Why is Apple out to get me?

We used to be so happy.

It all started with an escape from an abusive operating system around eight years ago. The little iBook I bought was the first computer I’d ever really loved since my ZX Spectrum many years before. The combination of the 12” screen, sleek design and hard wearing nature, married to OSX which was a dream to use, amounted to everything I needed for my literary ambitions. A few years later I moved on to a new MacBook, which never quite won the same level of affection in my heart, but served me proudly for many miles. Now I stand at the crossroads. I need a new machine, as the Windows one I had to buy – while serviceable – has me shouting at it again in frustration more often than I’d like. A Mac is the obvious choice, but at the moment the choices on offer are a little baffling.

But wait, I hear the voices of a thousand Mac blogs cry, Apple’s range is the best it’s ever been! Well, no, I think I need to disagree, and here’s why.

I don’t think I’m unusual in wanting a decent amount of bang for my buck when it comes to technology. I’m perfectly happy to accept that quality costs, and it should, but I don’t want to pay extra for something I won’t use. Futureproofing is often something of a fallacy in computing terms, as we don’t tend to hold onto our devices for nearly as long as we used to – probably due to the fact that many are now pretty much impossible to repair or upgrade ourselves. So looking for value can be a Sisyphean task.

Here’s what I want – a lightweight, small size, laptop with a good screen, solid keyboard, responsive trackpad, long battery life, and a decent but not crazy amount of power. Oh yes, and a few USB ports wouldn’t go a miss….plus an SD card reader would be cool, but not essential. There, no unicorns or time machines, just pretty standard stuff. Yet, at the moment, I can’t actually get this in Apple form.

For months leading up to the recent Spring Forward Apple event in March, there were rumours of an expected MacBook Air with retina display. This would have been the absolute sweet spot for my needs. An 11” (or even 12”) retina screen would fix the one thing that makes buying a current MacBook Air not that enticing a prospect. I love the little form factor, and its weight makes it easy to throw the device in your backpack and head off into the world without the worry of a shoulder ache a few hours later. Admittedly the small screen gets a little cramped, but I’m not planning on editing any videos on the machine, so I’m sure it would be fine – plus the retina display would make things pin-sharp, mystically creating a sense of space in that small glowing rectangle.

So here I am, money in hand, waiting for the announcement so I can once again shed the shackles of Microsoft and return to the unibody embrace of the mighty fruit. Then it announces the MacBook.

The MacBook?

Yes, it’s light – very light. Yes it has a retina screen. The price…well, that’s a bit high, but I can see how the engineering has pushed that up. The power…wait, a Core M CPU? That’s, well, not powerful…at all…but maybe Apple has tweaked it to boost the performance? There’s a new keyboard design? Ok, but it looks very, very shallow. The Trackpad is a new design too? Oh, and there are no ports except for one USB 3.1 type C – which is also where you plug it in to charge.

What just happened?

Surely this is a new class of machine, the ultra ultra portable, and now Tim Cook will announce the Air Retina? Yes?

No.

Instead there were minor spec bumps for the Air, and the same crappy screens remain. But, but, I have the money…I just want the machine to buy….I can’t go anywhere else…why are you doing this to me?!?!

It brought back memories of the time I had saved up for a new iMac, and eagerly awaited the announcement, only to be presented with the thin new design that could only be upgraded at the point of purchase, thus adding a far slab of cash on top of the price, taking it out of my grasp. In the end I bought a Mac Mini, which has been fine, but the sting is still there.

Now it’s happening again.

Yes I could move up the chain and buy a MacBook Pro, but that’s more than I need (I’m never going to use those Thunderbolt ports), and the weight is a fair bit more than the 11” Air. All I wanted was a retina screen in the little Air…hell, a HD screen and IPS panel would have done the trick. Why can’t that be done, especially when sub £300 Chromebooks can manage it?

Yes the new design is pretty, and it comes in black, which is awesome, but I like the existing keyboard and trackpad just fine. All it needed was the screen.

Life with Apple used to be so simple. Each machine was great, and you could upgrade it yourself to save a few pounds and extend the working life. Now, well, it’s getting where I’m screaming at the Apple web-store in frustration, rather than my Windows machine. I guess I’ll just have to wait a couple of generations and then get ready to buy the matured MacBook, but of course Apple will be waiting, hands clasped firmly on that rug, ready to pull it hard once more.

Bugger.

Living with the… Google Chromebook

Ever since Google announced their first Chromebook laptops back in 2011 I’ve been fascinated by the idea. Computers that eschew the storage of data locally, but instead embrace the cloud in all its metaphorical glory. The idea makes sense to me, is workable for me, in fact it’s actually preferable to me. The only problem is that the hardware up until now has been, well, rubbish.

