Two tech geeks.

  • On the new MacBook

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    Jenxi

    Introduction

    When I initially heard the rumours that Apple was making a MacBook with only a single port for data and charging, I didn’t believe it, but here we are and the new MacBook is real. Here’s what I think of it.

    Reviews

    This post isn’t intended to be an actual review, but if you’re looking for reviews, here are some pretty good ones:

    It’s all in the usage pattern

    Before going any further, I’d like to stress that this is probably the most important factor when considering whether the MacBook is suitable for you or not. Price aside, it doesn’t matter how many bells and whistles it has, what matters most is whether it suits your usage pattern or not.

    I would say it’s designed for the professional that has a more powerful machine at the office (or home), but has to make frequent trips outside. It’s also a great coffee shop notebook. Something to bring with you to Starbucks instead of the iPad.

    Advantages

    One thing I haven’t listed as here is Apple’s new Force Touch trackpad. It’s innovative, but at this point I don’t think the pressure sensitivity is an important differentiating factor just yet, unless you plan to use it for drawing.

    • Retina display: Retina displays are beautiful and one of the main weaknesses of the MacBook Air is the lack of a Retina display. The MacBook has one, and that’s awesome.</p>

    • Thinness and portability: Apple’s obsession with thinness continues and with it comes increased portability. The MacBook is really thin.

    • Display size: One neat trick Apple has done with the display is reduce the size of the bezel around it. This means that you get a larger screen than you should get for a 12-inch notebook.

    • Can be charged via USB Type-C: Apple’s proprietary notebook chargers aren’t cheap. Due to the price, I’m not willing to buy two chargers (one for the office, one for home) for convenience, but with USB Type-C charging, that means I could theoretically use compatible USB chargers and Type-C cables to charge the MacBook, inching me closer to my dream of having a charger in three places: My home, the office, and my backpack.

    Possible Limitations

    I’ve deliberately titled this section as “possible limitations” as I don’t really think that they’re major issues, aside from the lack of USB ports, but these are the only issues I could find with the MacBook.

    • Only one USB port: This has been the main complaint about the MacBook, and I don’t blame users. Most notebooks today (even the MacBook Air) have at least two USB ports. What makes matters worse is that Apple uses the same USB Type-C port to charge the MacBook. So if you’re charging your MacBook, you won’t be able to leave a portable hard drive plugged in. Apple’s vision of this is one where we only charge the MacBook once a day while we sleep, similar to how we charge our phones, but there will be times when you’ll need to charge your MacBook and also need your data on some external device. It’s a deal breaker for me as I keep a lot of data on my external drive, and I usually plug an additional external drive to my MacBook Pro to run backups, something which definitely won’t work on this MacBook. If you need any other types of ports, you’ll need to buy an adapter, though I’m sure compatible ones (read: cheaper) are on the way.</p>
    • The keyboard: Apple’s new keyboard design is thinner, which means there is less travel (how deep you can press the key). You’ll get used to it pretty quickly, but it’ll probably irritate keyboard fanatics like myself. It’s a fair trade for portability though.

    If you don’t type a whole lot, or very fast, you may not care about the substantially reduced key travel. And you can get used to it. But it’s just a tiny step up from typing on flat touchscreen glass. I managed to score almost 120 words per minute on TypeRacer on the MacBook keyboard, but I didn’t enjoy it. If you’re someone who notices when a keyboard feels different or weird, you will notice this keyboard. If you’ve never really understood why people write about keyboards, you probably won’t care—but why are you even reading this section? Via Six Colors.

    • CPU power: I wouldn’t consider this an issue, but it’s worth mentioning that Apple has put in a lower powered Intel Core M processor here in order to omit the need for a fan, and also maximise the battery life. Don’t let the term “low powered” fool you though, if you’re not doing any heavy lifting like video or serious photo editing, the processor should be fine for day to day use.</p>
    • Limited RAM: The notebook only offers you the option of 8GB of RAM. It’s fine at the moment, as I don’t notice any issues with my MacBook Pro which has 8GB of RAM, but it would be nice to have the option to pay a little more for 16GB of RAM.

    Conclusion

    The new MacBook isn’t cheap, but don’t expect it to be. It’s a great notebook for someone on the move, and if you’re not planning to use it as a desktop replacement, it should be just fine.

    I’m currently using a Retina MacBook Pro (2014), so I won’t be upgrading anytime soon. Like the original MacBook Air, I fully expect Apple to further refine the MacBook, and in a year or two, it’ll be one of the more popular notebooks around. If Apple ever adds a second USB port to the MacBook, I’ll definitely get that over the MacBook Pro the next time I upgrade.

    One thing is that for sure, is that the new MacBook is definitely from the future, though it could be said that it’s a little ahead of its time.

  • Apple reports record second quarter results

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    Jenxi

    John Gruber wrote about Apple’s record second quarter results.

    But overall, Apple’s growth continues to amaze. They’re the largest company in the world by market cap, but are reporting double-digit growth. For context, five years ago Steve Jobs noted, with considerable pride, that Apple had become a $50 billion company in annual revenue. Today, they’re a $50 billion company in quarterly revenue, and are easily on pace to book $50 billion in annual profit this financial year.

    Staggering growth in the past five years.

  • The difference between Apple and Samsung industrial design

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    Jenxi

    Rene Ritchie reported on iMore about the difference between Apple and Samsung industrial design.

    Some people might not care. Like painting the back of the fence or finishing the underside of the cabinet, it’s a detail that only people who take tremendous pride in craft really care about. And, of course, people who look for just exactly that kind of quality.

    That’s because it takes an incredible amount of time and resources to achieve it. It takes an incredible amount of planning and coordination as well. It also takes the willingness to not do something if you feel doing it right is important enough.

    To align everything along the edge of a device takes designing and mounting the boards in a certain way, and the ports and speakers, and the buttons and jacks, and the grills and every other detail so they all line up at exactly the right place at the end. Painstaking is likely an understatement.

    It matters to some people, but not everyone will appreciate it. Just like how there are people who can live with thinking that they just need to sweep the dirt under the furniture to consider the room is clean.

    This is a great example of how much effort Apple puts in to creating something that they care for. Samsung can copy the design but they can’t copy the spirit that goes into the design process.

  • Safari users win right to sue Google over privacy

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    Jenxi

    BBC reported on Safari users winning the right to sue Google over privacy.

    The case revolves around a so-called Safari workaround, which allegedly allowed Google to avoid the Safari web browser’s default privacy setting to place cookies, that gathered data such as surfing habits, social class, race, ethnicity, without users’ knowledge.

    Users prefer Safari because it prevents tracking by default.

    The landmark case potentially opens the door to litigation from the millions of Britons who used Apple computers, iPhones, iPods and iPads during the relevant period, summer 2011 to spring 2012, said Jonathan Hawker who represents the Google Action Group, a not-for-profit company set up to manage claims against the internet giant for breach of privacy.

    Google protests:

    “Google, a company that makes billions from advertising knowledge, claims that it was unaware that was secretly tracking Apple users for a period of nine months and had argued that no harm was done because the matter was trivial as consumers had not lost out financially.”

  • Google is practically begging Firefox users to switch their default search engine

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    Jenxi

    Search Engine Land reported on Google begging Firefox users to switch their default search engine.

    Why would Google give up the top two-plus inches of its search results page like this? It goes back to the November announcement that Mozilla was dropping Google in favor of Yahoo as the default search engine in its Firefox web browser. Even as the No. 3 browser with about 16 percent market share (according to StatCounter), Firefox still drives a substantial number of searches.

    Since the deal was announced, Yahoo’s search share rose from 8.6 percent in November (again, StatCounter estimates) to 10.9 percent in January. According to comScore, Yahoo’s market share in the US jumped from 10.2 percent in November to 11.8 percent in December. More recently, though, there are signs that Yahoo’s market share may have hit a ceiling, at least in terms of the immediate bump from its deal with Mozilla.

  • What does Google need on mobile?

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    Jenxi

    Benedict Evans wrote about what Google needs on mobile.

    Over time Android has also evolved to provide reach in collecting data as well – you’re always logged in to Google on your Android phone, and it knows where you are when you do that search or open that app, and where everyone else who ever did that search was, and what they did next (this is one reason why retaining control of the Android UI, and heading off forks, matters to Google). There’s an old computer science saying that a computer should never ask a question that it should be able to work out the answer to – the sensors and other capabilities in smartphones in general and Android in particular massively expand the range of things that Google can work out. So, Android transforms Google’s reach both in collecting and surfacing data.

  • Inside the US antitrust probe of Google

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    Jenxi

    WSJ reported on the US antitrust probe of Google.

    In discussing one of the issues the FTC staff wanted to sue over, the report said the company illegally took content from rival websites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to improve its own websites. It cited one instance when Google copied Amazon’s sales rankings to rank its own items. It also copied Amazon’s reviews and ratings, the report found. Spokesmen for TripAdvisor and Amazon declined to comment.

    When competitors asked Google to stop taking their content, it threatened to remove them from its search engine.

    “It is clear that Google’s threat was intended to produce, and did produce, the desired effect,” the report said, “which was to coerce Yelp and TripAdvisor into backing down.” The company also sent a message that it would “use its monopoly power over search to extract the fruits of its rivals’ innovations.”

