Ok, so I’m going to continue my week of Apple bashing by talking about the new iPhone OS 4.0 that was announced today.  While there are a number of very nice things in it (thank you, finally multitasking) something really struck me as I was following the live blog.  Apple thinks we’re all stupid and that it’s their job to make things easy for us.

While yes, I’ve done my fair share of stupid shit in my life I’m by no means a moron.  I can handle using computers just fine (well maybe a little more than that) but I think that at this point most of us know what we’re doing.  During a post announcement Q&A session Steve Jobs was asked about multitasking in OS 4.0.  Here’s the exchange:

Q: How do you close applications when multitasking?
A: (Scott Forstall) You don’t have to. The user just uses things and doesn’t ever have to worry about it.
A: (Steve Jobs) It’s like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager… they blew it. Users shouldn’t ever have to think about it.

Now at this point I 100% agree on the comment about using a stylus.  We’ve grown beyond that and every major mobile OS (hell maybe all of them now) don’t need a stylus.  But his comment about multitasking is so basically flawed that it really got to me.  What, I’m not smart enough to manage what’s running on my device?  Now I agree that you shouldn’t have to use a task manager but for the millions of users out there that are smart enough to use one GIVE IT TO ME.  Why would you not?  Why does Apple consistently dumb down the functionality of their products for some unknown lowest common denominator?  I bought this device and I’m not stupid – don’t treat me like I am.

Apple has done this for years in all their products.  They’ve consistently said things like “so easy even your mom could use it”.  I don’t know about you but my mom isn’t an idiot either.  And I’m guessing there are lots of smart moms out there.

So thank you for finally giving us multitasking.  I mean it only took you 3 years to get around to it when every other mobile OS has had it since day one.  Oh and one more final choice quote:

"Now we weren’t the first to this (multitasking) party, but we’re gonna be the best.”

Uh, how is it going to be the best when it lacks functionality that virtually all other platforms have and handles it the exact same way as Android?  Nope, sorry, not the best – but the best if you’re stupid.  But I’m not stupid.  At least if I am I don’t realize it…

As I’ve read a few articles around the net about the iPad and all the issues with it another thing struck me – the iPad isn’t the best way to experience the internet, it’s the worst – in fact it’s the anti-internet device. 

The internet is built on open standards.  Open ideas.  Open flow of information.  I can put anything up on the net and anyone virtually anywhere can access it.  There is no middle man, no one that decides what users can and can not do with that information.  From text, photos, videos, software, music, etc. the internet is about as free and open as anything on the entire planet.  But with the iPad you don’t get this freedom, you don’t get this openness.  What you do get is a closed, controlled and locked down experience.

I’m said many times how the lack of Flash on the iPad is huge.  It is.  Huge.  This is such a limiting factor for a device that is supposed to be “the best way to browse the web”.  Uh, no, I don’t think so.  Many webpages don’t render properly and there is no tabbed browsing.  Best device for the web?  No.  The only way I can get photos onto the iPad is through a computer that I have to already have.  Best device for photos?  No.  The way to get videos on the device is to buy them from iTunes or stream through “approved” apps.  Best device for video?  No.  It’s the exact same with music, once again I need a PC and iTunes.  Best for music?  No.  And software, here is the real issue.  I can put NOTHING that I want on the iPad, only what Apple allows me to install.  With their terribly inconsistent rules and controls over what that software is and what it can do.  Can you imagine spending the time to create an app only to have it rejected – I can, our Jinzora app was rejected for “duplicate functionality”.  Really, there’s another Jinzora app in the App Store?  No.  And do you realize that if Apple had to go through the same approval process with the iWork suite they just released that would be rejected too – it uses APIs that aren’t publicly available.  Best for software?  No.

So what is this thing best at?  Fingerprints.  Acting as a mirror.  Making me much poorer.  Impressing people that I have the latest shiny Apple product.  Sure it’s fun and shiny but haven’t we all grown beyond that.  Don’t we want substance.  So I’m sorry, the iPad isn’t the best internet experience, it’s not even a good internet experience.  What is it, well it’s the anti-internet experience.  Closed.  Locked down.  Isolated.  Controlled.  Thanks Apple, but I had enough with the iPhone and I’ve already had enough with the iPad.

Sounds simple enough, right?  Well let me be clear with what I mean by “corporate image”.  With Windows Vista Microsoft introduced a new imaging system through the Windows Automated Installation Kit that allows corporations to create Windows 7 (or Vista) images that can easily and quickly be deployed on machines.  I’ve used this process over the years to create Windows XP, Vista, and now Windows 7 images that are highly customized for our company.  Basically I can completely customize our build, installing all the software we use and configuring settings for just about everything – then easily deploy that to our machines.  This keeps things consistent and easy to support.

The trouble has been how do I install it on a Macbook (Air or Pro) given the non-standard way Apple does, well, everything.  After a fair bit of trial and error I found the correct steps to achieve that goal.  They are:

• Run the Boot Camp assistant in OS X
  Create your partition (I used 64GB) and begin the install of Windows 7 with the standard Windows 7 DVD
• Once the Windows 7 install loads up proceed as you would with a regular install.  All you want to do here is create and format the Windows partition – and that’s it.  Once you’ve created (and formatted) the partition just hard power the machine off.
• Power the machine back on while holding the mouse button – this will eject the Windows 7 DVD.
• Once the machine comes on it will most likely boot in to OS X.  Once there insert your WinPE boot disk (you’ll have created this when you built your install image).  Go into System Preferences and set that to be the boot disk.  Reboot
• Once you boot off your WinPE disk you can install your image as normal.  I actually have the image files on a 64GB USB thumb drive since my image is about 9GB.  I just inserted that, waited for it to mount then went on my way.
• When the image has finished copying to the drive again hard power off the computer.  This time you can just power it back on, you don’t need to worry about ejecting the disk.
• Windows will go through the standard install process for your image as it would on any other computer.  Let that finish.
• Once Windows is installed and running be sure to install the Windows Boot Camp drivers by inserting your original OS X DVD.
• Now reboot while holding the “alt | Option” key.  This will let you select the OS you’d like to boot into.
• Done.

