Mac opinion. Punditry. Whatever.

Acknowledging continuing problems with its successor to .Mac, Apple sent another note of apology to subscribers tonight.

We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users’ patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe’s launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around.

A FAQ page has been added to Apple’s Support website.

MobileMe

Apple’s been mum about the rumors that the next version of Mac OS X — Snow Leopard — will not support PowerPC machines, but the webpage describing the new OS may hold a clue:

Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.

Taking all that PowerPC code out of your OS would certainly go a long way towards reducing its footprint now, wouldn’t it?

Apple has posted a FAQs page on its transition from .Mac to the new MobileMe service it announced at WWDC. I’ll just cover a few of the more burning questions I’ve seen.

• .Mac to MobileMe transitions are automatic; the subscriber does not have to do anything to activate MobileMe
• Storage space, which recently increased for .Mac subscribers, is being doubled: Individual subscriptions go from 10GB to 20GB; family packs now get 40GB–20 for the main account and 5GB for each sub-account.
• You can keep your current mac.com address. You will also get a new me.com address with the same username, e.g., if your .Mac address is jdoe@mac.com, you will also get jdoe@me.com–that’s a pretty cool address, in my opinion.
• If you have .Mac home pages or galleries, their current URLs will still work. They will also be accessible in a me.com version of the URL.
• You can use either your mac.com or me.com screen name in iChat (or AOL, I presume). However, if you cancel your me.com subscription, only the mac.com screen name will work.
• Some .Mac features are being discontinued: Web access to bookmarks (bookmark sync between your Macs and/or PCs is still supported), iCards, .Mac slides, and support for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther sync.

For those of you who weren’t reading the liveblogging of Apple’s WWDC Keynote, the company unveiled both its new software and hardware for the iPhone.

iPhone 2.0–the next-generation of the mobile device’s operating system, will be available in “early July,” the company announced. The new phone itself got a more specific due date: July 11th. The new OS will allow third-developer applications and will be supported by a revamped and re-branded dot-Mac service dubbed “MobileMe,” and will support “always on” wireless updating of contacts, email, calendars, etc. (I may have missed it, but I don’t recall hearing that syncing to-do lists were supported.)

One the hardware side, the new iPhone 3G will feature faster 3G networking, built-in GPS and a lower price: $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for 16 gigs.

More details are available at news sites including Macworld. Apple’s own site had not been updated as of this posting.

Only briefly mentioned was the next version of the Macintosh operating system, referred to as “Snow Leopard.” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said more details would come in an afternoon session, presumably covered under the conference’s No-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).

[UPDATE: Andy Ihnatko made a great observation: Apple's webpage describing the 2.0 software update for existing (i.e., non-3G) iPhones specifically mentions the addition of GPS. As Andy says: "Signif(icant), or typo?"]

The latest installment of MacJury went live on Friday. In it, host Chuck Joiner and a panel including Jean MacDonald of SmileOnMyMac, John Moltz of Crazy Apple Rumors and Macworld, Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer and yours truly pontificate about what we expect to see and what we’d like to see announced at this year’s WWDC Keynote (scheduled for today as I write this).

It’s a show with a short shelf life, but in my opinion one of the most fun segments of the series so far. I mean where else will you hear ponies and pink MacBook Pros thrown out as possibilities for a Steve Jobs keynote?

If you’d like to give it a quick listen before the keynote, you’ve got just enough time to download it and hear it before Jobs take the stage. Even more fun, though, might be to listen to it after the announcements and see just how far off base we were.

My thanks to Chuck and the whole panel for making this show so much fun. You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or listen to the show directly from the MacJury website here.

I’m back on the MacJury for the latest session, along with Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica, Scott McNulty of The Unofficial Apple Weblog and Warren Williams of the AppleWorks User Group. We had a fun discussion on two topics: Microsoft’s abandoned attempts to acquire Yahoo! and “Can we dump Microsoft Office yet?” It was a lively discussion, with different points of view on both issues, which I always think makes for a better show. One of my biggest concerns on these panels (other than sounding like an idiot), is that everyone will be in complete agreement with each other — that makes for a really boring show. Luckily, we each had some good points to debate.

If you haven’t already subscribed, the show is listed in the iTunes store, or you can just follow this link.

By the way, I’m looking for recommendations for a decent podcasting microphone — preferably a USB condenser mic. Scott and host Chuck Joiner were both using Snowballs, but I’m looking for something a little less bulky and a little more old school.

There are few things as satisfying to me as taking a really dumb argument and ripping it to shreds with logic and facts. If that stupid argument is delivered with pomposity and arrogance, it’s all the more fun.

Few people have elevated this to the level of sport as well as John C. Welch. A hunting analogy comes quickly to mind, but the more I think of it, the more I realize it’s not so much the hunter-with-rifle-tracks-deer kind of hunting as it is the lion-in-the-plains-gets-gazelle kind. It’s graceful, masterful and can sometimes make you wince at its brutality.

The clueless gazelle this time out is Matt Freestone of Windows Connected, who is clearly talking out of his nether regions in a post that creates a fiction presented as a comparative piece about the compatibility of Mac and Windows operating systems on older hardware. John breaks down his arguments and counters them with beautifully presented facts. Think of it as poetry without mercy.

The piece is worth reading just as a lesson in persuasive writing, but it’s also entertaining as hell. You can almost see Freestone’s arguments squirm under Welch’s attack. In fact, there’s really only one difference between this and a nature channel documentary: in the documentary, I sometimes feel sorry for the gazelle.

