Bookmaker expert Mickey Richardson, CEO of Bookmaker.com, one of the largest sports odds-making sites in the world, and his team of experts have calculated the likelihood of what we might see at the event.

So what do the pros think will and won’t happen Wednesday?

An 11-inch version of Macbook Air
YES -750 88.5%
NO +150 40%

Updated iWork & iLife
YES -500 15%
NO +100 50%

FaceTime for iChat in new version of OS X
YES -750 88.5%
NO +150 40%

Next version of OS X will be called Lion
YES +150 40%
NO -750 88.5%

Note: For those unfamiliar with sports betting, the +/- Indicates the Return on the wager. The percentage is the likelihood that response will occur. For example: Betting on the candidate least likely to win would earn the most amount of money, should that happen.

Tune in tomorrow for TheAppleBlog’s full coverage.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• The State of the Smartbook
• Cool, Calm and Connected: 3 Design Principles for Connected Objects
• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide

I’m happy to report that it seems livelier and more stable than the version 10.62 release, which was already very good. Since the upgrade conveniently runs in the background and allows you to keep doing other things, even surfing, it makes the process easy and painless.

What Opera Offers That Others Don’t

Opera Turbo

Opera offers some unique features, such as Opera Turbo, which uses Opera’s servers and proprietary compression technology to compress webpages, boosting your browsing speed on crowded Wi-Fi hotspots, tethered mobile phones or even dial-up, letting you browse up to 2x faster than its competitors when connected at slower speeds.

Encrypted traffic remains that way around the compression servers, so when you’re on a secure Web site, such as your bank’s, you’re still secure and communicating directly. Turbo can be instantly toggled on and off using a button on the interface window margin, or you can set up Opera Turbo to be enabled automatically when a slow network connection is detected.

Mouse Gestures

Another unique feature of Opera — mouse gestures —  lets you perform common browsing actions with small, quick mouse movements. Gestures can be stacked to perform more complex actions. You can enable or disable mouse gestures in the Opera preferences. There’s even a tutorial to get you started.

Opera Unite

Opera Unite turns your computer into a web server. With Unite, you can share content directly with friends without having to upload anything, stream music, show photo galleries, share files and folders, or even host your own website directly from the browser. It’s a great feature that other browsers don’t really come close to offering, at least not in an all-in-one package.

The Little Things

Opera has a raft of small touches that keep me coming back to it as my most-used browser, such as a very convenient Zoom menu on the interface window that lets you infinitely magnify page content using a slider control to read websites with small text easily, or get an bird’s-eye view of an entire site. Unlike some other browsers, Opera’s zoom resizes all elements of the page, not just the text. You can also toggle images on and off from this menu to improve readability and speed up page loads.

With Opera, you can also search in the address field. Opera uses several keywords to provide quick access to several popular and useful search engines. You can also add any search engine.

Opera’s Closed Tabs button, also on the user interface window, provides a pull-down list of recently closed tabs, so you can easily return to where you left off. Finally, in case you’re concerned about speed, Opera is also very fast, in the same league as the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, and Google’s Chrome browser.

Good for Those Who Appreciate a Fine Vintage

Opera is evidently an acquired taste, with about four percent of global browser market share outside North America, and around 2.4 percent overall, which puts it in fifth place behind Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. But it’s also one of the dwindling crop of current browsers that still support older Power PC Macs and OS 10.4, although the Opera folks tell me that version 10.6x will be the last with Tiger support, alas. All the more reason to enjoy it while it lasts.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• What Enterprise Software Vendors Could Learn from the Consumer Space
• WebKit is Great, But It Isn’t the Great Unifier
• What Does the Future Hold For Browsers?

However, former Apple Dashboard developer Todd Ditchendorf’s programmable browser Fake is something genuinely different, a sort of hybrid melding of Safari and Apple’s Automator scripting utility. Fake allows you to drag discrete browser Actions into a graphical Workflow that, once configured, can be saved and run to perform various online tasks automatically.

How it Works and Why It’s Useful

Fake is a useful timesaver, automating tedious tasks like filling out lengthy forms, capturing screenshots, and more. Developers especially can make great use of Fake by graphically configuring automated tests for their web apps.

Fake’s automation features are powered by OS X’s built-in scripting tool AppleScript, so you can incorporate web automation into many OS X scripting tasks.

Fake’s user interface is derivative of the Automator UI, with a side panel containing a library of configurable “actions” that can be employed as an easy alternative to writing AppleScript code from scratch. Tasks available include clicking checkboxes or links, filling out and submitting forms, navigating to URLs, opening and closing browser tabs, and so on.

Sample Workflow

Here’s a simple example of how Fake works. You probably wouldn’t find this particular workflow especially useful unless you’re obsessed with visiting the Apple Store’s iPad pages, but it gets the basic idea across.

You begin with a “Load URL” action, dragging it from the Action Library to the Workflow pane in the Fake UI.

Once your webpage or form appears, you can drag other actions into the workflow pane to navigate, set values and otherwise configure tasks that you point actions to, such as clicking on an element link:

Or clicking an html button:

When you’ve composed the full workflow sequence, click the Run button in the Workflow pane toolbar.

Which will run your automated workflow and take you where you want to go:

This is a simplified example for the sake of clarity. You can do so much more with Fake, but the best way to find out is to get in there and try for yourself. You might also want to check out this screencast at WebWorkerDaily for another example.

A Browser Apart

Fake’s browser component is based on the open source tech used in the OS X Site Specific Browser (SSB) app Fluid. In a nutshell, Fluid technology provides Fake with an array of powerful features that developers like to have in a browser, such as userscript and userstyle support. Fake also taps into Apple’s WebKit to provide element-level analysis of Web pages.

