I recently helped my parents move to a Mac Mini. Here are some observations:

1. Power Adapter: The machine was purchased in the US. While Apple’s notebook line comes with univesal adapters that work both in India (220V-240V AC) and the US (100-120V AC), the power adapter that comes with a Mac Mini is geography-specific. Which means that I had to arrange for a 220V to 110V step-down transformer so that I could use the Mac Mini brought in the US in India. Also the adapter is quite big – almost like a brick. You’ll never see it in Apple’s Mac Mini marketing material.

To be fair to Apple, the specs clearly mention the voltage rating – it’s just that given my past experience with several notebooks (Apple and non-Apple) and iMacs, it didn’t occur to me to check if Mac Mini had a US specific voltage rating.

2. Video Adapter: Mac Mini has both Mini-DisplayPort and Mini-DVI video connectors. It comes bundled with a Mini-DVI to DVI convertor. That might be fine if you have a relatively new monitor but if you purchased your monitor 2-3 years ago, there is a good chance that it’ll only support VGA input. Since we had an old Samsung 17″ LCD, we had to buy a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter separately.

3. Keyboard: Microsoft makes and sells PS2 keyboards to date. While their mouse line has moved to USB and comes with a USB to PS2 adapter, that is not the case with a lot of their keyboards that are sold in India. Although we had brought a new Keyboard just last year, it had to be discarded because it only came with a PS2 interface (no PS2 ports exist on the Mac Mini).

4. Ethernet: For some weird reason the Mac Mini’s Ethernet port was incompatible with the old MTNL branded ADSL modem that we had at home. At first I thought that the machine had come with a DOA (dead on arrival) Ethernet port – since the old machine was working fine with this modem. Connecting the Mac Mini to my MacBook over an Ethernet cable quelled that doubt (I am used to using a cross-over cable for connecting two PCs from my PC days, but for some reasons both Macs could “see” each other on a normal Ethernet cable without any issues! See this Apple KB article for more details.) So our modem had to go as well. Its replacement – a relatively recent, Beetel ADSL2 modem, worked like a charm.

All of these things meant that the slender price advantage of getting the machine from the US ($599 = Rs. 29,950 @ Rs. 50 to 1 US$ vs. Rs. 33,530 – the retail price in India) came to nought. Not to mention a day spent troubleshooting/acquiring the various pieces.

Moral of the story – if you are thinking of moving to a Mac Mini, do your research. If the reason behind your move to a Mac Mini has anything to do with the squirrel’s nest of wires behind your desktop, seriously consider an iMac.

Specs

These were the specs of our demo unit:
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
2 GB of 1066 MHz DD3 SDRAM
160 GB 5400-rpm hard drive
13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display; 1280×800 pixels
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphic processor with 256 MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory
Built-in iSight video camera
8x slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Two USB 2.0 ports
Mini DisplayPort
Optical digital audio/analog audio input and output ports; built-in stereo speakers
Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet
Built-in Airport Extreme wireless networking (802.11n) and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Preinstalled Mac OS X and iLife
Size and Weight: 12.78 by 8.94 by 0.95 inches (32.5 by 22.7 by 2.41 cm); 4.5 pounds (2.04 kg)

What’s Included

The MacBook comes in a svelte cardboard box with a 60W adapter (includes US/UK plug points), a cleaning cloth, manuals, two Apple stickers and two discs (OS + Extras). Note that power adapter is identical to what comes with the previous generation of MacBooks. You can also use the old MacBook Pro (60-85W) adapter in its place.

Feel, Fit, Finish

Goes without saying that the new MacBook looks stunning. It also feels incredibly solid and light. I am sure with Apple’s next design iteration we’ll wonder how we ever liked these new MacBooks but as of today not a single millimeter feels out of place.

Screen, Keyboard, Trackpad

The screen is incredibly bright. I have a first generation intel MacBook and the new display is way better in every respect. It draws you in the moment you switch it on, and the black border around the screen makes the colors stand out. The brightness does make up somewhat for the screen being glossy but if you have a source of light right behind you, it can be distracting. That said, the last generation of MacBooks didn’t offer a matte option either so I guess we are not much worse off than before.

