Henge Dock Review

   When I use my laptop at home, I typically have it plugged into an exeternal keyboard, mouse, soundcard (yeah, thanks for that line in jack rather a microphone one Apple), monitor, webcam, speakers, mouse, iPhone sync cable, camera connection cable, printer/scanner.  You get the idea.  I'm really happy with the setup.  I can take my laptop with me when I go away, or use it on the couch when I want to.  But most of the time, it's just like having a desktop machine (which I think is more productive than a laptop).
     However, even with having most of the accessories running off a single usb hub, I still have a few things to connect/disconnect each time I "dock" my machine.  Power, monitor, usb hub, speakers.   This isn't that much hassle, but it was often enough to deter me from taking my laptop out of the study and using it on the couch.  Also, a tangle of cables coming off the side of your computer is never pretty.
     So, since Apple doesn't make a docking station, (I do like something about the Dell my employer supplies!) I wound up getting myself a Henge Dock.
     Firstly let me say, after having had it for a few weeks now, it works great!  I love being able to yank the machine out of its dock and take it to the lounge room at the drop of a hat.  When it comes time to return it to the study I just drop it into the dock and everything is connected, quick and simple.  It just works, and I like it.  The dock seems very well made, nice tight tolerances on all the mouldings, no visible mould lines, a rubberised strip on the base to keep it steady and stop any vibrations.  However, there's a few small things about the product that could be improved.
     Firstly, lets talk aesthetics.  To my eyes it just doesn't look quite right.  This is probably exacerbated in my case because I have a white macbook.  The white of the henge dock is a different white to the macbook.  I'm no colour expert, but I'd say the dock is a little more grey than the macbook.  As in, it's a smudge darker and also a different colour tone.  It also doesn't seem to have the same level of gloss, or that tiny hint of translucency that the macbook does.  It's only a small thing, but enough that it doesn't look like part of the same product.

     It's branded, and I dislike obvious branding.  Written across the front of the dock in some godawful font is "HENGE DOCKS".  It's very jarring, so much so that I'm considering masking and painting over it.  On the side they've also put the henge dock symbol.  I can understand that they want to get their branding out there, but I think the way this product is labelled would be hurting them more than helping.

     As for usage, I've only got one minor gripe - you need two hands to undock it.  One to hold the dock down, and the other to remove the laptop.  I'm sure I could tape/screw/glue/clamp the dock down to alleviate this, but it's not ideal.  How about having some sort of internal lever system which pops the laptop up off its connecting plugs, allowing you to then just pick the laptop up?  This would allow you to do the undocking operation one handed.   It sounds like a small thing, but if you've got a coffee/iPhone/child in one hand, then a one-handed undock would be brilliant.
     Initial setup of the dock was a massive hassle.  In theory it shouldn't be too bad, thread all the supplied extension cables that you want to use through the dock and plug them into your laptop.  Put the laptop in the dock.  Screw in the locking nuts to stop the cables from moving.  However getting all of the plugs aligned correctly was harder than it should've been.  This was in part complicated by the magsafe connector.  Having the magnet snap the power connector into the laptop while I was trying to line up all the cables gave me a great deal of grief.  Still, it only took about half an hour to set it up, which isn't so bad.  Until you want to take the power supply away with you.  Then its a hassle to set it all up again.
     This is partly due to the "universal" nature of the henge dock - it comes with three little plastic sleeves for the magsafe connector, one for each type that Apple has made.  So you wind up wrestling with the magnetised connector which wants to snap to the laptop whenever the two are close together, the little plastic shim which needs to stay in between the dock and the connector, all of the other cables that are in the dock, the dock itself, and the laptop.  I would've needed about 6 hands to set things up easily.  However, once it's been set up it works well.  I think I'd rather buy a second power supply than have to go through that again though.
     Apple probably has patents preventing this, but I'd love it if the dock came with a power extension cable (it comes with ones for the audio/usb/firewire/network ports, cudo Henge Docks) so you only need to do that cable setup once.  Then if you're going away and want to take the power supply, you'd just pop the connector off the henge dock, the same way you'd pop it off your laptop.
     For all that I've just spent a few paragraphs griping about the thing, I do like it.  There's nothing else like it on the market for Apple laptops, and it does its job very well.  I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking for a docking station for their MacBook.  I just think that with a few tweaks it could be a brilliant product, and it's a shame not to see it live up to its full potential.

