Leap-Year Time-Warp

As observed elsewhere, leap days are decidedly unintuitive things. The fact the world spins through space in arbitrary measure – while we won't stand that sort of thing when it comes to our own precious conceit of time – is swept under the carpet until just these occasions. There are leap seconds too, now that we've become good enough at measuring time mechanically then comparing with the stars. Events can take place in those as well: including births, deaths and every sort of inconveniently significant thing as already transpires through the other forgotten and foolish times we fake daylight savings with. Just don't get me started on that, not while I'm still living in brief sweet GMT.

So, leap, or intercalary days if you like … what about them strikes as noteworthy?

Well, it's just pleasingly absurd to think the last time it was February the 29th we were all back in 2004. John Kerry was already the challenger-apparent for what was set to be an unjustly dull election while Iraq was such a hotbed. Just why primary voters didn't flock to the better natural politician – John Edwards – I don't know. And I'll not pull out a baloney explanation for why conservatives haven't rallied to Mike Huckabee either! My beloved PowerBook wasn't quite a year old and Panther was the new big cat on its hard drive. Ah, Exposé. I'd only persuaded a single switcher back then too. An already ageing Athlon XP handled Battlefield 1942 for me. All right, in glacial John gaming time it wasn't really all that long ago…

Wind back another one, and it was Feb 29, 2000. The Clintons were still lingering in the White House, and Al Gore was already lined up against some wannabe Texan from Connecticut who pounded poor and honest John McCain with three more primary wins that day on his way to the nomination, and – infamously of course – the presidency. I was running Windows 98 on … a several years outdated Pentium 133 laptop and a crotchety 450 MHz K6-II. Was it the retro charm of Grand Prix 2 I was still in to then, or Civilization II? I've really never been cutting edge when it comes to gaming! But I was already used to 24-7 broadband internet by then, only just not at home.

One more back and things really get weird. In 1996 Bill Clinton was at the prime of his pre-Lewinsky charm, set for an all too obvious win, so it wasn't the presidentials which I remember much from that year. I didn't have my very own personal computer yet, it was a shared household 486 in Windows for Workgroups and very often MS-DOS for games and wavetable soundcard hijinks. It wouldn't be until that summer that I read Hunter S. Thompson for the first time, and really woke up to the potential of writing and far flung thoughts. John Major's Tories were still in power in these parts – wildly villified – making me wonder just what was rotten at the core of democracy if this was what people really felt. I remember actually caring about Formula One back in those days, presumably eager to see how the great Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi would do with the car Michael Schumacher had just won his second championship with before trading teams and places. It turned out the magic was all Schuey. I also vaguely recall David Baddiel splitting with Rob Newman – an absurdist comedy partnership I had liked – and penning one of the more annoying football anthems of all time with Frank Skinner. It didn't come home by the way … that seemed to actually matter back in those days. Meanwhile I read of chopped Harley-Davidsons, played only the finest half dozen costly Super Nintendo cartridges, and occasionally did battle with System 7 … though only on inexplicably archaic Classics.

1992 even sounds like another whole age in history. I didn't even have my SNES until Christmas. Guess my main tech was playing with the night sky on SkyGlobe for DOS on a monochrome 286 Amstrad! You could hear the processor struggling with screen updates, I kid you not. I remember the UK general election, in that the media were appalled with the outcome … but not for another few months back in (my arbitrary hook) February of course! A Clinton succeeded a Bush as we were being reminded until fairly recently as well; some old guy who said to read his lips a lot and had some sort of business with notably poor-marksman "Saddam Insane" from one of those countries that started with "IRA" and had lots of sand. There were Scuds too … and a noticeable atmosphere of propaganda which even my 11 year old self didn't fail to notice while the merry foray went on. All the cockpit footage looked very sci-fi and impressive and all – echoed by a whole era of war games hot on its heels – but there was still death and destruction, right? Why weren't we so bothered when the other guys where getting slaughtered, or that bomb shelter full of kids? Not that I was a pacifist … no, I'd already all the cynicism and intrigue in me to make a full blown politico!

1988 … ring any bells? I can remember teachers and classmates, a friend or two I still have kicking around even now, but nothing really big-picture. Maybe I'd learned BASIC already on the (mysteriously ancient, yet again) TRS-80, Vic-20 and Apple ][ (don't know which one) we had at times at home. Maybe not though. Whenever Woz's one arrived, I must admit that floppy disks seemed so futuristic compared to saving your code to cassette!

