Longhorn != Vista?

So as many of you may know, Microsoft announced yesterday, that they will continue the production to XP until 1 year after the general release of Windows 7.  In addition, Bill Gates announced to shareholders that Windows 7 will be released next year.  If you do your math, that means that the time between the release of Vista and the yet unnamed Windows 7.  How can they possibly produce a quality OS in such a short period of time.    Microsoft spent over 5 years with many delays to produce a an OS that many consider trash.  This has led myself and  some of my friends to develop a theory that Vista was never a planned OS.  The following is probably completely bogus but I would love to here what others thing about this.

What if Vista isn’t Longhorn?  We have heard many people compare Vista to ME.  What was ME?  ME was a place holder for Microsoft.  They needed more time to develop the greatest OS they have ever made, Windows XP.  So what if Vista is just that.  Could Microsoft have been half way through the development of Longhorn and realized that they needed more time.  As a result decided, hey we needed an OS that will be ready for release soon for our investors.    Most Vista users will agree that Vista seems like a rushed OS.  Microsoft cut out many of the planned features of longhorn.  Things like WinFS that we all wanted to see got stripped.  What I am hypothesizing is that Microsoft started to develop Vista after longhorn.  They took the NT kernal, the best of XP, and what they had complete of longhorn and called it Vista.  Meanwhile another team continued to develop Windows 7.

Now we have developed a lot of crazy ways to support our conspiracy, but I don’t want to type that all out now.  Maybe I will add that later.  But lets take a look at what this would mean if this is fact not fiction.   XP was released in 2001 and I am theorizing a 2009 Windows 7 release.  That would be an 8 year development  for Windows 7.  With a dev time that is that long it should be the best OS Microsoft has ever released.  Yes and that includeds the Holy Grail that is XP.

So my question for all you that are reading this conspriracy theory is:  What do you all think?  Do you have anything to add that may be of intrest.  I am sure I have a lot of bad thinking here, but take this entry as food for thought.

Sandisk Does it again.

First the Sansa E200 series, and now this.

Whats in store for the MacBook Pro

Something big. Its as simple as that, otherwise they would’ve updated it already. It is Apple’s flagship, it sells the most quantity in the higher end range (greater than $1500), and yet is slower than the iMac now. There has be something that is big, so big it warrants a Keynote (because we now Apple has learned from the Hi-Fi fiasco). I think magnetic latch, black color choice, a bit thinner, Dual-Layer superdrive, and hopefully a true two button mouse (yeah I doubt that).

Mac Pros, Core Animation, and no Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro’s and everything else from WWDC

So no surprise on the Mac Pros, other than the price (which is actually really good) and the xserve. Now Leopard was good, but still no Updated Finder or a Desktop Widget layer. However Time Machine and my favorite Core Animation was amazing. Core animation is so amazing and I can only imagine its uses for film and video, not to mention some very interesting ways to view them also. And supposedly there are a ton of new Features that are being held close to Apple proverbial chest.

But the big downer is they didn’t update the MacBook Pro, something I not only wanted but really needed also. Apple update the bios and add a new CPU, it isn’t that difficult. Plus Leopard is going to be the first 64 bit version of Mac OS X that runs on the x86 platform. So buying any Mac other than the Mac Pro (damn that name sucks doesn’t it) is a waste since in 6 months it won’t take advantage of Leopard’s 64bit underpinnings.

Last Post before WWDC

I’m justing gearing up for WWDC (no I’m not going to be there).

The things I’m almost positive I’ll see:
1) New Finder
2) A new Dashboard Layer
3) Improved Spotlight
4) 64 bit Intel Support
5) Mac Pros and Xserve
Things I hope to see:
1) New MacBook Pro
2) BlackBook Pro
3) New Display’s with iSight Cameras
4) Leopard will be out before September 15, 2006

iPod with FrontRow

I’ve never really been a fan of the iPod. Its okay, yeah but, for me its that scroll wheel. I find it a tad bit cumbersome and not very tactile. Now this new iPod the 6G, with supposed 3.3″ touchscreen and all this crazy wireless connectivity, okay I’m listening, but something tells me thats not whats going to be, simply the iPod OS with touchscreen add-ons. What I think the new 6G ipod is going to be, its going to be the the iPod with FrontRow. See FrontRow is being added as a standard feature on all the new Macs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future the only Mac without FrontRow is the “Xserve”. Now if Apple adds FrontRow across the board, the only Devices they sell with a GUI, that don’t have FrontRow would be the iPod Nano and 5G. Now the FrontRow interface is quite adept at being a touchscreen interface. It has only 4 icons, and doesn’t do management, something the iPod doesn’t do either (thats all done on the desktop software). So the idea of syncing FrontRow is pretty simple. Plus this would salivate the tounges of Windows users at Mac OS X, to the idea of this great experience on the iPod can be yours anytime with the the Mac OS.