Apple's Antenna Press Conference

     So Apple has held a press conference attempting to reassure everybody that the iPhone 4 antenna issues aren't really any worse than any other smartphone.  So thanks for that Apple, you've pointed out that I can "Death Grip" my 3GS into a state of minimal reception as well.  Am I meant to feel better about the iPhone 4 issues because of this?  I do not.
     I accept that there's going to be some signal attenuation when you hold the phone and cover the antenna.  I accept that all phones do this to some extent, it's just physics after all.  I don't think the issues that have surface with the iPhone 4 are to do with a simple blocking of the antenna though.  Apple hasn't admitted that it's any more than this, though they may have offered a solution to the real problem with the free bumper cases.
     After all, the iPhone 4 antenna goes around the entire phone.  Unless you've got hands like boxing gloves or are so worried about dropping your shiny glass tech-toy that you're using a two handed grip, you're not going to be able to cover the whole antenna.  So if that's the situation, why is the attenuation actually worse on the iPhone 4 than the iPhone 3G?  Less than 1 more dropped call per hundred, but worse nonetheless.  Also, why do the problems go away when you do something to stop conductivity to the antenna, either with a case or a strip of tape?  Because when you do these things you solve the root cause of the iPhone 4's antenna problem.
     You see, I believe that the problem with the iPhone 4 isn't the same signal attenuation problem that you do get with every mobile phone.  It _is_ due to the external conductive antenna.  Hence why the "Touch of Death" decays the iPhone 4's reception as much as the death grip on a comparable phone.  See this video for an example.  You don't need to "Death Grip" the iPhone 4, just touch it in a way that shorts the antennas.
     Apple came a long way with their recent press conference, but for whatever reason, they stopped short of admitting that the iPhone 4 has a fundamental design issue which causes it to be more sensitive to signal degradation than normal phones.  It's odd that they'd go so far, but stop short of admitting the whole truth.

     At the end of the day though, they _have_ taken steps which will rectify it with the bumper case, and I'm guessing there'll be a minor hardware change to coated metal bands by September.  I don't think it's been handled in the best way, but there's no hardware issue I can see with the phone which would deter me from buying it.
     There's a caveat to that statement though.  I plan on putting mine in a silicone case, I'd put one on with or without the exposed metal and shatterable glass - I just like the grippiness that cases provide.  I've got a Speck ToughSkin on my 3GS and think it's great.  If I was buying the phone for its industrial design though, I think I'd wait until September and see if there's little hardware tweak.

Apple disappearing Consumer Reports iPhone 4 forum mentions.

     It seems like Apple is banishing forum posts which mention the Consumer Reports findings of degraded phone reception when bridging the iPhone 4's antennas...  I.e. holding the phone.
     It's not really a surprise - if I recall correctly Apple seems to have a propensity for doing things like this.  They don't like discussions which go against the company line appearing on their forums.  I can understand that, but I think binning them isn't the smartest move.  They should know that once something makes it onto the web once it's almost impossible to erase.
     You could argue that it was the tone of the removed thread (cached here, by Bing for all the conspiracy theorists!) they weren't keen on - there's a fair bit of snippiness between posters.  Given there's a bunch of removed posts with those when googling the Apple forums though, it's hard to believe this was the sole reason.

     Personally I don't see why this is still such a big deal, both from Apple's side and from those covering it.  Any phone you hold is going to have its signal somewhat degraded, just because there's a lump of meat in between the mobile tower and your phone.  The iPhone 4 is going to cop this, as well as (I believe) an extra impact from having its two antenna modules bridged by somebodies sweaty palm.  Personally, I'm not a radio expert - I've no idea how much impact that bridging is going to cause.  Some people seem to think it's very significant, and some that it only has a minor effect.
     I do think it's likely to be a real issue, and I believe Apple should step up and acknowledge this to a greater extent than they have done - but I'm not sure it's as much of a problem as it's been made out to be.  Only more testing will prove that out, one way or another.
     I would love to know if Apple product engineering is madly testing painted/dipped clear coated metal bands though - but only from curiosity, if I get one I'll be putting it in a nice grippy silicone case anyway.
    

Apple's iPhone 4 Bar Dropping Explanation

     So Apple has put out a press release stating that it's aware of the perceived issues with iPhone 4 reception, and that's all it is - a perception issue.  Albeit one that Apple themselves created.  The actual iPhone 4 is apparently getting better reception than any previous iPhone and people should stop with the complaining.

