Enterprise Mac | Tom Yager » January 2008

January 18, 2008 | Comments: (0)

InfoWorld Test Center Preview: Time Capsule wireless remote Time Machine backup

TAGS: Consumer and lifestyle, Creative Pro, Design and engineering, New Products, Peripherals, Servers and storage

Take an Airport Extreme 802.11n base station, add a 3.5-inch internal drive and modify the device's firmware to permit the built-in LAN to share a drive as a volume (a device) rather than a folder within the filesystem, and you've got Time Capsule. Apple has also done away with the power brick; Time Capsule's power supply is internal.

The reason for Time Capsule's existence is to compensate for a few unfortunate realities: Time Machine, wonderful as it is, requires desktop USB or FireWire drives. All of these have to be sized appropriately, which is no easy thing, and worse, notebook users have to remember to plug them in often enough to make the backups useful. Xserve is one fix, but it is a dear investment considering how fast one Mac can eat through a hard drive with Time Machine. Time Capsule fixes that. It is expandable via inexpensive external USB drives. You won't get breakneck speed, but if one Time Capsule gets bogged down, set up another. The Time Machine client lets you choose your backup destination.

Time Capsule does not precisely match the protocol used by Time Machine Server on OS X Server Leopard. The effect is the same: A network that includes a Time Machine Server and one or more Time Capsules populates a pull-down list of Time Machine destination volumes.

Time Capsule does allow users the full set of Time Machine abilities of doing point-in-time file system exploration. It also supports Time Machine's ability to perform a migration or restore from a Time Machine image.

Time Capsule's USB port still handles printer sharing. Except for the direct power input, Time Capsule's enclose is identical to that of Airport Extreme 802.11n. Time Capsule's base price is $299 with a 500 GB drive, and $499 with a 1 TB drive. Apple claims that it uses "server grade" drives, which I learned require special care compared to lesser drives. I carried a Hitachi DeskStar drive in an external enclosure and pulled it about two feet onto the ground while operational. It was shock-mounted in it chassis, but the drive was immediately destroyed. Server-grade drives don't park their heads by default. The next time I configure one, I'll see if it's an option.

I also need to test Time Capsule to see what the reasonable maximum number of USB drives is, and where performance starts to hit that part of the curve that says "buy a second one."

Posted by Tom Yager on January 18, 2008 12:30 AM

January 17, 2008 | Comments: (0)

MacBook Air, a detailed preview

TAGS: Creative Pro, Design and engineering, Desktops and notebooks, New Products, Peripherals, Software

The room service menu in my hotel, the San Francisco Marriott Courtyard, is the size and weight of Apple's new commercial notebook, MacBook Air. MacBook Air, Apple's newest, thinnest, lightest, simplest notebook in Apple history weighs three pounds. It's 3/4s of an inch at the display hinge (closed), sloping down aerodynamically to a much narrower snout. You have to hold it and tumble MacBook Air to experience what a three pound, aerodynamically inspired notebook feels like, because it'll be a first for you. You have to imagine carrying MacBook Air everywhere in a slipcase, being able to whip it out, open it and have it ready for note taking, research, order entry, voice recording, podcasting, writing or what-have-you faster than you can jot your first word with that legal pad and pen in your bag.

Apple got MacBook Air so skinny and light by removing everything that the majority of mainstream commercial users don't use when they're not in the office or at home. There is no wired Ethernet and no FireWire. MacBook Air has just physical I/O ports: USB 2, audio output and micro-DVI (the latter for connecting to a digital, VGA or video monitor). These are all mounted on a tiny panel that flips down from the bottom of the notebook. When the I/O panel is closed, MacBook Air is nothing but smooth, sloped aluminum skin all the way around. There are no lumps or access covers to tip you off to component placement.

Many questions remain that require a full review to answer. My encounter was with a prototype, so I didn't get a chance to experience heat or fan noise. The charger is 45 watts, and the clocked-down chips in smaller packaging is encouraging. I also didn't get to see how far back the display tilts. I did find that the microphone is no to the right of the iSight window, though I don't know if the sound quality is improved. Likewise, I did not audition the speakers. A test left to run is to use this machine with Bluetooth stereo headphones. This works on MacBook Pro, but it's buggy. Does MacBook Air fix it?

