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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/4631
Pristine's library is not huge, but it is very
select. My favorite so far is a white-hot
performance of the New World Symphony
from a 1938 broadcast conducted by
Toscanini. No matter what your musical
taste is, you'll be bowled over by its
intensity. The human animal seldom
achieves anything more worthwhile than
this performance, miraculously restored to
listenable sound, and available anytime you
want it with a few clicks of the mouse.
Desktop publishing
In 2009 we were impressed with the way
Quark integrated easy Flash authoring
into Xpress 8. We also like that 90
percent of the functionality of Photoshop
and Illustrator are now seamlessly
included in Quark Xpress. We also liked
the interface redesign, which does truly
improve workflow yet is perfectly
comfortable for veteran users. It earns our
award this year. Last year, Adobe got our
award for CS3, but CS4 hasn't fixed
several embarrassing, long-standing
problems, and we've been disappointed
by Adobe's documented descent into
rude customer support.
Intel
We give a provisional award to Intel's new
SSD (solid state hard drives). Review copies
are in such short supply that we hadn't
been able to get our hands on one at
press time. But these drives have come up
trumps in every evaluation we've seen.
They're still too expensive to become
universal, but we have no doubt prices will
drop over the next years.
I AM A KEY
The most stylish product of the year is also
the wittiest. It's also one of the most
useful, and also one of the least
expensive. La Cie's Iamakey is a USB key
shaped . . . well . . . like a key. Beautifully
shaped. The picture tells it all. This is
_the_ product to have this year - - and
makes the ideal gift for any style-
conscious user you know who's worth
$25. The best thing is, you don't have to
worry if they already have one. You can't
have too many!
Apple
2009 has been a year Apple would like to
forget. Overshadowing everything was the
Mac community's concern about Steve
Jobs's health. Nevertheless, it was a
decision implemented by Jobs in 2008 that
caused Apple the most ill will in 2009.
Early in 2008 we predicted the demise of
Firewire, clued in by its lack on the
Macbook Air. Our gloomy prophecy was
confirmed in late 2008 when Macbooks
started showing up without Firewire at all,
or with only a single 800 port. Resentment
ran wide and deep. In an almost
unprecedented move, Apple was forced to
restore Firewire on some models.
Like everyone else, I was impressed by
Apple's new unibody cases for the Macbooks,
but appalled by the new keyboards,
reminiscent of the famous 'chicklet'
keyboards that IBM had to withdraw afyer
earning disdain from every quarter.
There were other clouds to cause Mac
users anxiety: One was the lack of a user-
replaceable battery in the top Mac Pros.
Everyone knows that this is a planned
obsolescence grab to make sure you
replace your laptop every 2-3 years
instead of eking it out for 4-5 years or
even longer. Everyone knows that
batteries are the weakest link in a laptop's
hardware chain. Nobody buys Apple's
weak argument that there was no other
way to keep the weight and size down.
The doyen of Mac publications,
MacWorld,
noted that most of its 2009 Eddy awards
went to non-Mac products. Even Apple
was stymied when they were asked which
products they considered award-quality
this year. They couldn't name one.
Despite all, Apple just recorded its most
successful quarter ever. In the middle of a
recession, you can't argue with success
like that. So what are we seeing? Maybe a
pattern we've seen in the past: whenever
Apple is at its most successful, it begins to
slip. Snow Leopard was its most
successful OS introduction in nearly a
decade. But it's a buggy release that
renders hundreds of important programs,
not to mention quite a bit of hardware,
useless. See