Well, I finally ordered an iPod tonight. I ordered it from the online Apple store after much inner debate. The local dealers don't have any in stock, and when they do get them in stock they sell out incredibly quickly. I figured that I'd just order it online and not worry about calling up these places all the time to see if they have them in. They can't even give a good timeframe for their arrival. Well I wont complain anymore. Now I just have to wait for a while until my 15 gig iPod arrives at my door!

Well, I'm not so lucky after all. After a great deal of calling around, it seems that the 10 and 15 gig iPods are sold out or not delivered yet in all stores accross the city. Some stores seem to have the 30 gig, but that's too much money. Most say they will have them next week or later. Oh well, it wont hurt me to wait a little longer.

I am planning on buying a 15 gig iPod tomorrow. I can't wait! I've been wanting one for quite some time. More on it when I actually get it :P.

So, Apple announced a music service. I'm impressed. I think they balanced the rights of the consumers quite well with the desires the record companies. The iTunes interface is simple, easy and all around cool. I can't wait to try this out, except there is one problem - the iTunes Music Store is only available in the U.S. I was very excited about this whole thing until I read that. I have read other articles however, that say that Apple is working on bringing it to international users and it is simply a matter of legal issues, rather than them simply not caring. I can't wait. Apple's hit something here.

I'm excited about the new iTunes (even without the Music Store) and iPods. Library sharing in iTunes 4 is a very very cool feature and it is so beautifully seamless. I've noticed that some songs sound much better in this version of iTunes. In iTunes 3 it seemed that on some tracks the vocals were very quiet, despite relentless adjustment of the equalizer.

I think I'm going to buy an iPod. The new ones look really sexy and I kind of like the new button layout. I was originally thinking about getting the 10GB 'pod, but when I priced it on the Apple store with the case, iPod dock and remote it ended up being more expensive than the 15GB model with all those things bundled.

Well, thats all for me for now. It's time to do more homework.

Siliconvalley.com has a nice article about OS X's NeXT roots.

"Stone sees the modern Mac architecture and programming toolkits enabling a "samurai" model of software development. That is, the tools and platform make it possible for a significant number of individual programmers or small teams, not just corporate behemoths, to create seriously innovative applications."

Slava from Unsanity comments on Apple's iApps and their lack of speed and functionality. He makes a very good point about how we are paying for these things in the cost of the OS. Although even if the iApps weren't included with OS upgrades, I don't think Apple would lessen the price.

It is understandable that carrying an advanced featureset and lots of media manipulations can't be all that speedy, but we're talking about the interface responsiveness here. I am, trying to assemble my first home-made movie in iMovie, using a semi-modern Mac (dual-Ghz), don't like clicking into a movie fragment and waiting for half a second for the system to understand I clicked in and update the UI. I don't like browsing through the iPhoto library with an ocassional coffee breaks every time i click on an up arrow because my library contains about 600 photos.

Well once again Mr. John C. Dvorak (pronounced "dork") has published yet another article about his favorite subject - Apple Computer! Miraculously, he is not predicting their imminent demise! Instead he is making another prediction - Apple will switch to Intel. The tone of this article is rather strange, it seems almost positive compared to his articles that predicted a brutal death to Apple a million times over.

Despite the new tone, this new John C. Dvorak's article is no better than before. Similar articles have been written many times over in many different publications, online or offline. This is not a new radical prediction, instead it is simply copying another's prediction. If this does come true, and Apple switches to Intel, Dvorak will probably come out with a collective "I told you so". Don't humor him.

In an odd development Al Gore is now on Apple's board of directors.

I guess Apple now owns the Internet. :)

Well my friends, it seems that the original iMac design has finally come to an end. As of today Apple is no longer selling it on their online store.

I'm not really sure why Apple continued to sell them up to this point since they were just marginally less expensive than the eMac and their specs were much less.

The end of an era I suppose.

Interesting. MacSlash has an article pointing to an LA Time article (which needs registration) about Apple launching a music service integrated with iTunes. This would be great if they could keep the price low enough and give us the freedom to burn to CDs and play in different locations.

This looks pretty official.

Dave Hyatt is feeling very hypothetical today. I wonder if Apple likes this weblog talking about Safari the way it is. It is also interesting that Apple hasn't taken any measures to contain the leaked safari build. From what I've seen they haven't sent any letters to people asking them to take their mirrors of the build down.

I guess they must not be too upset. It actually might be better press for them now. People have got interested in this because its 'leaked'. Its like little kids who are having fun since they know they have something they aren't suppose to have. In this case, of course, it really isn't doing any harm, if not good.

Well, it seems that a leaked beta of Safari has a version of tabs included. Good job Apple! Its great that you listen to your users! I can't wait for this to be released in a real version.

Apple has released a spec on the XML format, (APXL - Apple Presentation XML), used in Keynote. Apples says that "It is intended for developers who wish to create or modify Keynote presentations programmatically".

NetNewsWire Pro 1.0 was released today. Congrats Brent. This is a great app, it totally changes how a read and write online.

Here's a good blog about the Opera Whiners.

Dave Hyatt is asking on his weblog for feedback on what people want to see in Safari. There are already 390 comments and 19 trackbacks, I can't imagine him reading it all. There are probably a lot of repeats as well. I'll give my few cents on what I would like:

- Tabbed browsing. This has been asked in almost every reply he has. Tabs or some tab like widget should be implemented. Don't do drawer-based tabs! They take up too much space. It is easy for someone with a big widescreen Apple monitor to say they have enough space but on a 1024x768 screen the browser would end up taking up most of the screen space.

- Aqua. I'd rather brushed metal was dropped in favor of aqua. I'm not a big fan of metal and especially metal on an app like a web browser.

- Customizable toolbar. We should have the option of rearranging and adding different icons to the toolbar.

Thats about all I can think of now, maybe I'll think of more later.

Forbes: "How does Keynote stack up against PowerPoint? The snapshot summary of our head-to-head user test of the two programs is that they fundamentally do the same thing, and do it well, but Keynote does it with a superior elegance and simplicity of use that is Apple's design trademark."