MacBook Air's battery is sealed inside. It offers no external indication of its charge state. Apple's battery replacement program for MacBook Air is to drop it at any authorized facility, get it replaced, and get your machine back having been charged for the cost of the battery alone. I wouldn't expect this swap to happen while you wait, and I don't know whether Apple will commit to returning your data intact.

The thin lid encasing the 13.3-inch glossy display is astonishingly rigid. With so little distance between the top of the lid and the surface of the display, I felt sure that it would fail my warp test. I pressed hard on the back of the prototype MacBook Air's lid. It did not flex, and the display's image did not distort. It's my feeling that the shape of MacBook Air's case will make it a tougher travel partner than the typical squarish notebook.There isn't anything to cave in.

MacBook Air is gives you only what you need: A keyboard, a 13.3-inch display, 80 GB hard drive, wireless networking and 2 GB of RAM. The 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU (1.8 is an option) is clocked slow by modern standards, but it is cooler and more power efficient than the latest Penryn CPUs. Apple claims that MacBook Air's battery will last five hours, with Wi-Fi. If that's true, then it'll run 90 minutes longer than the much heavier MacBook Pro that I carry. The 45-watt charger makes in-flight and in-car charging cheap and easy.

MacBook Air's keyboard is MacBookish in style with widely space keys, but it is full size and backlit. The prototypes weren't lighting properly, so I can't speak to brightness of the lights or the opacity of the keycaps. The trackpad is massive relative to the size of the notebook. If it worked with a stylus, it'd make a fair tablet. The new trackpad supports a subset of iPhone's multi-touch gestures in bundled Leopard applications. In Safari, for example, you can navigate backward and forward among cached pages by sweeping across the trackpad. To enlarge text in the browser, you make a spreading motion with two fingers. In iPhoto, you can scroll, zoom and even rotate images in the thumbnail view with a single trackpad gesture. The gestural vocabulary will undoubtedly expand, and multi-touch will reach into other Apple software. Apple wasn't ready to address giving third-party developers access to multi-touch.

It goes without saying that this notebook isn't for everyone. MacBook Air's chief drawback is the display. Apple chose a sharp, glossy and bright LED-backlit 13.3-inch LCD panel. It looks marvelous, but it has a vertical resolution of 800 pixels. Pages and applications that are (poorly, lazily) designed to just fill a 1024x768 Windows screen have to be scrolled vertically on a Mac's 800 pixel tall display, while the 900 pixel tall screen of a 15-inch MacBook Pro is a perfect fit. The reason for this is a rant for another time.

Apple's usual thin, slot-loading optical drive would have made the case and the battery too thick, so Apple sells a thin, slot-loading, USB-powered external DVD burner for $99 (beautiful, portable and a bargain for any notebook). MacBook Air also comes with Remote Disc software that allows it to use the DVD drive in any PC or Mac on your LAN. Remote Disc completely bypasses the hassles of fire sharing. The shared disc shows up in Finder as a read-only CD/DVD drive. You cannot use Remote Disc to play DVD movies.

Before pointing to performance as a reason to take MacBook Air off your list, keep in mind that its Core 2 Duo CPU enables OS X Leopard's 64-bitness. With 2 GB of RAM, running Windows, Solaris or Linux as a guest OS under Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion is well within its reach. Given MacBook Air's small hard drive, using Boot Camp to dual-boot between OS X and Windows is impractical. With Intel's integrated graphics, the primary impetus for running Boot Camp--to run games and other graphics intensive Windows apps--isn't a factor for MacBook, MacBook Air or Mac mini.

