Disclaimer: Even though moving an image file is relatively safe, there are always dangers when “playing” with system files, I, nor Jon4Lakers.com, are responsible for any damage you may do to your computer.

Requirements: YOU MUST BE RUNNING 10.5 LEOPARD FOR THIS TO WORK this will not work in earlier versions of OS X.

Notes: The disclaimer is just a formality, you don’t need to worry about corrupting your system, it’s just so I/we don’t run into any trouble.  You can find other videos on how to change this background image  in 10.4 on YouTube, or if requested, I can make a video for 10.4 too. 

Want to know what I’m up to, want to know when the next video or article is coming? Be sure to follow me on twitter.

Steve Jobs took the stage at Apple’s Headquarters on October 14th, 2008, to introduce what we all knew to be a new line of laptops (from both the rumors and the invites). Overall I’d say the event was a huge success, they definitely released some cool an innovative stuff. That being said, I think there were a few key design flaws in their new lineup.

First, Steve Jobs introduced Tim Cook, who came on stage to talk about how well the mac was doing, which they called “The State of the Mac” (kinda – like my article, except they only talked about the good stuff). Then Steve came on stage for a brief moment, to introduce Jony Ives. Ives started to talk about how Apple tries to build their products thin, light, and yet at the same time, durable. Jony continued to state how that with the multiple parts that make up the Mac, they couldn’t properly do this, so they had to figure out a better manufacturing process. This, lead into Ives introducing the new manufacturing process, that we’ve come to know as “the brick.” (The rumors were generally correct, except for the fact that these aren’t manufactured in the US.) The brick – carves out the computer from one brick of Aluminum, which makes it, like Ives stated, lighter, more durable, and all around better.

After that, Steve once again took the stage to talk about the NVIDEA chips that we’ve all been expecting. Apparently NVIDEA came to Apple with the chips (originally as a desktop chip – but Apple wanted a powerful laptop chip) and according to Jobs, they’re 4-6 times more powerful! Amazingly the new NVIDEA GeForce 9400M is featured in all 3 of the Apple notebooks. (These new graphics cards are a very welcome addition to MacBook users.)

Jobs also talked about the new glass trackpads that they’re introducing (these are the ones have been rumored for the last year or so). First off when you hear “glass,” don’t think it’s going to feel like your iPhone. The folks at Apple have textured the new trackpad so that its a “perfect balance” of how smooth it is and how much friction there is. Now, the glass trackpads, don’t actually have any buttons at all, however you can “click” the trackpad (another words the whole thing is a button). One thing that’s really cool about these trackpads are their ability to be customized, for example, just like on the old trackpads you can tap with two fingers to right click, but you can also set different “zones.” These “zones” will differentiate where the trackpad is clicked, so for example, one part of the trackpad can be left click and the other part right click. According to several reviews, the click feels exactly like the normal button does, and that if you’re not thinking about it, you shouldn’t even notice it. Overall, of course its going to take some getting used to, simply because of how many gestures there are, but just like with everything else Apple does, soon enough it’ll be second-nature. I think the new trackpad will eventually become a new “gold standard” in trackpads (maybe not right away, but it’ll get there).

MacBook Pro

Finally, Steve introduced the new MacBook Pro, first of all it features the new uni-shell body that’s manufactured with Apple’s new “brick” process it uses 50% less of the parts that it used to, which makes it stronger and thinner (now .95”). (As for the weight it gained 0.1 of a pound – sooo no real difference there.) The new Macbook also features a 15” LED screen that’s covered with a black bordered glass, now the black border has gotten a lot of mixed feelings so far amongst the Apple crowd, along with the new black “tiled” keyboard (as seen on the MacBook Air). One thing that really surprised me was the MacBook Pro’s lack of ports, they dropped Firewire 400 (you can get an adapter that coverts the 800 to a 400), moved all the ports over to the left side, and changed the DVI port to a Mini-DisplayPort. However, besides that you still have your standard ports: MagSafe, Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire 800, 2 USB, Audio In/Out, ExpressCard/34. Apple did however move the battery indicator up to the left side, and it now shows battery life in eight levels instead of the old, less accurate, four. One feature, Apple never mentioned was that the audio out jack now supports iPhone headphones, so your Mic and click-remote will work with your MacBook Pro.

