Adobe have posted this question and answer PDF regarding Adobe products running on the new Intel-Based Macs. Looks like the Photoshop TV guys were right, a Universal Binary will not be available for CS2, Adobe will instead focus on making CS3 compatible with both Intel-Based Macs and the current Macs. CS3 could be available in the next 18 – 24 months if you look at Adobe’s rack record for major releases.

On a slight tangent, my 17-inch PowerBook arrived last week and I love it!

Bad punning aside, Apple have announced the first intel core duo macs: the MacBook Pro and iMac.

I’m currently in the market for a beefy-ish laptop of the Apple variety, and was only deciding whether to buy it out right with student discount, a 17 inch powerBook, or lease it for 2 years and upgrade to a new intel mac after a revision or 2.

When I started going through the Apple site, (and yes, the home page, iMac and MacBook Pro pages are significantly wider than the rest of the site. Bye-bye to the must fit in 800 x 600 mentality), I thought “yeah, screen’s not quite as big as I want it, but hey I still want one.”, especially after noticing that it’s pricing is almost identical to the powerBook, “well hey, it’s newer and 4X as fast or so they are touting, and the same price. Fuck it, go pro!”

Then I started reading about Rosetta and Universal stuff, and my head started hurting as I’m a designer/illustrator not a computer geek, and thought shit I’d better find out if my Adobe products, ie the main apps I’ll be using will be fine. At the time of writing this, I haven’t been able to find anything about it on the Adobe site, they seem too preoccupied with the whole Macromedia merger, which is fair enough. I’ve read snippets on various Apple rumour sites and what have you that if you’re an occasional Photoshop user, you won’t really notice any sluggish performance, but those who use it frequently will. I’m not finding this very encouraging.

Theres’s a comparison of guts so to speak between the powerBook and MacBook Pro here: Comparing the MacBook Pro to the PowerBook G4
Hmmm.

Me thinks powerBook will win for me, but hey Apple have to start some where with the new beasts. I hope those who buy the new breed are happy customers.

Apple stuff vs. anything always stirs some heated debate between the 2 camps. This one, Dell, have they no shame? is no different.

I’m glad to see that Dell monitors can finally compete with well, any ones basically. Majority of our office is Dell workstations with the worst cheap ass LCD monitors, and by the looks of it, the worst cheap ass graphics and video cards. People were actually asking for their previous cheap ass CRT ones because they couldn’t find a setting that wouldn’t ghost, or give them a headache.

I however managed to get a lovely Apple Cinema Display. I am the designer, I have to make judgements based on colour, placement and pixel perfect-edness both for screen and print on a day to day basis, so I refused to toil no longer on under par graphics cards, coupled with bad screens with colour casts you can’t get rid of. No I didn’t demand an Apple Cinema Display, but it was on the list of possibles, and I got lucky.

I don’t intend for this to turn into a Dell/Intel vs. Apple thing, (though it probably will, and especially after this: I’ve worked on a Dell laptop before, and it was very clunky and slow and bloody irritating and GRRRR! It’ll be a cold day in hell, before my CPU becomes a Dell!*).

I love my monitor, I’ve had it for almost a year now, I love it’s crystal clear-ness, I love it’s out of box colour accuracy, I love it’s wide screen proportions, I love how it looks, and yes, I am pre-disposed to the way of Apple.

I haven’t seen this new breed Dell monitor in real life, but hey, maybe it’s worth a look-see as a lower cost design quality monitor at home…

*Pre-emptive-anti-stoopid-comment-tactic: Yes I specifically stated the CPU part, not the monitor. Don’t comment and say this part and the last are inconsistent.

Read it again!

iPod nano killed the iPod mini-star. It’s smaller, has a colour screen and comes in black! Finally! I can only hope that this means a black iPod is on the way so us black lovin’ folk don’t have to resort to buying the U2 iPod for that reason*. Robot Johnny wishes for black pods too: iPod, uPod, we all pod for iPod

Potter Pod. This is kinda cute, I’m sure some hard core fans can get their pods in the colours of their fav Hogwarts house somewhere.

All those years of mac rumour sites speculating about an Apple phone got a step closer with iTunes mobile. No special Apple branded hardware, it’s a Motorola thing with an iTunes interface.

I also like The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

*I like U2, but I’d like more storage and black for money.

They say bad things happen in 3’s:

1. My adapter for my ye old clamshell iBook carked it last night. I was not impressed to find that just buying the one they currently sell with newer iBooks would work. Luckily, www.batterymall.com.au seems to have what can help me get a bit more life outta my iBook, and for 50 bucks as opposed to $129 for new adapter. I should get it this week-ish.
2. I had a minor car accident this morning with a minibus/van with some teenagers going to school in it. No no it wasn’t a P-plater hooning around in it, I think it was a teacher driving. Luckily no one was hurt, and damage to my car is very minimal. Teacher now knows to look before attempting a u-turn from off the road.
3. My cat went in for his dental this morning, which the vet told me he would one day be needing. He also has dandruff on account he won’t eat anything other than dried cat food, so vet suggested an aloe vera bath. I’ve bathed my cat twice before and I think the scars down my back are finally healed, so I figure, yeah go on you guys do it. Jasper was suppose to be ready by 6:30pm this evening, but he’s still drowsy from the anasthetic, so they’ll be keeping him overnight and bathing him tomorrow. So it’s a kitty free night for me :.(

Unrelated: Warning: iPods may damage your hearing [BugMeNot]. Yeah, who’d have thunk that listening to your portable music player or radio in mobile of choice too loud for too long would cause hearing probs? Thanks SMH, you’re the best!

Rejected Limited Edition iPods

New iPod range

iPod Photo has now become iPod and iPod U2 also gets the colour and photo capabilities. What gets me is the capacity differences, it’d be nice if there were a 40GB or something in between the 20 and 60GB ones. Maybe Apple are trying to sell more top of the range pods by only offering fence sitting people like me, who would look at entry level products and go, ‘I’d like a little more than that, what’s the next model up’, to buy the top of the range, ie most expensive model, as the mid option. (Then again, when I purchased my iPod, I went ‘fuck it’, and got top of the range at the time). I’m not sure that made a lot of sense but hopefully you get the idea.

The whole paying extra for a damn firewire cable sucks alot.

Podcasting stuff in the new iTunes is a good idea, I hope it doesn’t suck.