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MacBook Air: yes or no?

Cannot decide if I should pick up a MacBook Air while I’m here in the US or not. Here’s my wondering aloud. Feel free to offer advice.

What I have now: an ageing MacBook Pro (mid ‘08); which is mostly tethered to a 26” Samsung monitor on my desk. One of the two GPUs is busted and the battery is shot. I rarely use it off the desk, although I might if it wasn’t so hot, heavy, and had such poor battery life.

Why upgrade: apart from the brokenness, I find my old laptop a bit slow now, particularly for Aperture (I have about 175 GB of RAW format photos and I spend quite a lot of time post-processing pictures).

Why a MacBook Air: because it’s the darling of the tech world, obviously. It’s light with great battery life and “good-enough” performance (it’s about 2x faster than my existing MBP). If I’m honest, I suspect nothing I do regularly except Aperture work will give the MBA much of a problem.

Why not a MacBook Air: even the top-dog 13”/256 GB model isn’t anywhere near as fast as a 3.1 GHz iMac, which is the other option I am considering. It doesn’t have enough hard drive room for my photos and other stuff (my existing 500 GB disk is full). I could move most of my RAWs to an external disk, but the Air’s lack of eSATA, FireWire or even gigabit Ethernet become a problem — and there’s still no affordable Thunderbolt accessories to address this. Also, if I got an iMac, I’d effectively be getting a 27” monitor for “free”. (I can’t really afford both a MBA and a Thunderbolt Display. Perhaps saving for one is the right answer though.)

Why get one from the US: it’s about $400/£260 cheaper, which is less than even a refurb UK model. Not that refurb MBAs seem to show up much. However, they have a slightly different key layout — the Return key is a different shape. This might drive me mad, although it seemed alright when I used one at the Apple store earlier. I could buy two US-layout desktop keyboards, so at least I’d always be using the same keyboards on all my computers.

So… What do I do?

Update: I’d be fitting an aftermarket SSD to the iMac (one much faster than the Air’s). And I own an iPad and carry it everywhere, and expect to purchase an iPad 3 next year.

iOS gaming versus console gaming

tj replied to your post: Xbox 360 first-run game install procedures are getting out of hand

This is why my only gaming devices are iOS devices.

Meh. There’s nothing on iOS to compare to Skyrim or Forza 4 or Minecraft, and those are just the three games I’ve played this afternoon. Yeah, there’s a few racing games — but none look as good as Forza, none support 16-person multiplayer, and none support proper controllers (not even a pad, and certainly not my preferred force feedback steering wheel). The iOS version of Minecraft is watered-down junk. And none of these games will play on my 40” TV screen connected to my 5.1 surround sound system, unless you count the laggy Airplay, which I do not.

I continue to agree with John Carmack that so far mobile device gaming is “a diversion rather than a destination”.

Xbox 360 first-run game install procedures are getting out of hand

I just bought Forza Motorsport 4, an eagerly-awaited title from a Microsoft-owned dev team (i.e. we can assume that this game follows Microsoft’s best practices). Here’s what I had to do to get the game running. These steps are optional, but will result in a degraded experience if you don’t do them.

1. Find the special “I bought this game new, not pre-owned, so give me free stuff” codes in the box (one is for tracks, one for cars).
2. On the Xbox’s dashboard UI, hit Guide | left | Redeem Code.
3. Enter the 25-character code into the Xbox using the on-screen QWERTY keyboard, hunting and pecking using the controller (this is easier if you take the time to plug a USB keyboard in or have the (rare) chatpad accessory).
4. Repeat this process for the second code.
5. Wait for the 550 MB downloads to finish.
6. Insert the first of the game’s two DVDs.
7. In the Xbox Dashboard, go to the Disc Info page.
8. Select “Install game” and choose your Xbox’s hard drive.
9. Wait about 10-15 minutes for that to finish.
10. Now select “Load game”.
11. When prompted, say “yes” to the “there is an update available for this game, download now?” question.
12. Wait 30-60 seconds for that to happen.
13. Watch the unskippable intro video narrated by Britain’s top oaf.
14. Play a demo lap. You’re in the game! It’s exciting!
15. No, wait, there’s more. After the demo lap, quit out to the main menu.
16. Select “Install Disc 2” (on the far right) and when prompted insert the game’s second DVD.
17. Wait about five minutes for the game to install extra data of a mysterious (but presumably game-enhancing) nature to your console’s hard drive.
18. When prompted, put the first DVD back in.
19. Play your new game!

Remind me again about how console gaming is simpler than PC gaming?