One change MacBook Pro users have been craving for, is better upgradability, especially with the hard drive ( on the old Pro,you literally had to disassemble the computer), and Apple certainly delivered. On the bottom there’s a lever, which releases a plate, here you can pull out the battery and swap out the Hard Drive (which is as simple as turning a screw). However, upgrading the ram, is more of a task than it used to be, but it’s nothing terrible. To upgrade the ram, you now need to undo eight screws, to remove the rest of the bottom casing, and there you can swap it out. One cool feature is when you lock the laptop from the security slot, you can’t access the bottom plate, which prevents Hard Drive theft.

The MacBook Pro, doesn’t just come with the NVIDEA 94000M, it also comes with the 9600M GT, which is a more powerful card. Apple lets you toggle between the two graphics cards, from the Energy Saver preference pane, however when you do switch between the two, you’ll need to log out and then back in (a slight pain).

Finally, the MacBook Pro comes in three configurations: 2.4GHz for $1999, 2.53GHz for $2499, both in 15”, and finally a 17” 2.5 GHz model for $2799. The configurations are pretty standard, but I’m not sure why Apple didn’t change the look of the 17” MacBook Pro and yet continued to sell it at a slower speed, for a higher price.

MacBook

Now, we finally move on to the normal MacBook, which is Apple’s #1 selling Mac ever! (One interesting note, this is the first time Steve Jobs has ever introduced a normal MacBook.) Steve started off by saying that the 2.1GHz White MacBook will stay in production, but now selling for $999 (not as groundbreaking as we hoped, but not bad). However, Jobs also introduced 2 new configurations of the MacBook, which both feature the new uni-body design that was featured in the new MacBook Pro. However, unlike the MacBook Pro, the MacBook has 60% less components thanks to the uni-body design, which has made it a pound lighter at 4.5 pounds, and that same .5” thinner. Side-by-side, the new MacBook and MacBook Pro look identical. So, that means the MacBook features the same glass LED screen (except in 13.3”), the same black “chicklet” styled keyboard, and the same multi-touch trackpad. Also, the MacBook now features all of the same ports as the MacBook Pro, except for the loss of a FireWire port (much to the disappointment of video camera owners). Honestly, the loss of a FireWire 400 port was a bad move for Apple, but Apple customers tend to roll with the punches and get over the losses.

The new MacBook’s speakers are now housed underneath the keyboard, which may or may not be a good thing, when it comes to quality and volume. The MacBook  also houses the battery, hard disk, and RAM the same way the MacBook Pro does. So, all in all, the MacBook is the same computer as the MacBook Pro (which is a good thing), with the exception of that FW800 port, and the  extra graphics card.

The MacBook is available in 3 configurations: the 2.0 GHz model for $1299 (slower, yet $300 more than the white model), 2.1GHz plastic white model for $999, and finally the 2.4GHz model for $1599. However, the special thing about the high end 2.4GHz MacBook is that it features the backlit keyboard that Mac fans have been craving for, so if you’re willing to pay for the higher end model, this is definitely an incentive.

MacBook Air & LED Cinema Display

As a few other side notes, the MacBook Air got an upgrade to its graphics card and hard drive, and like the MacBook and MacBook Pro, it got the new Mini-Display connector. Jobs, also announced a new LED Cinema Display, which is 24” for $899. However, it does come with a built in iSight, Speakers, 3 USB ports, and a Mag Safe so that you can power your laptop off it. (So, overall the display is nice, but kind of a rip off considering you can get a display with the same quality, size, and features for around three to four-hundred dollars less.)

The famous Apple Co-Founder started off by talking about iTunes’ success and how its become the #1 Music retailer, and that they have 65 million customers, 8.5 million songs, 125k podcasts, 30k TV Shows, 2.6k movies, and 3k applications. He also mentioned in the keynote that they had sold 100 million apps in the 60 days the App Store has been open. Steve then went onto say that they were adding onto that today by adding HD TV Shows, for $2.99. This is something I know people have been wanting, but to me it makes no difference. I did compare some previews between the same clip in SD (which still sell for $1.99) and the new HD, and there’s a dramatic difference. To add to the “hype” of new TV Shows, Jobs announced that NBC would returning to iTunes. After these few announcements Steve then announced that today they were going to be releasing iTunes 8. I hope to have a video review of iTunes 8 up soon, but for now I’ll just highlight some of the new features.

The biggest feature that Apple is plugging is the addition of “Genius.” Genius is actually two things, first there’s normal Genius, which lets you click a song, and it’ll make a playlist out of songs the songs in your library that are like it. Second, there’s Genius Sidebar, which is kind of like what “Mini-Store” used to do (mini-store was that thing at the bottom that you turned off every time you installed iTunes on a new computer). However, Genius sidebar is more intuitive than mini-store, it deals with what you’re going to like, not what’s related. However, I think its interesting that mini-store has disappeared in iTunes 8 and that Genius has filled its space in the menu. However, I love how they separated the two, one is stuff that helps you find music in your own library you may have forgotten about (and since its yours they’re not making you buy anything), and the other, is something that lets you discover and buy new music. The second, feature is a new view for iTunes 8, it replaces that middle “artwork view” with a new tile view. It’s a lot cleaner, and organized, and I think I’m going to use it a lot. Other features include accessibility/voiceover and new visualizations. 

Jobs then demoed all of these new features, and announced it’d be available on iTunes today, for free. That’s when we moved into the new iPods (c’mon we all knew it was coming). Steve started with the iPod Classic, no new UI or design, just a storage/price change, for the last few years (and basically since the iPod was released) Apple has sold the iPod in a “thick” model and a “thin” model. However, the “thick” models don’t really sell, so during the keynote they upgraded the 80GB model to a 120, and dropped the 160 model. So now the iPod classic only comes in a 120GB model for $249. One thing that wasn’t talked about in the keynote was that, the iPod Classic does do the Genius feature, but that’s the only new feature it received. The other thing that wasn’t talked about during the keynote was the refresh of the iPod Shuffle colors. The iPod Shuffle, now comes in blue, green, red (but a brighter red than normal), and pink.

Finally we get around to talking about the iPod Nano’s, when Steve introduced them, he got right to the point, he showed some of the previous generation, and then pictures of the new one. He didn’t toy around like he normally does sometimes, but that’s probably because there were so many features to talk about. First it has a curved aluminum design, and it’s a lot thinner than any other model they’ve made. These new nano’s supposedly look like they disappear when they’re turned on their side. Steve went on to talk about how they put in an accelerometer, so that when turned on its side, coverflow appears. This accelerometer also works in photos, like you’d expect it to. However, they’ve added a new feature that uses the accelerometer, that’s not featured in the iPhone or iPod touch. That feature is the shuffle feature, when you shake the iPod, it goes into shuffle mode. Personally, I think it’s VERY innovative, but first off, I don’t shuffle my music often, and I’d think that’d get annoying if you turned it on by accident (especially if you jog with your nano). The Nano also features a new user interface that’s gorgeous (pictures of a very similar iPod UI came out on gizmodo about an hour or two before the keynote). Apple also introduced voice recording, which in my opinion, is really random, but I guess it’s convenient. Obviously, the nano works with the Genius feature (which works by holding the select button and getting a pop up menu). After showing off these features, Steve then talked about the new colors, it comes in silver, black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and pink. However, unlike all the other generations these colors are available on all models, so just because you buy the cheaper one, it doesn’t mean you can’t get the color you want. The Nano comes in an 8GB for $149 and 16GB for $199, obviously not the price drop we were hoping for, but oh well.

Steve then went on to announce new headphones, that have a click remote, (like the one on the iPhone) volume control, and a microphone. They also announced new in ear headphones that sell for $79 and are supposed to be a world better. Personally, there’s a much larger list of things that I want instead of new headphones. After that, Steve announced the revamp of their final iPod model, the iPod Touch. The new iPod Touch now features much thinner body, a back thats shaped like the iPhone 3G’s (but still with that stupid metal), a built in speaker, a volume button, and of course a software update. The software update is available for free if you’ve upgraded to 2.0, if you haven’t, then its $9.95. This new update, features support for Genius of course, but it also adds support for the new built in Nike + receiver. So, when you want to use Nike + all you need is the shoe receiver. A nice, but again, unnecessary feature.  The Touch will be available in 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399.

After that, they showed some new games coming to the App Store, the only one that caught my eye was the new need for speed game which looks pretty amazing. Finally, Jobs introduced the iPhone 2.1 software, which will fix some bugs, like short battery life, and call drops. Jobs then invited Jack Johnson out on stage to play them out. So yeah, that was the keynote. Thoughts? Comments? Leave them all below. 

Specs

    The Pismo features a 400MHz G3 Power PC Processor, 640MB of RAM (it originally came with 64MB), a 10GB Hard Drive, 1 MB Cache, and 8MB of Video RAM. Overall, the Pismo isn’t too slow of a computer, especially being eight years old, and in it’s day it was probably one of the fastest laptops you could find. It’s easy to forget, that this laptop was primarily sold to the Pro market, therefore it had to be speedy enough to handle anything its users threw at it. This PowerBook is running 10.4.11, and running it at incredible speeds!

