This morning I decided to head downtown to witness the opening of the Vancouver Apple Store at Pacific Centre. This was my second Apple opening as I was at the Bellvue Square one a few years ago.
I arrived around 8am expecting to either see a huge lineup of campers already there or not much of a line. Apparently the first guy in line got there at 5:45am so it wasn’t too bad….but Apple wasn’t having a sale or giving away anything other than a free T-Shirt to the first 1000 people through the door.
Buzz Bishop shot a video of the lineup and the opening of store (I say hi to Buzz at around the 16 second mark):
Towards the end of the video you can see some very enthusiastic Apple employees high-5′ing the people in line….I was surprised how many employees were on hand but it actually is a fairly big/deep store unlike many other Apple stores that are inside malls.
Overall I’m glad there is finally an Apple Store in the area but it would have been better if it was a larger store that had a theatre with classes like many other stores I’ve been too. The training seminars they offer are usually free and it would be great for me to point friends and family to them if they wanted to find out more about Apple products. But hopefully this store will do ridiculously well it will warrant additional stores in the area (like maybe Coquitlam Centre beside the other H&M store in the area). Toronto currently has 3 stores with a 4th one in the works.
Here’s a few more shots of the store and the opening day madness. This is probably the only day that Apple will allow photography in the store too…I’ve been asked to not take photos a few times in other stores. More in my flickr stream:
Yes, there were also a lot of iPhones in attendance. The store has a few accessories for the iPhone as well but not much (yet).
All the blue or orange t-shirts are Apple staff
The Genius Bar is open for business.
My next visit to the store will most likely be on June 9th which is also the day of the WWDC keynote and when the next version of the iPhone is expected to be unveiled….and possibly even available in Canada.
Thanks goes to Derek for tagging all my photos on Flickr for me while I was rushing to get them online using the free instore wifi!
Here’s a really creative music video done on a Mac:
I love stuff like this.
Via the big noob.
ps. check out the PC version as well
Update: TUAW has an interview with the director that made this video
The parodies keep on coming…
Via @Veronica
This is a pretty clever (and well done) parody of the MacBook Air commercial featuring the ThinkPad X300.
It’s (the X300) definitely a decent ultraportable/subnotebook/fitsinanenvelope computer….it just doesn’t run OSX which is why I sold my eeePC.
via TUAW
Okay, not really at all but I couldn’t think of a better title.
While I was lounging on the beach in Hawaii recently, two separate articles in which I was interviewed for appeared online (and possibly in dead tree form too - I actually don’t know).
The first one was for the UBC Thunderbird Newspaper and was about the environmental impacts of all the technology being consumed by folks like yours truly. I guess I come across as a big Apple fanboy (big surprise) that recycles my gadgets but I’m not 42 (37 as of this moment) and I don’t claim to be the first in Canada with an iPhone - just one of the first to bring one into Canada (within days of it’s release in the US) as well as one of the first to unlock it to use as a phone in Canada on Rogers. UPDATE: Allison updated the article.
The second one was about waiting for the iPhone in Canada and hacking it written by fellow geek and iPhone hacker, Warren Frey that appeared in Mac|Life.
I’ll leave it to you decide how I come across in these kinds of things but they are fun to do and I’m honored people are interested in my thoughts on stuff.
My SuperDrive finally arrived….three days behind the MBA and of course it was delivered just as I was boarding a flight to Victoria for a conference.
As you can see from the photos, it’s really small and thin but what you can’t see is that it’s actually about as tall as the MacBook Air.
It’s not much bigger than two stacked CD jewel cases. It’s also just as quiet (or loud) as my old PowerBook’s optical drive was.
There is really not much more to it. No power/read/burn indicator light. Just a block of aluminum with a slot in it and a USB tail.
Unfortunately, Apple decided to not include anything else with the drive. A simple slipcase would have been nice for something so obviously meant to travel. I suspect there will be no shortage of 3rd parties to fill this gap soon enough…possibly even MacBook Air cases with integrated SuperDrive pouches.
