The New MacBook Air
While Logos on iPad is disappointing in my opinion, I think the new MacBook Air announced today might be the best solution of making Logos portable. In Short, it is instant on, making your Logos always ready. And I think its flash memory might increase the performance in a certain sense (and decrease the performance in other sense, e.g. the slower CPU.). And it costs USD999, which is even cheaper than some of the Logos Library.
What do you think? Is it a great idea to mobile Bible study with Logos?
This post is also posted in iPhone/iPad here.
Comments
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I believe the 13" 2.13 option is the way to go with maxed memory. Otherwise you may be disappointed. Remember the iPad app is really just a reader that cannot hold all the resources onboard
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Joshua Moran said:
I believe the 13" 2.13 option is the way to go with maxed memory.
Yes but it costs $1,699.00. (with 2GB RAM).
Joshua Moran said:I believe the 13" 2.13 option is the way to go with maxed memory. Otherwise you may be disappointed. Remember the iPad app is really just a reader that cannot hold all the resources onboard
Agree. Logos on iPad is really just a reader, not a Bible study app.
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I actually hadn't thought of it in that way yet...
Someone
needs to get one and post their experience here on the forums! Or sneak
into an Apple Store, download their library, and do it that way!0 -
I think the main advantage is "instant on" and portability. So, I would prefer the cheapest one so that it is financially affordable and small and light enough to carry around. It is about the size of the iPad, 25% larger and 45% heavier. So, no matter one is in traffic, waiting for bus, waiting for the red light, etc. one can have a Bible Study. So convenient.
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I think that new machine looks wonderful, but I have to think it wasn't made for L4M. I could be wrong, but you could do an iMac with some muscle that would better suit Logos and extensive read time. On the go, yeah maybe but we're talking serious dollars. You could extend your library and buy a fast Win latop for the same number of Benjamins.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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Michael Ballai said:
On the go, yeah maybe but we're talking serious dollars. You could extend your library and buy a fast Win latop for the same number of Benjamins.
Agreed on the amount of money spent upfront, but how much do serious windows users pay in anti-virus and internet security, the headache of the kernel panic, 80 security warnings per day. Once you go Mac it's hard to go back.
The instant on feature is pretty hard to beat, and if you are willing to wait longer for searches and the initial install and indexing, then you probably have yourself a great mobile solution. You could work with the 128 with 4GB of Ram for $1,399.
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Joshua Moran said:
with 4GB of Ram
In my experience with the Logos on PC, I think 2GB should be enough. My computer actually have 4GB but it rarely cross the 2GB level. The library I have is the Scholar's Library, so only 582 books. I don't know for larger library, but the one I have usually used about 700MBs of the memory, so as long as I am not opening Photoshop, it should be fine for 2GB.
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Joshua Moran said:
80 security warnings per day
True. Sadly, on last Sunday's sermon, I used my iPad to remote my PC to open Logos, but the Symantec suddenly keep popping up non-stop, so I waste like 15 min. to force quit the Symantec so that I can focus in the sermon.... It's so embarrassing, I don't know what will the neighbors think when you are fixing your computer while in a sermon....
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Which remote tool you use for iPad? Can I remote my iMac? Interest on this to get full Logos function on the road. [:)]
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The one I used is LogMeIn Ignition, another famous one is iTeleport. LogMeIn is simple to use while (I heard that) iTeleport is faster. They claim that they can stream video and audio without great problem while LogMeIn cannot. I only tried LogMeIn, which is great to me. its datarate is about 2MB per 15 min. depending on how heavy your usage is. But if you are on the road, it will be constantly disconnected due to the 3G data network technology. Whenever it cross the cell towers it will disconnect.
Yes, it works for iMac as well. PC to Mac or any other combination are free here.
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I'm running Snow Leopard with 2GB. I consider that marginal for L4M--I shut off other apps whenever possible. Perhaps the flash drive will make the difference. I find it astonishing that Mac would sell a machine anymore with less than 4GB. That's really baseline.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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My serious Windows XP install has free anti-virus software. Kernel panics are on Macs IIRC. At this stage of the game, Win and Mac are fairly even. I use Windows for some misc software and run it via Remote Desktop, so it's mainly just an app on my Mac. It got me into Logos, so why complain?
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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Joshua Moran said:
Agreed on the amount of money spent upfront, but how much do serious windows users pay in anti-virus and internet security, the headache of the kernel panic, 80 security warnings per day. Once you go Mac it's hard to go back.
If you're smart, $0.