1984 … original Macintosh. We had BBC's at school though. Or rather our school had one BBC Micro, and that wasn't necessarily 1984 either. (Like I can be bothered checking their history…) I remember it would show up on a trolley maybe once a term, its armour-clad monitor on top and a reading-glasses-twiddling teacher would open a manual and peck at keys until the damned machine did anything at all, much to our youthful ho-hum. There was a time though when I knew enough to summon:

10 PRINT "MISCHIEVOUS MESSAGE OF YOUR CHOICE ";
20 GOTO 10

Now that was an afternoon!

Damn, if only my folks had been wealthy and daring enough to pick up a 128k. I'm sure MacPaint would have impressed me more then than when its ubiquitous clones caught up with me many years later. I can even remember trying my hand at a text editor in BASIC just so I could save files on those instant-off micro's we did happen to come by. Yeah, I know, I'm no Linus Torvalds, but floppies … and the better plastic box-shaped kind, in 1984, oh yeah, let me at that mouse!

In spring 1980 I was only a few months old, so I can't lend any truisms about Carter versus Reagan from any sort of past perspective. According to this system of time travel then, that's as far back as our vehicle gets. No cheating now.

One trusism I can offer though is that tiresome one about the unpredictability of time. Tech gets better – in ways we only occasionally suspect beforehand – while other things, well, I'm tempted to say they disappoint in comparison! Not always though. In politics its so often the leaders which really matter. Things I and many others haven't paid much thought to in years, like oh say the whole Middle East peace process if you can even remember that in earnest, can and probably will resume once Washington has its purge after the election. Obama or McCain, it's all good. Hillary even too, though frankly I'm beginning to make that time honoured mistake of overlooking her before all's said and done. Next Tuesday, yeah, or a ghoullish replay of the machinations which saw the last overthrow of a democratic winner, right before Al Gore's eyes again!

Anyway, even I detect my rambling now so don't worry, this post comes to a close. Obviously the future is the place to point it: what do I think tomorrow's Feb 29 will be like, in 2012? UNIX based, open sourced, well designed, and safer than today? Yeah, sure, like legend's dragon's die so soon. Another maxim I've come to suspect is true over the years is that good and evil are perspective as much as anything. So too can be, alas, up and down if you follow long enough to see this most strained distortion. More on that later, as I cover the extremist's refuge. But for now I'll say the truth, which is I can't even tell you what happens in November yet alone leaps and bounds ahead. The human world in its seething politics and glorious complexity is like that. You can suspect, intuit, and maybe conjure up sound reasoning in retrospect; but projections alone are a mug's game. One I just can't keep from playing.

Where the MacBook Air Fits in Apple's Design

Design in the Age of Intel

Macworld San Francisco in January 2006 was an intriguing time. The Intel transition was the talk of the Mac web and much of the media beyond. Expectations had risen that we would see the first models of the new platform that very show, despite Apple's earlier promise they would arrive by summer. Expectations were right. Steve Jobs unveiled with typical panache the first Intel powered desktop and notebook Apple had ever made and dared to call a Mac! He showed off their performance before an eager audience. There was just one strange surprise: the Intel Macs looked eerily similar to their PowerPC predecessors.

Two models moved to Intel that day. The Core Duo powered iMac was essentially identical to its G5 ancestor in outer appearance. The Core Duo successor to the PowerBook G4 was a little easier to tell apart – it had a built in iSight camera for the first time at the top edge of its display – and it had a name change to MacBook Pro. However, this was still less ado than Apple had made with previous generation changes between G3, G4 and G5. Despite the move to Intel being a far greater technical challenge and accomplishment, it was as though their industrial design was playing it down.

As the year progressed the entire Macintosh line made the leap to Intel. The Mac mini was next and looked identical save for an artfully placed remote control receiver and a more liberal selection of ports on the back. Then came the iBook, which like its aluminium brother, had a name change to now be called the MacBook. Unlike the MacBook Pro, the MacBook was a new design and easy to tell from its predecessor; more on that later. But it was back to business as usual when the Power Mac As the year progressed the entire Macintosh line made the leap to Intel. The Mac mini was next and looked identical save for an artfully placed remote control receiver and a more liberal selection of ports on the back. Then came the iBook, which like its aluminium brother, had a name change to now be called the MacBook. Unlike the MacBook Pro, the consumer MacBookcame to Intel the last of all, picking up a second drive slot (a wealth of useful changes hidden inside) and its new title of Mac Pro. The server oriented relative to the Mac – the Xserve – received a similar treatment although without a name change, completing the Intel transition in surprisingly speedy time.