     Apple are going to issue a software update, but it's not an actual "fix" for the problems that people have been seeing, it'll just mean that the number of signal strength bars displayed on the Apple phones reflects more accurately the actual signal strength that people are getting.  You'd think there'd be a standard for that, but apparently not.

     Personally, I don't think there was anything "accidental" about the original way that Apple worked out it's signal strength to bar ratio.  It's a little disingenuous for them to be saying they just did it accidentally.  I think it's certainly possible that there were some bad marketing decisions made though.

     There are a two main ways I can see the iPhone shipping with an over optimistic indicator of signal strength.

• Apple studied how to set the number of bars relative to signal strength.  They looked at other phones on the market and realised that as long as you had (for example) 3 or more bars, the majority of people were perfectly happy with their call quality and data transmission rates.  Rather than annoying people by showing them a less than adequate looking number of bars, they just simplified things and made 5 bars on the iPhone equal to 3 bars on most others.  I could see Apple doing this, it seems very much the way they design products - removing complexity where it doesn't add any benefit.
• The other possible reason is more tied to the iPhone situation in America.  With the phone locked into a single carrier, and not necessarily the best carrier for coverage, maybe there was a little pressure from AT&T to artificially inflate the perception of reception.

     Whatever the reason, it's easy to see why Apple would want to backpedal on this now.  Why would they want to make the iPhone seem like it's got issues with its call quality, when it's really at least as much to do with the service provider not having enough coverage?  Well, maybe in America with one carrier there is a reason to share the pain with the AT&T - you don't want the customer to think that by buying an iPhone they're locking themselves into patchy coverage as well.

     I've seen many reports on each generation of the iPhone saying that it's a great device, but a pretty ordinary phone.  My personal experience is that it's a pretty good phone too.  I'll be interested to see if the opinion of the iPhone's general call quality improves once Apple rolls out the update and the number of bars more accurately reflects the signal strength people are receiving.  You'd think that people should be expecting slightly lower performance once they realise they don't have perfect reception.

     I'm curious to see how many bars I drop on my 3GS.  There's definitely some locations I'm at regularly where I've been very surprised to be getting a solid 5 bars, but a 20m shift will drop those 5 bars back to 1.

New Mac Mini

     So it seems Apple have finally gotten around to refreshing the mac mini, case and all.  About time really.  Not that there's anything wrong with the original design - I've still got a G4 ticking away as a home "server", it's a great little form factor.  I suppose that Apple wanted all the WWDC coverage to focus on the iPhone, but I still find it amazing that they passed up the opportunity to release this a week earlier and grab some extra press.  I'm not sure if any other companies would be able to show that level of restraint.
     Making the new computer even smaller though has to be a good thing, providing that Apple haven't messed up the thermal footprint.  I've seen a few blog posts comparing it in size to the Apple TV.  Given that mini now has HDMI out it's a fair comparison to make, and surely a revised Apple TV with HDMI out can't be far away either.  It is small too, no doubt about it - I was comparing the dimensions to a Wii I've got nestled nicely beneath my TV and it'd make the Wii look bulky.  Having an integrated power supply is a massive improvement as well - again, providing Apple have the thermals worked out.
     However there's a definite downside to the new sizing - it's not just shorter as I originally thought from the images.  It's gotten wider.  Pffft.  No longer will the mac mini and Airport Extreme make a neat little hardware stack.
     If there was a new wireless standard floating around I'd be betting Apple had a revised router on the way as well, but there's not....  It seems a little clumsy and unlike Apple's usual attention to detail.  Yes, I know it's now the same size as the Apple TV, but how many people stacked a Mini & ATV together?  Though I suppose the argument can be made that the all plastic router has never looked like a fantastic match with the mostly metal Mini.
     Still it seems with the new form factor that Apple is giving a definite hint to Apple TV owners looking for an upgrade - this little box will do everything you asked for in an upgraded ATV.  Shame about the price.

Apple Magic Trackpad

     I'm not sure if I hope THIS article from engadget is true or not.  I really like the larger trackpads on the macs, and don't miss the mouse for most of the things I do with my computer while mobile.  While planted at a desk though, I'm not sure it's going to be that much benefit to me.
     I suppose I hope that Apple does announce it, and that it adds enough new functionality to my desktop setup that I'd want it.  From my experience with the laptop trackpads, I feel like it'd be useful... I just can't quite picture how at the minute.
     If they could integrate it into a basic keyboard as a replacement for the number pad, while keeping the number pad functional, I think I'd be sold on it.