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Anyone looking to buy an Air should read this first:
http://www.marco.org/1361316116
Very astute comments.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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Greg Masone said:
I actually hadn't thought of it in that way yet...
Someone
needs to get one and post their experience here on the forums! Or sneak
into an Apple Store, download their library, and do it that way!
On it. Mine will arrive by next Wed.Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0 -
Watch out this Link for the new MBA
http://www.macworld.com/article/155067/2010/10/firstlook_10inch_air.html?lsrc=top_1
And see the Air in the Air!
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Why not just get a regular Macbook pro with a faster processor and larger memory and storage capacity for about the same price. Is having to wait a minute or so for the thing to boot really that big of a deal to settle for something less?
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Portability is one of the major plusses here. My wife uses a 10-inch Asus netbook because it fits in her purse. The 11 inch Air weighs 1.7 lbs less, but also could be carried without a backpack or case. The convenience is huge, particularly if it's not your main computer.
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected."- G.K. Chesterton
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Dennis Miller said:
Why not just get a regular Macbook pro with a faster processor and larger memory and storage capacity for about the same price. Is having to wait a minute or so for the thing to boot really that big of a deal to settle for something less?
As Ben said, Portability. I have a thick and heavy HP and it weights about 6 lbs. I have to carry the power adapter too since it dies after about 3-4 hours. Pretty good, but not 7 like the 13-inch. So now I'm going to carry around my iPad and my notebook and they will weigh less than my HP combined.
If you don't want portability, then definitely don't go MBA.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0 -
Kevin A. Purcell said:
On it. Mine will arrive by next Wed.
I'm amazed you're getting a Mac, Kevin. I had you down as a diehard Windows guy.
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According to Cult of Mac, the new 11" MBA is incredibly fast:
http://www.cultofmac.com/11-inch-macbook-air-first-impression-its-freakin-fast/65623
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R. Mansfield said:
the new 11" MBA is incredibly fast
Great News. Really want to see Logos4 on it in action.
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MBA 11" and 13", both are really fast, 13" runs Logos much better. 4Gb ram and 256 HDD(not really hdd). Price wise.... the question here wasn't about a cheapest way to run portable Logos but the best way. MBA 13" maxed out is really nice, i mean, really!
Truth Reformed Bible Church, Colorado USA
Teaching Elder.
Evangelist, currently preaching in Ukraine
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R. Mansfield said:Kevin A. Purcell said:
On it. Mine will arrive by next Wed.
I'm amazed you're getting a Mac, Kevin. I had you down as a diehard Windows guy.
I likely will run windows. I've been looking for an ultra portable that I could write on and do digital bible study. Now that logos for mac is comparable to the quality of the windows version, I decided it was time to jump.
I also am doing a lot of writing about macs at notebooks.com. Hard to do without using it.Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0 -
KGBguy said:
the question here wasn't about a cheapest way to run portable Logos but the best way
Wow, you really made me excited about it. Could you have some way to show how fast it is? Of course a video is the best but if you can't, could you give us some numbers like how much time it takes to do a certain tasks or so?
And if that performance boost is due to the SSD, I think we should all install an SSD on our PC then.
Thanks.
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Logos taught me a new skill today ... how to install a Mac program. I am now downloading content and will be up and running in about three weeks. Just kidding. Who knows how long it takes to download and index on Mac? I have a very large library.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0 -
It takes forever. Welcome to the social (to borrow a Microsoft marketing phrase).
Still like the MB Air I assume?
Are you a heavy Office user? If so, I'd be interested in your take on Office 2011/Mac released today. It seems to definitely be better than Office 2008 which ran extremely slow. Having copied over the Office ribbon finally, it's decidedly un-Maclike, but I completely understand why they did it. There are increasing numbers of Windows to Mac switchers as well as people who use Windows at Work and the Mac at home. Having essentially the same interface will be helpful to most of those kinds of users.
I use Word 2008 for my dissertation (having to remain with 2008 until Endnote is updated for 2011), but both can live simultaneously on the same system. I'll be grading my students' papers in Word 2011. I use iWork Pages a lot for personal work, especially since it's on the iPad, too.
I doubt I'll ever switch from Keynote back to PowerPoint even though PP'11 is a significant improvement.
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Greg Masone said:
I actually hadn't thought of it in that way yet...
Someone
needs to get one and post their experience here on the forums! Or sneak
into an Apple Store, download their library, and do it that way!i work at the Apple store and we have the machines to delete foreign subsidies on restart. Please don't do this. It'll just give us more work and make people hate the bible more than they already do.
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R. Mansfield said:
It takes forever. Welcome to the social (to borrow a Microsoft marketing phrase).
