Sales

First, there are the reasons Apple executives themselves gave for considering shelving the Pro. Reportedly, the sales of these expensive computers have dwindled to the point where making them isn’t nearly as profitable for Apple as it once was. Apple has never been particularly sentimental about keeping a computer around when it isn’t profitable; consider the fate of the G4 Cube, for example, which was introduced to the world in July 2000, and then discontinued just a year later after failing to impress the buying public. Desktop sales in general have been flagging, with notebooks and tablets picking up the slack.

Apple has been cited as bucking the downward trend in desktop sales, but the Mac Pro isn’t the computer whose sales we hear broken out during conference calls or at Apple special events. That honor is reserved for the iMac, Apple’s all-in-one that’s proving there’s still a market for affordable, sleek desktop computers.

The reason the Mac Pro doesn’t get a shout-out during Apple’s events is probably because Apple has nothing to crow about, because if there’s good reason to talk about how well a product is selling, Apple usually isn’t shy about doing so.

Thunderbolt

Apple may also be able to shore up the demand for added expandability using Thunderbolt technology, which is another point reportedly raised in discussion among Apple execs. Thunderbolt expansion devices will soon allow video capture cards and other devices that use PCI Express expansion connectors to be plugged in outside of the case to an iMac, MacBook or Mac mini. Thunderbolt also allows the direct connection of much faster RAID storage devices, and multiple displays, something the internal PCI Express slots in the Pro once provided exclusive access to.

Anticipating the mass market curve

The Mac Pro could still be a very useful piece of tech for a demanding set of niche customers, but those buyers are less and less Apple’s target market. Apple showed it wants to keep focus on the consumer end of its business when it discontinued the Xserve back in Nov. 2010, and it redesigned Final Cut Pro with non-professional end users in mind. In both cases, it eventually made concessions to try to ease the blow for professional users (Mac mini server model and promised updates to Final Cut Pro X).

Apple succeeds mainly because it keeps its product lines tight, so that it can focus on doing a few things very well, instead of many things adequately. This past fall, it even skipped a substantial iPod touch update, which is the biggest seller of its media player line, which indicates it could already be anticipating a future where the iPhone completely scratches that itch. The Mac Pro, which is much farther away from its core business, could hardly merit more attention.

Closing a door, but opening many windows

Shuttering the Mac Pro could understandably disappoint some users, since it would effectively represent the end of significant, Apple-sanctioned internal tinkering by end users, but as I wrote about before, Thunderbolt could introduce many external expandability options where once there for few.

In the long run, it’s better for Apple’s core business (and where its future customers will mostly be) to focus on making products with wide appeal that can also serve the professional needs of the few with somewhat pricey add-ons, than to sell a prohibitively expensive machine that only a select few can justify buying to begin with.

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LaCie’s desktop RAID drives feature either two 500 GB 7200 RPM or two 1 TB 5400 RPM hard disk drives mounted in a single case, and each features two Thunderbolt connectors for attaching to your computer and for daisy-chaining with other Thunderbolt-equipped accessories. Mini DisplayPort monitors can also connect to the LaCie Big Disk Thunderbolt series, but one of those must cap the daisy chain if you plan to use it with other Thunderbolt devices.

The drives are light, at 1.4 lbs each, and can achieve transfer rates of 251 MB/s. If you daisy chain four together, LaCie says you can hit even higher speeds, up to a maximum of 782 MB/s. Note that this would also require four Thunderbolt cables, which Apple sells for $49 each. And the LaCie drives don’t ship with a Thunderbolt cable .

LaCie’s target market with these drives is creative professionals who needs need the speed of Thunderbolt and also a conveniently portable form factor. The Little Big Disk is a much cheaper option than the Promise Pegasus RAID System, which debuted in June and starts at $999 for a 4 TB version. Still, it probably won’t appeal to the average consumer for whom an equivalent 1 TB drive at around $70 or a little more with USB or FireWire connectivity is more than adequate.

If I did just a bit more video and photo editing than I do now, I can see the LaCie being a good option for an external project scratch disk. LaCie also supposedly has an SSD option on the way, but that will likely be even more expensive. Anyone else thinking about grabbing one of these?