    Shocking.

  • Samsung caught hiring fans to attend their S6 press conference

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    Jenxi

    Dave Mark wrote on The Loop about Samsung hiring fans to attend their S6 press conference.

    South Korean smartphone giant Samsung paid people to pretend to be its fans at a press conference for its products’ release on Friday, reports Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper.

    A person specializing in recruiting these “fans” said he brought over 100 people to the event. They and the other groups of people brought by other recruiters reached 400 to 500 in total. These hired “fans” amounted to around half of the 1,000 people at the event, according to the Paper.

    They had to hire people to fill half the event.

    The smartphone brand has also hired several groups of 20 to 30 people to be its professional fans. A woman surnamed Huang who joined one of the groups said she applied for the job after seeing a recruitment ad in a group chat on popular messaging app WeChat. Every hired person is required to post their picture, register their name and phone number and like the fan page of Samsung Galaxy on Baidu’s online forum Baidu Tieba. A Samsung staff member who also joined the group chat checks and monitors the application process.

    They did not just buy their attendance, but likes on the fan page as well.

    The recruiters told them to tell reporters they were at the event because they are Samsung’s fans or interested in the smartphone brand’s new model the S6, said the paper. Over half of the people taking photos of Samsung’s latest model the S6 and the S6 Edge were using iPhones. One of them told the news outlet that she went to the event after reading a post on microblog, saying that Samsung offers secret gifts for attendees.

    But apparently these “Samsung fans” are iPhone users.

  • If consumers don’t see your brand as premium, then it’s not

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    Jenxi

    Michael Mulvey wrote on Daily Exhasut about Ewan Spence’s Forbes piece regarding the price of the Samsung S6.

    Ewan Spence on Forbes:

    Arguably the price difference could come down to Samsung running with 32 GB of storage compared to the 16 GB Apple has fitted to the iPhones, but I do like the idea of Samsung exploiting a higher price than Apple. If the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge handsets turn out to be more expensive than the Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, then Samsung will have some powerful arguments available to help sell the device.

    I’ll give you a moment to wrap your head around that.

    He continued:

    Now the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge have the advantage Samsung should push hard on the specifications battle. That will be helped by Apple essentially ducking the numbers fight, so Samsung should be able to play hard on the fact that the S6 is a more powerful phone with more features.

    And the easiest way to say that a phone is ‘better’ than another phone is to be more expensive.

    Mulvey summed it up aptly:

    Premium pricing only works if your brand is perceived at premium and this perception is controlled by people who buy your products, not the company making them.

  • With Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, Samsung tries to regain its footing

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    Jenxi

    Farhad Manjoo wrote for The New York Times reported on Samsung’s attempt to regain its footing with the Galaxy S and S6 Edge.

    Samsung’s internal code name for its latest top-of-the-line smartphones, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, is “Project Zero,” signaling what Samsung calls “a return to fundamentals.”

    The code name also suggests that Samsung finally seems to understand the many criticisms that have long been leveled at its phones: the plastic hardware looked cheap, the most promoted features were mostly useless and the software was too complicated.

    Samsung, according to Samsung, has realized the errors of it ways.

    He goes on to detail these errors.

    The new S6 and S6 Edge — which are nearly identical to one another except that the Edge’s screen curves intriguingly, though mostly uselessly, on its left and right side — are at least an answer to critics who say Samsung’s devices look cheap.

    The S6 phones are made out of aluminum and glass rather than the plastic in Samsung’s older phones. Both the S6 and S6 Edge strongly resemble Apple’s iPhone. The S6 in particular looks like Apple’s brother from another mother. Samsung has also co-opted many of the design ideas for which its fans have long criticized Apple. The new Galaxys no longer offer a removable battery, for example, or a slot for add-on storage cards, and unlike the Galaxy S5, the S6es aren’t waterproof.

    But with a premium price the same as the iPhones, can Samsung compete?

    If you pay the premium price to Apple, you get a phone with a well-designed operating system, no overlapping preloaded apps, and a host of services that often work very well, like iMessage, Apple Pay and expanding compatibilities with Apple’s personal computers and devices like the Apple TV and, soon, the Apple Watch. You can criticize Apple’s sticky ecosystem as a form of consumer lock-in, but Apple sure has built a luxurious prison, and customers are willing to pay extra for it.

    If you pay that premium to Samsung, you don’t get a whole lot more than you can get on, say, a phone made by Xiaomi, OnePlus or any of a dozen smaller players.

    Bottom line:

    Hence the catastrophic question for Samsung: If lots of other, cheaper, almost-as-good phones run Android, why pay extra for a Samsung?