Making MacBook Air at home everywhere I go would require some additional purchases: A USB to Ethernet adapter to connect to hotels' in-room networks, a DVI to HDMI adapter so that I can use hotels' LCD TVs as eye-friendly monitors, and the external DVD drive, because I get CDs and DVDs, and burn them, everywhere I go. But all of these fit in a sandwich-sized baggie that stays behind in the office or hotel while I fly, attend meetings and sit in conference sessions. I can't strip these things out of a big notebook to lighten it up, and they are among the peripherals that fatten the case and make a large, heavy battery necessary.

You do have to weigh MacBook Air's $1,799 sticker price against the benefits of traveling very, very light. If you run to meetings now with a wheeled bag in your wake because your notebook and charger are too fat and heavy to sling over your shoulder, you need to make a change. If it's such a pain to extricate and pry open your big notebook just to make a note, check an appointment or send an e-mail that you sometimes just don't bother, you definitely need a smaller notebook. If you start shopping with MacBook Air, I'm afraid that touring PC alternatives will prove unfulfilling.

Posted by Tom Yager on January 17, 2008 09:59 PM

January 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Thoughts on the iPhone/iPod touch SDK

TAGS: Design and engineering, New Products, Politics, strategy and culture, Software, iPhone

[Late note to helpful commenters: I only write from my experience, observation and analysis. I don't read anyone else's work on topics I cover.]

If everything is still on track, Apple will roll out a software development kit (SDK) for iPhone and iPod touch, which share a platform, in February. I have been pondering some possibilities about that SDK. I don't have answers, but perhaps the questions will get you thinking.

Why do an SDK? Certainly not to make the world happy. If Apple spoke with me about iPhone, it would point out that I'm among a tiny handful of people campaigning for a native iPhone SDK. Casual developers would be overjoyed if Apple beefed up iPhone's Javascript to provide programmers with access to a protected subset of the filesystem and the ability to add icons to the home screen. If it were possible to browse "file://" in Safari, then local HTML apps with XML data stores could function as off-line applications.

A similar purpose would be served by a tiny HTTP server capable of performing data binding and mixing of local and on-line content.

In the long run, I think that the reason for doing a native iPhone SDK is to make iTunes Music Store a marketplace for downloadable mobile software. It's been done; Forum Nokia has catalogs of third-party software and hosts developers' applications. An icon on your phone takes you to the Nokia catalog, and software that you purchase from there gets tacked onto your phone bill. Developers get a check for their cut. Games and network tools are very popular.

Commercial developers (shareware and up) need to wire their code for time-limited trials and phone home activation, which is harder to work into non-native software. Nokia tags offerings in its catalog by programming language, and the vast majority are written in C.

If the iPhone SDK is genuinely native, that is, compilers can target the ARM CPU, then that openness will come with high-tensile strings attached that will prevent working around any of the restrictions that protect Apple and wireless operator revenue, and to protect non-savvy iPhone users (the majority). If the SDK permitted the opening of arbitrary TCP sockets, for instance, half of the world's iPhones would be running P2P file sharing clients 24/7, at wireless operators' expense. Trusting users would be downloading malware-stuffed Tetris clones that ship address books and mail folders to identity thieves. I don't see Apple opening itself to this.

Apple will provide as much cover for customers as it can. iPhone apps will be sandboxed so that system and iTunes files are invisible. The first custom app you run will see an empty file system from / on down. Further protection will be afforded by Apple just as Nokia has done it (and with great controversy): Vendor code signing. There is no getting around the fact that native mobile apps, except for those you write for yourself, must be signed, and that no developer can be equipped with the means to sign code that runs on another device. Code has to blessed by a single trustworthy authority. I can't imagine what the signing process would be, how long it would take or how much it would cost--I'd hate to see no potential for iPhone/iPod touch freeware--but I don't think that it's something Apple will farm out.

iTunes' adaptable infrastructure and digital rights management technology are already there. After receiving and signing an app on behalf of a developer, Apple need only add a workflow item to ship that material, price attached, to iTunes. The question in my mind is how developers will get paid. Is Apple going to cut hundreds of developers individual checks? Will Apple demand to be the only source through which signed applications can be acquired?

So many questions. That's what I love about this job.

Posted by Tom Yager on January 14, 2008 11:17 PM

January 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Macworld Conference and Expo: Why am I here?