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The visuals related to how information might be streamed from your iPhone to your Mac is like something out of my dreams made real. Connected devices would be represented by an icon in your OS X menu bar, and everything from calls, to text message, to FaceTime requests would appear as they arrived in a Growl-notification type window in the corner of your Mac screen. Icons let you know at a glance what type of call or message you’re receiving, and you can take and make calls, plus read and respond to messages right from OS X, over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB, according to the teehan+lax concept design.

iMessage is presented by the design firm basically as built-in feature of OS X mail, and it appears pretty much as it does in iOS 5 on the iPad. Putting it right in the OS X Mail.app is a stroke of genius, but I’d also love an option to break it out and use it more like a separate IM client, while we’re all imagining things.

The post at teehan+lax goes into more detail about each feature, so be sure to check it out in full when you get a chance. Any additional features you’d recommend for greater iPhone/OS X integration?

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First, let me clarify that the machine I’m coming from is a 2008 20-inch iMac, built before the last time Apple changed the external looks of the machine. It closely resembles current models, but has a black plastic back and the bezel around the screen doesn’t fully extend to the edges of the computer’s front surface. That iMac served me well, but this one serves me much better.

Performance Improvements

The new 27-inch iMac is a huge improvement over my old machine. With a quad-core 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 processor, it handily beats my old machine’s 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo on all measures. But it’s also a big step up even from the previous iMac, released in mid-2010, which boasted only a 2-core 3.2 GHz Core i3 processor on the entry-level model. In my usage, it’s even been better (generally faster and more responsive) than my father’s 2010 27-inch iMac, which he outfitted with all optional bells and whistles.

If you haven’t yet had the chance to use one of the 27-inch iMacs for any length of time, you’ll probably initially be most impressed by the screen real estate available to you. Jumping from a 20-inch screen to a 27-inch one makes a world of difference, and I find that I can accomplish many tasks that used to occupy two screens on only one. This includes watching a video while working (I had opportunity to do this when covering the recent Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on mobile privacy), and even editing photos or videos while browsing the web or managing Steam downloads.

Screens Upon Screens

But if you are a glutton for extra screen space, the 27-inch iMac delivers much more than just its own monitor. Thanks to two Thunderbolt ports with DisplayPort support, you can plug in two extra monitors with no additional equipment or drivers needed (beyond Mini DisplayPort adapters). After years of odd quirks and frequent updates with DisplayLink USB drivers, this is a very welcome addition.

And the iMac has the power to make multi-display workflows very smooth, even in cases where you might require a lot of muscle. For instance, just today I was running Civilization V, while also preparing this post, running about 20 tabs in Chrome, editing a few documents in Photoshop, and controlling my HTPC Mac Mini via Apple’s Screen Sharing app. Not to mention iTunes, Twitter, Mail and the Mac App Store were all open as well, and all of the above were spread across three monitors (the iMac’s own monitor and two Dells, a 20-inch and a 23-inch). Animation in the windowed Civ V remained smooth, and I experienced nary a stutter in my interaction with other open apps.

Thunderbolt and FaceTime HD

I haven’t yet tested out any actual Thunderbolt devices (they’re hard to get hold of currently), but eventually, it’ll be a great thing to have, especially for anyone who works with video and audio. And though the FaceTime HD camera has been nice to use with Skype, and on the one occasion I actually got to try it out with a FaceTime HD-enabled MacBook Pro, it alone isn’t worth an upgrade if you’re happy with your machine in other regards. It does come in handy if you’re recording video along with a screencast using a tool like ScreenFlow, however, so if that’s something you do regularly, it could sway your decision.

Bottom Line

This iMac may look the same as the last one, but the aesthetic similarities hide a major change under the hood. Even my stock entry-level 27-inch model at $1,699 seems to be able to handle whatever I can throw at it, and hasn’t yet choked up the way my old iMac had a tendency to do under the heavy crush of tabs and apps left open for days that makes up my usual workflow. If you’re looking for a machine that eliminates the technical hurdles of your daily grind, while delivering more than enough power to make your leisure-time activities much smoother, too, this is it.

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Did you get one of the new iMacs? Share your early experience with Apple’s latest all-in-one in the comments.

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2010: A Predominantly Mobile Year

Before introducing the iPad at the Apple event in January, Steve Jobs defined Apple as a “mobile devices company.” According to Jobs, Apple made more money on mobile devices (including iPods, iPhones, and MacBooks) than companies like Sony, Samsung, and Nokia did on their portable products. For the fiscal year ending in September, that trend continued.

Net sales for Apple were just over $65 billion, of which approximately $50 billion was divided among four portable product lines, with $6 billion going to Mac desktops. Since the iPad was only available for seven months in FY 2010, the Mac desktop will likely be last among Apple’s top hardware earners in 2011.

Notebook vs. Desktop Trends

That doesn’t mean the Mac desktop isn’t earning money. After a disastrous year in 2009, which saw a 23 percent decline in net sales, Mac desktop sales rebounded in 2010, up 18 percent. The problem is, Mac laptops were up 43 percent in net sales for 2010, and that was on top of a 9 percent increase in 2009.

Looking at Mac unit sales puts the net sales into perspective. While laptops started taking off in 2006, desktop sales have seen fluctuations, and even declines, though 2010 was a big rebound year. Nonetheless, Mac laptops represent a strong growth curve for Apple, which, as with the rest of the PC industry, has come at the expense of desktop sales.

Over the last 10 years, Mac notebooks and desktops have more or less switched positions in unit sales. In 2001, 7 out of 10 Macs sold were desktops. In 2009, the reverse was true. For 2010, strong iMac sales pushed the ratio back down to “only” two out of three Macs in favor of notebooks. With the introduction of the new MacBook Air, consumer dollars will swing even more towards the laptop, if analyst expectations prove accurate.

The State of the Desktop

The question then becomes: At what point do individual Mac desktop products reach a point of diminishing sales returns for Apple? The simple answer is that iMacs are safe in the short term. While Apple hasn’t broken out sales numbers for individual desktops since 2005, back then, the iMac accounted for about two-thirds of Mac desktop sales. Since then, comments in Apple conference calls reference only “strong sales” of the iMac, if desktops are mentioned at all, so the iMac’s role in the desktop picture has likely grown stronger still.

As for the Mac Pro and the Mac mini, a lot will depend on whether Apple continues to develop OS X Server. With the demise of the Xserve, Apple is showing it doesn’t really have that much interest in the enterprise back end. Exiting the server software business might make IT enthusiasts recoil, but Apple remains a consumer-focused business. It’s not going to happen next year, but Apple is clearly gearing itself towards a time when the “mobile device company” descriptor is entirely accurate.

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I’ve used Twitterific in the past, both on the iPhone and on the Mac, and I always appreciate the attention to detail Iconfactory puts into its UI design. But the app never felt robust enough for me, especially as a user who needs more features for managing multiple accounts. However, I’m not a fan of TweetDeck, which, though powerful, frankly just seems ugly and cluttered.

There are other candidates when it comes to Mac Twitter apps, including Nambu, Kiwi and Socialite. While each offers a decent experience, they all either lack the polish I’ve come to appreciate from companies like Atebits and Iconfactory, are missing key features, or just aren’t focused enough for my purposes.

Tweetie’s questionable future means that there’s a space to fill in the Mac Twitter arena. While there’s no firm release date for Twitterific 4, Iconfactory clearly wanted to stake its claim on that spot. And it looks like a strong claim, too. The screenshot they’ve released (yes, there’s only one) shows a window that looks clean and minimalistic, but seems to have multiple account support and easy access to all your basic features.

I’d still prefer a sidebar to a dropdown for account switching, but there’s no way of saying whether or not that might simply be an option not pictured. Either way, it looks promising, and it should at least be much more current in terms of Twitter’s recent changes to its API and features.

Twitterific is a promising start, but it’d be great to see others enter the arena. The gap left by Tweetie’s long hibernation could be the means by which another up-and-coming Mac dev studio makes a name for itself. Neither Twitter nor the Mac are markets lacking in growth potential, after all.

