MacWorld and Alternative Rock

Christmas only comes once a year. And for those of us who are incorrigible Mac fanboys, Christmas this year will arrive on January 14th. That’s right … tomorrow is the first day of MacWorld, which means new Apple devices, another scintillating keynote from Steve, and generally just lots of Mac hysteria.

Rather than state my own predictions, I’ll just paste a few of the more likely ones from a MacWorld article.
NBC finds allies: More entertainment companies will attempt to strong-arm Apple into raising prices at the iTunes Store. Apple will then be forced to create its own content, and Jobs will form “Stevie and the Apple Execs,” a hip new boy band.

iPhone: The sequel: The next-generation iPhone will be released in the second quarter of the year. AT&T will prompt customers to upgrade by sending them frequent text messages informing them that their original iPhones are no longer cool.

And one more thing…: Apple will introduce another line of consumer products, this time in the realm of dental care. The Apple Toothbrush will include the first user-friendly application of DRM—dental rights management. Using its patented FairBrush technology, each Apple Toothbrush will be locked to a single Apple ID. The device will be wildly popular because nobody likes it when someone else uses their toothbrush. Even John Dvorak will hail Apple’s move.

Given Apple’s long track record for innovation and revolutionary devices, I fully expect to be brushing my teeth very soon without fear of my roommates’ drunken toothbrush philandering. I just hope that Apple doesn’t lock in to a long-term and exclusive deal with Crest; I use Colgate.

On another note, I was somewhat distressed (by many things, this week, but specifically…) to turn on the radio in my sister’s car this morning and find a “90’s Alternative Rock” radio station. “My God!”, I realized, “it’s happened already. The music that I grew up listening to, that I know and love and identify with, has been reduced to a dead genre. It’s passé. It’s the new oldies.”

Yeah. I’ll admit. I knew every song the station played. And yeah, I’ll admit: I loved every song the station played. But I’m just not ready for my generation’s music to be canonized and written a certificate of death. I’m … too young. The music was too good…

I remember the laughing conversations we used to have in high school. “Imagine what it’ll be like when we’re old… and we’re still listening to Ludacris and Sublime, and our kids will think that our music is so tame and old sounding.”

Well, I imagine it. Only, I’m twenty-one years old. Not fifty. I don’t have one foot in the grave. I’m just entering my prime…

About Mark Egge

Transportation planner-adjacent data scientist by day. YIMBY Shoupista on a bicycle by night. Bozeman, MT. All opinions expressed here are my own.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to MacWorld and Alternative Rock

  1. jaderobbins says:

    Seriously, i love 90’s music too. I’m already ignoring more and more new musicians and slipping into a childhood music coma. I’m no longer “hip” or “cool”, just living in the past.

    On the mac note, how many apple products do you actually OWN?!?!

  2. BrianEgge says:

    So, are you happy with the Mac announcements? I’m pretty excited about the movie rentals. I’ll assume since I have a US iTunes account, I’ll have no problems renting movies here in Oz.

    I’m not happy about the Time Capsule. I paid $200 for the Airport Extreme last year, and another $200 for the USB drive, so I can have a network backup. Now that I have Time Machine, I want a software update for my Extreme to turn it into a time capsule. It was no problem to give the Apple TV guys a software update. The time capsule shouldn’t be that different.

  3. markegge says:

    Hmm. Christmas came. And, if I may, it came, and came again. Four times, to be exact. I’m stoked. The only thing that I didn’t get for Christmas was an Apple internship. And, as of tonight … I’m going to start working on that. Why not?

    It would be good to see a software update to make Airports work with USB drives. I assume that there are some QA issues, which is what holds it back from popular release. Nevertheless, I’m thinking about returning my recently purchased external hard drive to purchase a Time Capsule — if it can be used as an external hard drive, that is.

    Jade: I own … two Apple products. Someday, though … someday. I’m thinking I might buy an Apple TV, rather than move the communal PC in to my room. Two weeks? I can wait.