One other difference with Fake is that unlike mainstream Web browsers these days, it’s for-fee demoware, costing $29.95 for a license. However, if browsers are a tool of your livelihood, or you just have better things to do with your time than repeat mundane tasks on the web, Fake could pay for itself pretty quickly. Fake Version 1.4.2 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• HTML5’s a Game-Changer for Web Apps
• What Does the Future Hold For Browsers?
• How to Manage Consumer-Grade Collaborative Tools in the Workplace

My Pismos are both substantially tricked out, with G4 processor upgrades, 8X SuperDrive DVD burner optical drive modules, maxed-out RAM, larger capacity hard drives, and more, which is a big part of why at more than a decade old they’re still going strong as useful work computers. It’s the degree of component modularity incorporated in the Pismo’s design that’s kept it in the game as a decent-performing tool much longer than will be the case with any subsequent Mac laptop design, including my MacBook.

Long Service Life

The superb reliability and amazingly long service life I’ve experienced with my Pismos have convinced me beyond doubt that if I could design my ideal computer it would be easy to take apart, upgrade, and repair, and composed of modular components as much as possible. The Pismo is not 100 percent perfect, but it comes closer than any other Mac laptop has before or since. From hard drive to RAM to expansion, it’s truly a hardware geek’s dream.

But the long life comes with a price for Apple: less frequent notebook replacement, which means fewer sales. Hence a deliberate move away from modularity.

Deliberately Difficult to Work on and Upgrade?

In my ideal laptop, not only the hard drive, but all of the major circuit board components would be modular and easy to replace. Apple has at times seemed to at least partially embrace the idea of modular components, but has evidently lost interest in this sensible and value-enhancing way of doing things. Recently, Apple seems bent on making Macs and its other hardware difficult to work on or upgrade beyond adding memory and storage capacity: CPUs hard-soldered to the logic board, lack of expansion bays (other than ExpressCard and/or SD Card slots), and the switch to built-in batteries are all cases in point.

The G3 Series PowerBooks have their CPUs and RAM mounted on an easy-to-remove daughterboard that facilitates easy upgrades. My ideal laptop would definitely have a processor daughterboard, as well as a slide-in/out motherboard, easily removable and replaceable video cards, sound cards, and power manager units — all user serviceable. Video RAM would be upgradable too, a feature no Apple laptop has ever supported to date.

Removable Device Expansion Bays

My dream MacBook would also have a removable device expansion bay, even two, like The Wall Street G3 PowerBooks did (the Wall Street supported batteries as well as 3.5″ removable devices like optical drives or hard drives in its left bay, and both 3.5″ and 5.25″ devices in its right bay).

Expansion bays on all of the G3 Series PowerBooks also support loading up two batteries for long computing sessions (I can get 10 hours plus on two extended life batteries with my Pismos) away from plug-in power, and you can carry spares. Unfortunately, battery flexibility is the polar opposite of Apple’s apparent notebook power trajectory.

More Commodified — Almost Disposable

Now, to be fair, my originally 500 MHz G3 Pismos sold new for $3,499, or $1,200 more than even the most expensive current Mac notebook model, the 17″ MacBook Pro, so that has to be considered when making overall value comparisons. The $999 MacBook far outclasses even my hot-rodded-to-the-limit Pismos in performance. Notebook computers have become a lot more commodified over the past decade, and at the lower-to-medium end of the price spectrum are now almost “disposable” products — cheaper to replace than repair.

Personally, I still find the concept of things that are built to last tremendously appealing. How about you? Would more modularity, expandability, and upgradability justify higher laptop purchase prices?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• Mobile Operators’ Strategies for Connected Devices
• Is the Opt-Out Model the Future of Home Energy Management?
• Transient Apps: The Consumer Influence on Enterprise Mobility, Part 2

In a mailing list posting on Tuesday, Mozilla’s Firefox honcho Mike Beltzner affirmed: “I am gathering data on the number of PPC users we have, but the likely outcome is that we will not be supporting PPC [PowerPC] for Firefox 4.”

Mozilla has already cut off Firefox support for Mac OS X 10.4 after version 3.6, and the new SeaMonkey 2.1 Alpha released yesterday (SeaMonkey is based on the Firefox browser engine) also dumped support for OS 10.4.

Feeling The Pain

These developments were inevitable, and the proverbial writing has been on the wall for some time for Tiger support especially, but looming termination of all PPC support is a splash of cold water for legions of holdout users. With two old 550 MHz G4 Pismo PowerBooks running OS 10.4 Tiger still in daily service, I’m definitely feeling the pain of constricting browser support. At present, I’m using SeaMonkey 2.0.6 (current stable release), Opera 10.01, and iCab 4.8 on the Pismos along with old Netscape Navigator 9.

Indeed, in many respects, Navigator 9 remains the most satisfactory all-round browser on low-powered Power PC machines, although its security profile is woefully out of date, so I wouldn’t recommend it for visiting your online banking site, or anywhere else that security is a particular concern. You can still download Navigator 9 here.

SeaMonkey: The Best Compromise?

SeaMonkey 2.0.6 is probably the best compromise at this point between performance, reliability, and security, and I was disappointed when I downloaded the version 2.1 Alpha 3 build, which features some interesting interface upgrades, only to discover that the system requirements cited on MacUpdate were in error, and it doesn’t support OS 10.4.

iCab 4.8 still fully supports Tiger, and I don’t anticipate that it will be dropping it anytime soon, since they still offer a browser on their download page that supports 68k Macs running System 7.1, but the latest 64-bit version of iCab 4.8, of course, requires Snow Leopard, and it’s doubtful that legacy versions get much security updating, if any.

The latest version 10.6 of Opera nominally supports Power PC Macs running Tiger as well, but in practice, I’ve found that it’s slow and unstable on the old Pismos, with lots of spinning beachball time. The last build that works well on those machines is version 10.01 (c. October 2009).

Curtain Dropping On Power PC

Consequently, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the curtain is dropping on Power PC Macs. I’ll not be giving up on my beloved Pismo PowerBooks any time soon, and hope to continue using them for years to come, but I’ll do any security-sensitive web stuff on my MacBook and whatever supersedes it. Opera 10.6, Google Chrome, Firefox 4, and Safari 5 all offer a superb browsing experience for Intel Mac users.

It’s interesting that Web browsers seem to have emerged as the tipping point of practical computer obsolescence. Are you feeling the pinch?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: What Does The Future Hold For Browsers?

However, it looks like Apple may soon have an even more technologically avant-garde device enclosure technology. CrunchGear reports that an SEC filing reveals that Apple Inc. has concluded a deal to access all the intellectual property of LiquidMetal Technologies regarding a CalTech-developed, amorphous, non-crystalline, metal alloy with unique atomic structures that can be used to create products that are stronger, lighter, and harder than is possible with alloys of titanium or aluminum. Not only is this material resistant to wear and corrosion, it’s easily and economically formable, somewhat like plastic.

Cheaper, But With Superior Material Qualities

The relatively easy formability of LiquidMetal alloys would presumably facilitate much faster and cheaper production of device enclosures than the current aluminum unibody process, possibly rendering superior materials characteristics as well.

A Third Industrial Revolution

Noting that Sir Henry Bessemer’s 19th Century invention of a process to mass-produce steel inexpensively was crucial to the modern industrial revolution, while the invention of thermo-plastics dramatically reduced the cost of manufacturing by using one mold for thousands of parts, the LiquidMetal folks suggest that its technology developed in cooperation with scientists at CalTech combines more than twice the strength of titanium with the processing efficiency of plastics to create a third industrial revolution.

Smaller, Thinner, Lighter, More Durable

LiquidMetal alloys enable smaller, thinner and more durable electronic device enclosure designs, helping facilitate the requirement for larger LCD screens, thinner wall sections and pure metallic surface finishes. With approximately 2.5 times the strength of titanium alloy and 1.5 times the hardness of stainless steel, LiquidMetal alloys enable thinner, more compact device designs while providing greater protection for their internal components.

Using a process called precision net-shape casting, the alloys can be fashioned into intricate, innovative form-factors incorporating advantages like:

• Excellent durability
• High Scratch and corrosion resistance
• Non-reactivity
• High Yield Strength
• High Hardness
• Superior Strength/Weight Ratio
• Superior Elastic Limit
• Unique Acoustical Properties

Not much wonder that Apple glommed on to this. I can hardly wait to see what it does with it.

I keep trying to upgrade to Snow Leopard, but always end up back with Leopard. I have both operating systems installed, using separate partitions of my MacBook’s hard drive, and keep thanking myself that I didn’t cut the umbilical cord to Leopard when I installed Snow Leopard late at OS 10.6.3.

My procrastination about installing Snow Leopard had much to do with there being no really “gotta have it” new features in 10.6, but I’ve discovered that there are lots of small tweaks that I like and appreciate using. Unfortunately, it’s just been too buggy to make it worth my time.

The Bugs

Even at OS 10.6.4, Snow Leopard is still as buggy as a flophouse mattress. Here are some of the issues I (and others) have encountered.

Spaces support keeps crapping out, taking keyboard response with it, requiring endless Dock quits and reboots in order to get things working again. See here, here, here, here and here for examples, discussions, and workarounds pertaining to this bug. Less monotonously aggravating, but occurring frequently enough to be tedious, I’ve found that keyboard input also sometimes dies randomly independent of the Spaces issue, and in those instances doesn’t respond to quitting and restarting the Dock. I’m left with just the trackpad or mouse to shut things down in a reasonably civilized manner and reboot the system.

My MacBook will randomly wake up from sleep unbidden in Snow Leopard. More discussion of this bug here and here.

The Heat

Adding insult to injury, my MacBook (2.0 GHz, 4 GB RAM) runs some 15° to 20°C hotter in Snow Leopard than it does in Leopard, with the same suite of applications in play. I absolutely hate fan noise, but it’s nearly constant background accompaniment in Snow Leopard. And I thought OS X .6 was supposed to be leaner and more efficient, imposing lower overhead demands on hardware? Discussion links here and here.

I can only tolerate three or four days of this before losing my patience and booting back into the serenity and stability of Leopard space. I guess I should be thankful that Leopard continues to do such a fine job, and I am, but the problem is that more and more applications are requiring 10.6 and later for their latest updates. MacSpeech Scribe, for instance, requires OS 10.6. The proverbial writing is on the wall.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that an OS 10.6.5 update  will squash some of this bugginess, but I have to say that it’s not a very lively hope, given that the problems cited here were evident in OS 10.6.0, and four revisions later they’re still with us.

And yes, I don’t doubt that there are lots of users out there getting excellent service from Snow Leopard. I’m happy for them, but that hasn’t been my experience with this cat species, nor the experience of others who echo my complaints. Leopard, and Tiger before it, are proof that Apple can do better.

What about you? Nearly a year later, what has your experience with Snow Leopard been?

My learned friend is far from unique in drawing analogies between computer platform affinities and religion. Back in 1994, Italian novelist Umberto Eco (writer of “Foucault’s Pendulum” and “The Name of The Rose”) published a now-legendary, whimsical piece in the Italian news weekly Espresso, contending that the Microsoft/Apple rivalry is “a religious war.” Eco was “firmly of the opinion” that the Macintosh is Catholic; “It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach — if not the kingdom of heaven — the moment in which their document is printed.” He pointed out that with a Mac you deal with simple formulae and sumptuous icons, and “everyone has a right to salvation.”

On the other hand, Eco contended, the (then mostly DOS-based) PC was Protestant, “or even Calvinistic,” demanding difficult decisions and interpretations, taking “for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation.” The PC user “is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.” When the Windows graphical user interface was added to previously command line-only DOS, there came a superficial resemblance to the Macintosh’s “counter-reformist tolerance.” “Sort of like Anglicanism,” said Eco, with “big ceremonies in the cathedral,” but “always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.”

Eco’s tongue-in-cheek theological analysis of the computer wars stands up well and is still entertaining 16 years later.