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Apple spends a lot of time on industrial design and usability, so it amazes me that the process to hook up a Mac to an external keyboard, monitor, and mouse consists of five to seven steps, depending on if you’re using a Bluetooth keyboard or not. As I look at the mess of wires coming out of the side of my MacBook, I’ve got to wonder why there isn’t an official Apple-branded docking station.

Docking stations seem like an idea that should have come out of Cupertino, because they reduce clutter and encourage simplicity. All the cables that would normally plug into the side or back of the computer go into the docking station instead, and there’s a single slot that the computer plugs into. Plug it in, and the notebook is now a desktop.

Apple has a patent for an interesting iMac-like dock for a MacBook, which would be amazing if the price was right. However, actually producing docks has been left to third-party manufacturers. Some have avoided the docking station idea by designing holders for the MacBook, and some have designed docking stations that look absolutely ridiculous.

The best bet for a real docking station so far seems to be Henge Docks, which mount the MacBook vertically.  They look gorgeous, but are only available in a 13-inch size as of this writing, with 15- and 17-inch versions in the pipeline. I’ve signed up to pre-order the 15-inch.

I’ve tried just about every combination of desk layout I can think of. I’ve tried MacBook in front, monitor on the side, no keyboard; MacBook on the left, monitor on the right, keyboard and mouse in front (and vice-versa); MacBook in clamshell mode on the side of my desk where the Dell’s docking station used to be, monitor, keyboard, and mouse in front (what I presently use), and a few other setups that just didn’t seem right.

From Apple’s point of view, the solution is to drop a grand on one of their gorgeous LED Cinema Displays. The display doubles as a docking station, providing power, monitor, and USB ports for the MacBook. It’s beautiful, and certainly reduces the cable clutter, but at a cost that’s hard to justify for consumer-grade use.

Browsing through Shawn Blanc’s “Sweet Mac Setups” I find that most of the setups featured go for the “MacBook on one side, monitor on the other, keyboard and mouse in front” rig. For some, this seems to work, for many others the cabling and accessories start to clutter the desktop. This is the point where I become distracted and want to start moving things around.

One of my favorite “setups” remains none at all. I simply open my MacBook wherever I want to work and start doing what needs to be done. But I’m still left wanting a more complete solution. How do you use your MacBook? If you’ve got a setup that works for you, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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For a long time now desktops have been in decline, both in the overall computer industry and for Apple. Laptops have become much more powerful and have dropped in price significantly over the past few years. Combined with a laptop’s convenience in terms of mobility, this has driven laptops to the forefront of the computing industry. In fact it is clear that small size combined with small price is a sweet spot for many consumers, which explains the explosion in sales of netbooks.

What Apple has done with the iPad is create a product that is going to compete in large part with netbooks, but will fall short of giving you a complete computing experience. As such Apple expects us to continue buying Macs, while buying an iPad to complement them. If this strategy works, the result in terms of buying strategy for Mac users might change significantly for the laptop versus desktop question.

Let’s take the situation before today. If you were looking to buy a new Mac, the $1,200 MacBook Pro was probably your sweet spot in terms of portability, price and power. Starting yesterday, however, the math could look very different. The best choice from Apple for a mobile device may now be an iPad given it’s light weight and user experience. By itself it won’t match the capabilities of an entry-level MacBook Pro, but if you combine it with a Mac Mini, for example, you suddenly have two devices that probably match the capabilities of a MacBook Pro. And the price? Well, $500 for the iPad plus $600 for the Mac Mini is actually less expensive than a Macbook Pro.

This works as you move further up the market as well, would you rather have a $2,000 MacBook Pro or a $600 iPad combined with a $1500 iMac? The iMac gives you a more powerful and expandable computing platform, while the iPad might be able to fill your mobile computing needs. I don’t think the decision is cut and dry — there is value in having a singe device for all your computing needs — but it is certainly worth thinking about. I know that I’ll be considering the iPad plus Desktop route when the time comes to upgrade my Mac.