TAGS: Creative Pro, Design and engineering, Desktops and notebooks, New Products, Politics, strategy and culture, Servers and storage, iPhone

I always look forward to Macworld Expo, but this year my expectations are especially high. It may be the bracing San Francisco weather that's got my blood moving, but it's my anticipation of the keynote and the exhibit floor that have me blogging in the shower.

Apple has scheduled two briefings with me this week. One is a keynote follow-up on Wednesday, and the other is a sit-down on Mac Pro and Xserve on Thursday. I've already got the skinny on Mac Pro and Xserve, both quite impressive, but both falling under the category of pre-show announcements that make room for something else. So will the Wednesday briefing be all about iPhone?

I am braced for that possibility. With 3G, a lower price, streaming media and an upcoming software development kit (SDK), I'm prepared to treat iPhone '08 as a new device. I have speculation related to the SDK that I'll relate under separate cover. Suffice it to say that I don't expect to be able to wipe iPhone's system software clean and replace it with Darwin. That would subvert the primary purpose of Apple's mobile platform: To be an iTunes terminal that fits in your pocket and sticks to your dashboard. The only need that I can see for an iPhone SDK is to allow Apple to market signed commercial software on iTunes Music Store. The only justification that I can see for native code is to support games, and to allow commercial code to enforce licenses.

Apple could surprise me. After all, there is no obvious revenue justification for publishing those portions of Darwin that are not covered by GPL, the GNU Public Licenses that require vendors to publish their adaptation of software covered by the license. I can imagine, and I'm sure that others can, too, iPhone and iPod touch being the world's most sought-after robotics controllers and de facto platforms for university courses in embedded systems. I don't expect iPhone/iPod touch to be opened to kernel hackers, but I think that in the long run, Darwin has good potential as an embedded OS.

I hear from my editors that there is still speculation about a Mac tablet. I'm bearish on that; PC tablets aren't hot commodities. With so much low-hanging fruit yet to harvest from the seasonal evolution of Mac, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, Leopard, Pro Apps and .Mac, I can't foresee any bold new lines of business for Apple right now. My attention this year is largely focused on third-party vendors. I am always hopeful for products that I didn't see coming, and I'd be delighted to hear Steve say something that nobody expects.

In any case, this'll be fun. I hope you'll come along.

Posted by Tom Yager on January 14, 2008 01:05 PM

January 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)

For CPU power draw, trust Apple, not Intel

TAGS: Design and engineering, New Products, Servers and storage

Apple dropped me a note in response to my blog post on its Harpertown Xserve and Mac Pro announcement. I attributed the per-socket CPU power draw claim of "80 watts max, 4 watts idle" to Intel. That turns out to be Apple's number, not Intel's.

I'm not much interested in Intel's stated Harpertown per-socket power draw because I can't reproduce Intel's test conditions. Outside Intel's labs, you can't pin down a single component's true power draw without a well-equipped test bench and a very steady hand.

If you have an Xserve or Mac Pro, you can skip the bench and skip Intel's data sheets as well. Apple builds an uncommon level of instrumentation into Xserve and Mac Pro. OS X Server Leopard's (or Tiger's) Server Monitor reports on component-level power draw and fine-grained regional temperatures in real-time. You can subject Xserve or Mac Pro to varying workloads and track power utilization of CPUs, DIMM sockets and the Intel north bridge independently. It is through this facility that I learned that Intel's north bridge (memory and I/O hub) chip is the least green component in the system.

I was green before green was in, and I am a firm believer that the only place to measure power draw is at the outlet. But chipmakers, and OEMs who ride the shirttails of chipmakers' marketing, compete based on power consumption per CPU socket without providing consumers or product testers the means to validate their claims. At least with Xserve and Mac Pro, I can see for myself. The figures may not be absolute--they can only safely be compared Apples to Apples--but Server Monitor will reveal whether Harpertown's 45 nanometer-ness is directly related to its greenness. With faster front side and memory busses, will cooler CPU sockets matter? As you can tell, I'm eager to find out.

Posted by Tom Yager on January 8, 2008 07:16 PM

January 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Apple ships new eight-core Harpertown Mac Pro and Xserve

TAGS: Creative Pro, Design and engineering, Desktops and notebooks, Digital Media Lab, New Products, Servers and storage

Apple has once again taken up Intel's fresh-from-the-fab processor technology to give its two top-end systems a serious performance kick. Apple has reengineered its Xserve rack server and Mac Pro desktop/workstation for Intel's 45 nanometer quad-core Harpertown Xeon CPU with 12 MB of shared Level 2 cache per socket.

Xserve's top configuration now reaches to eight 3 GHz cores. Xserve's second socket is empty by default, making the standard config four cores, but the incremental config-to-order (CTO) cost to take the base Xserve to eight cores is just $500. The new Mac Pro elevates the standard configuration from four cores to eight while maintaining the previous Mac Pro's price level. That change is especially significant given that before today, a CTO eight core Mac Pro carried a premium of $1,200 over the standard four core system.

Apple claims that its new Mac Pro and Xserve deliver an impressively linear 1.9 to 2.3 times increase over the compute speed of prior four-core models, and with 800 MHz DDR2 memory (up from 667), 60 percent higher memory throughput. The new systems share support for PCI-Express 2.0 expansion cards, an option to upgrade to multiple 1 TB swappable hard drives, and when 4 GB FBDIMMs (fully buffered dual inline memory modules) are used, room for up to 32 GB of system memory. Both Xserve and Mac Pro are now shipping with 2 GB of RAM standard (previously 1 GB) and a SuperDrive dual-layer DVD burner.

Intel's Harpertown CPU is more energy efficient; Intel claims power consumption of 80 watts per socket, dropping to as little as 4 watts when idle. Apple has swapped out Xserve's redundant power supplies for stronger 750 watt units that exceed Energy Star 80 percent efficiency requirements. Mac Pro's system enclosure is identical to the previous model, while Xserve now has a USB 2.0 socket on its front panel.

Mac Pro and Xserve ship standard with discrete AMD/ATI 3-D graphics processing units (GPUs). Mac Pro's baseline config utilizes the Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256 MB of video memory, while Xserve ships with an on-board Radeon X1300. Mac Pro can support up to four AMD/ATI or NVidia graphics cards, while a 16x PCI-Express slot on Xserve permits the optional use of a standalone graphics adapter to supplant the built-in GPU.

AMD/ATI graphics cards are available now. An Apple spokesman said that optional NVidia graphics cards are "several weeks away."

Apple's systems are engineered in-house, not based on Intel reference designs. Mac Pro and Xserve are thoroughly instrumented for multi-point monitoring of power utilization, temperature and fan speed. Both systems have standard swappable hard drive backplanes--Mac Pro has four internal swappable drive bays, while Xserve has three front-facing bays--and the option to use either Serial ATA or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives. SAS is new to this generation of Mac Pro, a benefit of the optional hardware RAID controller. The same RAID controller is an option for Xserve, but Xserve is capable of using any mix of SATA and SAS drives without the RAID option.

At $2,799, the standard Mac Pro ships with two 2.8 GHz quad-core Xeon CPUs, an AMD/ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256 MB of video RAM, a 320 GB SATA hard drive, a 16X SuperDrive DVD burner with dual-layer support, Bluetooth 2.0, 2 GB of 800 MHz DDR2 memory, and Apple's wired aluminum keyboard and Mighty Mouse. Mac Pro ships with OS X Leopard and the iLife '08 personal digital media suite installed.

In its $2,999 standard configuration, Apple's Xserve has a single quad-core, 2.8 GHz CPU, an 80 GB SATA hard drive, 2 GB of 800 MHz DDR2 memory and a slot-loading SuperDrive DVD burner. Both systems have a large catalog of configure-to-order options that are factory-installed and tested by Apple.

The new Mac Pro and Xserve are shipping today via Apple's on-line and retail stores, and through authorized resellers.

Posted by Tom Yager on January 8, 2008 09:46 AM