Scholarly Investigations

Recently there’s another flurry of “Apple as religion” in the blogosphere. The Huffington Post’s Skye Jethani writes of “the power of consumer brands to supplant traditional religions in people’s lives,” noting that “new research has shown that Apple has achieved the same impact on the human brain as religion.”

TheAtlantic.com.’s Alexis Madrigal posted a riff noting that scholars seriously study Apple fans as “religious devotees,” one even outlining a framework for assessing Apple’s mystical mythology, contending that the company is founded on at least quasi-religious myths.

A four-myth construct compiled by Texas A&M University media professor Heidi Campbell in her paper “How the iPhone became divine” posits:

• A creation myth highlighting the counter-cultural origin and emergence of the Mac as a transformative moment;
• A hero myth presenting the Mac and its founder Steve Jobs as saving users from the corporate domination of the PC world;
• A satanic myth presenting Bill Gates as the enemy of Mac loyalists;
• A resurrection myth of Jobs returning to save the failing company.

Madrigal observes that these narratives aren’t myths in the sense of being untrue, but are archetypal illustrations that help people make sense of their relationship with the world (or at least Apple). He suggests the only element of core Apple fans’ belief system compromised by “Antennagate” is the hero myth, since Jobs didn’t initially live up to his Teflon reputation. However, he thinks the Antennagate press conference followed by robust iPhone sales in Apple’s quarterly financial report not only restored Jobs’ hero status, but refreshed the resurrection myth, citing Campbell observing that “Apple weathered the storm because there is such brand loyalty through the religious narrative.”

“Implicit Religion”

Fox News’s John R. Quain weighs in on Apple as a “new religion,” likewise referencing Texas A&M’s Campbell, who told him “Implicit religion can happen when the use of, say, technology becomes a substitute for belief and behaviours once attached to religion and religious practice,….The religious-like behaviour and language surrounding Apple devotion/fandom is an example of ‘implicit religion’.”

Campbell has cut to the nub of the issue. As a Catholic traditionalist, I have clearly-defined concepts of what I think constitutes bona fide religion, and notwithstanding that I’m a consummate Mac fanboy, I find it impossible to take “Apple as religion” seriously, as more than parody or satire, or more darkly–cultishness.

Apple Products and Traditional Religion

Not that Apple products aren’t having peripheral impact on real, traditional religion. In June, Fr. Paolo Padrini, a consultant with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications, launched a free expanded iPad version of his iBreviary app, a daily prayer book for iPhone. iBreviary’s iPad variant, iBreviaryPro, contains the complete Roman missal — all that is said and sung at Mass throughout the liturgical year, plus commentaries, suggestions for homilies, and musical accompaniment, allowing priests to celebrate mass without hard copy Bibles and liturgical missals.

What sets iBreviary apart from other religious apps in the App Store is that it’s the first app with approval of the Vatican. Fr. Padrini has reported some 200,000 downloads of the iPhone version, and expects priests who travel a lot to find the application most useful.

Cult of Mac’s Nicole Martinelli reports that at least one Catholic priest switched to an iPad for officiating at outdoor masses in place of heavy books, commenting to The Apple Lounge (in Italian) that device is really easy to use.

That’s the sort of technology complimenting religion that even religious traditionalists can get behind.

Hybrid?

Hwang and Tsai cite Digitimes Research senior analyst Mingchi Kuo referencing discussions with upstream component makers, suggesting that a 11.6-inch MacBook Air will feature an even slimmer and lighter design than the previous-generation models. Technologies used for the “design and concept” are expected to be broadly used in the company’s other product lines to boost its competitiveness. That phraseology implies something more than a form factor restyling and/or new feature additions, and there is speculation that Apple may be cooking up something like a hybrid machine retaining a basic clamshell laptop form factor, but with a detachable iPad-esque display panel. If that were the case, it begs the question of whether the new-generation Air would run OS X with some iOS touchscreen technology grafted in, or (very long shot I think) the iOS itself.

[inline-ad align="right"]Either way, Kuo expects shipment volumes of the new 11.6-inch MacBook to reach 400,000 units in 2010, which, depending on how late in the year it hits the channels, could be respectable enough.

It seems logical that Apple could have decided that marketing three different 13″ laptops (the others being the white MacBook and the 13″ MacBook Pro) amounts to confusing overlap, and that a downsize would help differentiate the Air from its fuller-featured, more powerful, but thicker and heavier, siblings. However they would presumably want to avoid appearing to embrace the netbook concept, which senior Apple spokespersons like Steve Jobs and Tim Cook have famously scorned and dismissed, and which Apple is successfully challenging with the hot-selling iPad.

If the Digitimes rumor proves accurate, it would mark the MacBook Air’s first major makeover since the sleek and diminutive machine was unveiled in January 2008. Although the Air has received a couple of upgrades and refreshes, it really hasn’t changed a whole lot in 2 1/2 years.

Core i3 Power

Digitimes’ projection that the downsized MacBook Air will sport an Intel Core i-series CULV, if accurate, would make it the first Apple laptop to employ Core i3 technology, which on spec seems ideally suited to deployment in this sort of computer, but raises the question of what sort of graphics support it will have — a point not addressed in the Digitimes report. It’s notable that Apple chose to stick with Core 2 Duo CPUs for the 13-inch MacBook and MacBook Pro so it could use NVIDIA’s new, faster 320M integrated GPU. But with an ultraportable machine like the MacBook Air, raw graphics performance isn’t as high a priority. Few users will be inclined to do high-end graphics, video editing, or serious gaming on an Air, and Intel’s in-house HD Graphics GPU would likely prove adequate for most users.

At What Price?

This is obviously all highly speculative at this point. One of the biggest imponderables remains price. The current MacBook Air at $1,499 can be most charitably described as something less than a bargain. For example, you can buy a white, 2.4 GHz MacBook and a base model iPad both for the same money as one base MacBook Air. The operative question: How contented is Apple for the Air to remain the low-volume boutique piece for well-heeled elites it has been up to now, or does it want to address a larger market, taking lower margins but deriving potentially greater overall profit from higher volumes?

