So i bought into the marketing and got me a new Macbook Pro. The marketing people at Apple know what they’re doing: they added lots of bling-bling to their products. And they know the child in us (and in me certainly) totally falls for the bling-bling. I had a whole lot of real reasons to buy it, but let’s be honest – i was rationalizing my decision.

And glam it is: a slim silver laptop, with a wide screen that makes it seem larger than it is (15″4), a large trackpad and a keyboard that is almost silky to the touch.

At first boot you’re greeted with a whole sound-and-light show, that guides you through making an account and setting the locale. The image and sound card are more than OK. Then there’s the trackpad: it has iPhone-like features, letting you zoom in and out, an navigate back and forth at the brush of a finger (or more accurately, two or three fingers).

There’s a few gadgety features, like the dashboard, which is a kind of transparent overlay of wee widgety apps you can switch to at will. The windows whisking away gracefully instead of just closing. The 4 workspaces app is called Spaces and you visually slide from one workspace to the other.

But I’ve had it a few days now, so i’ve been seeing some of the wee disadvantages at having a, well, non-Linux system.

• Well, it’s proprietary, and don’t you forget it. A lot of installs of mac products include a lengthy EULA**.
• the macbook comes with the whole iLife suite installed. Those are media products, that only have full functionality when you subscribe to .mac (and pay the fee).
• you’ve got to tweak the laptop to be more developer-friendly. It’s initially average-user-friendly, that is, it hides the messy details whenever it can.
• the keyboard. It’s an abridged, average-user-friendly keyboard, which lacks essential characters like |, {,[,},], ~, \ *** (though strangely, it contains the `, and fscking £ as well). I’ve got nothing against shortcuts, but this is bothersome (and not really documented in the ‘help’). It’s quite simple – if i don’t get used to it fast, i’m going to buy a proper keyboard.
• OK, the shortcuts. As said, i’ve got nothing against shortcut – i like vi, for god’s sake. I just have to get used to shortcuts + apple denominations of keys, like ⌘ (the late apple key), calling alt option, and other Apple-mystic symbols.
• the trackpad. It only works with apple applications: for instance Safari has the full functionality, but for Firefox the back and forward brush don’t work. Which feels again like closed platform to me (but i suppose since this is quite new, other apps still needs to catch up).

I suppose i sound a bit grumpy ! Don’t get me wrong: i’m still quite chuffed with the laptop. It’s a comfortable piece of hardware. I’ll just have to get used to some conventions. Plus i’ll want to do some customizing, throwing off everything i don’t need, and add some nice open source applications i’m used to. Neh.

** which i don’t read, of course. Which brings me onto an idea: what about an open law documentation project ? A bit like open source documentation projects – lawyers volunteer in bringing an abridged and simplified version of all EULA’s (30 lines max) onto a website. Like: “this basically says that you are forbidden to publicly criticize the project” – say.
*** pipe : alt-shift-l , { : alt-5 , } : alt-) , [ : alt-shift-5 , ] : alt-shift-), ~: alt-n, \ : alt-shift-/

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