illa romza

I drive a non-syncronised 10-speed stick with a hellacious clutch pedal 6-days a week, or about 105k miles a year. Even the worst backing situations, where I'm feathering the clutch a LOT, aren't enough to get my leg tired anymore. The clutch pedals in most cars feels like stepping on a rotten plumb to me now.

With enough time you can learn to float the gears(clutchless shifting) with any manual transmission, yes, even the synchronized ones. Once you learn it you'll find that it takes less force to get it in gear than when you use the clutch. Most of my missed shifts in the big truck or the car are from my hand slipping off the lever from having too loose of a grip on.

Even after all the time in the big truck I still prefer my personal vehicles to have a manual. I did just buy a car with an auto though, but at $825 you can't be too picky about what trans it has. :D

There has been a lot said here and elsewhere on what Apple is going to release. But let�s step back and look at the big picture for a moment and think through this process.

What we know:
1. Apple maintains the largest online movie trailer site on the internet. They have the technology to stream data in HD and they just bought a level 4 data center in March this year to storage an enormous amount of data. (I�ll get to this later)
2. HD downloads are enormous and storing them on your hard disk would fill up the disk in no time. So keeping the file for long periods of time is not an option.
3. Apple sells more laptops then desktops and laptops have a smaller hard drive with limited capacity, no one wants an external hd to carry along with their laptop, it would defeat the purpose of being portable.
4. Apple doesn�t make money on downloads, but selling the product that it runs on.
5. iPods screens are too small to watch full length movies on, and their disk space is too limited for movies (iPod nano outsells the video iPod)
6. FrontRow is made for displaying on the TV, not a computer monitor.
7. People WILL NOT PAY $9.99 or $14.99 for a download of a movie, even with a burn option. DVDs can be bought at Wal-Mart or BestBuy for the same price and you get the cover and quality you want and deserve. ( I know a few mac fans will go out and buy whatever Apple puts out, but thinking of an average person )
8. Steve Jobs said in an interview that most people only watch live action movies 1 or 2 times with the exception of animation, but music they listen to over and over again. And he hates variable pricing for content.

So what does all this mean? I think we will see on Sept 12th a streaming rental service that runs off a new media device made to hook up to your TV and runs FrontRow with Showtime as a feature on it that looks a lot like the Movie Trailer section on FrontRow today, where you see the cover designs of the movie instead of a text. (Think about when you go to Blockbuster and all you see is cover designs, and a description on the back) With this service you will be able to see the cover design, the rating, run time, the description and preview a trailer of the movie. Then if you want you can �rent� it for $2.99. After watching the movie, the content is deleted; this would work a lot like pay-per-view. For music and photos, this device will wirelessly connect to your computer to stream music from iTunes and photos from iPhoto. The device will probably sell for around $149 - $299, depending on what it can do.

But who knows� I�m probably completing wrong and Apple will release a download movie site, charge $9.99 for a movie download that around 600 MB per download and take 2 hours to download and release an airport express with video output and charge $129 for it.

Interesting take.

All this discussion is apple's cap of tea for :) because we don't speculate if there is any mp3 player better than classic ipod. The only enemy of apple is apple.
I have now big problem, because i ve got Nokia C7, which has everything i would like from ipod touch, but ipod classic is not a really good choice for me... the only thing i apreciate in it is an enormous hdd, but due to its communicating only via itunes - i can't use it for different files than multimedia. If i could store there other files i would buy it. So i hope Apple will release new model with OS which will solve the problem :)

Windows and Amazon are not a generic names. If Microsoft would have named it "Operating System" then that would be generic. If Amazon were named "Online Store" then that would be generic. I'm sure Amazon could have named App Store something else, but then again, it's such a known term now that instantly helps customers identify what they are looking at.

I like Apple products, but they're beginning to be one of the most anal companies out there.

Actually windows is generic - a windows OS is an operating system with a GUI that uses a desktop and windows (such as finder, word processors etc) developed by XEROX and first mass produced for the Apple Lisa. The generic term for that type of OS among others was windows OS - then Microsoft came out with a windowing OS and called it Windows and trademarked it. Microsoft is actually arguing against Apple exactly what they did years ago. Back on topic though - it doesn't matter - Amazon is using it while Apple has already filed for the mark. The courts will settle this and if it goes to Apple, Amazon will pay big and have to change their name. Would have been simpler to just change their name to begin with.

:( How long ago were the MBPs updated? Because I'm looking to buy Jan/Feb and I'm not confident that the current spec is competitive. It at least needs a HD screen.

The C2D upgrade happened in November. The 17s actually shipped toward the last part of November. I can't understand why anyone would think that an improvement is needed in the displays on the MBP line. Some of you must have extaordinary vision if you could expect the video to be crisper or any more HD than it is. When I am viewing HD TV on this MBP, it actually blows the picture that we get on our HDTV set. And movies are really realistic looking on this screen. I perceive that anyone wanting a major upgrade to what I am seeing right here is going after "bragging rights" .... But that is just MHO

I also own a bad A$$ custom built notebook with a kick butt video card and super duper display and I actually like this Mac better. Again ... MHO

:cool:

This would entail an entire re-think on the part of apple and how the iPod is used. Now they do not want you to be able to transfer both ways between your iPod and your iTunes lib (you can but they don't want you to...).

If they were to add the ability to download on the fly, you'd need to sync both ways and that would HAVE to be a supported Apple way of using the iPod and iTunes. I've a feeling this might also upset the music companies as I'm sure the one-way sync was one feel-good/selling point for anti-piracy concerns.

For that reason (and the fact that I cannot remember digitimes ever being correct), I just don't see this unless the wireless is just to sync with your computer which makes no sense from a cost/benefit analysis.

edit:

and making it basically an iPod w/ airtunes makes no sense as it would cannibalize the sales thereof.

I drive a 2011 Toyota Venza, but it has the manual option to upshift and downshift, with no clutch, which is fun :D

Although I do know how to drive stick, the logic is easy once you get the hand of it....

Driving stick in traffic especially in LA is horrible!! :eek: