The machine was a huge hit. Starting at $1099, the machines were far more powerful and feature-packed than the aging machines they replaced — and cheaper.

But the early models weren’t without issues. A problem with random shutdowns plagued early models. Apple pushed out a firmware update after months of replacing heat sinks in a vain attempt to fix the problem.

Other models were affected by a widespread hard drive failure related to a specific Seagate drive Apple shipped in many machines. And almost every single white MacBook on the planet has had chips missing from its top case.

But I can forgive these issues — in 2006, the MacBook was a brand-new, redesigned-from-the-ground up project for Apple. Sure, they should have fixed the top case thing at some point, but at least they’re replacing top cases for free now.

My biggest beef with the MacBook is the crazy revisions the unit has gone through over the last year. For years, Apple shipped two white models, with a black model as the “best” option. Then, last fall, Apple ditched the black model, kept the lower-end system as the the “MacBook White” and released a brand-new model, in an unibody aluminum enclosure with no firewire port. The “White” was basically the same machine as ever, with FireWire 400 and chip-prone top cases.

The aluminum MacBook was discontinued this summer, however, when Apple morphed the 13-inch Unibody MacBook into the 13-inch MacBook Pro, with a FireWire 800 port in tow. The “MacBook White” simply became the “MacBook” once again.

Then — just a few weeks ago — Apple revamped the MacBook yet again. This time around, they kept the white plastic, but instead of the classic top case/bottom case design, it is now a unibody as well. With — once again — no FireWire.

It’s confusing to those of us who make a living thanks to Apple, let alone the average consumer. The MacBook line has been as confusing as the Performa/Quadra line was in the mid-90s. Hopefully those days are over. The new unibody, plastic machines are well-built, and I have a feeling they’re here to stay. Hopefully.

Dear Customer,

If you’ve installed the Apple TV 3.0 software update, you should immediately update to version 3.0.1. This prevents content from temporarily disappearing until it is resynced.

To update your Apple TV software:

1. Reboot your Apple TV (unplug the power cord and plug it back in)

2. Select Settings > General from the main menu

3. Select Update Software

4. Select Download and Install

Note: Your Apple TV will conduct a restart, which is followed by the Apple logo and a status bar. For more information, please refer to this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3116

If you need further assistance with your Apple TV, contact AppleCare.

Sincerely,

Apple TV Team

The second big reason is that I’ve grown dependent on two iPhone apps: Instapaper Pro and Tweetie. I also occasionally use RunKeeper, Stanza, Pandora and a handful of games, but Instapaper and Tweetie are the killer apps. They’re the things that, together with e-mail capability, make the iPhone useful to me.

Tweetie I could probably learn to live without: There are plenty of Twitter apps for Android, and the most popular one, Twidroid, seems to work fine, even if it lacks Tweetie’s elegance and speed. But Instapaper’s ability to collect, reformat and display news articles and blog posts I want to read — even if I’m offline — has made it an indispensable commuter and downtime companion. I would sorely miss it.

So while I’m no fan of AT&T or Apple, I’ll be sticking with the iPhone now. It’s one of the two best smartphones on the market, and it’s the only one that has the apps I depend on.

The Droid, Palm Pre and others now match the iPhone feature-for-feature. In fact, in some ways the iPhone is behind these other devices when it comes to things like multi-tasking, battery life and carrier coverage.

However, switching from one of these devices to another is a complicated thing, as Tweney points out. He — like most power-users — has a system in place that system relies heavily on third-party apps. And with 100,000 apps, no other device — no matter how great — can match the iPhone platform’s power and flexibility.

This again raises the question of “quality vs. quantity.” Just because a platform has more apps than any other platform doesn’t mean it’s better,* but it sure gives people something to think about before buying a new phone.

———-

*Case in point: Windows.

Sorry for the low quality — it’s the best I could find.

It makes me happy he carries a white iPhone. When people ask me why I didn’t buy the more popular black version, I’m going to start referencing this clip.

John Carmack has a long history working with Apple on gaming products, not all of it positive.

“My relationship with Apple has been long standing, but it’s a roller-coaster ride,” he told Kotaku. “I’ll be invited up on stage for a keynote one month and then I’ll say something they don’t like and I can be blacklisted for six months.”

[...]

Carmack thinks the run-ins with Apple are because the company, the highest people in the company, look down on games. But the popularity of gaming on the iPhone has forced Apple to try and come to grips with that, even if they’re not happy about it.

“At the highest level of Apple, in their heart of hearts,” Carmack said, “they’re not proud of the iPhone being a game machine, they wish it was something else.”

Bizarre.

With Reserve and Pick Up, you can make sure the top things on your list are definitely under the tree. Reserve an iPod or Mac online today and it will be waiting for you to pick up and purchase at an Apple Retail Store from December 15 to 24. You can even have many products wrapped. It’s just another way we make it even easier to get through the holiday crowds — and your gift list.

Should help with lines at the Stores, but I bet the staff stuck wrapping iMacs aren’t real happy.

The Macworld Lab has been hard at work tweaking Speedmark, our overall system performance testing tool, to better accommodate Snow Leopard and to test the Macs on which it runs. Of course, that means that the new version, Speedmark 6, runs on Snow Leopard and supports only Intel-powered Macs.

We have Speedmark 6 scores for 19 Intel Macs, including the new MacBook, iMacs, and Mac minis released last month. Please note that because Speedmark 6 uses different tests and a different OS, Speedmark 6 scores can’t be compared to the scores of Speedmark 5, the previous version of our test tool.

The Motorola DROID is the second-best smartphone available today, second only to the iPhone 3GS. In fact, I’d go so far to say to those of you who are with Verizon and on the fence about leaving to get an iPhone, you should try a DROID first. If you are an iPhone owner who is fed up with AT&T to the point where you want to leave, consider Verizon, because the DROID is just that good. Sure, we pointed out some negatives, but we can do that with any device, but at the end of the day, this is one fantastic, well-thought out mobile device.

Again, the lesson here is that the Droid can’t and won’t kill the iPhone, but it doesn’t have to; it just has to beat the Palm Pre and maybe some Blackberry devices.