Tag: apple

Categories
Debated

The WWDC Question

Each year, I seem to only go to one training event: Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (also known as WWDC). You’ll notice that Apple hasn’t updated the site since the end of the conference last year, which means we’re now into March and we don’t know when the conference will be. (For comparison, last year WWDC’s date was announced on February 16th, or so my archives would indicate.)

So I’ve decided to do some detective work. Based on the last two years, we can assume the following:

– WWDC occurs with at least one day falling in June.
– WWDC occurs at Moscone West in San Francisco.
– WWDC runs five days, from a Monday to a Friday.

Apple has no information about WWDC 2006 yet, but luckily the [Moscone Center](http://www.moscone.com/) is not quite as secretive. While WWDC is not listed, there are three events [listed in June](http://www.moscone.com/site/do/event/list?nav.type=0&nav.filter=0604&nav.base=0602) that are scheduled to use Moscone West. If we mark these off on a calendar as conflicts (WWDC takes up the entire building), we get a calendar that looks like this:

Based on this calendar, I think we can safely rule out the last two weeks of June, and possibly the first full week (as the Saturday is often used for registration and setup). If I were to guess based on this calendar, I’d bank on it being June 12th-June 16th.

This would be (of course!) horrible for me, as it’s the last week of our semester at work and there will undoubtedly be an exam that needs monitoring. This would make WWDC three for three in terms of causing conflicts and difficulties. I just can’t win.

Categories
Found

The Worthlessness Of Mac Rumor Sites

I was asked today by a co-worker if the “[true video iPod](http://thinksecret.com/news/0602videoipod.html)” rumors from ThinkSecret were true:

> Think Secret can confirm recent rumblings that Apple is nearing completion of a completely revamped video iPod that will shed the ubiquitous mechanical click wheel for a touch screen and will sport a 3.5-inch diagonal display.

I could go on and on debunking this, but I think [Matt Thomas](http://www.iammattthomas.com/) made a [very clear point](http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2006/02/09/90927-true-video-ipod-to-have-35-inch-display-touch-screen-click-wheel#c27491) over at NewsVine, and for the sake of brevity, I will quote it entirely:

> I’m excited about this new iPod.

> In the meantime, I’ll enjoy watching TV content downloaded onto my new Mac mini with DVR that’s connected to my Apple plasma television. Later I’ll listen to my new iPod shuffle — one of the new ones released at Macworld last month — and fire up my new 13.3″ Intel-based iBook to play a few games.

> Life sure would be fun if Think Secret actually had believable sources. Sadly, that ain’t the case.

Categories
Debated

Saving The Day One Day Too Late

The big Apple news today was news that many people took as hell freezing over: [the no-button mouse is dead, long live the no-button mouse](http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/). Just over five years after the introduction of the “Apple Pro Mouse” (the white, lozenge-like mouse), Apple finally joins the modern input device revolution and introduces the [Mighty Mouse](http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/), a sort of four-button-plus-scroll-nub thing, retailing for $49.

A handful of dear readers put two and two together and pointed out to me that this could be taken as a timely divine intervention to solve my [busted mouse issue](https://vjarmy.com/archives/2005/07/role_reversal.php). And I would agree, except for two problems.

One, it’s a corded mouse. Now I can use a corded mouse – at work, where I’m striving to keep my desk clean on a regular basis. At home, I frequently have to deal with debris, spindles of disks, and most of all, a certain cat who loves to sit on my mousepad. The slack always ends up getting pinched, and this drives me up the wall. As such, I’ve switched to USB cordless mice and have no desire to look back for my home use.

Two, along these lines, I just purchased a new Microsoft Standard Wireless Optical Mouse yesterday at Best Buy. It ran me, after various discounts I had accumulated, a whopping $15. This is well under half the price of the Apple mouse. I’m not against spending money when there’s functionality to be had, but I get the bulk of the functionality I need out of this mouse for less than a third of the cost.

For the Mighty Mouse to win me over, it really needs to come in Wireless, and I really need to see some really worthwhile functionality or neat hacks for it. Otherwise, it’s just yet another Apple peripheral for me to ignore.