Performance

    As I mentioned above, the PowerBook was a laptop that had to be able to handle high-end graphics work, and therefore Apple tried to make sure that this laptop was always running the latest and greatest processors. When I was told that the machine was running Tiger, I thought to my self, “Well its great that it’s running a modern OS, but it’s going to lag like crazy!” Well, by the time it had finished booting for the first time, I was already eating my words, this laptop booted extremely quick and I’ve not seen a lot of lag. Firefox 2 was already pre-installed on the laptop, and just for kicks I decided to upgrade to Firefox 3. Even though the laptop meets system requirements, it just didn’t end up working quick enough, so in the end I downgraded back to Firefox 2. As long as you’re being reasonable, the Pismo is a very speedy laptop.

Design/Features

    The Powerbook has a very innovative design, that’s not really seen on other laptops. It features a black plastic case, that’s very curvy and stylish. However, you can definitely tell that that this product was influenced by the “Scully Era.” However, after the G3, Apple’s focus on design completely changed. Steve Jobs pointed out this ‘change’ when he introduced the Pismo’s successor, the PowerBook G4 Titanium, or TiBook as its come to be known. He stated that they wanted “the powerand the sex.” That’s when the company changed in an iconic way, they made it so that a powerful computer, didn’t have to look like a “computer.” (I mean computer in a IBM thinkpad sort of way, and sorry to anyone who loves the Thinkpad design.) This is when we started seeing the true end of the “Scully Era” and the beginning of a new company.

    Finally, in terms of features, the PowerBook features a 14” screen (which is nice, if yours isn’t one that suffers from any of the defects), a lot of ports on the back, plus a PC card slot on the side, and two expansion bays. The two expansion bays are on the front, bottom of the laptop and if they have something in them, the device can be easily ejected by pulling a latch on the front. The left expansion bay is a battery only bay, but the right bay could hold all sorts of things, such as CD/DVD Drives, floppy drives, ZIP drives, Hard Drives (there were only a few hard drives that were compatible with this slot, and they were hard to find), etc. However, the coolest thing about the expansion bay was that you could have two batteries in at once, which automatically doubled your battery life. The laptop also featured a full sized keyboard (which is a pleasure to type on), two (very loud) speakers, and a one button trackpad. The keyboard and trackpad are both a unique bronze color, but the keyboard is actually transparent. The other unique feature of the Keyboard is its ability to lift out, and give users access to the computer’s components such as, the RAM & Hard Drive .

The Jist of Things

    So, in conclusion, if anyone offers you a Pismo, take them up on it, they make very nice computers, nothing too fancy, but they’re a cheap alternative (considering they run on ebay for under $50). Definitely put Tiger on it (10.4), there’s no reason to run OS 9 on your system when it can just as easy run an Operating System thats still very modern and up to date. If you’re one of those people who are looking at a Pismo, but are worried about the screen, keep in mind that it has a VGA port so you can hook it up to a monitor without hassle. In closing, its a great machine that lives up to the Apple brand, and the Power moniker it so proudly carries. 

The Main Rumors (and my modifications)

    Obviously, like every other September, there have been a select few rumors, that seem to “catch on” and stay with us until the event finally passes. The biggest rumor out there, which also seems the most reasonable, is the revamp of Apple’s most popular MP3 player, the iPod Nano. Earlier, I was reading the comments on TUAW’s September 9th Predictions, and one specific comment caught my eye. The commenter said they’d discontinue the iPod Nano and iPod classic, take the Shuffle and give it an LCD and a larger capacity. They’d also drop the price of the iPod Touch, release iTunes 8, and do some more. The part of the comment  that was most interesting was the bit on dropping the Classic and the Nano, it really got me thinking. If you look at this from a business and marketing point of view, this is a horrible idea (since the Nano is the most popular MP3 player out there). However, Apple did this with their last player that ranked “most popular MP3 player,” anyone remember the iPod Mini?

     I think if Apple were to do this, their best move would to merge the iPod Nano and the Classic, after all, the difference between the two is quickly fading. So basically, they’d take the iPod form factor (as far as thickness goes), the iPod Classic’s shape, screen size, storage capacity, and sell it for about $99 bucks. It’d blow away the competition. Then they’d discontinue the iPod Shuffle, because for $99 who’d need it? Furthermore, they’d do what the commenter said by dropping the Touch’s price (to about $199) and that’d be the new lineup. So basically, they’d have the iPod Classic (which is Nano+Classic iPod I was talking about) in a $99 (60GB) and $159 (120GB) model, and the iPod Touch in a $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB) model.

