (software updates - no new hardware here). Yawn. (I don’t own one, and don’t have any plans to get one.
That was followed up with updates to the AppleTV - a neat “but I wouldn’t buy it” device made more tempting for the fact that you can now buy/download music, tv, and movies directly from the unit to play on your HDTV. Speaking of movies, you no longer buy them…you rent them. Eh, don’t really care much as I still like my DVD’s.
Lastly, was what was so hugely rumored to be coming (What happened Steve…usually everyone is pretty tight lipped but this rumor seemed to gain traction early) is the new Ultra-portable macbook ‘Macbook Air’. A 13.3″LED screen, 2gb ram standard, an optional 64gb solid-state HD (at a huge cost over the standard 80gb HD) and it fits in a manila folder. It’s a beautiful looking wedge shaped notebook that is barely 3/4″ thick on the ‘fat’ end and seemingly only as thick as a credit card on the thin side (0.16″ thin). It’s missing an optical drive as so many ultra-portables do but has two options for installing software - use the $99 USB superdrive or use the one in your other networked PC or Mac. That is pretty slick.
I was working out in my head how many ‘indescribable acts’ I would have to do at the local 7-11 to afford this new beauty (it starts at a hefty $1799) but luckily I read all the details first as I found one of the biggest flaws. The battery. Sure it will supposedly last for 5hrs but it’s not a user-replaceable item. WTF Steve, this isn’t an $1800 iPod…make the battery replaceable! So the excitement has warn off but i’m happy that my credit card won’t be getting a workout this evening.