If you’ve been using the thin aluminum keyboard that comes with iMacs you’ll feel right at home with the new chiclet keyboard. However, if you are transitioning over from an old MacBook Pro it’ll take you some time to adjust.

The same cannot be said of the new trackpad though. It takes constant use for about a day to get used to the new button-less trackpad. I found the absence of a button the hardest to get over. That the whole of trackpad is a big button doesn’t quite feel natural. Fortunately the trackpad can be configured extensively and mapping ‘tap’ to single click worked for me.

I hardly ever used the three and four finger gestures. They felt a little awkward and had all the trappings of a product feature that is contrived rather than thought through.

Miscellaneous

The battery indicator has been moved to the left side (next to all the ports) and that definitely makes it more accessible. If you turn the machine over you’ll see a sliding aluminum cover which is secured with a latch. Removing it gives you easy access to the battery and the hard-disk.

Access to RAM requires removal of the ‘main’ cover but with the right screwdriver you could do it in minutes.

For a second we mistook the new Mini DisplayPort for a FireWire port! As of now the choice of Mini DisplayPort – owing to absence of adapters for more commonly used interfaces – is somewhat frustrating.

The absence of FireWire is definitely a step a backward – clearly form took precedence over function here.

During our testing one of our disc got stuck inside the slot-loading drive. We don’t think it’s a flaw with the new design as this happens once in a while with the older MacBooks and MacBook Pros as well. Fortunately rebooting the machine while holding down the trackpad caused the disc to come out.

And yes the speakers sounded better (and louder) than the older MacBook. Not the best on a laptop, but definitely an improvement over its predecessor.

Software

MacBook comes loaded with Mac OS 10.5.5 and iLife. The machine booted fast and the OS felt snappy. We also installed 32-bit Windows Vista Ultimate via BootCamp. Once all the drivers were in place (they were on the discs that came with the machine), the MacBook performed beautifully. It managed a decent Windows Experience Index of 5.0 and the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M GPU made sure that Aero ran smoothly.

Conclusion

I’ll shamelessly state that I could feel my heart wring when the day to return our demo unit came. On paper the machines had looked like a bit of a letdown but after actually using one, I seem to have formed a favorable opinion. Yes, we have our quibbles, but in the overall scheme of things, they can be overlooked. In short, likable – Rs. 72,000 something likable!

Related Posts:
To buy (in India) or not to buy?

New MacBooks in India. Verdict: Expensive!

The asterisk next to the offer says – “Conditions apply. Offer valid only for Apple iMac Smart Exchange and cannot be clubbed with any other offer.”

PS. Check out the cheesy tag line – “You waited. Smart.” Apple losing its touch?

Below is a small matrix which shows the price difference between the new lines of notebook purchased in the US vs in India. The prices are from the US & Indian Apple website store. Taxes are extra in both cases.

Model	Speed	US Price	In INR	Indian Price	Difference	% Difference
MacBook	2.0GHz	1,299.00	64,651.23	72,910.00	8,258.77	12.77%
MacBook	2.4GHz	1,599.00	79,582.23	88,280.00	8,697.77	10.93%
MacBook White	2.1GHz	999.00	49,720.23	56,580.00	6,859.77	13.80%
MacBook Pro 15″	2.4GHz	1,999.00	99,490.23	109,410.00	9,919.77	9.97%
MacBook Pro 15″	2.53GHz	2,499.00	124,375.23	136,310.00	11,934.77	9.60%
MacBook Pro 17″	2.5GHz	2,799.00	139,306.23	148,800.00	9,493.77	6.82%
MacBook Air	1.6GHz	1,799.00	89,536.23	97,890.00	8,353.77	9.33%
MacBook Air	1.86GHz	2,499.00	124,375.23	136,310.00	11,934.77	9.60%

*USD<->INR price is calculated at 49.77, the rate as of October 26, 2008 (source: XE.com)
Update: Since the USD INR exchange rate is a little volatile these days, you can enter the current USD to INR rate below, and click the Update button to recalculate the prices in the table above.

