the ultimate online exercise system!

Oh that Steve Jobs, he is a one! After all the excited conjecture about an “Apple Tablet” earlier this year, then the relatively low-key new product launches in September, he manages to catch the press completely flat-footed with a number of really impressive product launches timed to – aha! – “coincide” with Microsoft’s launch of Windows 7.

Really impressive? ‘What’, I hear you say, ‘you mean a couple of iMac upgrades, a new MacBook and a fancy mouse? I think not!’

Actually, yes, they are impressive. Let’s take the iMacs. The entire range has leapt in specifications and desirability – not by a little, but by rather a lot. The amazing screens are the most obvious thing: even the low-end iMac now has a full HD screen, and the 27” thing is simply lovely. But it doesn’t end there: the impressive LED backlighting, ultra-wide viewing angles and VESA mounting compatibility mean that the iMac really is the obvious all-in-one substitute for your PC, television and hi-fi (apart, perhaps, from the lack of Blu-Ray support, but personally I regard that entire technology as grossly overrated, and certainly grossly overpriced).

Objects of desire

Then there’s the subtle stuff – the graphics support has been ramped up (again, to quite an impressive spec), and that gorgeous unibody concept applied to the iMac as well as the Apple notebook range. Clever. It’s certainly turned the new iMacs into the sexiest computers on the planet.

But wait, I hear you cry, what about all these touch-screen AIOs the likes of HP, Sony and even Dell are unleashing on the world? All running Microsoft’s spanking new Windows 7 with its built-in tablet support?

Yes, very nice. But let me ask you this. If it’s a choice between smudging your gorgeous screen with your/your kiddies’ grubby fingertips, and using the new Magic Mouse – which is basically a touchpad cunningly disguised as a mouse – I know which one I’d be going for. Listen, I’ve played with touchscreens, and they’re very nice. For about five minutes. Then you realise that the ergonomics of lifting your entire arm just to interact with the GUI are actually less than optimal. Very soon (within about 15 minutes) you find you’re groping for your mouse. And hey presto, you’re back where you started…

The Magic Mouse, on the other hand, is a whole new approach to mousing, because you can use it in so many different ways – even as a kind of mini-graphic tablet. I am actually seriously impressed by this, and I suspect the journos will be, too, once they’ve caught up with fun-loving Stevie…

Keep ’em guessing…

Ah, Steve’s a prankster – isn’t it just like him to play such games with the press. Because he knows that first, Apple’s reputation for sexiness is going to deflect attention from Windows 7, but second, that his most important product launch is one that techno-journalists in particular will appreciate more than most.

No, I’m not talking about the new MacBook (although it’s a very juicy little number, I agree, and if I was a Mac user I’d be queuing up to buy one). I’m talking about the novelty launch in the Mac Mini range: a Mac Mini optimised to run Snow Leopard Server.

Genius! Not many people realised that Mac OS X Server can run on relatively modest hardware (not least because of its tightly coded open-source components – we’ve been running many of our state-of-the-art open-source applications on elderly Windows 2000 servers for some years now). But Snow Leopard is more efficient than Leopard was, the new Mac Mini is more powerful than the old one, and the addition of two (albeit relatively slow) 500GB disks is a stroke of genius (as well as ensuring that people buy the external DVD drive more or less automatically).

Unlimited clients, anyone?

The real stroke of genius, though, is providing the unlimited-user version of the Server OS, at a bargain-basement price. A Mac Mini with DVD drive, video adapter and AppleCare Protection Plan will cost you just over a grand (in British Pounds Sterling, that is). Peanuts! Yes, you’ll get a better spec if you buy, for example, one of my favourite NAS servers from the Synology series – more storage space, much higher performance, a nice web interface – but let’s be clear, Apple Server is seriously cool and has all the features the average SME could ever want. Also, and more importantly, it leverages Apple’s other advantages – the way Apple products all (in a perfect world) interface together to make installation a (relatively speaking, of course) piece of cake…

By this I mean that if you opt for e.g. Apple’s TimeCapsule backup, an AirPort Express wireless router and maybe a couple of external USB drives, you can build a secure, easy-to-access network for yourself – with built-in VPN for your growing number of teleworkers – very easily. At the price the Mac Mini is selling for, you could buy several of them, so they could run individual server components (a simple way to spread the load). Thanks to tricks like Bonjour, it’s easy to network them together.

Virtualisation? Not exactly…

In fact it’s the opposite of virtualisation – but it’s an approach most small businesses will feel much happier with than playing around with virtual machines. I would go as far as to say that physical hardware with precisely defined functions is something that self-taught IT managers will always prefer to the relatively complex issues associated with VM management (security for starters, with virtual networking coming a close second). Personally, I love it! It’s sometimes difficult, I think, for professional IT consultants and journalists, let alone enterprise IS managers, to understand just how disruptive the administration of small-business IT systems can be when the role of IT administrator is just one of many being performed by the same person.

Of course third-party suppliers of IT solutions are not going to be so delighted by this news from Apple. But Apple’s deliberate effort to shake up the standard Microsoft solutions mix is very timely. I remember, only a little while ago, inviting eight IT suppliers to tender for our relatively sophisticated IT needs (we are, if I may say so, a little ahead of the curve on our appreciation of the importance of IT integration). One of my stipulations was: must not be based on Microsoft Exchange or Small Business Server (been there, done that – got the burnt, ragged, holey, expensive T-shirt!). One by one, they each fell away, unable to suggest anything else that would manage our DMS, CMS, database and IM needs coherently, efficiently and with full cross-platform compatibility. In the end, we built the solution ourselves.

Delayed impact

These product announcements by Apple will make a significant impact on the market, of that I’m quite convinced. The interesting thing is, the impact won’t be immediate – it’ll be the same kind of incremental, momentum-gathering impact we’ve seen in the evolution of the iPod and iPhone. Or, to draw a closer parallel, the launch of iWork (one of the most extraordinary software suites I’ve ever played with – especially Numbers), which is steadily gaining ground among Mac users. They appear to reflect a more sober, thoughtful approach to market penetration by the Great Man himself; one that relies less on high melodrama, more on a pervasive feeling that Apple is the easy and, above all, the elegant option. In our designer-driven culture, it’s a very clever way of building a dominant market position without laying yourself open to the monopoly concerns that have troubled Microsoft, IBM and now Google.