So, to recap, there was only one new design in 2006: the MacBook. Every other Mac had been transformed on the inside too, but on the outside there was as little change as possible.

2007 brought the iPhone – an entirely new product and an area where Apple have great ambitions – and then a whole new generation of iPods. The iMac received its first major industrial design change since the G4 "sunflower" model was replaced with the minimalist "where's the computer?" G5 some three years earlier. That G5 iMac, incidentally, was considered to bear a lot in common with the iPod in terms of style. The new aluminium and glass iMac in turn shared its design in similar ways to the iPhone. Once the iMac joined the MacBook in the shortlist of new designs, there were no more changes. All the other Macs were not altered on the outside. Hardware evolved on the inside as 64 bit became universal across the entire platform with the Core 2 Duo, but once again the outer design was kept untouched.

There's Something in the Air

Then on the second anniversary of the first Intel Macs at Macworld 2008, Steve Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air, causing a storm of interest and debate which clearly carries on today. The Air was clearly a new class of portable with no direct ancestors at all. Its industrial design made this very clear: it looks quite unlike any other computer.

So much has been written about the MacBook Air – controversies rage about its many trade-offs and where precisely it fits among its MacBook siblings – so much that I needn't add any more to it. Instead, I'd like to compare the external design of the Air to Apple's other recent changes as I've listed above. Perhaps we can get a sneak peak of the future?

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

Have a look at the high quality photos AppleInsider took of the MacBook Air compared to the MacBook Pro. Everyone knows that the Air is thin; but seen side by side with Apple's well respected flagship professional portable, we can see the immense design shift for what it is. As usual, I'm writing from my 12" PowerBook which had a reputation for being tubby compared to its aluminium peers. The Air is probably about as thick at its front as the curved lip of my own laptop's battery, creeping round the edge! (The cell itself is far chunkier than that.)

Also note the MacBook Air's keyboard. Look familiar? It should do. This style was brought in with the first MacBook in 2006. Rounded, separate, "chiclet" keys which despite some initial concerns have proven to be well regarded for typing and general use. Last year's aluminium iMac brought the same thinking over to Apple's long untouched desktop keyboards: its new wireless keyboard having particularly strong ties to the MacBook. The Air's black keys come with backlighting … I expect this will spread to other models in time as well.

There is no guessing required when it comes to the MacBook Air's display. Apple have stated that they will remove Mercury from all of their products: this means a transition from traditional CCFL to LED backlights. Steve Jobs also pointed out that a key design goal with the Air was to maintain a full size keyboard and display in as thin a package as possible. This sounds like an implicit warning that we'll see no sub-13 inch Macs, and therefore no direct successor to the 12 inch PowerBook. I think Apple are likely to concentrate on tablets like the iPod touch for smaller sizes.

Lessons for the Leery

Back in 2006 I for one had not expected Apple to reuse their designs. As much lesser generational leaps like those between G3, G4 and G5 had brought new cases, materials and geometries in turn; I really anticipated brand new shapes and forms. If the glass and aluminium iMac of 2007 had come out at Macworld 2006 instead: I would have actually been less surprised than I was with the G5 iMac's doppelgänger!

Since the move to Intel: the MacBook, iMac and MacBook Air are new designs. This leaves the Mac Pro, Mac mini and MacBook Pro waiting for their overhaul. What are they likely to look like?

The aluminium PowerBook design which the MacBook Pro still bears, dates back to the start of 2003 and my own rather quaint laptop. It has worn well – often considered a true classic among notebook designs – but the MacBook Air's sudden arrival has given it something of a dent. I know it is controversial to suggest that the professional oriented MacBook Pro take a diet as radical as produced the Air, but I think looking forward a few years it is inevitable. The Air shows that the compromises needed right now are still too steep for its bigger brothers. I am certain however that this is precisely the direction they too will go in good time. Flash storage replacing hard disks as it has done in all but one iPod now, optical drives becoming external peripherals, replaceable batteries exchanged for iPod-like integration, and ports being selectively culled or delegated to USB. Such changes aren't necessarily as harsh as the Air itself has taken: there will be more room by definition on a 17 inch notebook, and professional machines may well hold on to select ports the Air has boldly dispatched. Thin, though, is certainly in. MacBook Pros today will look as over-sized to their descendants as the Air does against them now.

