I do not breathe your politics
"Comment is free but facts are sacred." (C.P. Scott)
Friday, July 29, 2005
Glow-in-the-dark Apples
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Over the last couple of months, it seems everyone's been switching to OS X. You only have to watch the Ruby on Rails and Catalyst developers competing to outdo each other with how-to video clips, recorded on OS X, to realise how 'normal' a geek choice it has become. (In particular, the excellent TextMate text editor, which is a joy to use.)
But, just as I was beginning to see them as relentlessly nerd-focussed, an item in my Software Update panel reminded me otherwise. It was an updater to a feature that adjusts the brightness of the little glowing/pulsing indicator light that shows when the iMac is asleep (on standby). It makes the light glow less brightly if the mac is asleep at night than during the day. Yes, really.
Cute, I thought, but then I read this: About the Ambient Light Sensor. Yes, some more recent iMac G5 machines actually have a built-in ambient light sensor which is used (possibly among other things) to control the brightness of the little glowing spot. Now that is overdoing it on the consumer design focus.
In the case of my slightly older iMac, the brightness of the little glowing spot is controlled by the decidedly low-tech use of the system clock. I wonder when it thinks it is time to crank up the brightness? (Probably earlier than I do).
As an aside, it's not a pointless change. The spot was exceptionally bright beforehand. You know how your mobile phone's screen can illuminate your darkened bedroom at night? Dozing off in the same room as my iMac was like falling asleep in front of a flashing neon casino sign.
I imagine.
posted by Michael at 7/29/2005 02:40:00 AM |