MacBook White
Old Model: 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1 GB Memory 120 GB Hard Drive Intel GMA X3100 Combo Drive	Rs. 49,900	New Model: 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1 GB Memory 120 GB Hard Drive Intel GMA X3100 Super Drive	Rs. 56,580	Rs. 6,880
MacBook
Old Model: (White, Polycarbonate Plastic Body) 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 160 GB Hard Drive Intel GMA X3100 Super Drive	Rs. 59,500	New Model: (Unibody Aluminum) 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB DD3 Memory 160 GB Hard Drive NVidia GeForce 9400M Super Drive	Rs. 72,910	Rs. 13,410
Old Model: (Black, Polycarbonate Plastic Body) 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 250 GB Hard Drive Intel GMA X3100 Super Drive	Rs. 68,100	New Model: (Unibody Aluminum) 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB DD3 Memory 250 GB Hard Drive NVidia GeForce 9400M Super Drive	Rs. 88,280	Rs. 20,170
MacBook Air
Old Model: 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 80 GB Hard Drive (4200 RPM) Intel GMA X3100	Rs. 87,900	New Model: 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 120 GB Hard Drive (4200 RPM) NVidia GeForce 9400M	Rs. 97,890	Rs. 9,990
-	-	New Model: 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 128 GB Solid State NVidia GeForce 9400M	Rs. 1,36,310	-
MacBook Pro 15″
Old Model: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 200 GB Hard Drive NVidia GeForce 8600M GT 256 MB Video Memory Super Drive	Rs. 89,200	New Model: (Unibody Aluminum) 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 250 GB Hard Drive NVidia GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT 256 MB Video Memory Super Drive	Rs. 1,09,410	Rs. 20,210
Old Model: 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 250 GB Hard Drive NVidia GeForce 8600M GT 512 MB Video Memory Super Drive	Rs. 1,11,300	New Model: (Unibody Aluminum) 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4 GB Memory 320 GB Hard Drive NVidia GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT 512 MB Video Memory Super Drive	Rs. 1,36,310	Rs. 25,010
MacBook Pro 17″
Old Model: 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB Memory 250 GB Hard Drive NVidia GeForce 8600M GT 512 MB Video Memory Super Drive	Rs. 1,24,800	New Model: 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4 GB Memory 320 GB Hard Drive NVidia 8600M GT 512 MB Video Memory Super Drive	Rs. 1,48,800	Rs. 24,000

The prices have left me scratching my head. While I can understand that Apple would want to command premiums over the new Unibody Aluminum enclosures and the new NVidia 9400M chipset, I don’t know if I can justify paying more for a slower processor. This is precisely the case with the older ‘mid-end’ white MacBook. Not to mention the ‘entry level’ for an Apple notebook in India has moved from about Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 56,580. For something that became cheaper by 100 dollars in the US, we are paying even more!

MacBook Air also gets a refresh and incorporates the new NVidia chipset.

In case of the 15″ MacBook Pros; in addition to the Unibody Aluminum enclosure and improved NVidia chips, you are also getting better Front Side Bus speeds, and the new glass touchpad but then you are paying dearly for it. A lakh is a huge psychological barrier even for a ‘Pro’ lineup.

The 17″ MacBook is largely unchanged and a Unibody Aluminum ‘refresh’ is expected in a few months. The ‘new’ model merely adds 2 GB RAM and increases the capacity of the hard-drive to 320 GB. You pay Rs. 24,000 for this generous upgrade. Heist is the politest word that I can think of here. Update:The refresh also gets you a better 1900×1200 display – up from 1680×1050 that was standard on these machines. Now you could upgrade the earlier models to 1900×1200 for a hundred dollars so I still think that the Rs. 24,000 is not justified.

And don’t forget the taxes and local levies that you’ll pay on top of these prices. The new MacBooks aren’t available in stores yet and are expected in 2-3 weeks.

