Search vs URL

Something that happens to me quite a lot is when I’m trying to type into the search box in Safari I accidentally type into the Address field, and end up going to latest-news-on-apple.com which of course drops out with an error.  But when you think about it URLs almost never go in the search field and search terms never go in the Address field.  Why are they not the same bar with some intelligent URL parsing technology to separate the two?

I know some browsers use a single letter keyword to indicate a search rather than a URL but surely when Google Calendar can figure out when to put an appointment just from the natural language then a browser can figure out what’s a URL and what’s not?  A keyword search is nice – but it could be so much more.

And the possibilities go on – how about some AI that intelligently figures out trends in image searches and redirects likely image searches from web search?  I suspect Google already does something like this in their search algorithm by placing likely hits at the top.

Note to Apple, Microsoft et al:  Feel free to steal this idea and use it without credit to me – as long as we get better browsers out of it!

MacBook Air Target Disk Mode

Target Disk mode is such a useful thing to have on a Mac.  In fact it’s the number one I think when dealing with problematic PCs … “If only I could put this thing into Target Disk Mode”.  The MacBook Air is a worrying development because of the lack of firewire it would seem TDM is not an option.  Of course this could be easily solved by Apple creating a USB TDM.  Rob Griffiths from MacWorld reports that an Apple rep told him there would be no such thing on the MacBook Air.  Has anyone had a go with rebooting the MacBook Air and holding down the “T” key to see if it still has the firmware capability of booting in TDM?  Or at least whether it has the option in Startup Disk in the System Preferences. Surely USB TDM is not that different?  As I understand it TDM goes back to SCSI anyway and was ported to Firewire – if Apple is insistent on replacing Firewire with USB surely it is only a matter of time?

MacBook Air: Ugly (keyboard)

No-one could deny that the MacBook Air is a thing of beauty.  And that having a full size keyboard with backlighting is great.

But why oh why is it that butt-ugly black?  Why not MacBook Pro grey like the rest of it?

iPod Touch upgrade charge forced by iPhone agreement?

Regarding the $20 charge for the iPod Touch software upgrade that gives it the same apps as the iPhone: Am I the only one that thought Steve looked a little uncomfortable when he said the price, like it was something they’d had to put in but he wasn’t happy about it? Here’s my take – the real reason they’re charging for the upgrade is because it violates some terms of the agreement with AT&T for the iPhone. That’s why the iPod Touch didn’t get those features in the first place. AT&T put their foot down and told Apple that if they’re going to bring out an almost iPhone clone iPod that AT&T get no sniff of the profits from that it would have to be a “downgrade” from the iPhone to encourage consumers to get the iPhone instead. Obviously they didn’t consider the lack of the cellphone a big enough draw card to stop people forgetting about the iPhone and getting an iPod Touch instead. AT&T saw their profits from the iPhone being pilfered by Apple via the iPod Touch and made it clear they weren’t going to stand for it. But obviously Apple feels strongly enough about it to do it – so maybe the $20 goes straight into AT&T coffers to compensate them for their loss?

Sneaky BBC

I’ve been enjoying watching catchup TV on the BBC online iPlayer, shows like Top Gear, Never mind the Buzzcocks and Lead Balloon.  Since I have a Mac of course I can’t download shows like my WinXP friends can.  But I have a secret weapon – Parallels!  So after installing the downloadable iPlayer manager in WinXP running in Parallels I was all set to download my favourite shows.  But no.  Sneaky, sneaky BBC sets the default downloaded store to 0 Mb.  And when you try to change it, it pings back to 0Mb before you can save the settings!  Very sneaky BBC!  Give us a way to download shows so you seem like you’re giving us some download loving, then cripple it to make sure no-one actually does!