We stopped in the Apple Store yesterday for another bad battery on a MacBook. While there we asked about whether they had a Signature Suit case from Case Mate. It turns out they did not but when they saw the one on my MacBook they asked if they could borrow it for a moment and when I said yes they quickly took it on a tour of the store. It was quite a hit and makes the computer look really sharp. Perhaps soon they'll be carrying them. And perhaps soon there will be a brown saddle-leather version as well.

Until recently I'd been running Parallels to the exclusion of Boot Camp. Over the last few days I've had occasion to configure a colleague's laptop with Boot Camp and I must say the process is impressive. Like so many things it makes Windows XP much more an "it just works" machine vs. the "plug and pray" norm for Microsoft. The process is so smooth that it looks like we may replace our "other brand" machines with Mac Mini's running Windows XP and save money in the process. Apple is sending over a couple of demo units next week which we'll use for extensive testing of the imaging process to get it down pat but this option looks really good.

It would be great if Apple had a monitor that was more price competitive. The Cinema Displays are absolutely gorgeous. But they are too pricey for the cost conscious business world.

iPhone applications would be dangerous. At least that it the position of Apple's CEO Steve Jobs when he told Newsweek:

“You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

This could easily have been in competition for silliest statement of the year had Jim Gibbons not already won the award.

On the other hand, maybe it is a sign that everybody should drop Cingular. Their network is already in use by Treo Smart phones, Windows Mobile phones, and PC cards plugged directly into laptops. All of these devices run applications written by third party developers not by Cingular or Apple, yet the network survives. Come on Steve end the Apple Developer Lockout.

Following today's keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs the the keynote is posted for video download. Or it appears that it is. If one looks at the HTML coding of the page both the "Keynote" and the "iPhone introduction" video point to the same file. That would be the file that says "Due to exceptional demand check back later".