I went on further step and installed the latest version of Parallels so once I was finished with the Boot Camp install I simply pointed Parallels at that and loaded it up.  Everything came online perfectly and I now have my corporate image installed on the machine and can use it in either OS X via Parallels or natively via Boot Camp.  And now finally my Macbook Pro has a usable operating system on it.

So apparently I’m not the only thing that’s gotten thinner over the last year as laptops are getting smaller and lighter all the time.  Recent Jason, Ryan, and I all got the new Macbook Air from Apple.  Wow, what an amazing machine.  Brad had one for a few days but just couldn’t get used to the glide pad (vs. the track point on a Thinkpad).  While I agree with him and hate glide pads the Air is just too amazing not to use.  It’s one of those products that you just have to hold, feel, touch, and play with to appreciate.

Yesterday when I got into work I was greeted with a new Lenovo X300 – this is the Thinkpad answer to the Air.  So how good is their answer?  Well on the coolness factor they aren’t even close.  While the X300 is an awesome machine it just doesn’t match the form factor of the Air.  Yes it’s very thin and light but we’ve seen thin and light laptops before (the X61 isn’t much thicker/heavier than this).  Where the X300 shines is in it’s features.  Let’s do a little side by side shall we?

As you can see from the specs it’s no contest, the X300 wins almost every category (other than CPU).  However with machines like this it isn’t all about the specs, not by a long shot.  The Air is just so much cooler, so much sexier that it just smokes the X300.  When I got my Air I knew the X300 was coming and I was really worried that I would love it to the point that I wanted to swap my Air for it.  Don’t worry Jason, I want my Air.  If I’d gotten the X300 first I’d be happy with it but after having an Air for a few weeks there is just no substitute.  I’ll be finishing the X300 up today and giving it to Brad tomorrow, we’ll have to wait and see what he thinks (my prediction: he’ll LOVE IT).

Here’s a few pictures I took of the two side-by-side.  Sorry they aren’t better, it’s the best I could get with my crappy camera.

I’ve written before about installing a Windows Image version of Vista onto a MacBook Pro using imagex.exe so I figured I’d write an updated post on doing the same with the Air.  It’s fairly straightforward, and I’ve found what I think is the fastest (or at least sure fire) way to get it done.  Here’s how:

• Create a partition for Windows using Bootcamp (I created a 55GB one since I’m going to use Windows 90% of the time)
• Reboot from the standard Vista install DVD.  Format the partition you created and complete a normal Vista install.  You’ll need to do this so the boot sector is written properly.  I’ve tried stopping right after you format it, and have even killed it right after the file copy starts (neither worked) so I’m guessing the boot loader gets written at the end of the process.
• When you reboot be sure to press and hold the mouse button after the Mac bootup “ding” sound.  When the disk ejects quickly put in your WinPE DVD with imagex.exe and the image you’d like to install.  You may have to boot back into OS X first.  If so restart the Bootcamp assistant and choose install Windows.
• Pay close attention as it boots so you can “press any key” to get WinPE going.
• Once you boot into WinPE you’ll need to reformat the disk (which doesn’t mess with the boot sector).  So run the following commands:
  diskpart
  select disk 0
  select partition 3
  format fs=ntfs quick
  assign letter=c
  quit
• Now you’re ready to put the image on the machine.  For this you’ll run:
  imagex /apply IMAGENAME.wim 1 c:
• Now go get a cup of coffee (or several) while it puts the image in place.  When that’s done reboot and go get dinner (and then maybe breakfast) as Vista starts up the installer for the image.

That should do it.  If you’re not experienced with imaging technologies like this, and you work in a corporate environment you should start reading about it.  We may only have 11 employees but given the amount of times I’ve used my image (easily 100+ times) the amount of time it has saved me is staggering.  Also the added benefit of all my users being on the exact same platform with the exact same tweaks is, well, huge.

Nope, that isn’t a typo in the subject, I’m running andLinux, a new distribution of Linux that I read about today. I use the term distribution loosely, it’s much different than that. In short rather than using emulation like say Parallels does (where one OS is running on top of the other) andLinux loads the Linux kernel beside the Windows one, like any other program. So in essence Linux (Ubuntu based) applications can run natively on top of Windows. And it works. It works VERY well.

So here’s what I’m doing right now. I’m writing this blog post inside Firefox. Firefox running inside the Linux kernel. It’s running on my XP desktop which I can’t see because that’s running inside Parallels on my MacBook Pro. But you can’t really tell. It just works. Linux apps work. Windows apps work. OS X apps work. No rebooting. No switching windows. No switching displays. It just works. Oh and did I mention that I just ran a simple installer to get it all going? Yeah, when I say it works I mean it really works.

So holy shit is this cool but how useful is it? Well so far I don’t think very (or rather not for that many). There are very few people that have a must have application for each major platform. It will be huge for software testers for sure, being able to test on multiple platforms all at once and all on one machine. Oh and did I mention the performance is great. Everything I’ve done has been very usable.

It really is amazing where virtualization technologies are heading, and while this isn’t virtualization in the traditional sense it’s easiest to think of it that way. Each day we inch away from the importance of the operating system. I’m looking forward to that inch changing to a crawl…