about that rushed ending to LOST again...

I've just had a quick read of an interview with Carlton Cuse of LOST in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/arts/television/30lost.html?_r=3&hp

I haven't spent any time thinking about LOST recently, which is a good thing since it ended 9 months ago. Side note - I find it interesting that if something wasn't a full year ago, the brain immediately guesses it was 9 months ago.

It's mostly about what the guy's been doing since the end of the show, but I couldn't help but notice he's still banging on about the negotiated end date of the show. I also recall countless other fans and pundits touting this as an incredible win for LOST, allowing the show to be meticulously planned to tell just he right story over the remaining episodes.

Clearly that didn't work. Said before and now saying again, I simply don't believe that what was happening at the start of season 6 had any real relationship with the reveals in the finale. I even find it hard to link the things going on in that so called sideways universe in the few episodes before the finale. I have tried. Far more than most casual viewers would ever bother to. If opinions like these upset Damon and Carlton, maybe they should attempt to talk about it. It's a hell of a lot easier to say nothing.

I can't help wondering if perhaps 3/4 of the way into the remaining 48 episodes, soon after the start of season 6, they felt painted into a corner and actually wished they had some additional hours. This isn't so crazy - they did add I think at least two more than originally planned in that final arc.

Much like the hundreds of other things that Damon and Carlton will continue to insist fans have no interest in, we'll probably never find out whether there's any truth to the above.

Perhaps there's a happy medium somewhere in all this. Somewhere between unnecessary deadline setting and the greed illustrated by those running shows that go way past their natural conclusion. Even then there are anomalies. This year's episodes of the ridiculously long running Simpsons have been a fair bit better, in my view, than most in recent years, but there's been plenty of crap to work through to get to them.

I don't know. I suppose this is why I don't work in Television.

Maccing

At some point recently I came to the conclusion that I should at least try to get into iOS development. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, and it's not the point.

This is my @i bought a mac@ post. That's sophisticated British geek humour. Get it!

I can absolutely see how these things get people, and I think they'll probably get me too. In the Leicester Apple Store, seconds after learning that i'd have to order my MacBook Pro online to get the screen I wanted I found myself marvelling at iMac screens, wondering had I ever seen a screen that crisp before. The screen on the MBP is nothing like it of course, but it's still great.

OS X takes some getting used to but I do notice that after only a few days I know pretty well what I need to do to accomplish most tasks. That said, I don't have any trouble with any other OS as a technically proficient type, so there's nothing particularly impressive about that.

What I like is very much what I like about the phone. It's polished. The trackpad is the best i've used, which is saying something given it's actually quite hard to physically click anywhere near the top. I've actually turned on the tap to click option which "everyone else" seems not to like. I don't feel much need for a tactile click. I also never agree that multi-touch is a fad. It's an absolute joy to use compared to finding that thin scroll strip on my Dell. The only trackpad functionality I miss is being able to click both buttons at once to open a link in a new tab, but there are plenty of alternatives to that.

The keyboard shortcuts are going to take forever to get used to. That's more to do with the MBP having a cut down keyboard on which some keys heavily involved in shortcuts i'd use are hidden behind other keys and require the fn key. The equivalent of Alt-Home in Windows browsers is Cmd-Home in most OS X browsers, but on an MBP that's Cmd-fn-left arrow. As I said, takes some getting used to. I can already tell i'll eventually fly on this keyboard though, which is something to be thankful for after recent disappointments with an ergonomic MS keyboard that I assumed i'd take to and haven't

There's not much else to say as i've had so little chance to play yet. I could certainly see ending up with a house full of Macs eventually.

I do also realise that today there are rumours of an MBP refresh which means i've probably made a rookie mistake (my iPhone 3Gs was bought the day after it launched, so I ain't dumb), but I did as much searching as I could 2 weeks ago and got the impression it could be any time between now or in 6 months. That would have been too long to wait, so I have no regrets. Nothing's confirmed yet, and it's my first foray into i5 anyway, so it should last me well. I might be slightly annoyed if these things gain an HDMI port next refresh, which looks somewhat likely, but i'm assuming the £13 dongle that should hit my mailbox within the next few days will do the job just as well.

Does it just work? Yeah, it does, but so do Windows 7 PCs. That's no longer really much of a unique selling point. I can't see becoming a Windows hater as a result of this new transition, but time will tell. Talk to me in 3 months.

2, 3G, 3GS, 4...?

Technology blogs have today been boring non-American's with incessant chatter on what amounts to an inferior model of an existing phone now being available on a carrier that may well turn out to be as bad as the one everybody really hates once it gets a similar load.

The only remotely interesting article in the mix pondered whether future versions of the phone would continue to follow a split release cycle between the two carriers.

What will the next version be though?

It's hard to picture. It's not that there aren't features now found on the more recent Android handsets that Apple could adopt and no doubt make their own, but is that how Apple works?

They have the option of somehow correcting the now almost forgotten antenna issue, though would they want to put the antenna back in it's shell now it's spent time on the outside, and failing that, is there really an attractive alternative solution?

Cameras as always continue to increase in resolution not particularly matched by an increase in quality, though there is a lot of praise for the cameras on the 4. Do they need to improve this?

Screen resolution was a key reveal for the 4, but can you see many betting on a further increase? Can you even remember the buzz-phrase used to describe this screen 8 months on?

Of course, we're ignoring the obvious. The second model had a 3, then the third model had a 3 again so that the next one could have a 4 regardless of whether it included newer radio technology. It didn't, but this one probably will. Couldn't you just see it being called a 4G rather than a 5 this time? The little gleaned barely listening to others boring us on the topic of 4G technology tells us that it's not a clear-cut single standard and that it's all very confusing. Are the masses really that interested in more speed though? It doesn't feel like a driving factor. Let's not forget that most networks now cap usage somewhere between a few hundred MB and a few GB. Is the allowance to make real use of the faster flow of data really there?

If any of this is on the right lines, it would suggest that there isn't an enticing enough set of features to encourage upgrades, but have you forgotten the 3GS? S is for speed, and
that's about it. The model was sold on the basis of being faster with a slightly better camera. If anything that model felt like the most popular one. Certainly the breakthrough model in the UK.

Who cares anyway? This is all at least 5 months away.