I’m not sure yet how it affects battery life on the MBA since it’s supposed to draw more power than a normal USB device would.
As in I’ve had it for 12 hours….not a 12 hour long review….although there are a lot of pictures.
Obviously I haven’t had it long enough to really put it through it’s paces but here’s a bunch of photos and a few thoughts.
As with all Apple products, the packaging alone is a fantastic customer experience. The MBA comes in a box that reminds you of a board game….I’m not talking something from Parker Bros, but something more elegant. The box is sturdy dark cardboard. The lid has foam glued inside that at first glance looks like velvet. It’s always the little things that make it that much better.
Once you take the lid off, you’re greeted with the MBA in a black plastic tray with a little “Designed by Apple in California” tab that you use to lift the laptop out of the tray and access the other items hidden below. Despite this packaging and computer being Apple’s greenest device yet, the plastic tray has a recycling number 6 which at least around here, isn’t recyclable - maybe it is in California.
It’s deceiving at first how thin it is because you assume the plastic tray is deeper than it really is. You can see in the picture above, the MBA isn’t much thicker than the iPhone. Here’s the MBA snuggled up to the eeePC (both are flat on the table and flush with each other):
Of course since I had the MBA delivered to my office, there was a crowd of people anxious to see it. Some wondered why I didn’t just open it and why was I stopping to take pictures of the box. They now know why.
Once you pick it up, you immediately realize that it’s more solid than you’d expect and does have some weight to it. One big concern many have with the MBA is how fragile it might be because it’s so thin. It feels just as solid as my Powerbook G4 every did while at the same time being light as a feather. It feels well crafted, not unlike a high quality kitchen knife does.
Unlike other Apple laptops, there is not much to the underside of the MBA. There is no battery indicator light which is disappointing nor is there any way to lock up the laptop via lock port. I guess there was no secure place inside to make a lock point. The port door is also much more solid than I was expecting and definitely doesn’t feel like it would break off or stay open - it’s very solid.
The backlit keyboard is fantastic and just like the new keyboards that come with iMac’s and similar to what you find on a MacBook.
Once I got it home, the first thing I did was do a clean install of Leopard with the included install DVDs. The stock Leopard install on any new Mac actually has a lot of wasted stuff including 3.4gb of unneeded printer drivers, 1.8gb of language files. It also has 240mb of space wasted by iWeb. This gives me just about 63gb free with nothing else on it yet. Leopard and iLife take up a fair amount of space and removing those unnecessary files will help once I start using the MBA.
Since my MBA Superdrive hasn’t arrived yet (expecting it tomorrow), I had to use my ‘full size’ external DVD burner which worked no problem over USB.
Now that the install is complete and the Apple pr0n has been uploaded to Flickr, I’m going to go play with it.
Leave a comment if there is anything you want to know about it.
As I expected, my MacBook Air arrived today ahead of the projected shipping time and before my friend who ordered earlier than me and paid extra for faster shipping. I did have mine shipped to the office and he had it shipped to his house in Port Coquitlam so that may have been the difference.
More pictures and details later!
This could have been my video….thanks FedEx! Damn you and your slow boat plane to from China.
Update: Looks like he’s disabled embedding of the video. Here’s a direct link.
Impatiently waiting for this thing to arrive.
At least it’s been shipped a few days ahead of schedule…although I appear to have missed the cutoff but is expected (by Apple) to be delivered on Monday, Feb 4th.
I must be looking forward to that ‘new Apple product’ smell you get when you open the package….I wonder if this one will smell any different since it’s now a greener device with no bitter arsenic aftertaste.
UPDATE: The anxious fanboys (myself included) in the forums are scouring the internets for cool ways to track the bundles of Air and found this site that tracks your package on a Google Map (or even Google Earth):
