“And, for obvious reasons, the glass back raises concerns about the iPhone 4’s droppability. With previous iPhones, it was liking dropping a piece of buttered toast — there was a lucky and unlucky side on which it could land. With the iPhone 4, it’s like dropping a piece of toast that’s been buttered on both sides.”

-

John Guber, on the dual glass sides of the iPhone.

It truly is frightening.

(via nerdcast)

A few months ago I started using Scrivener as a writing tool because I was going to review it for Laptop. In order to try it I had to borrow one of our MacBook Pros because the program is only for OS X, not Windows. This normally would have been enough to keep me from caring, but all of the writers I know who use the program absolutely love it and would never give it up for anything. This program is so good that several friends have actually switched to Mac just to use it.

Now that I’ve used Scrivener I can definitely say that it’s great and I love using it. (A fuller review will come, as soon as the story I was writing it for is taken off hold.) I don’t know that I would switch to a Mac for it. I like my netbook, for one thing. And I don’t have money to spend on a $1,000+ computer for just one purpose.

There is another alternative, though. You could always turn a netbook into a Mac.

How, you ask? Hackintoshing! This age-old process of fiddling with OS X until it will install on a non-Apple system wasn’t invented for netbooks, but has definitely found a slew of new adherents in the past couple of years. And since Apple is determined not to give the people what they want, the people will have to get it themselves.

Used to be that Hackintoshing required a lot of dedication, forum-lurking, and some soldering skills. But a new website called MyMacNetbook aims to make the process a bit less opaque. Right now there are a few step-by-step guides for some systems, but the real goodies lurk in the compatitility chart. This is where you’ll find a long list of netbooks and the hardware features that work with OS X out of the box. You’ll note that the MSI Wind is about the perfect hackintoshing netbook.

Writers who’re jonesing for some Scrivener but don’t have the money for a Mac but do have the money for a netbook, this is your best bet. And if you’re a Mac lover who longs for the portability of the 10-inch form factor, now you don’t have to pine (or settle for an iPad). Many of the netbooks that work without too much fiddling are older, so you can probably find them at a deep discount these days.

Before the official announcement of Apple’s iPad several different names were floated for the tablet including iTablet and iSlate. In the many months between the latest rounds of rumors (started in early 2009) and the actual announcement, the likelihood of iPad being the final name was hotly debated and often dismissed by people who were already saying it reminded them of maxipads. When the announcement came down nearly everyone I know either braced themselves for or gleefully awaited the feminine hygiene jokes to come.

However, a small minority of people I encountered didn’t understand why iPad immediately brought to mind maxipads. They pointed out that people use words like mousepad and notepad and even the phrase pad of paper every day without devolving into absorbancy jokes. So why is iPad funny? Having given this far, far too much thought, I’ve been able to identify three key reasons why I think it’s happening.

1. As the MADtv skit showed, it’s long been funny to put the little i in front of words to make fun of Apple’s naming conventions. Sure, Apple has been very successful in branding the iProducts, and that’s part of why the jokes work. iPad seems like it should be a joke even though it’s not.
2. Pad is a weak word. Just say it out loud: paaaaaad. That long a doesn’t help. Most other iProducts have pretty strong words after the little i. Pod, Mac, Work, Life. They have plosives and hard K sounds and short vowels. Pad needs words associated with it that sound strong or right in order to blend seamlessly into the vocabulary. Mousepad, Trackpad, Notepad, even CrunchPad. And though women refer to Always and etc. as just pads most of the time, that’s shorthand. The full word is Maxipad. There are just some words in English that sound somewhat weak on their own, and Pad is one of them. A weak word like this cannot support the little i, therefore the name (regardless of the jokes) just doesn’t feel strong or desirable.
3. Regardless of the many other uses of the term pad, most of the time when someone asks for a pad they’re asking for a maxipad unless in context it makes far more sense that they’re asking for a pad of paper. Other than that, how many times have you used the word pad all by itself in normal conversation in a non-specialized context^[1]? The little i is not the most important aspect of iPad, it’s so ubiquitous and familiar that, even as we say it, our minds and tongues are gliding right over it to the real word on the other side: Phone, Pod, Mac, Life, Work. That is the whole point of the little i. Therefore, the iPad is just basically Pad, and pads bring very few specific images to most American minds, and one of the prominent ones happens to be maxipads.

So there you have it. This is why I think the iPad name instantly became the butt of jokes or at least disappointment. Apple has some strong reasons for choosing iPad I am sure. I’m also sure they have some smart branding people whose job it is to think about these things. Maybe they had an off day? Maybe they’re all men. Maybe they thought that eventually people would stop tittering and just accept it, because none of the alternatives worked for whatever reason.