Samsung’s first Chromebook attempt. Naughty Samsung!

I had the chance to road-test Samsung’s initial Series 5 offering , and although I could see the potential in the system there was an undeniable lack of build quality or speed in that machine. Not the best way to promote a concept that many people still maintain as kind of pointless.

If you’ve never used a Chromebook, or indeed haven’t even heard of them before now, then they might sound a little odd. Essentially they are computers that do pretty much everything online. Most of us are familiar with Google Chrome, which has grown in popularity over the past few years to become one of the world’s most used browsers. The Chromebook does everything through Chrome, making the laptop similar to the old fashioned terminals that used to access mainframes in the 90s. All your data is stored online, as are the programs you run. This means you can’t lose your valuable thesis or family photos if you accidentally run over your laptop with a tractor – a very common complaint – as the information is safely nestling in the warm bosom of Google who, let’s be honest, are far more likely to perform regular backups than we are. This also means that you are free to log into your Google account from any computer, work on any project you like, then when you return to the Chromebook all the changes will be included.

But Sir! You cry. Surely any computer with a browser can do this, and a lot more besides?

Absolutely.

The difference of a Chromebook is that it doesn’t run an OS like Windows or OSX, so it can’t get viruses. It also means that if someone steals your machine, or you upgrade to a newer model, all you need to do is log into your Google account and within a minute everything is there. No backups, or re-installing software, simple,  and of course the information is constantly backed up by Google.

One real advantage, which myself and my wife have found invaluable, is that you can log in with various accounts, each with the relevant apps and documents attached. Of course laptops can also do this, but the Chromebook just feels very natural working this way as everything is online.

For people who use specific software packages to accomplish tasks – say Photoshop or Final Cut Pro – then the Chromebook is a non starter. But for most of us who use their laptop to browse, email, interact with social networks, or do a spot of writing, then the story is quite different.

In the past the real Achilles heel of the idea has been that once you find yourself without a WiFi signal the computer becomes a rather large waste of space, but Google have been updating the OS carefully and it now includes the ability to work on documents offline, which then sync up automatically to the online versions once you find a signal again. The whole thing is seamless and removes one of the last fears that many of us enthusiasts have had.

Google’s little beach ball of happiness.

All this talk is nothing but pretty words arranged in spectacular fashion unless there is a worthy product in the end. Now, thankfully, one has arrived.

The Samsung Chromebook (2012) is the latest machine from the electronics giants, and with this one they have finally got it right.  In recent months there have been Chromebooks that cost the best part of £400 but still feel like budget machines. In fact I’ve often thought that if you want to charge that much for a low powered, limited, machine then it had better be built like a Macbook Air – which of course it very much wasn’t. Now the new machine is built like a cheap imitation of a Macbook Air, priced accordingly, and I love it.

Don’t let any carefully shot promotional images fool you into thinking that this Chromebook has any Apple style brushed aluminium about its small body, it’s plastic through and through. This makes it light and enables Samsung to charge £229 – both of which I heartily approve of. Google have been clever in marketing the machine as your ‘other’ rather than main device. Let the kids play with it, welcome your butter fingered auntie back into the technological fold once more, even take it on holiday to Afghanistan with little hesitation. Ah, glory be! The age of disposable computers has finally arrived.

The new Chromebook. Take a bow Samsung, take a bow.

All this sounds a little derogatory, and it is, because strangely enough the Chromebook is actually a great little machine with a surprisingly fabulous keyboard. It didn’t take long for the diminutive laptop to find a special place in my heart, and thanks to the fact that I already use Google Docs for my work, and web-based services for nearly everything else, I’ve not felt restricted by its online nature at all. Yes the screen is a little frosty looking, and you need to wait a moment or two for webpages to load before you can scroll through them, but these are small gripes when you factor in the cost and the pleasure the machine is to use. Actually if the truth be told I use it rather less now because my wife keeps stealing it away for herself, which I can assure you is about as high a praise as can be given to a device.

Of course I don’t expect the machine to last for years, but that becomes less of an issue when the price is so low and the knowledge that a replacement will feature identical data once you log in. In fact I was heavily considering a Macbook Air to replace my ageing Macbook, but now I’ve used the Chromebook I can’t justify paying out £1100 just to be able to do a few more things on a much prettier machine. Instead I shall save the money and beef up the desktop I have at home, and maybe invest in a decent iPod dock with the change. Yep this little machine is the gift that keeps on giving.