The must-read article is on bynkii.com.

Back in the late-nineties, I produced what would now be called a podcast on the long-defunct “GiveMeTalk” Internet Radio Network. They were mostly 10-15 minute scripted shows, wherein I offered some analysis and commentary on the day’s news. Topics back then ranged from the introduction of candy-colored iMacs to the passing of legendary Mac journalist (when such a phrase could be used without irony) Don Crabbe.

I haven’t spent much time on-mic since then, although I’ve threatened to start up “RandomMaccess Radio” again every once in a while. This week, though, I finally return to the Internet “airwaves” as a member of the “MacJury,” Mac User Group guru and podcaster Chuck Joiner’s latest venture. The show joins his already excellent lineup of MacNotables and MacVoices. MacJury distinguishes itself by convening a panel (the jury) to talk in relative depth about two or three issues of interest to the Mac community, not to re-hash the week’s tech news.

I think this is a great strategy and fills a real void in the Mac podcast space. I like Chuck’s idea of rotating jury members, too–mixing up the panel should keep the discussion and interactions fresh. For episode two, Chuck’s panel included Steve Sande of Movable Beast, Red Sweater Software’s Daniel Jalcut, Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis and yours truly. We covered the future (and merits) of the Mac Mini, some of the possible consequences of Microsoft’s buyout of Yahoo!, and the iPhone’s dominance among mobile browsers. It was, I think, a good discussion and a fun listen (for geeks, anyway). I liked the way we interacted and had a few laughs along the way.

Panelist or not, I think it’s a good listen and a show with a lot of potential. Give it a try and let me know what you think. The show is now up and available for subscription on the iTunes Store. (Link via Chuck Joiner.)

I didn’t write my annual look at the state of the Mac for the upcoming year this time around mostly because it seemed what was ahead was fairly obvious, with the notable exception of what “one more thing” Steve Jobs might pull out of his hat at some point during the year. I had already called for–and been wrong about–a true “convergence” device and I would have called for it again this year (although the iPhone has some of those qualities and will probably get more.)

Movie rentals were pretty much a given, as was some kind of sub-notebook. The iPhone update had been leaked reports were spot on, right down to the cartoony jiggling of the icons to show they can be moved. I was a little surprised that the iPod touch got so many of the iPhone’s capabilities. That moment was marred, though, by the dead silence that greeted the news that adding them would cost $20. The only thing missing was the sound of crickets chirping.

The movie rentals are priced right, I think, and along with the direct Internet access make the Apple TV Take 2 much more appealing. One thing that Dave Hamilton of The Mac Observer noted, though and I agree 100% is that 24 hours is a little too short a window to start and finish a movie. He gave the example of parents who can’t really start a movie until the kids are in bed. If they start a rental at 10 and don’t finish it that night, they can’t pick it at 10 the next night–the rental period will have expired. Even 28 hours would be alright–it would allow that kind of two-night spanning and still be a reasonable tight window: start at 8 on night one, for example, and you have until midnight on night two to finish.

The MacBook Air was a real disappointment to me, though I admittedly am not Apple’s target market for a sub-notebook. I came away thinking there was a lot missing on the “but” side of the description: “It doesn’t have an optical drive but it has… it doesn’t have an Ethernet port but it has…, etc. The only thing that could have been filled in after the “buts” was “it’s thin and light.” For me, that’s not enough; for others, it may be everything: time will tell. Jobs also mentioned that the optional solid state hard drive was “pricey,” but didn’t mention how pricey: an extra $999.

I like Time Capsule, Apple’s AirPort Extreme wireless router and network attached storage device in one, and I think the price is fair. The next time I’m in the market for an 802.11N router, I’ll probably consider it, but lots of people may already have separate components to do the same thing. One thing is still unclear: does the fact that Time Machine supports the network storage within the Time Capsule mean it will support other networked drives? I asked two separate Apple “Blue Shirts” (the experts the booth staff directs you to if you have a question they can’t handle). One implied the answer was no and one implied it was yes. My guess is that neither of them is sure. I also suspect that–supported or not–it will be possible, although it may well involve a terminal command to do it.

One more note: Jim Gianopulos, the CEO of 20th Century Fox Studios, is by far the best “Guest CEO” I have seen at a Macworld keynote in recent memory, and a refreshing improvement to the stiff PR-speak of AT&T’s chief last year.

I completely skipped running Tiger on the Macs in my office — mostly over networking issues that never seem to have been resolved. We have two newer machines (both DP G5s) that came with Tiger installed. We found some workarounds for most of the issues, especially those dealing with our company’s proxy server.

In a desperate attempt at troubleshooting one of the Tiger machines, I upgraded it to Leopard. The upgrade was painless for the most part. Lotus Notes even launched and connected perfectly — which was my biggest concern. It all gave me the courage to install Leopard on my own 10.3 machine (I don’t even remember which cat that was anymore — Jaguar?) Again, all went well, including my Lotus Notes.

Unfortunately, Safari (or anything that uses Apple’s OS-based tools) still won’t connect through the proxy server, whether it’s through the pac file or by manually entering the proxy address. What’s worse — any app that makes the attempt crashes rather unceremoniously. Luckily, FireFox uses its own scheme and works fine.

I’ll have to see if SquidMan’s been updated for Leopard yet, but I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to rely on third-party tools at this stage in the game.

[UPDATE: HR Softworks' "Authoxy" seem to work fine. More important than getting Safari to work is the fact that it allows Apple's Software Update mechanism to work.]