It is evident that Apple is not serious about the Indian market. Prices like these will seriously impair Mac adoption in Indian, and make sure that Apple’s name remains synonymous with words like – premium, pricey, rich and yuppy.

p.s. All prices and model details are from Apple’s Indian website.

Update: Here is how these prices compare to the prices in US.

The new aluminum Macbook and Macbook Pros are beautifully designed but there are some decisions that I find a little hard to digest:

Rise and shine: Apple has decided not to offer matte screen on any of their new models. As an owner of a MacBook and an iMac, I can vouch for the reflection on glossy screens as being distracting. Apple seems to suggest that the additional brightness of the LED backlit displays, will counter it to some extent. Or, as Mr. Schiller would like us to believe: “One of the great things about a notebook is you can turn it however you want!”. Then why did you ever offer it Apple? Just because you switched to glass and cannot do anything about it doesn’t make it a feature! While they are usable (the Macbook being borderline usable when outdoors on a bright day), it is not something I would have picked out of choice.

We did indeed start the Firewire (but now the flame is fading): Almost all the low mid-end camcorders available in India use Firewire to transfer video to computers. Considering that Macbooks – thanks to the new NVidia graphics adapter, are more capable of handling video editing chores than ever, this seems like a boneheaded move.

Two USB ports ought to be enough for anybody. Wrong. Most USB powered hard-disks come with a Y-USB cable for a good reason. They perform better when they can draw power from two USB ports. If I am using one, where do I put a mouse? Or my iPod? Or my Wacom tablet? Or the bazillion other devices that can be (and have to be) used simultaneously? Three is the absolute minimum that a machine these days must have. Two ports will make you miserable sooner or later.

No I am not bummed about DisplayPort – there are adapters that allow you to go from DisplayPort to VGA and DVI. So for that old projector in your office just make sure you keep this adapter handy.

I have mixed feeling about this generation of MacBooks and MacBook Pros giving Blue-Ray a miss. Put in Blue-Ray into a system and you increase the complexity of both software and hardware (thanks to the wonderful, consumer friendly standards like HDCP and HDMI). Blue-Ray discs have only 3 regions (as opposed to 6 for DVDs) and for a change, India and US share the region code (1, as opposed to 1 and 5 for US and India in the DVD world). This makes Blue Ray discs very attractive for Indian consumers; considering that you don’t have to worry about your drive’s region – whether you are picking up a DVD in India or US. Still, they are expensive (1800-2000 Rs a pop) and not very readily available. I can live without them for a year.

The big point for most of us in India will be their pricing. Considering where Rupee stands today, I expect the prices to be marked up by 30-35% over the dollar prices. A report already seems to suggest this, but we are not losing our hearts yet. As they say, we’ll cross the bridge when we get there and given how slowly iPods from the September event are trickling into the stores here, I’d say we are still far far away.

Update: Apple’s official price list for India is out. For us, It is by far the biggest letdown.

Reading Indian language text:
There is nothing that you need to install to be able to correctly view data in these scripts. For example, if you visit the BBC’s Hindi website, you’ll be able to read the page withoud downloading or installing additional fonts (provided of course, you know how to read Hindi ). Firefox 2 on Mac OS X used to be problematic here, but Firefox 3 renders Hindi text correctly.

Enabling keyboard for your language:
The next thing you probably want to do is to type in one of these scripts. Start System Preferences and choose the International applet.

Click on the Input Menu tab which lists input menthods and keyboards for different languages. By default this list is sorted by Input type, which can make it somewhat difficult for you to locate the language of your choice. So the first thing that you should do is to sort the list by the name of the language, by clicking on the Name header.