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Strolling the mall with my wife, I was looking for an excuse to visit the Apple Store, but instead I found a reason: the disappearing desktop.

“Where have all the desktops gone?” I asked her pointedly.

She looked inside the glass front and pointed. “They’re right there.”

“Well, yeah, but why are there so few? I need to investigate.”

She sighed. “Don’t buy anything.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I replied. “This is work. Anyway, no one in the know buys anything right before an Apple event.”

Well, not usually.

Inside, a quick count of Macs tallied just thirteen desktops, ten iMacs, two Mac minis, and a single Mac Pro. That contrasted with 36 Mac laptops.

If that disparity surprises, it shouldn’t. A look at a few other numbers tells the tale of the respective rise and fall of Mac laptops and desktops, and maybe what it means to you.

I asked a nice person in a brightly-colored shirt about the dearth of desktops, but he didn’t know anything, not even that there was a brightly-colored Apple event imminent. The invitations were privately sent out from far above the local Apple Store, and thus could not even be officially acknowledged below. That might explain from whence the store layout came.

Luckily, Apple must still divulge at least some information to the public, like Macs sold. Over the last decade laptop sales have been waxing, desktops not quite waning. While it is true desktop sales have seen some growth since the nadir in 2004, desktops have yet to match the sales record set in 2000. While that’s not exactly the end of the world, looking at models in percentage terms of Macs sold does seem a little more apocalypsish.

Those trend lines are no friend of the Mac desktop. For 2009, seven out of ten Macs sold were laptops, and in 2010 that ratio will likely rise to three out of four. While this may explain the single table of iMacs in the back of my local Apple Store, the question now becomes: is the Mac desktop doomed?

Steve Jobs once described Apple’s business model as an uncomfortable piece of furniture, a three-legged stool. What he was getting at is where the money comes from: Macs, iPods and the iTunes Store, and the iPhone.

This is Apple’s business model without the awkward furniture metaphor. Looking forward into 2010, the iPhone is surging, pulling along the iTunes Store, the iPod flattening out, and Macs are holding their own, or rather laptops are. In 2010, the desktop Mac will likely account for just a tenth of Apple’s net sales.

However, it’s important to remember Apple is a company that makes things, four major hardware product types, maybe five soon, but four now.

In 2009, desktop Macs, which include the Xserve, Mac Pro, iMac, and Mac mini had net sales of $4.3 billion on 3.18 million units. That works out to about $1,350 per desktop, and compares favorably with laptops at $9.47 billion in sales on 7.2 million units, around $1315 per laptop. There is no chance Apple is going to take that kind of money off the desktop anytime soon, but an increasingly portable world will continue to have consequences for desktop users.

I was there at Macworld Expo 2005 when the Mac mini was introduced, and five years later it looks pretty much the same, even the new server model sans optical drive. From the outside, the Mac Pro of 2010 looks a lot like the PowerMac G5 of 2003, even though one could arguably create a lighter, more portable mid-tower case with Intel inside. Not going to happen.

While internal changes are required, external redesign of Apple’s desktops would require R&D better spent on, say, a tablet. To that end, only Apple’s flagship desktop, the iMac, has seen, and will likely see, further refinement. From polycarbonate to aluminum and glass, to maybe a dock/slot for a tablet, the iMac has effectively become the desktop Mac.

If you are the Panera Bread iMac Man, you probably won’t notice, but for the rest of us desktop Mac users the future will pretty much look like the past.

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For those of you looking for a different desktop experience, BumpTop Mac is now available for public consumption.

Almost four years ago we got a glimpse of the BumpTop prototype, and the application of physics to desktop-based files looked great. Since then, the Windows version has been made available, and the Mac version has been in closed beta (as I’ve mentioned previously). I still like the concept, and it definitely feels like it was made for OS X (versus just a Windows port) which is ideal. To find out more about what BumpTop Mac does, and why (or why not) it may be useful for you, read on.

The good folks at BumpTop brand it as, “Your Mac Desktop, Reinvented,” which I believe is a fair statement. Though I look at it more as what Path Finder did for the Finder — it adds a bunch of features, and makes the standard OS X desktop prettier (in some ways).

