MacBook Air debuts; iTunes Pesters Me Again
The big news from Apple this week was that they have a flatter laptop than anyone else (except Intel, who have a "Lorado" concept model that is much cooler, is demonstrated with Vista, and comes with an optional sleeve that has a Sideshow display). Conveniently for those road warriors that take to the air, the MacBook Air resolves the issue of how to carry your spare battery and comply with recent FAA rules - by having no user-replaceable battery. Special.
It also boosts the market for DVD decoders and CD rippers, by not having an on-board optical drive (there have been thinner laptops that had an optical drive). Good luck playing any game that requires you to "insert the original disk".
Okay, enough bashing of the MacBook Air - it looks small, light and may be very useful for people who value that above all else.
As for my usual monthly complaint with Apple, I thought I had it beaten last month, after a visitor commented that I could simply tell Apple Software Update to "Ignore Selected Updates", to make sure that when a new version of QuickTime comes out, I'm not bugged to install "iTunes + QuickTime" as well as Quicklime itself.
Oh dear, no such luck.
Apparently, what I told Apple Software Update to ignore was not so much "iTunes + QuickTime", but "iTunes + QuickTime 7.5".
I feel like the character in Monty Python who is repeatedly offered dishes containing various items - and Spam. "But I don't like Spam!"
Rather than enticing me, seducing me, or deceiving me, into running iTunes, all that this behaviour has done is to make me abandon all hope, and simply dump QuickTimes and Apple Software Update as simply a bad job.
Next time there's a movie file in QuickTime that I want to watch, I'll contact whoever hosts it and let them know that I just can't accept Apple's absurd patching methodology, and that if they want me to view their content, they'll just have to convert it to something more standard, like MPEG, that has viewers made by someone - pretty much anyone - other than Apple.