It's easy to call something innovative. People do it all the time. They relaunch their site to include a +1 feature over a competitor and all the sudden they're hailing their product as innovate and new. Really, innovative implies something that hasn't been done before, and should imply something that pretty much makes the alternatives feel obsolete in comparison.

Google released AdSense, a truly innovative way to create an effective advertising network. It, and the ensuing copy cats, took over the advertising world and made publishing online for profit approachable by even the smallest, most obscure people. YouTube, as simple as it may be, made online video accessible and launched an entire genre of copy cats. Friendster, even if it was kind of lame and lacked a sense of purpose, kick started a million social networks. Blogger brought blogging to the masses.

Tough economic times seems to bring out the next generation of innovation. After playing with AppStore and some of the Apple dev tools for the iPhone, we may very well see a slew of truly innovative out of the box thinking come out of the mobile landscape. The stuff that's out there right now is fairly tame, nothing has really blown me away, but no doubt it's coming. It's probably waiting for approval on appstore this very moment. We'll see.

In thinking in terms of the "new web", are there other examples of things that are truly innovative, or are we building better and better variations of existing themes? Any thoughts on real world applications for mobile? I saw some stuff on crowd sourcing traffic data. That may not reach a critical mass, but that's a killer line of thinking in terms of applications.

Well done, Mahalo.

MacBook Air

I remember when Apple killed the floppy drive, and thinking they were out of their minds. Then there's the infamous Slashdot reaction to the iPod. Now they're releasing a laptop without a cd drive, no ethernet and only one usb.

This time though, I think I'll reserve judgment knowing that Apple tends to have a knack for this sort of thing.

Thinking of my own laptop usage, I almost *never* use a cd or a dvd, I'm almost never plugged in to my network, and I'm only rarely using more than one USB and it's generally when I'm doing something I normally wouldn't be doing (backing up to an external drive or something).

The MacBook Air is a damn sexy device. It's absolutely perfect for the vast majority of my traveling and I'd say a large portion of home use. I need wireless internet, a terminal, a headphone jack and streaming radio. Give me this in an ultra-light carry on package and I'm good to go where ever work needs me.

The big problem is the price tag. $1800? Yikes. $1250 and this thing would be taking over every coffee shop in the country. Apple tends to not adjust price much but ya never know. For 1800 bones I'd pick up a full on MacBook instead.

Time Capsule

I just bought a 500gig external hard drive on Sunday. Is this thing a full out NAS, or is it just a back up device? If it's a NAS, I think I'll be taking back the drive I bought and pre-ordering Time Capsule. Wireless N, Wireless printing, and plug-n-play hard drive action. Perfect.

Apple TV

Finally looks attractive/useful to me. Sure would make a dandy birthday present..... (ahem)

iPhone Update

Locate me is hot. If we would have had this in Memphis, it would have been hella useful. Customizing the home screen? Eh. It'll be useful when Apps start coming out in February. I just want access to the SDK so I can try and find time to play. I wonder if iPhones have X-Grid built in like the rest of the OS/X family? :) I don't know why that seems intriguing, but distributed computing taken to a mobile level seems like it'd be.. well.. pretty frigging awesome.

And in a not-so-good way.

I've been dreaming of a 13 inch wide laptop for awhile now. The MacBook seemed like my dream come true. I went out to the apple store to test it out and see if I could handle the glossy monitor. I was pretty close to making a purchase until I felt the bottom. No way in hell.

This "laptop" is only suitable for people who are done having children. Scolding hot. Think I'm exaggerating? Here's a YouTube video someone shot taking the temperature of the bottom of the laptop. 119.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

Is that hot enough to cook eggs on?