Essentially, BumpTop works to make your computer desktop more like your physical desktop. It adds walls around the flat space that allow you to pin things up ‘out of the way’, it lets you click and fling files across the space using physics characteristics (so if one file is represented as larger, it will crash through a group of smaller files), and more. The best, and most useful feature, in my opinion, is the Piles concept. Clicking and dragging a circle around several files allows you to group them together into a pile, signifying relevance to one another. Of course, all of this is great, but assumes that you keep lots of files and ‘stuff’ on your desktop — which goes against my Desktop Zero concept, but to each his/her own!

Does all of this sound interesting to you? If so, you can download BumpTop Mac for free. Should you decide you want to upgrade to the Pro version, it will cost you $29. The Pro price tag brings with it some extra bling features like unlimited sticky notes and the ability to flip through your Piles, as well as ‘Find-as-you-type’ search, multi-touch gestures, and preferred support. (As a note, the multi-touch gestures currently support the MacBook line’s trackpads — there is no mention of the Magic Mouse.) Are those things worth the price to you? It’s very possible that they are, and who are we kidding, it’s a very cool concept to play with. But try the free version first and see if this alternate way of handling your desktop jives with your workflow.

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But when is touch too much? The latest rumors, coming from the Chinese-language Commercial Times newspaper, as reported by DigiTimes, suggest that Apple will be launching a brand new addition to the iMac line in 2010 with a touch-enabled display. If the report is accurate, the new iMac would have a 22-inch screen, in between the current 21.5-inch and 27-inch models.

The report is based on a supplier called Quanta supposedly receiving the outsourcing contract to make the machines, with Sintek Photronic supplying the necessary touchscreen panels. The rumor is at least plausible, and even a likely next step coming from a manufacturer like Apple that has consistently done touch well and introduced it across much of its product line in some form or another. The question isn’t whether or not Apple will do it, it’s whether or not it should.

I get a tablet computer. I understand what that’s for, how people will use it, and how, thanks to mobility, touch controls make sense. I can’t say the same thing for touch-enabled desktops, except in special cases. For retail, sure, and for restaurants and other similar industry applications where touch has been used because it makes an exceeding amount of sense to do so, that I understand. But as I sit at my home office typing up this post, I wonder if I would derive any benefit by being able to control my iMac by touching the screen versus using my mouse.

In fact, I already sort of have touchscreen computing capability in my iMac, via a connected Wacom Cintiq monitor. Admittedly, you have to use a stylus, so it isn’t exactly the same, but I still finding myself abstaining from using it for anything but drawing and photo editing. Even the Sony Vaio L (check out the second “Con”) and other PCs already on the market with the tech built-in strike me as fairly silly. I’ve used them on display in Best Buy and the like, but that’s an entirely different thing from sitting at a desk and using it for many hours at a time.

Touch control will also be shoehorned into a number of different applications. Unlike the more expensive versions of Windows 7, Snow Leopard isn’t designed to work on a touch-enabled machine, and neither are any of the Mac apps you’d be using with your computer. I can see flick scrolling and image browsing being a bit of a boon, but not enough to merit the inclusion of the tech, especially when it would mean constantly having to switch from using the mouse to interacting with the screen in all likelihood.

Where touchscreen desktop computing has been introduced, it has faced questions about how truly useful and effective it is. Galen Gruman at TechWorld describes his disappointment with the Windows 7 implementation of touch in a piece that soberly addresses the tech’s current shortcomings. In this excerpt, he discusses some UI and feedback problems with the idea:

[O]n a touchscreen, your hand and arm obscure your view of where your fingertip actually is, making it hard to actually touch the intended radio button, close box, slider, or what-have-you. It doesn’t help that these elements are often small. And there’s no tactile feel to substitute for the lost visual feedback.

It’s far from his only strike against touchscreen desktop computing, but even on its own, it describes an issue so annoying as to set me against the concept of a touch sensitive iMac, at least until the next generation of OS X takes touchscreen computing as its focus instead of as an afterthought or add-on.

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From my perspective, and I think that of many others these days, the operative would more aptly be, “can you survive without a laptop Mac?” After all, the New York Times first reported that laptop sales exceeded desktops in May 2003, Apple notebook sales surpassed its desktops sold in July 2005, have done so consistently since April 2006, and now represent roughly three-quarters of Mac systems sold, although from time to time desktops gain back some ground, such as with the hot-selling new iMacs. Industry-wide, laptops began outselling desktops globally in Q3 2008, nearly four years sooner than anticipated.

I was somewhat ahead of the curve, making the switch from desktop to laptop as my main production platform in October 1996, when I bought a PowerBook 5300. Aside from a brief dalliance with a G4 Cube in mid-2001, and purchasing a brand-new leftover SuperMac S-900 tower clone for $300 a year before that to use as a backup machine, it’s been all laptop, all the time for me now for more than a baker’s dozen years. I honestly can’t imagine myself trying to get along with just a desktop Mac anymore.

Not that there aren’t some enticing and compelling Mac desktops. I found that Cube difficult to resist, at least conceptually. I loved the design, but in practical use I found it less enchanting and myself pining for laptop virtues, so after six months I grabbed an opportunity to swap the barely broken-in Cube even-trade for a year-old PowerBook G3 Pismo. I’ve never regretted the decision, and now, more than eight years later, I still have that same old Pismo in regular service. I’ve still got the big S-900 as well, but it’s been quite a while since it was booted up.

Meanwhile, since that first PowerBook 5300, which is also still around and in working order, I’ve owned a PowerBook G3 Series WallStreet, two PowerBook 1400s, three Pismos, a dual USB iBook G3, a 17-inch PowerBook G4, and my present number-one machine — a late 2008 model unibody MacBook, purchased last March. Desktops simply haven’t been a significant part of the picture for me for nearly a decade, and I can’t say there’s anything I really miss about them.

There’s a bit of irony I suppose in that my MacBook serves mainly as a desktop workstation, perched on a laptop stand, connected to three USB hubs, an external keyboard, several pointing devices, a printer, a scanner, a USB microphone, and an Ethernet LAN. In many respects a desktop Mac would be a more logical and rational choice for my main home office production machine. I’ve seriously mused about a Mac mini (which I’ve always admired) for years, and the latest iMacs give you an awful lot of power and display real estate for your dollar.

Never say never, but even though I keep at least two other laptops in service as utility portable/road machines, I would still find it frustrating not to be able to unplug my main axe from its spaghetti-tangle of workstation peripheral cables, drop it in a computer case or backpack, and take it along elsewhere — whether elsewhere is just another part of the house or on a road trip, with full, untethered functionality intact.

If I ever feel the need for a larger display (it does appeal), that’s easy to arrange as well. On the other hand, with a desktop, you’re limited to the availability of 110V wall current or some equivalent, and an iMac, or even a Mac mini with monitor and pointing devices, would be a lot more cumbersome to take along. Also, if the power goes off, as it does fairly frequently in my neck of the woods, I can just keep on computing — for a long time if my emergency 12V battery pack is fully charged.

For me, getting along without a laptop would involve too much compromise. How about you?

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Kiwi comes with a number of theme customization options pre-installed, and being primarily utilitarian in my own tastes when it comes to Twitter, I’m not sure what else you could ask for. For those with more imagination and a thirst for variety, though, you can download countless more themes from the web.

You can also customize the toolbar that appears above your time line in the client window, just like you can with Firefox. It’s a neat feature, but so far, there aren’t enough options to choose from to make this worthwhile. It could prove useful later, depending on how Twitter’s growth plays out feature-wise.

Kiwi is simple, in terms of functions, which makes it an appealing choice for the casual Twitter user. You get one window, with your basic time line, and icons across the top allow you to switch the view to @ mentions or DMs. Clicking on a tweet brings up a conversation view, and clicking on a user’s icon shows that person’s time line.

Retweeting uses the new API, and there’s no option to switch to old-school RT or “via” style quotes. Users new to the service, or those who like Twitter’s official implementation, might enjoy this, but it’s a deal-breaker for me. Nor am I crazy about the way Kiwi handles account switching (click on your own profile icon and choose from a drop-down list) but at least multiple-account support is present. It seems to take up a bit more memory than Tweetie, too.

