Rodney O. Lain - 1999.10.06
This article was originally published on The
iMac.com, a site which no longer exists. It is copyright 1999 by
RAC Enterprises, which also seems to no longer exist. It is thus
reprinted here without permission (which we would gladly obtain if
possible). Links have been retained when possible, but many go to
the Internet Wayback
Machine.
Congratulations, Jonathan Ive and the other guys/gals at Apple
Industrial Design Group! FWIW, job well done (again and again)!
They're not fond of rules, and they have no
respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify
them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them - because they
change things.
- Do I really have to tell you where I got this quote?
I think it's times like this when I really savor being a Mac
user.
I keep thinking about my favorite line from Men in Black.
It's the one where Will Smith is first issued his standard "MIB"
gear. Black suit, watch, gun . . . and the black
shades.
"You know the difference between you and me?" he rhetorically
asks Tommy Lee Jones, before sliding on his dark shades. "I make
this look gooooood."
I imagine many Mac aficionados will tell their PC-using friends
a derivative of that Will Smith line from this point forward.
Even though we now know that the Kihei photos that washed across the 'Net
are/were bona fide, it was still a Christmas-morning kinda feeling
to read the specs and see the pictures of the new iMacs today. As I
write, I'd just gotten back from my weekly Toastmasters meeting and
hadn't been in the house for five minutes before I'd seen two of
the Jeff Goldbloom-voice-overed iMac commercials ("Turbocharged"
and "Bon Voyage," FYI). When the first chords of the music began to
play, my wife - who'd already seen the commercials - looked
immediately at me, already knowing that she'd see me with a big ole
grin.
I'd planned to write about something else tonight (for those who
received this week's newsletter, I could still use your feedback
before I write my originally planned column), but just knew I
couldn't resist the inspiration to write what I am about to write.
Oh, there is my Muse calling me again:
Trash the PeeCeeeeeeee.... Trash the PeeCeeeeeeeee....
Oh, a Muse is a terrible thing to waste.
This Is Big - Really Big
I think we need to get William Shatner to give up Priceline.com
and come and apply his ubiquitous line to the Mac, now that every
item (except the PowerBook) in Apple's quartet product line has
been "refreshed."
I imagine that PC users try to affect a yawn whenever they hear
us Mac users bragging about this or that feature on the Mac. Then
they resume extolling the virtues of the two-button mouse - which
isn't nearly the big deal that some Mac columnists have been making
about it on the 'Net.
But here's a big feature that PeeCee users will take notice to:
the iMac, sans cooling fan.
I honestly won't believe it until I see it, but I do know one
thing about Steve Jobs: he doesn't half-ass anything, so this
fan-less iMac will work as advertised. My hat's off to him, since
we all know it was his idea to try (again!) to have a Mac without a
fan. Having some French in the Lain genome, I think I can get away
with saying that the French themselves would give a thumbs up to
the style of the current iMac - and the French don't give up the
style points that easily.
When I say style, I'm not talking about the (truly) translucent
enclosure of the new iMac, though that's tres cool. I'm not talking
about the FireWire, the iMovie software, the AirPort connectivity,
nor the front-loading CD - which are all tres chic. I'm, instead,
talking about the lack of a fan for the processor.
Now, on my PowerBook G3,
whenever I'm on it for extended periods of time, that fan starts a'
whirring, and sometimes I think that it does nothing but fan its
hot air around me. The fact that the iBook and the iMac are
fan-less says a lot to me. I don't even have to get technical and
explain the significance of a fan-less computer. Just imagine
having a car without a fan. Hell, imagine a home without some time
of cooling apparatus (you people in Antarctica don't count).
I still can't believe that the computer doesn't have a fan.
But that's not the important thing about this feature.
Think about this: If Apple hadn't tried it, do you think there
would even be a computer without a fan? I mean in this century?
This is one of the many proofs that the computer industry needs
Apple Computer...
I mean, what are the biggest problems with next-generation
Pentium chips? If you said "heat," you get today's No Prize, to
borrow a phrase from Stan Lee. In the race to get processors to run
faster and faster (than the competition's), I think "no fan" is
last on the list of CISC-makers' priority features, if it's even on
the list at all. Instead, Intel and AMD are trying to squeeze ever
more megahertz out of their products. "Speed, speed, and more
speed" is their battle cry.
Meanwhile, Apple Computer (the little anti-company that it is)
engineers sit down with Steve Jobs and listened to him (or
somebody) say, "dammit, fans are too noisy . . . and
tacky. Get rid of it."
Can you imagine being told that you must create a super fast,
super cool computer, "and, by the way, it must be virtually
noiseless. 86 the fan."
I don't know if you realize what this means in the scheme of
things.
Apple has thrown down yet another gauntlet. They just stumped
the Wintel world with the G4 supercomputer (with or without the
hype). Then they did the iBook,
first computer with built-in wireless networking. Then the
PowerBook G3 came long, claiming the still-undefeated title of
Fastest Laptop in the World.
Now, we have the iMac II without a fan. Even though the iBook
has no fan, it's noticeable that the iMac is a veritable desktop
computer that will be used to do video editing, number crunching
and other typical computing chores.
(Part of me still prays that this Mac doesn't repeat the
oft-told incident in which another Mac was shipped without a fan
and made funny noise; no way would Steve Jobs - nor Apple's Quality
Assurance - let the iMac ship without knowing the fan-less iMac
works, period.)
Can you really imagine Intel running a Pentium III 600 MHz
machine without the fan? Don't laugh, because they will have to try
it. Egg is on their face. Again, the gauntlet is thrown down. Will
they pick it up?
And if Apple's PR/marketing arm is worth their salt, they will
tout this and every PC-slamming advantage - albeit in their
newfound non-PC-bashing style.
The PC pundits would like you to think style isn't nor should be
a consideration when buying a computer (and I haven't begun to
mention the $599 price point that trashes the final argument
against buying a Mac), but I think that Apple is changing the way
the market thinks on this issue. Actually, I think many already
consider style's importance, but are not willing (yet) to buck the
crowd and buy a Mac.
Either that, or PC-people really are as beige (read "bland") as
they appear to be to us Mac people.
I think there are many Mac users who sometimes feel a twinge of
fear at being different just because they use a Mac.
But you know the difference between PC users and Mac users. They
only think about bucking the crowd. We go out and do it.
And, (putting on my black shades), we make this look gooooood -
thanks to Apple.
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Rodney O. Lain, a former university English and
journalism instructor, works full-time as a software developer and
works part-time at a local CompUSA Apple Store Within A Store. A
card-carrying member of the local Macintosh User Group Mini'app'les, Rodney writes this
column exclusively for theimac.com. His greatest desire is to
become an African-American Guy Kawasaki. A self-professed
"workaholic writer," he waxes prolifically about race, religion,
and the "right OS" at
"Free Your Mind & Your Behind Will Follow", his unabashedly
pro-Mac website. When he's not cranking out his column, he collects
John Byrne comic books, jogs, and attempts to complete his first
novel. He lives in Eagan, Minnesota, a southern suburb of St.
Paul.