I can fantasize about an 11.6″ MacBook Air slotted in price somewhere between the high-end iPad and the 13″ MacBook Pro — logically the psychologically significant $999 of the white MacBook (or less). However, I’m doubtful that Apple will discount the entry-level MacBook Air threshold by 50 percent.

As for an introduction date, we’re almost past the cutoff point for the fall computer-buying spike already, but students have never been the Air’s market focus anyway. More likely Apple would go with mid-fall to catch the Christmas sales wave. That is, provided a new MacBook Air really is coming this year. If so, it’ll be the most exciting and reassuring development in Mac laptops since the aluminum unibodies in October 2008.

Just to refresh our memory, the MacBook Air was last breathed on — mildly — in June 2009, when it received a speed bump to 1.86 GHz and 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics, and a price reduction to $1,499 for the base model with a 120 GB hard drive, and $1,799 for the 2.13 GHz high-end model with a 120 GB solid-state drive. Since then, Apple has stood pat with the Air. It would be interesting to know how they’ve been selling lately.

There have been spurts of rumors about the potential for, say, a 3G MacBook Air, but nothing came of them, and that particular market niche would appear to now be amply covered by the iPad 3G.

Disinterest From Apple

However, MacBook Air fans shouldn’t give up hope just yet. Earlier this month the Mac mini got a major refresh and new lease on life after a long stretch of apparent disinterest from Apple.

I have no inside knowledge, but what I suspect is that Apple wanted to wait and see what sort of market reception the iPad achieved before committing to a MacBook Air upgrade. Of course, the fact that the iPad has been an out-of-the-park home run in sales performance probably hasn’t enhanced the Air’s prospects for survival, but it’s more complicated than that.

For one thing, the two machines occupy widely divergent points on the price spectrum, and in that context don’t compete directly with each other, although it is entirely conceivable that some users who might otherwise have purchased a MacBook Air will now get an iPad to serve as a light, handy, mobile computing device. I expect more than a few will be of that persuasion, bleeding potential sales from an already limited MacBook Air market.

A “Real” Computer

On the other hand, a sizable cohort of users will still want a “real” ultralight laptop computer with a proper keyboard, a trackpad and stand-up display that can run full-fledged Mac OS X production application software. Despite its virtues, which are many, the iPad meets none of those criteria.

Personally, I’ve resisted the 3-pound, 0.76-inch thick MacBook Air mainly on price, but have also objected to its constrained expandability and connectivity. However, compared with the iPad, which hasn’t even a single real USB port to its name, the Air is almost a power-user machine.

One of the MacBook Air’s problems is that it’s always been arbitrarily positioned and priced as something of a carriage trade accessory and arm candy for well-heeled users, rather than as a serious work tool. In terms of practical capability, the 13-inch MacBook Pro has pretty much all of the same bases covered, aside from extreme thinness and light weight, and in a package that’s not grossly thicker, heavier, or larger in footprint, and which manages to look really great doing it while selling at a relatively bargain basement price. Willingness to carry around an extra 1.5 pounds to get the MacBook Pro’s superior performance is a subjective value judgment and benefit trade-off. These things are relative; the MacBook Air weighs twice as much as an iPad.

Get a MacBook and iPad Both for the Price of a MacBook Air

Another way to look at it is that you can buy a white, entry-level MacBook and a base model iPad for exactly the same money as the base MacBook Air, and essentially have your cake and eat it, too, at no greater cost.

Yet another possible stumbling block in the MacBook Air’s upgrade path is Apple’s CPU vs. GPU dilemma. The current Air has, as noted above, Core 2 Duo processor silicon paired with NVIDIA 9600M integrated graphics processing — both categories being previous-generation hardware. Apple chose to stick with Core 2 Duo for the 13-inch MacBook and MacBook Pro so they could use NVIDIA’s new and much faster 320M integrated GPU, which I think was a good and sensible decision for now. But for an ultraportable machine like the MacBook Air, raw graphics performance is not a first-priority attribute. Few users are likely to be doing high-end graphics, video editing or serious gaming on an Air.

Core i3 Power?

Consequently, Intel’s new low-power consumption Core i3 CPU with its own, in-house HD Graphics GPU and Hyper-Threading technology, which enables each processor core to address two tasks at the same time, might arguably be a more sensible alternative. That would make the Air the only Apple system using Core i3 silicon, which is offered in clock speeds ranging from 1.20 GHz to 2.40 GHz, but presumably it won’t be sticking with Core 2 Duo for the 13-inch MacBooks forever, so it could serve as a relatively low–volume engineering trial.

It would help if Intel could relent and license NVIDIA to make graphics chipsets for core CPUs, but odds of that happening are difficult to gauge.

With the iPad’s spectacular sales success, I have to say I’m skeptical about the MacBook Air having a very auspicious future. However, Apple has surprised us before, and it could again. If you really want a MacBook Air, my best guess is that it might be prudent make your move now while they’re still available, but don’t be mad at me if you do and Apple springs a new Air on us.

However, revolutions in user input technology can result in unforeseen consequences, an emblematic example being the spike in repetitive stress injury that resulted from the switch from traditional “springy,” raked typewriter keyboards to flatter, often “clicky,” and frequently hard-landing, computer keyboards back in the ’80s.

Analogically, little is yet known about long-term stresses that using multitouch input systems may inflict on our muscles, nerves, and tendons.

[inline-ad]

Arizona State University Biomedical Informatics Department assistant professor Kanav Kahol is team leader of a research project to measure the amount of stress placed on hands and wrists of individuals using multitouch electronic devices like Apple’s iPad. Researchers will use cyber-gloves to measure kinematic phenomena produced in users interacting with multitouch systems with finger-flick gestures.

Prof. Kahol’s team, supported by a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, includes computer interaction researchers, kinesiologists and ergonomic experts from both ASU and Harvard University, engaged in developing a tool kit that could be used by designers as they design and refine new multitouch systems.