Twitter search is easily accessed by typing a keyword into the bottom field and pressing enter. Once you activate a search, a Loop icon appears where your account picture is usually found, and the results are displayed in the main time line. Going back to your accounts is as simple as clicking on the Loop and switching back, or using the menu or Kiwi’s keyboard shortcuts. It’s a clean and efficient way of managing many functions from a single, convenient location.

Kiwi is free to try, but it’ll cost you $14.95 to unlock the full version. Check it out if you’re looking for something simple, yet customizable and unique. I’d definitely recommend it for new users looking to transition smoothly from the web interface to a desktop solution.

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Among the big winners for October were the new 21-inch iMac, which topped the desktop sales charts, and the more expensive and powerful 27-inch iMac, which took a surprisingly high third place overall.

The iMac wasn’t the only winner, as Apple also saw strong sales in the notebook department. The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro came in first overall in notebook sales, and Apple occupied four of the top 10 spots for the month, though its other offerings placed low, taking the eighth, ninth, and 10th locations.

NPD Group’s vice president of industry analysis attributed Apple’s success to low numbers on the PC side of the equation, too, in an interview conducted with CNET:

Apple gets a bounce whenever they come out with new computers. For the most part, October was a down month on the Windows side because [PC manufacturers] were working through inventory before the Windows 7 launch.

Baker goes onto speculate about what’s behind Apple’s success:

Over past few years, Apple has continued to gain share in the market, and there are a lot of ways to explain that. It could be the stores, the computers themselves, the iPod, or iPhone. I think it’s a combination of all those things.

There’s no doubt in my mind that customer experience is the key to Apple’s success of late. The iPod and iPhone might have been the gateway drug for many users, but these days I find just as many people for whom the opposite is true. The common denominator is user friendliness and great support. The November numbers will be a much better indicator of Apple’s true success, however, since it will see a lot of holiday sales, and also should show how Mac is faring against Windows 7 machines.

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Now, the Bamboo line is getting a much-needed update, and part of that update includes multi-touch gesture support. That’s right, the staunchly stylus-oriented Wacom is releasing touch-enabled devices, available today.

Gradually, Wacom has introduced customizable buttons, scrolls, rockers, and touch strips to make them easier to use without the aid of a keyboard and mouse. And they’ve made great strides. My 12WX has 10 customizable keys and two touch-sensitive scroll strips, all of which result in a much less clumsy drawing experience than I ever had using any of my Graphire tablets. Still, it can’t help but feel somewhat awkward and counter-intuitive.

The new multi-touch controls so closely resemble those already in use on Macs with trackpads that experienced Mac laptop users will likely feel right at home with them. Judging by the promo video, in fact, having a Bamboo with touch could actually completely eliminate the need of using a mouse at all, which represents a massive technical leap for the tablet maker.

Pinch to zoom and spread to expand, two-finger swipe left and right to scroll or move backwards and forwards, two-finger swipe up and down to scroll, and two-finger rotation are all included as usable gestures, and more besides.

The new Bamboo line now includes five distinct products, including one that doesn’t support touch at all, so if you’re thinking about getting one, think carefully about what you want out of the device. Since I already have a drawing tablet, I’m thinking about picking up the Bamboo Touch ($69), which doesn’t allow pen input at all and basically just brings multi-touch to your desktop. Could come in handy for browsing through large photo libraries, for example.

For the same price, you can get the Bamboo Pen, which doesn’t allow finger input at all. Maybe good for digital artists who only need the very basics, or for business people who only use it to digitally sign documents, but I don’t see this one being a hot seller.

The Bamboo ($99), Bamboo Fun ($199), and Bamboo Craft ($129) all offer both pen and multi-touch input. Price differences account for size, mostly, since every device includes the same ExpressKeys and pressure levels sensitivity. If you manage to get your hands on one of these, let us know how the multi-touch experience stacks up. Check out the following video for more info.

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