Now on the more extreme idea, would be having no more iPod, and simply making this 6G something of a portable device like a UMPC except with Mac OS software. Apple has acess to Ruby now that they are in bed with Intel, and could easily make the software using an embedded Unix kernel with maybe just FrontRow, iCal, and possibly dashboard (which would be perfect for using the supposed wifi for reading RSS feeds).

This is of course totally rampant speculation and I have no sources within Apple, but I can garuntee this 6G iPod will not be running the standar iPod OS, its just not awesome enough (wink, wink).

[update] So the Mac Pros don’t ship with FrontRow, however the next version of Mac OS X (Leopard) will. A bit of a change but I think the fact remains the same.

da mac (book and or book pro)

I’ve used the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros a few times now, and well honestly I have to say, I’m fairly impressed with the new MacBook Pro. I just wish it were $200 dollars cheaper, for the 15.4 inch version (If you guys have noticed, college student in desperate need of a computer). There are however a few features i would like to see on the MacBook that are standard on the Pro version. The light-up keys and auto-dimming function is something that any user will appreciate. And if there was some dedicated graphics processor, maybe an ATI X1300
or X1400 something lower end no doubt, but dedicated nonetheless. Those are two things I would absolutely love to see on the Macbook.

The horibbly named Mac Pro….

Rumors abound on the Mac Pro (the so-called sucessor to the powermacs), on a release date. August 7, looks to be the date of not only a switch to the Intel platform, but also an entire case re-design. So no more cheese grater, and possibly more expansion options (some of us may want to put one of those blu-ray drives in). Also an update to the Mac Book Pro chassis and upgrade to Core 2 Duo. Since this is before WWDC do you think they’re going to announce a 64-bit Universal Leopard….? I suspect so….

mostly via Engadget

This is just funny.

A keyboard anyone can love? Maybe only men…… without girlfriends.

link

Mac Book Pro

I’ll buy a Mac Book Pro probably under a few conditions

1) I can get it around $1800 (Possible)
2) The next gen Mac Book Pro has no Heat Issues like Burning a hole through my pants
3) Runs Leopard and has Merom
4) It fully supports a right-click
5) some explains to me how to properly uninstall a program

I’d get a Mac Book Pro if these things we’re somehow magically placed in my lap. Or some dumb saying like that.

T-Mobile MDA

T-Mobile MDA

Originally uploaded by MobileBurn.

I getting one of these. Has Wi-FI which is what i need the most.

AHH Flickr Photo of YESTERDAY!!!!! (ahh more exclamation points.)

Flickr Photo of the Day

Intel vs AMD = WTF!

CPU’s are the major processing center for most of a consumer’s daily computing. They take data and apply certain numerical methods on the data within the memory. Intel and AMD both have varing methods on how they apply these methods, which I’m not really going to get into.

Currently most of the effort of these manufacturers are towards the mobile arena, notebooks. Notebook platforms need 3 things, high performance, low power, and great chipsets. The chipsets provide the other features, Wi-FI, GPU, and other varying features. Now the chipsets themselves differ very little between the two except in Power Mangement. AMD is the new player in the laptop industry, great processors but just not great enough and with just not that great of battery life. Yet they currently have one feature that Intel does not. x86-64 or 64 bit support. Yet the new Core cpu’s coming out in August, called the Core 2 duo will have 64 bit support.

There’s a bit feud going on, AMD used to be ahead and by a great margin, and now there starting to slip away. There the underdog against Chipzilla. I’m rooting for AMD, but I can’t but help to wonder whether getting the new Intel CPU’s in my laptop, since AMD just doesn’t have the power features.