The Reasonable Expectation

    Now when we stop throwing our opinions into the mix, and think about what Apple will most likely do. The event will probably start with some form of iPhone “talk” (like where it’s at and how well its doing), which will result in a possible capacity bump, and at least a 2.1 upgrade (which will hopefully bring copy/paste and MMS support). Then they’ll move onto iTunes, which will result in the release of iTunes 8 which will have some kind of mind blowing new feature (something that we would have never thought of), including iTunes unlimited. Then hopefully we’ll finally be able to get rid of the “Beatles” rumor which has plagued Apple rumor sites for about 3 years. Finally, they’ll move over to the iPod Nano which will probably be the form factor that we’ve seen nonstop since Kevin Rose blogged about it. Unfortunately, that’ll probably be the end of the event. Apple has actually stopped doing a huge amount in their events, like they used to. It used to be that their events meant a bunch of new, cool, and exciting products, not what has been rumored for the last few months. However, I guess that’s the price they pay for their growth.

    On the contrary, I think Jobs has a bunch of tricks stuffed up his sleeve, which means those “cool and exciting” products that we’ve not been expecting. 

Update: According to Apple Insider – they have reason to believe that there will be no subscription services unveiled at the event.

Also you can follow www.twitter.com/techtalkchris  so you’ll know whats going on when september 9th rolls around

Tim Cook, Steve Jobs, and Phil Schiller doing a Q&A

First off, let me just say that the State of the (Apple) Union, isn’t the strongest its been in the past. Now before all the Mac fanboys (and fangirls) start sharpening their iPitchforks, let me at least explain why, you might even agree.

Apple has grown a significant amount in the last few years, just look at the last ten, when Apple was almost bankrupt! It wasn’t until Jobs came in and reinvented the company, before it started to take off. There were four parts to this reinvention: the complete revamp of the Apple Board of Directors, the development of Mac OS X, a complete hardware overhaul of the Mac product line, and the iPod. It was through that small little mp3 player, that Apple captured the market. Amazingly, that’s all it took, Apple had quickly established itself as a “brand name,” and people started to recognize that Apple also made computers. The simplicity and ease of use that users found with their iPods, could also be found on a computer. (Just ask some of the people who have switched in recent years, they probably started off by having an iPod.)

However, something worried me about the way Apple worked when dealing with the iPod, it seemed like the baby in the family that got all the attention, and I feared that this might mean some slack in the Mac department, fortunately this never happened. Tiger came on the scene, blew us all away, and was (and is) the most stable version of Mac OS X I’ve ever used. 

Now fast forward to the summer of 2007, the release of the renowned first generation iPhone. The phone that caused Apple to delay the release of their new version of OS X. When I herd of the delay, I was thankful for it, it made me realize they didn’t want a pre-mature release for their OS and cared about the Mac platform. However, now as I look back at it, it was the beginning of what I had originally predicted for the iPod. The iPhone was slowly starting to grab all of Apple’s attention. Yes, the iPhone’s immense popularity has helped the Mac in terms of sales. However, some of the stability I had come to know and love for the last two years in Tiger, seemed to have almost disappeared. Leopard, compared to Tiger can seem like a disaster. Some of the errors others and I have gotten, have been things you would expect from other operating systems, but not one from Apple. Yes, disaster is probably too strong of a word, but still the best way to describe it. Don’t get me wrong, Leopard has been a very welcome addition to the OS X platform. When I found myself on machines running Tiger I ended up wishing I could be back on my Leopard system because of the continued innovation Apple brings with each of its products. Nonetheless, Leopard is at times, a let down to those who have been on the Mac platform for more than two years. To be specific, I’ve found myself doing more system maintenance and troubleshooting within Leopard then I ever did in Tiger (and I know other users feel the same way). Thankfully, the people who have switched post-Tiger, don’t realize the issues as much, because Leopard in their eye is phenomenally more stable than their previous OS.

So if I could give the folks at Apple any piece of advice, I’d say to make sure that they don’t get caught up in the phenomenon that the iPhone has become (even though the iPhone needs some work too), and to make sure they’re equally dividing up their attention among their three product branches. (The three branches I’m referring to are the ones that Steve Jobs has pointed out: The Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone.) Apple is an amazing company, which makes me have no problem saying that I believe that they’ll have no problem sorting things out.

Thanks,

Chris

Click here to watch the unboxing