The ASU project’s aim is to develop best practices and standards for human/machine interface interactions that are safe and cause minimal user stress, while allowing users to fully benefit from the new levels of immersion that multitouch interaction facilitates.

“We Are All Part of a Large Experiment”

“When we use our iPhone or iPad, we don’t naturally think that it might lead to a musculoskeletal disorder,” says Prof. Kahol commenting in an ASU media release. “But the fact is it could, and we don’t even know it. We are all part of a large experiment. Multitouch systems might be great for usability of a device, but we just don’t know what it does to our musculoskeletal system.”

In a project abstract, Prof. Kanol notes that the researchers’ principal focus will lie in developing a methodology and process for selecting ergonomically appropriate gestures and mapping them relative to tasks employed in human computer interaction, such as the multitouch technology that has reached maturity in products like the iPhone.

Prof. Kahol observes that as we move toward a world where human-computer interaction is based on various body movements that are not well documented or studied, we face “serious and grave risk” of creating technology and systems that may lead to musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), and that many of today’s multitouch systems give no consideration to eliminating gestures already known to lead to MSD injuries, or to eliminating gestures that are symptomatic of a patient population.

For example, he points out that the gesture for zoom function with the iPhone is exactly the same gesture used for detection of Parkinsons disease (PD), since people in early stages of PD can’t execute this gesture, which means that iPhones are not usable by PD patients or people who may go on to develop PD — just one example on how gestures wrongly chosen for multitouch interaction can alienate certain populations or cause muscle fatigue and other ergonomic issues. Kanov contends that it is important to address this issue before we create another man-made diseases like carpal tunnel syndrome — which he calls “a hallmark of bad interaction design.”

The overall methodology to develop ergonomic gestures involves development of accurate multi-digit hand movement simulations that can predict muscle fatigue due to gestures. This enables developers to select a vocabulary of gestures that can be mapped onto task hierarchies derived through task analysis.

The project’s initial focus will to evaluate the impact multitouch devices have on the human musculoskeletal system. Users will be fitted with electromyography (EMG) equipment to measure muscle forces, and cyber-gloves to measure kinematic features produced while users interact with multitouch systems. Researchers will then evaluate the impact of those stresses.

Part two of the study will develop biomechanical models where users will be able to, as Prof. Kahol explains, “enter the motion of a gesture, and the system will produce the forces being exerted through that motion, like a specific movement of the hand. We would then take this data back to the Microsofts, the Apples and other manufacturers so they could use it when they are designing new devices.”

The system the team develops is to be built with off-the-shelf components and provide device designers a new tool to use when developing new multitouch systems.

“The designers, the computer scientists, the programmers, they know little about biomechanical systems, they just want a system that they can employ in a usable manner and tells them if a gesture causes stress or not,” says Kahol. “So our major challenge is going to be developing the software, the tool kit and the underlying models that will drive the tool kits.” He notes that the last time designers developed a fundamental interaction system with computers they modified the standard keyboard — a transition that as noted above, was not without its share of drawbacks.

“When we developed the keyboard, we didn’t think through how working with it would affect the hands, arms, etc.,” Kahol said in a statement earlier this month. “As a result, it created a multimillion dollar industry in treating carpal tunnel syndrome. That is what we want to prevent with multitouch systems. We are going for the preventative, rather than the curative. Multitouch systems might be great for usability of a device, but we just don’t know what it does to our musculoskeletal system.”

Now, hopefully we will.

Even on our respective underpowered and memory-challenged 8MHz Motorola 68000 Mac Plus compacts, with their puny 2.5MB of RAM, System 6 was amazingly lively — especially when booted from their external 20MB SCSI hard drives rather than standard, floppy-drive booting. Startup was much faster than with Snow Leopard on a Core 2 Duo, and once it appeared, the System 6 GUI’s tasteful and spare simplicity was charmingly elegant in razor-sharp one-bit black and white, although if you had a “color Mac” you could assign colors to folders. Until displaced by System 7 in 1991, System 6 provided a basic co-operative multitasking function called MultiFinder.

Notwithstanding its limitations by today’s standards, System 6 was in many respects my favorite Mac operating system version ever. It’s not very useful nowadays for anything but the most rudimentary computing tasks on antique hardware, and it never had more than vestigial Internet support, but I’ve fantasized from time to time about how great it would be if Apple were to offer a System 6 UI skin for OS X — especially back in the day when OS X running on my older, slower, Power PC hardware was more than a bit, well…sluggish. Nothing sluggish about System 6, or, back to the main point of this screed — the iPhone OS. Dual-booting the iOS on a Mac along with OS X for power and versatility when you need it would be a super value-added feature for Mac users.

Given that the iOS is a direct derivative of OS X, developed from the same Darwin core, and when you can run Windows and Linux on Macs, it seems silly for it not to be supported by the Mac, opening the vast selection of iOS apps to Mac users.

With multitasking, folder, and Bluetooth keyboard support as well as greater optimization for the iPad’s larger display all coming in iOS 4, the iOS’s appeal as a lean computer operating system will be even more attractive.

Major advantages afforded by running the iOS on the Mac would be faster boot times (perhaps even faster than old System 6) and a “greener” carbon footprint thanks to its economy of power consumption — the latter a potential major advantage for laptop users when running on battery power.

Some are suggesting that Mac OS 11 might well even be merged and integrated with the iOS, which seems plausible and logical. In the meantime, there’s much to be said for adding iOS dual-boot capability to OS 10.7.

Would the ability to run the iOS on your Mac appeal to you?

The Telegraph reports that, in addition to beating out Thomas Crapper’s 1880 siphon flush device and space travel, the iPhone was voted a more important invention than washing machines or internal combustion engines. In the Tesco Mobile survey of 4,000 Britons aged between 18 and 65, the iPhone ranked eighth — ahead of the toilet, which finished ninth (toilet paper was 22nd), and also higher than the automobile, camera — even shoes. What Tesco has provided here is a somewhat alarming snapshot of where popular priorities and preoccupations lie.