Reports of the Mac mini's demise are – fortunately – greatly exaggerated. This most miniscule of Mac desktops appears to be with us for the long haul. It's difficult to imagine just what Apple might have in mind for it next as the Mac mini, uniquely, has never been redesigned since its inception in 2005. There are G4 minis and Core Solos, Duos and Core 2 Duos; but their appearance is unchanging. Having been inside of one myself – upgrading its 1.6 GHz Core Duo for a 2.0 GHz 64 bit Core 2 Duo – the only obvious space to be reduced would be the omission of the optical drive; though it's hardly as appealing a proposition for a desktop! Apple could really do anything with the mini. It has long been speculated that it could be merged with the thinner but wider AppleTV. Unlikely I think: the set top box has a very different purpose in mind.

And then, lastly, the Mac Pro. Like the MacBook Pro, it still wears the outer design of the well established PowerPC model it replaced: the Power Mac G5, also introduced back in 2003. Popular opinion has it the Mac Pro is too large, a sentiment often shared quite naturally about the G5 Power Mac. History suggests the Mac Pro may well borrow from the iMac in appearance, as did its distant ancestor the Blue & White G3. The Power Mac line did not however take on the snow white style of G4 and G5 iMacs, so it's not necessarily so! Again, Apple have quite the opportunity for a new design in the headless desktop Macs. Aluminium is a favourite to still have some part in it.

Twists and Trends

In summing up: Apple are a great example of evolving industrial design. In many ways they are conservative and reuse a great idea wherever they can once it has succeeded. The great brushed aluminium tide of 2003 is a prime case in point: even today the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro utilise what was made then, some five years back. Balancing this is a drive for new design, which emerges as a great surprise whenever it is ready and soon enough takes over from the last major change. The iPhone was just such an innovation: in form as well as function. The iMac's subsequent shift from a white iPod to glass and aluminium iPhone-inspired design is the natural consequence. This is why I expect the MacBook Air to be a seminal work, influencing future models just as the first aluminium PowerBooks did, and indeed the original iMac. Apple design in waves. Once again, on such a crest, we are in most interesting times.

Don't Cry For Me, Toshiba

HD-DVD died this week, as predicted and un-predicted by everyone's favourite rimshot analyst Rob Enderle. I suppose the iPod, iPhone, Mac, black turtle necks and alternative operating systems must surely be dying then too. Or winning. Oh whatever, it can be so hard to tell can't it!

As usual: RoughlyDrafted has the most insightful take on the event.

Personally, I've no high def disc player yet … or even somewhat geeky shamefully an HD-TV. I bought a little EyeTV Diversity for my Mac mini instead of a new screen or a digital set-top box. Time shifting has become one of my desktop's principal functions ever since and the old tube wandered off to pastures new, and friends less fortunate. A twin tuner actually lets 9pm not be the royal pain in the backside it was thanks to the BBC's insanely overlapping schedules. Actually sitting (forever waiting) in front of live stuff has become a tiring experience.

Anyway, as for how people will be buying / renting their shows and movies in years to come: obviously it's eventually going to be by downloads. But not for now, or a few years yet. You can thank laggard ISP's for that, as the Pogue does among others. (Studios … catch up!) And so it transpires that we're still in the age of the venerable DVD. A second coming pretty much as people upscale and flatscreen what used to be well intended fuzzy blobs on incompetent analogue tubes.

Yes. DVD. FTW. 4evar, and all of that. While the P2P community debate fairies on the head of a theatrical production funding pin – with all the convincing and pragmatic logic of diehard socialists and true believers of any dizzy faith – it will be DVD, quite likely in PlayStation 3's and their Blu-ray able ilk, which will stock the shelves and fund the industry. It's either that or YouTube for the moment at least.

Still: at least it's all going H.264 in the long term. I can live with that. In that I can safely care less, and not need to fork out my taxes to the proprietary owner on the good for nothing hill.

It's only a shame that Microsoft doesn't rhyme with Argentina.