Scroll down and check the keyboards you want. Also check the “Show input menu in menu bar option”. Mac OS X Leopard typically gives you two keyboard layouts for most Indian languages. One of them is a phonetic layout (labeled as QWERTY in the list of keyboards), while the other follows a more traditional typewriter-style (usually INSCRIPT) scheme. The exception here is Tamil which ships with Tamil99 and Anjal layouts. The phonetic layouts are the easiest to use as you can type something as you would roughly type it in English, and get the equivalent Indic representation on the fly. For example, to type दीपक, all I need to do is to key in dIpAk. If you know the iTrans transliteration scheme, you’ll feel right at home.

Typing in your language
If you followed the steps above correctly, you’ll now see a small colored icon (next to the speaker icon) in your menu bar. Since default keyboard layout on Mac OS is US English, you’ll see the US Flag as the icon.

Clicking on it will show you a pull-down menu of keyboard layouts that you had just enabled. Select and click the keyboard you want to activate it. The icon will change to reflect your selection and you can start typing in any application that supports Unicode and Indian languages like TextEdit.

Viewing the keyboard layout
If you want to see the layout of currently active keyboard, go back to the Input Menu tab in the International applet. Check the Keyboard Viewer option in the list and close the window.

Now below the list of languages in your menu bar, you’ll also see an option called Show Keyboard Viewer.

Clicking it will show you the layout of the keys on the currently active keyboard. Of course, this applies only to INSCRIPT/Tamil99/non-phonetic keyboards. If you have a phonetic keyboard selected (the icon for a phonetic keyboard has a blue dot in it), you’ll only see the default English layout.

Since most Indian languages have more characters than can be accommodated on a standard QWERTY layout, only a subset of them are visible by default (just like the English layout shows only lower-case or upper-case letters at any given time). Hold the Shift key to see the rest of them.

This finishes our introduction to using Indian languages on the Mac OS. Leopard is still missing support for some important Indian scripts – most notably – Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Oriya, Telugu and Malayalam. The infrastructure (UNICODE, shaping engine etc.) to support these languages is already there. Indeed, fonts and keyboards for these languages are available through 3rd parties, but they often lack the quality and fit-and-finish of Apple supported languages. I’ll cover enabling these not-so-out-of-the-box languages in Mac OS X in a future post.

Cut to the present and Mac OS feels as natural as Windows once did. I use it for almost all of my time and haven’t “natively” booted into Windows for over six months. There is one small thing that I still miss though – the way you can access menus using keyboard in Windows (e.g. Alt+F for getting to the File menu). Mac does have concept of keyboard accelerators – where an individual menu option is tied to a keystroke combo (e.g. Ctrl+T opens a new tab in IE and maps to Command+T in Safari), but it lacks an easy way to jump to an application’s pull-down menu. Here are a couple of workarounds:

Goto System Prefrences and under Keyboard & Mouse, check the “Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys” option.

On the new keyboards that come with iMacs, F1 and F2 control brightness while F3 invokes exposé. Checking this option will make them behave as regular function keys. You can still access their extended functions (e.g. F1 to reduce brightness), by holding down the fn key and then pressing the function key.

Next, click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab and check the Keyboard Navigation option plus everything underneath it.

Close Keyboard & Mouse preferences dialog.

Pressing Ctrl+F2 should now place the focus on the menu bar of the currently active application (press Ctrl+F1 before Ctrl+F2 in case Ctrl+F2 doesn’t work the first time). The Apple menu will always be selected by default and you can type the first letter of the menu option that you want to reach. For example, Type E to reach Edit, F to reach File and so on. You can even type more than one character to reach the right option (e.g. Fo to reach Format as the first letter conflicts with File). You can press the Down Arrow key or Enter to open the pull-down menu or use the Right and Left Arrow keys to move between different menu options.

The other keyboard trick you can use to get to a menu is through the help menu. Pressing Command+Shit+? will place you inside the “Search” box under the Help menu. Type the option that you are looking for, say “Open” (sans the quotes) and you’ll be presented with a list of options that begin with Open. Press the down arrow key to highlight an item in this list and the corresponding menu option will automatically be revealed and selected! In Safari, it’ll even search the History menu allowing you to quickly jump to a page you’ve visited before.

