Apple Switching to Windows?

Jack Bauer can get McDonald's breakfast after 10:30.

I just watched this week's 24 and it was so good that I just had to put up one of those. Anyway, would Apple really abandon Mac OS X for the likes of Windows? In a highly controversial article, John Dvorak claims to think so. I never put much stock in his editorials, but every once in a while he has some well-founded thought. I knew this one was coming because he spoke about it on TWiT, and I was expecting a little more out of it. His main points are that it would be compatible with more devices and it would allow them to just specialize in the look and feel rather than the whole kernel. Still, it would almost be like them flushing all the R&D they've put into the Mac platform down the drain, and so it's more than just an issue of pride. Additionally, why would they have gone through the trouble of fostering the Universal binary format and promising the ports of major programs by this summer if they were planning to renege on it? Then there's always an issue of whether they'd make a pact with the devil here. This is a company they've had run-ins with on copying Mac features, and doing this would almost be like ceding defeat to them in the OS arena. More importantly, the Macs will lose their whole identity without that Linux-based OS that makes people so happy. It's not altogether impossible, but I just weight more negatives against positives for them.

Speaking of Apple, it appears that the first Mac virus (or at least the first in a long while) was discovered today and Mac users everywhere are already up in arms about preventing its spread. However, the spread is inevitable; they just have to stay protected. Microsoft has announced that it will release multiple versions of Office 2007 (which is presumably the official name now) in the second half of this year, and as opposed to multiple Vistas I feel that this would work well if they all offered different price points. Students don't need as much as enterprise users, for example, so they shouldn't have to pay for it. Hopefully they didn't strip out too much though. An Engadget columnist believes that meanwhile, deep inside Microsoft, there's a conspiracy to bring down the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats to bring digital distribution to the forefront. The idea is that they would end up in a deadlock and neither format would win, and his arguments are better than Dvorak's for an Apple switch. I half wouldn't be surprised if this was true because it really would mean a lot of good things for Microsoft, though I feel the end result is a bit unlikely. Good news SOCOM fans: SOCOM 4 will be coming out for the PS3 (most likely at launch) and will show up at E3 this year! There will also be a God of War sequel for the PS3, which is no surprise given its enormous critical acclaim. Nintendo fans have something to be happy about, too: a DS was shown off in Japan with a web browser and TV tuner. The latter sounds pretty cool, but until we get some footage in English I don't really know what to make of it.

I'd better just start a new paragraph here to talk about today's music news. The RIAA is clamoring for extensions to the Digital Music Copyright Act (DMCA), and in that same vein they have shunned music users who backup their music as not falling under "fair use." This same song and dance is really getting tiresome, and they need to stop getting greedy or people are going to start organizing against the music industry for pushing its customers too far. They claim that if you lose or break a CD that you can "affordably" get another copy, which is moronic because I'd rather just download illegally what I had previously bought rather than buy it again. There's a light at the end of the tunnel: Amazon.com is secretly organizing their own music service to rival iTunes and their own line of mp3 players. I know it may sound like another Napster or MSN Music, and I'm not a fan of subscription-based music services myself, but it could lead to bad things if Apple controlled the whole market with FairPlay and effectively shut out competitors. If anyone has the clout and resources to compete with them other than Microsoft, it'll be Amazon, who already has an enormous base of customers and may give hope to other online music services with a true competitor to the iPod.

There are several videos to be shared today in movie news. There's a trailer up for The Woods, which is about a very special boarding school for girls, though I think it will be more creepy than scary. If T&A is more your style then you may like the trailer for Basic Instinct 2 more, though I personally think it will flop and I also think that Sharon Stone is too old for this stuff. Yahoo Movies managed to snag some behind-the-scenes footage on the training that goes into the soldiers for 300, and it's more intense than any workout I've seen before. Another Da Vinci Code clip has popped up on the MSNBC site, but it's only viewable in IE. If you don't want to open an IE window for it then don't worry because it's only like 20 seconds long. IGN has a number of mock Peter Jackson production diaries from the cast of Date Movie, and they're actually rather funny if you've seen the Kong video journal entries. The Bond girl has finally been announced to be this lovely lady to the right: Eva Green (from Kingdom of Heaven). She's relatively new to movies, but that doesn't mean she can't be good. Lastly, Brett Ratner is spreading around all kinds of nonsense that X3 will be the last X-men movie, which I'm betting is a marketing ploy to get people to go and see it to compensate for the fact that this movie blows. I'll bet you that someone makes a movie that ignores X3 altogether because of how inconsistent it is with the first two movies because it really would be hard to make a sequel off of that one.

Now for some 3x Thursday action:

1. How much TV (movies not included) would you say you watch a week? What type of programs do you watch?
I probably watch 6 or 7 hours directly, but another 5 hours (Seinfeld and Simpsons syndication) are listened to while I do other things in my room. I watch a healthy mix of dramas and comedies usually.

2. What are your favorite shows? Are there certain programs you just can't miss?
I'm going to go with Family Guy, The Daily Show, and 24. I can't miss 24 or Lost, that's for sure.

3. Even if you're not a big TV watcher, are you taking the time to watch any Olympic coverage this week and next week? If so, which sports are you interested in watching?
I don't care about the Olympics at all really. I only used to watch them with my parents.

Bonus Question: What's your movie watching like at home? Do you watch a lot of movies? Do you have a Netflix/Blockbuster type thing going? If so, do you like it? Why/why not?
We rent movies occasionally, but usually I borrow from friends or just rewatch my own movies.

Oh, and thanks to the Google Blog for linking back to me, because I got more hits today than I've ever gotten in the history of this blog (163 hits, 126 of those being uniques)! When I talked about Measure Map they automatically linked to that post, and I'm wondering whether it will increase my readership (probably not though).