At least the wheel was acknowledged the most important invention in history, with the airplane in second place and the lightbulb third, but amazingly the Internet finished fourth and computers fifth. By contrast, roofs ranked a distant 44th.

Really,folks? Would you truly prefer to go back to using chamber pots and outhouses than give up web surfing in the rain barefoot?

Of course, inconsistencies abound in popular perception here. Internal combustion engines were an indispensable enabler of airplanes and made the wheel exponentially more useful, and without cameras we’d be staring at lines of text on our computer screens at best.

The iPhone also beat central heating (13), painkillers (15), the steam engine (16) and eyeglasses (205). Astonishingly, the printing press, which this writer would contend was a vastly more significant invention than either the web or computers or most of the rest of the survey picks, didn’t even make the top 100. Bizarre.

Notable finishers were refrigerators (14), freezers (17), the vacuum cleaner (23), microwaves (26), hot water (29). shoes (30) hair-straighteners (34??!), paper (38), the (presumably electric) kettle (40), remote controls (43), cats-eye spectacles (48) power steering (50) tea bags (54), spell-checkers (86), makeup (66), push-up bras (77) and mascara (80).

This survey indicates that Britons think the iPhone is quite literally the greatest thing since sliced bread (70).

Go figure.

Images courtesy of Flickr users ricardovillela and williamhook.

The Register’s Gavin Clarke reported last week that with Lucid Lynx, Canonical is hoping to entice Mac and Windows users to switch, quoting the company’s COO and blogger Matt Asay asserting that changes in the consumer-oriented Ubuntu 10.04 LTS edition will cause “Apple fanbois” to reconsider their love for Steve Jobs, while “milk-fed Windows users” will be less inclined to run screaming to their retailer to return their Ubuntu PCs.

Given Apple’s increasingly evident distractedness from Mac OS development as it concentrates more and more on the mobile space with the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, some are also suggesting that Ubuntu captures the traditional “Mac” spirit and vision better than the actual Mac OS does these days.

In an April 28 essay anticipating the imminent Ubuntu 10.04 release, ServerWatch’s Paul Rubens said that Apple is fading from relevance in the computing space as it focuses more and more on phones, web tablets and other consumer gadgets, and that if you’re an old-style Apple fan (by which he means a fan of real Apple Mac computers, not so much the new Apples-R-Us toys and games company), there’s no need to fret because while Apple may not “get” it anymore, it seems Canonical does. He asserts that during the past 12 months Ubuntu has evolved into something that’s powerful, easy to use, and far more stylish than Snow Leopard, which he thinks is not really that surprising when you consider that Apple is far too busy with its iPhone OS to bother much with updating OS X. Rubens says that Ubuntu is innovative, forward-looking, stylish and fun, and rapidly becoming everything that OS X might’ve been had Apple not decided to turn its back on it and become fixated with iPhone OS — “except for being overpriced and closed.”

The concept of desktop Linux possibly better capturing the early-days essence of Mac culture isn’t entirely new. A decade ago I reported on another user-friendly Linux GUI project by a startup called Eazel. The Eazel team was spearheaded by a who’s who of Macintosh alumni. Staffers included Mike Boich — former head of Macintosh evangelism for Apple Computer; Andy Hertzfeld — lead programmer for original Mac OS development in the early ’80s who wrote much of the code that became the iconic Macintosh GUI; Susan Kare who did the graphic design for the original Mac OS Finder icons; Darin Adler who had been technical lead for System 7 development at Apple; and Bud Tribble — first software architect on the Macintosh project and manager of the original Macintosh software team. Mac people all from way back. Arguably, that bunch had a more purebred Macintosh “pedigree” than the folks who were developing OS X at the time.

I suggested back in 2000 that there was a case to be made that the thinking behind Eazel may well be truer to the original Mac essence than OS X itself. I wondered whether OS X would retain enough distinct classic Mac-ness, that je ne sais quois that made the Mac a Mac for many of us veteran users, to sustain the dogged loyalty that had characterized the Mac community through thick and thin for 16 years up to that point? Or would it be so NeXT like, or much, much worse, Windows-like, that hitherto Mac loyalists might be tempted to stray into other pastures? As it turned out, the Eazel project eventually withered on the vine, as it were, and we Mac OS fans adapted to OS X, which turned out to be a very decent computing environment, but lately there are rumblings that Apple is losing interest in the Mac OS with its focus shifting primarily to the mobile space.

Indeed, in his April 29 philippic against Adobe Flash, Steve Jobs appeared to refer to “the PC era” in the past tense, “implying that the computer and mouse paradigm is passé, with the mobile era being about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards (notwithstanding that ironically the iPhone OS environment is anything but ‘open’).”

Not so with Ubuntu, which is committed to traditional desktop and laptop computing, and where the ‘free’ in ‘free software’ is used primarily in reference to freedom, and not to price — although the company says it’s committed to not charging for Ubuntu, and that the most important thing about Ubuntu is that it confers rights of software freedom on the people who install and use it, freedoms that will enable the Ubuntu community to grow, continue to share its collective experience and expertise to improve Ubuntu and make it suitable for use in new countries and new industries.

What do you think? Does Canonical with Ubuntu have a realistic shot at convincing significant numbers of Mac OS and Windows users to switch?

“Make no mistake about it,” Dan says, “the era of the familiar PC mouse is coming to an end. It may not be a 2012-style apocalypse (and the mouse will surely hang on in some form for many years to come), but the door is slowly shutting on the universal acceptance of this single iconic piece of hardware that we have equated with personal computing for decades….”

I beg to differ.

Dan suggests that the mouse will be replaced by an array of touch input devices and icon-focused operating systems built (not always for the better, I congratulate him for acknowledging) around expediency over flexibility, noting that touchscreen tablet PCs have been around for years but never generated more than niche-level consumer interest until Apple’s iPhone, followed by the iPod touch, changed that, finally popularizing one-to-one touch among the masses. At least to a point.

