fplanque: glob

As showcased in Steve Jobs “Back to the Mac” presentation of Mac OS X Lion today, I welcome the trend towards full screen apps on the Mac. Having windows of different apps overlapping was just a daily receipe for A.D.D. waiting to happen…

However the one thing I’m concerned about is dual screen support. And more generally: multiple displays support.

I personally use 3 displays, one center and 2 on the sides. I tend to use one app on each screen. The main thing I’m working on in the center and related stuff on the sides. For example, I might have DreamWeaver for creating a web page in the center. I would then have the Photoshop design on the left and the Safari rendering on the right. (Or… PHPED / MySQL / Firefox ;)

Or I might have my email on one side, my calendar on the other, and some excel or project management thing in the middle. I might even have Excel, and Excel and Excel and want each spreadsheet to fill exactly one screen with no distractions around it.

Now… given everything that has been shown today, I didn’t see anything allowing me to imagine full screen apps to function smoothly with multiple displays :’(

It looks more like it’s going to be one of these:

• Either a full screen app on one display while the other displays go dark – which defeats the purpose of multiple displays… – and you’ll be lucky if the app goes onto the display you actually want it to go to :/
• Or full screen apps that pan over multiple displays – which kind of works for the dashboard but would be a bad idea for anything with a document to look at…
• Or… keep using windows as you were before – Thank you Lion! :/

One solution I could think of would be to fire up Mission Control indepently on each screen (depending on current mouse position?) and then select what you want on that screen… but… it almost sounds too good to come true… :/

Oh well, we’ll see…

I was looking into upgrading my 2006 Mac Mini (serving as a media server) with a 2010 model, just to get a bigger hard drive… and also a faster one!

Now, according to this guy, the Mac Mini 2010 still comes with a stinky slow old SATA-1 drive, just as back in the days. And that Ricky guy actually sounds like he knows damn well what he’s talking about!

Anyone got a Mac Mini 2010? Care to check the Negotiated Link Speed in your System Profiler? (About my mac > More info…)

On the screenshot above, you can see a Negatiated Link Speed of 3 Gb/s, which is good… except I made the capture on my Mac Pro. Apparently, 2010 Mac Minis will show you a Link Speed of 3 Gb/s (that’s what the Mac is capable of) but a Negotiated Link Speed of only 1.5 Gb/s (that’s what the HD is capable of)…

What Ricky doesn’t say though, is if he has the 320 GB drive or the 500 GB drive. There may be a difference between these two.

Now, the alternative would be to upgrade the drive myself, but it’s just a big bag of hurt! I’m too old to get any pleasure out of disasenbling hardware any more…

November 2010 Update: I went to the Apple store and checked out the Mac Mini Server version: it has 7200 rpm drives but still at 1,5 Gbps. I also checked a MacBook Air for comparison: it has an SSD drive and it actually communicates at 3 Gbps.

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Breakups are frustrating… always… I believe this guy coped with his frustration pretty well, though ;)

You’d think the real estate market crashed everywhere and there’s plenty of available square feet, but check this out: what you saw in the 5th element has actually become a reality, in Hong Kong!

I was at a conference in Amsterdam last week and although we don’t have the iPads in Europe yey, I had the opportunity to play for 15 minutes with an iPad brought by a US attendee.

My first impression was: it’s really nicely designed, extremely intuitive and responsive. I gotta get one. I also loved the little switch to lock the orientation. Super useful for reading while lying on your side in bed! (Unlike on the iPhone)

However, after a few minutes I started to realize that a) I don’t quite know how to hold that thing (whether with or without the Apple carrying case) and b) it’s getting damn heavy if you hold it in your hand. Those impression were shared by the owner as well as the other people who played with it.

I believe this is going to limit how much you actually want to use that device in different situations. I think it’s actually very impractical to use when you don’t sit down. Also, I believe Apple should actually drop the stupid glass screens: they’re heavy and the glare is just annoying!

Anyways, until then it looks like the Apple product segmentation goes like this:

• If you’re standing, use your iPhone
• If you’re sitting in an armchair, couch or other laid back situation, use your iPad
• If you’re sitting at a table, use your MacBook
• If you’re sitting at your workdesk, use your iMac or Mac Pro

Ah yes, also:

• If you want to watch something on your TV, use your Apple TV or better yet: Mac Mini.