Unfortunately this trick doesn’t work with all applications. Firfox is the biggest culprit here. Command+Shift+? takes you to Mozilla support page in FireFox3 – a minor but annoying oversight.

The Swiss army knife of media players.

The default media player which comes with OSX is Quicktime Player and it plays, well, just Quicktime. For your vast media collection including Mpeg, DivX, DV, WMV, MKV etc. VLC is the answer. You can control VLC with the Apple remote so if you are one of the lucky ones to have one (They stopped shipping it the with new Macbooks/Pros), make full use of it!

To see a complete list of codecs which VLC supports click here.

VLC is also popular for its ability to play the video content of incomplete, unfinished, or damaged video downloads before the files have been fully downloaded.

Some say it can even defend you when Ninjas attack but I would keep the Katana – just in case.

2. iStat Menu | Screenshot

iStat Menu is an app which monitors all your system stats and displays them in the menu bar. This includes CPU usage, disk activity, network monitors, time & calendar with iCal event listings etc.. It has a total of 8 separate and highly configurable menu extras.

Tip: Once you have the iStat calendar and time going in the menu bar, remove the OSX time from System Preferences>Date & Time>Clock

3. RCDefaultApp | Screenshot

If you are an iPhone user and hate it when iPhoto pops up every time you plug in your device, RCDefaultApp can fix that problem. Install RCDefaultApp and from preference, change the default app for ‘camera’ to <ignore> and the genie stays in the bottle.

Oh yeah, did I mention it allows a user to set the default application for file extensions, file types, MIME types, various URL schemes and Uniform Type Identifiers also?

4. Growl | Screenshot

Growl is a global notification system for the Mac.

Notice the word “global”?  What that means is that Growl can receive notification from any application running on the Mac. For example, say you have started download of the latest build of iTunes on Firefox and it is going to take 30 minutes to download (yeah, I have a very slow internet connection). You switch to Photoshop and start adding that eye-patch to your cousin’s picture. As soon as the iTunes is downloaded, Firefox sends a notification to Growl. Growl in turn pops up a small balloon on the top right corner of the screen informing you that Firefox just finished downloading iTunes.  Now it is up to you to start installing iTunes or place the parrot on your cousin’s shoulder. Arrr.

5. Quicksilver | Screenshot

As an application launcher, the new Spotlight (which ships with Leopard) is really really good. If you want a good application launcher, stick to Spotlight. Where Quicksilver shines is the advance features and scripting.

Let me give you a few examples of what you can do with Quicksilver:
–    Set up a global key command to skip tracks in iTunes.
–    Compose new mail with a shortcut
–    Move a file
–    Upload to FTP
Here is a detailed guide of what you can do with Quicksilver.

I am sure there are tons of other software/features you would want install on OSX. Do let us know in the comments. Please do not include the kitchen sink.

A day later I found out that the MacBook Pro adapter (model A1172) works for MacBook too. The fact is mentioned in fine print on the packaging but none of our local Apple resellers knew about it. Although both MacBook Pro and MacBook power adapters share the same MagSafe “head”, their power ratings (at 85W and 60W respectively), vary by over 25W! So obviously I was concerned about frying my first generation Intel MacBook. However, the MacBook Pro adapter gracefully “degenerates” and supplies only 60W (3.6A, 16.5V) when connected to a MacBook. Sure it is bulkier (taller by about an inch and a half) it’s better than having nothing at all.

The MacBook Pro Power Adapter retails in India for around Rs. 4,800. Now considering that a USD is approximately Rs. 42 these days, and that Apple sells it for USD 79 (~ Rs. 3,300) in the US, this feels steep. So if you have someone coming over from the US, you are better off having them pick it up for you. Sadly, this is true for Apple gear in general.

Should you pick one in India, be wary of counterfeits. The real thing comes in a white cardboard box with green labeling, extension cord, plug-head, a small plastic lid to keep dust from getting into the MagSafe head and carries a 1 year worldwide limited warranty. Phew!

Update: Here are the phone numbers and addresses of Apple stores in India in case you need to buy one!