MacBook Drops, Keyboard Irks

Let me start by saying I’ve been anxiously awaiting the MacBook — small form factor, dual bootable, reasonable price point! But having spent about 30 minutes exploring it, I may have to pass.

I want to love the MacBook and it suits my purposes perfectly, but the keyboard just isn’t working for me. I realize I didn’t give it a lot of time to grow on me, as an Apple Store clerk insisted it would (How does he know that?). I was also typing at a less than ideal level standing at the Genius Bar. On the other hand, I type hours a day (on various devices, in various positions) and am a graduate of the Thinkpad School of Keyboards. My main complaint is what I want to call a lack of travel followed by a lack of bounce. The stroke just feels too short and too firm — it’s somewhat jarring. The other problem I have is the unfamiliar feel of the keyboard; the keys aren’t very concave and I’m a little too cognizant of the edges or space between them. For comparison, I like the feel of the MacBook Pro keyboard.

Several folks wanted me to report back on the new glossy screen – I can tell you it’s similar to what many PC laptops offer these days. There is more glare/reflection, but the extra contrast is nice and offsets it. (The reflection in the photo is the overhead lights in the Apple Store, my cell phone doesn’t have a flash.) Design-wise, that recessed keyboard allows the closed laptop to have a very sleek form and subtle magnetic closure. The black finish is nice and tasteful, though I was originally afraid it was going to be too glossy.

So what’s the verdict? I want to love it, but I’m not sure I will gamble $1200 on getting used to the keyboard. I see several more visits to the Apple Store in my future…

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Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

Never enough time… TiVo and do-it-yourself television. (CNET) $9.99/mo commercial-free BabyFirstTV debuts. (Associated Press) Apple FrontRow and QuickTime updated. (AppleInsider) Why the world doesn’t need Hi-Def DVD’s. (NY Times) EchoStar 1Q profit down on TiVo victory. (Business Week)

Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

Never enough time… EchoStar XI DBS spacecraft launch scheduled for 2007. (Boeing) ATI sued for misleading HDCP claims. (Engadget) Prepare to do battle over DRM. (eWeek) VLC 0.8.5 released with Intel Mac support, many improvements. (TUAW) Someone Has to Pay for TV. But Who? And How? (PVRBlog)

TiVo Desktop Mac Universal Binary Released, Video Enabled

TiVo quietly updated their Mac Desktop software from version 1.9.2 to 1.9.3 as a Universal binary. While this isn’t huge news, it does indicate TiVo hasn’t entirely forsaken Mac users and that development is ongoing. Perhaps we’ll still see OS X TiVoToGo support this year.

UPDATE: Dennis Wilkinson has discovered and documented how to enable an unsupported feature of the new Desktop software… Macs can now send MPEG2 video to TiVo! How cool is that?

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BeyondTV On Mac Mini

Want to turn your Mac mini into a PC DVR using BeyondTV? All you need is Boot Camp, Windows, and an external tuner. Why? Because we can! Not to mention this is tons cheaper than EyeTV. If you’re pining away for HD tuning on that Mac mini, you’ll also need an external drive to keep up. Of course the next step is seeing if the SnapStream folks can get this to work within Parallel’s virtualization software…

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Sony LocationFree TV Coming To Macs and Mobiles

Looks like Sling will be getting some more competition… Sony plans to expand it’s LocationFree TV streaming to include Macs and Windows Mobile devices. Extreme Tech says: Sony Corp. said Tuesday that it licensed its Location-Free technology to Kaga Electronics, which will port the technology to the Mac OS X platform. “Location Free” allows content … Read more

SlingPlayer Virtualized in Mac OSX

Jim McMurry has reported success at running the SlingPlayer within Parallels, a free-during-beta virtualization software for Intel Macs. If you have a copy of XP lying around and can’t wait the 2 or 3 months until Slingbox natively supports OSX, you’ve got your solution. Jim’s Slingbox is controlling & streaming his Dish Network DVR 510 and he has enabled Parallels audio output.

Jim says: I decided to make a project out of getting Slingbox setup today. Not knowing for sure if it would work on OSX, I got everything setup using only OSX and Parallels VM running Windows XP. Overall the video is pretty awesome for a player running inside of a VM on Parallels. Full screen inside Parallels (not full screen Parallels, but Slingplayer fullscreen inside Parallels) works very as well.

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