Disruptive Success

Dan predicts “disruptive success” for the iPad in building a larger touch environment that has so far received almost universal praise, noting that while it may not be as productivity-friendly as your ThinkPad or MacBook (to say the least), he thinks adding a Bluetooth keyboard and Apple’s iWork apps will give you a reasonable approximation of a laptop experience.

I disagree. One of my biggest gripes about the iPad is its lack of support for the very device Dan Ackerman seems enthusiastic about shoveling dirt on the coffin of — the mouse. Even with an external keyboard, you still have to poke around on the too-easily-smeared-with-finger-grease touchscreen for pointing, clicking, and dragging, the body-English associated with which, even when the iPad is mounted on a stand or dock, can most charitably be described as awkward and non-intuitive, involving reaching past the keyboard at a clumsy angle.

Touchpads a Touchscreen Trojan Horse?

Ackerman, suggests that multitouch touchpads have served as a Trojan Horse for touchscreens for some years now, with laptops outselling desktop PCs and the portables’ ubiquitous touchpads acclimating people to touch control, Apple again leading the way, incorporating multitouch gestures into its oversized trackpads, observing that nowadays it’s hard to find a laptop touchpad that doesn’t support some kind of swiping, zooming, or flipping with two or more fingers.

Well, yes, but…I’m a dyed-in-the-wool laptop computer aficionado, and I own an aluminum unibody MacBook that supports Apple’s latest gesture-supporting multitouch trackpad technology, but guess what? I virtually never make use of it, with my MacBook spending most of its runtime mounted on a stand hooked up to an external keyboard, and not only one conventional mouse, but also a rollerbar, a foot mouse, and from time to time trackballs, freestanding touchpads, or a graphics tablet — all input modes that appeal to me a great deal more than pawing the display screen.

Even on my other laptops that I use in mobile mode, I almost always hook up an external mouse if I’m going to be using the machine for more than a few minutes at a time, and I always carry a mouse in my laptop case or backpack.

Touch Migrating Beyond Tablets and Smartphones

Ackerman concedes that the laptop-to-iPad comparison may not be a one-to-one match, and that the tablet device is not a fully workable replacement for even a netbook for on-the-go computing, but remains adamant that icon-driven touch interfaces will continue to migrate into more-traditional laptops and netbooks, with OS desktop interfaces increasingly presented in a manner supporting different input methods, such as touch, instead of being primarily mouse-driven.

That view is, regrettably, corroborated by a recent Gartner Group report that predicts more than 50 percent of PCs purchased for users under the age of 15 will have touchscreens by 2015. “What we’re going to see is the younger generation beginning to use touchscreen computers ahead of enterprises,” comments Leslie Fiering, Gartner research vice president. “By 2015, we expect more than 50 percent of PCs purchased for users under the age of 15 will have touchscreens, up from fewer than 2 percent in 2009.”

Schism Developing Between Touch Aficionados and Professional Traditionalists

However, Gartner also perceives a developing schism between younger consumer users and serious workers in the enterprise, projecting that fewer than 10 percent of PCs sold to enterprises for mainstream knowledge workers in 2015 will have touchscreens.

Gartner predicts the overwhelming majority of slate, tablet and touch-enabled convertible devices planned for 2010 will have a consumer focus, and that resistance to touch-enabled devices’ adoption by serious workers in the enterprise can be attributed to heavy requirements for typing and text input, the “muscle memory” of mouse users, and the potential problems of moving a user’s hands from the keyboard to the touchscreen creating particular adoption barriers for knowledge workers. It will be consumers and education users who will form the preponderance of earliest adopters for touch-enabled PCs and notebooks.

“As with many recent technology advances, touch adoption will be led by consumers and only gradually get accepted by the enterprise,” says Ms. Fiering. “What will be different here is the expected widespread adoption of touch by education, so that an entire generation will graduate within the next 10 to 15 years for whom touch input is totally natural.”

Even Dan Ackerman admits computer mice are not going to disappear overnight, despite the premature obituary in his column’s title, but he still contends that like New York Times obits for aging celebrities, the computer mouse has already been written and filed away, and it may not be that long before it gets to run. I suggest and hope it will be a good long time yet before that becomes necessary.

Image courtesy of Flickr user raneko

iBookstore Deal

Smashwords has reportedly just inked a deal with Apple to distribute Smashwords titles on the iBookstore, with Smashwords and Apple jointly receiving 40 percent of the sale price of each copy sold, but no up front cost to the author or publisher. Apple requires ISBN (International Standard Book Number) support, which Smashwords is currently in the process of adding to its service. More details on that and how to format your e-book submission to comply with the Smashwords/Apple standards can be found on Steve Weber’s Plug Your Book website.

And of course, there are already all the “traditional” devices that support e-books such as iPhones and iPods, Amazon’s Kindle, and sundry others.

Smashwords is structured for publishing novels, short fiction, poetry, personal memoirs, monographs, non-fiction, research reports, essays, and other written forms for free with no hidden fees. Authors and publishers retain complete control over sampling, pricing and marketing of their written works. As a Smashwords author, you can charge a dollar, $10,000, or give your opus away for free.

Readers can sample most Smashworks titles for free, and in many cases, read samples from the book before committing to purchase. Smashwords founder Mark Coker says that “Smart publishers realize if a reader invests the time necessary to read 100 pages of a 300 page book, they’re much more inclined to purchase the book to know how it ends.”

Content Creator Retains Rights

All author contracts with Smashwords are non-exclusive, and the content creator retains all ownership rights to his works, remaining free to publish elsewhere as they choose and with the right to remove their works from Smashwords at any time. Smashwords clients must be original authors of the work, or the exclusive electronic publisher or distributor of the work (ergo: no public domain reprinting).

Related GigaOM Pro Research:

• Evolution of the e-Book Market
• All About the iPad