In the end, it doesn’t matter much. They’ve gone with iPad and have to stick with it. And we’ll have to live with it. As others have pointed out, the Wii encountered much the same reception upon release and, lo these many years later, we’ve all gotten used to it (or over it) and happily use them all the time. I’m sure the same will happen with the iPad. Still, I’m longing for a decal that I can stick on the back to turn my iPad into a maxiPad.

Notes

1. i.e. it doesn’t count if your workplace uses something called a pad for everyday workplace operations. It also doesn’t count if you roleplay Star Trek on a regular basis. [↩]

A couple of days ago Brad at Liliputing talked about how netbooks are a better platform for touchscreens than regular laptops. I agree that the future of touch is probably going to be pioneered by netbooks, but that future won’t be exciting until software makers step up their game.

I don’t know if it’s an issue on the hardware or software side, but I suspect it’s more software side, especially considering the capabilities we’ve seen in touchscreen smartphones like the the iPod. Every time I’ve ever used a touch notebook I’ve found it nice, but limited. Yes, I can hand write text into documents, but I haven’t seen a program that allows me to draw on or create notes in the margin of documents like I can with a pen and paper. This may exist and I’ve missed it, but I feel like something of that nature should come standard with every touchscreen computer. It’s a basic need from my perspective.

Beyond that, I’ve not been bown away with any touch software ideas or concepts. Why bother having a touchcreen at all if it just means that you can write in small, yellow boxes that have to be cleared periodically, anyway?

Before touch can blow up on any laptop format, someone has to make touchscreens worth having. The iPhone did, and it rode on the coattails of other smartphones and PDAs that tentatively pushed the touch envelope before it came along. For once I feel like Apple’s insistence on controlling both software and hardware was the right move.

I just saw a commercial for the iPhone 3G S that “does some pretty incredible things.” Things like Copying and Pasting. WOW. Where has this technology been all of my life? Oh wait, on every computer I’ve had since I was 10…

Apple, please.

I realize that copy/paste is a new feature on the iPhone, but it’s not an “incredible” thing, it’s a thing that should have been included in the original iPhone. It’s not a complicated process, it’s a basic process. You can’t make people forget that it’s a basic function of most computers and smart phones by producing commercials like this. It will only make you look silly.

How about a commercial that says: Finally, we’ve added copy/paste to the iPhone since we knew you wanted it!

I’m sure the next commercial will be: The new iPhone will wow you with it’s ability to call any number in the U.S.! Wowee!

The iPhone and the iPod Touch are NOT netbooks and they also cannot compete with netbooks yet.  Sure, if you made them with 9-ich screens you could maybe make a case for it. But right now, you just sound like crazy people with all your talk of “junky hardware” and “cramped keyboards”.  Your insistence that an iPhone can do everything a netbook can do is just plain silly.  I can’t write a novel on an iPhone — well, not without driving myself crazy and posibly going blind — I can write a novel on my NC10.  And I am.

Really, now.  Every quarter you just make me lose confidence in your sanity over there.

A little while ago Laptop Magazine’s Avram Piltch IMed me the following video from CNBC:

I was prepared to watch another vaguely interesting segment about whether the new PC vs. Mac ads were making a difference to consumers, etc., but instead I spent almost the entire time making this face: >:O  I was so completely appalled by how much CNBC Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Jim Goldman was straight out lying about Macs.  It wasn’t just that he got a few things wrong, he took wrong, fed it some steroids, and then sent it to the gym for 6 months.

It was a lot of wrong.

Avram does an excellent job of taking Goldman’s points apart on Laptop’s blog.  I think I started to see red when the guy said that Photoshop comes with a Mac but you have to buy it fr the PC.  I don’t know what crazytown Jim lives in.  Or perhaps he’s never had to buy a Mac for himself, therefore doesnt know that these programs do not magically appear on the hard drive. 

I had a fleeting thought that maybe he was talking about iPhoto, but then dismissd it.  No one would mistake iPhoto for Photoshop.  After all, I have not yet been able to figure out how to make the free version of iPhoto that comes with Macs resize an image.  Yes, a basic function such as resizing is beyond iPhoto’s capailities as far as I can tell.  If it can resize, the functionality was hidden.  Mac people are free to correct me.  

Another thing he said made me roll my eyes forever:  ”If your PC breaks down — Macs tend not to — if your PC breaks down…”

Stop right there, Sunny Jim.  I know too many Mac users to even give you credit for being ignorant on that one.  Macs break down, crash, get messed up, just like any other computer.  They may be more durable overall, but they are not so much less likely to break that you can make a statement like that on national television.  All technology breaks, whether through manufacturer flaws or human error.  And I’ll bet the percentage of problems caused by human error is about the same on both kinds of computers.

This is why people do not respect Mac cultists.

And its a shame because, as Avram pointed out, there’s no need to lie in order to make a case that Mac gives users value over PCs in some instances.  It depends on who you are and what you want.  This is a partculrly egregious lie because Jim Goldman is supposed to be a journalist.  But he’s no better than a blogger.  And we all know about them.