Dev411 Blog: Category apple

iPod, iTunes and DRM

2006-10-18T23:03:00-05:00

I've been a happy iPod user for some time now, however I've only ever used my single iPod with a single iTunes install. I recently reinstalled my OS after wiping the hard drive for a clean start. To my surprise a fresh install of iTunes with the same iPod serial number would not import songs from my iPod into the iTunes library. iTunes had the gall to ask me if I wanted it to erase all the music on my iPod and replace it with the (empty) contents in its library. Essentially my iPod was orphaned. I've never thought about Apple DRM issues before but I'm no longer as excited about the iPod and iTunes as I was before.

One of my friends had run into the same issue and now stores his iTunes library files on an external disk. He told me I could just install my iTunes library files to the right location and reinstall iTunes which should fix the problem. Thankfully I had backed up my iTunes files and was able to copy the files into the right location. Reinstalling iTunes let it find my old music files and connect to my iPod correctly. While I'm glad I had the files, I don't think they should be necessary. I can see Apple's perspective about not wanting people to trade music but not being able to load your own iPod's music on to a fresh install of iTunes configured with the same serial number is kind of ludicrous.

So always remember to back up your iTunes music files. I still like the iPod's click wheel and the iTunes interface, but I'm now thinking of migrating to non-DRM solutions like Ogg and Ogg players. Anyone know of good Ogg/MP3 players?

Apple MacBook Pros - Aesthetics over Ergonomics

2006-09-17T02:04:00-05:00

The other day I went to a store to check out the 13", 15.4" and 17" MacBook/Pros and especially their keyboards and touchpad placement. One of my pet peeves regarding laptops is manufacturers that position the touchpad in the center of the area below the keyboard vs. centering it under the G and H keys where hands are normally positioned. While centering the touchpad against the laptop is an aesthetic (appearances) win, it loses out on ergonomics (actual human usage) because it requires hand/palm movement to effectively use the touchpad. Laptops that center the touchpad typically have your thumbs end up in the upper left corner of the touchpad rather than centered unless you move your hands. This is compared to centering the touchpad under the G and H keys the palms typically don't have to move to use the touchpad.

Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards go one step further than just left/right centering but also do up/down centering. As screen size increases, the touchpad stays the same size and moves further away from the keyboard. On the 13" MacBook the distance between the space bar and touchpad is about 1/4" while the distance is about a full inch of distance on the 17" MacBook Pro. The sales representative said the 17" MacBook Pro was designed this way because people's thumbs would accidentally hit the touchpad however this seems unlikely because the distance is much smaller on the newer 13" MacBooks. I can only assume that either Apple is designing for aesthetics over ergonomics or they assume that screen size is correlated to hand size for MacBook users.

When I spoke to people MacBook users about this, the response was that they used a wireless mouse (also because the touchpad only has a single button) but then what's the point of having a touchpad. Just one of my pet peeves regarding the Apple MacBooks.

If anyone has good photos of the keyboards, please post links here.

Ubuntu - Winning with Microsoft's Strategy?

2006-07-06T00:29:00-05:00

It's interesting to watch the evolution of Canonical Ubuntu. It started off by gaining popularity in the desktop space and now it's finally moving into the server space. Linux on the desktop has been a thorn in Linux's side for a while and Ubuntu seems to be the answer. Just recently a couple of people have moved from OS-X to Ubuntu causing quite a stir on Slashdot and Tim O'Reilly's blog. By winning the desktop, they win users that they can leverage to win the server space. If this strategy sounds familiar, it's the same one that Microsoft used to defeat Novell NetWare. Now that Ubuntu has entered Red Hat and SUSE's turf, it will be interesting to see if they respond with more user friendly desktop editions (I'd be happy for a Linux-version of Textmate). If so, the users will win.