The Google Chromebook is the ultrabook for the rest of us, and I’m well and truly smitten.

If you want to see an in depth evaluation of the machine then please visit the review here that I wrote for PC Advisor magazine in November 2012. 

When the Faith Falters

I’m in trouble.

It’s been seven years since I committed myself to the cause. In that time I have been transformed, seen incredible new things, and brought others to an understanding of the true way while rejoicing at their accepting this wonderful rebirth.

But now, it seems, my walk is faltering…inside are doubts I can’t suppress or ignore…my faith is beginning to fade.

How did it come to this? Oh Apple, why have thou forsaken me?

I think it began with the iPad.

The future, today!

Thanks to a generous birthday gift I was able to experience the new technology sensation shortly after it launched here in the UK back in 2010. I was immediately in love. The elegant dance of information beneath my fingers beguiled my skeptical mind and left me with the profound sensation that I was engaging with the future. It seemed a million miles from the Sinclair Research ZX Spectrum that had initially filled me with wonder all those years ago.

All was well until the release of it’s younger sibling twelve months later. I saw no need to upgrade as the addition of a camera was of no interest and the speed of my original iPad was more than satisfactory.  Then I tried to download the newly released iMovie and discovered that it was not available for my tablet. Surely there was some mistake? I was on the cutting edge – probably for the first time in my life – how could my hardware already be redundant? Then other non-iPad 1 apps started to appear…it had begun.

I comforted myself with the thoughts that I probably wouldn’t have used them anyway, and my iPad was still the brilliant machine that it always had been. The pain subsided, I learned to live within my reduced but still rich digital environment and the hurt passed into memory.

Then Apple did it again.

The future, once more...

iOS 5 sounded wonderful. The ability to have my documents synced between the iPad and my MacBook without any kind of fiddling around with importing or exporting was the kind of seamless thing I expected from the Cupertino boffins. And now here it was, all for the princely sum of nothing at all!

Only things weren’t quite how they seemed.

Within a short time of upgrading I noticed that my once very stable tablet was now crashing…a lot. Once it even locked up and required a reboot – something I’d hardly ever experienced in my time among the fruit people. The cause? iOS 5. Forums were alive with similar stories and the only fix it seemed was to wipe the disk and start again, then disable the iCloud settings. I duly did this and, in a fashion, it worked although my machine does still crash more than it used to – plus I can’t use the syncing feature for fear of the whole thing breaking again. I wasn’t even given the option of returning to the previous version of the iOS that worked perfectly with the iPad 1 because Apple don’t look back, only forward.

Then I discovered that upgrading my Macbook to the newly released OSX Lion would be problematic because its limited 2gb of internal memory means it will struggle to cope, plus the trackpad only supports two finger gestures which means it will miss most of the benefits that Lion offers.

So instead of a brave new world I was given a slightly more broken one. Not quite what I had hoped for.

Now I find myself in that awkward time when my main machine (the aforementioned old white Macbook) is beginning to show signs of age and will possibly need upgrading within the next year. But for the first time in a long, long time I’m actually finding myself question whether I want to pay premium prices for something that might be reduced to second-class citizenship a damn sight faster than I’d like. I’ve never regretted buying anything from Apple. Since my conversion I’ve bought and used heavily an iBook, Macbook, iPod touch Gen1, iPod  Gen5, iPod Shuffle, iPad, and Apple TV. All of which have been brilliant. But as times get tougher my eyes are starting to wander.

The problem I’m faced with (and I realise that in the grand scheme of things it’s a trifling one) is that buying something new from Apple these days has the strange effect of making you feel obsolete so very quickly. I fully accept that the thing that makes them great is that they push forward all the time, but if you’re like me and only earn a modest income that precludes you from buying a new model every two years then it can get strangely depressing. Has it always been like this? I don’t remember it as such.

The thing is I can’t go back to Windows. I just can’t. So where does that leave me?

The fabled 'Third' way...

In recent months I’ve started exploring the idea of Linux….and it’s quite interesting. Sure it doesn’t have the simplicity of OSX, nor the beauty. But it does actually work, is free, and because of it’s home-brew nature doesn’t leave you in the dust only months after you’ve paid a fortune for something. I don’t know if I’ll be able to withstand the constant fixing that it will no doubt require, but I’m finding the fresh environment, the surprising fun of reconnecting with the workings of a system, and the frontier attitude genuinely refreshing. How long this will last I don’t know. Those MacBook Airs are mighty tempting. But at least here I can enjoy the idea of salvaging old machines rather than saving for new ones…

What do you think?