Still like the MB Air I assume?
Are you a heavy Office user? If so, I'd be interested in your take on Office 2011/Mac released today.
Well, I'm still getting used to it. So far so good thought.
I am downloading Office 2011 from technet as we speak so I can speak on that later. I will also buy iWork and try it out too. I like the apps on the iPad so I think I will like them on the MacBook Air too.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0 -
Everest Liu said:Greg Masone said:
I actually hadn't thought of it in that way yet...
Someone
needs to get one and post their experience here on the forums! Or sneak
into an Apple Store, download their library, and do it that way!i work at the Apple store and we have the machines to delete foreign subsidies on restart. Please don't do this. It'll just give us more work and make people hate the bible more than they already do.
I think that's a joke. Don't take it too seriously.
By the way, it reminds me the jailbreakme.com jailbreaking iDevices at Apple Store.
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I finally got it downloaded and installed. Took about 5 hours to download on a fast 10MB/sec cable connection.
It is now indexing and says 8 hours left. So if it is like Windows, indexing is causing a real slow down of the system. If that doesn't happen on the Mac version, then I am really worried. It is very slow right now. Takes about 2-3 seconds to respond to a mouse click.
That said, it looks good. the 1440x900 screen gives me a lot of room to work with. I am going to olike that compared to my previousl 1280x800 HP.
I'll post more after indexing is done.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0 -
No worries, that is totally normal and it will speed up once if finishes indexing. Quite annoying in the mean time though, definitely.
www.darinallen.org
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Hi guys. I was following quite closely on the MBA performance review and just realized that it does not support Apple Remote (MBA does not have Infrared Receiver)... is really a draw back for me since I need to do plenty of presentation.
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GET a USB pointer can fix it!
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An USB pointer surely can fix it but I already own an Apple Remote...
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Actually, if you plan to use a remote a lot, a USB solution might not be your best answer.
My wife uses the original MacBook Air for speaking at conferences. Now, I don't know if this is an issue with the new models, but we've found is that if the MacBook Air is too close to some projectors (especially Epson projectors like the one we own), the projector interferes with the MacBook Air's trackpad. You essentially cannot control the the pointer, even to start a slideshow. If you're shelling out of the slideshow for demonstrations, this causes even more problems. This is a known issue with the original MacBook Air. Apple claims it's improper shielding in the wiring of some projectors. This may be true, but I don't have the same problem when using the same projectors with my MacBook Pro.
Now if you can move the MacBook Air far enough away from the projector, none of this matters. But if you regularly speak in different settings, you know that you don't always have this kind of freedom.
Therefore, the solution we've worked out for my wife is to use an external USB mouse. That works fine, but obviously, if you're wanting to use a USB-based remote, you can see the immediate problem--the MacBook Air has only one USB port. Yes, there are USB hubs, but you'll find that they usually require an external power source when used with the MacBook Air. Then you'd have a hub and yet another cord connected to your Air.
I agree that it's a bit shortsighted on Apple's part not to allow use of their own remote with the Air. My wife uses hers all the time. How would you even use Front Row without a remote? Well, you'd have to use the keyboard, but that kinds kills the fun of hooking up the Air to the TV to watch videos.
I think the best solution is going to be a Bluetooth remote to use with the Air, but you're going to have to make certain it works with Keynote (or PowerPoint if that's your preference) before you buy.
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If you have an iPhone, use that as a pointer.
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Kolen Cheung said:
If you have an iPhone, use that as a pointer.
This works great if you can get both devices on the same wifi network. I often use my iPad to direct a Keynote presentation on my MacBook Pro. I can walk around a room and even have my presenter notes showing on the iPad.
However, there are lots of places where you cannot get on a wifi network. My wife speaks in a lot of schools. In most schools, the local wifi networks are controlled by the county and they don't allow outside devices to get on the network. So, it works great when you can use it, but you cannot depend on it as a final solution.
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Create an ac hoc network between your iDevice and the computer. Search achoc network in the web will have the instruction on how to do it.
The place that I get WiFi actually blocks the other access in the network, including the file sharing between my computer and the iPad. So, I have been using ac hoc since the first day I use iPad and I have no problem on it.
It will be fast, by the way. Ac hoc reduce time lag too.0 -
It's worth mentioning that you can bet a Macbook Pro with flash memory - which I believe enables instant on. With the Pro, you can get that faster processor, and probably the most important thing is more screen real-estate. It's not that much bulkier than an Air if you're going to be taking it in your bag anyway. I just don't see a compelling case for the Air. I like my processor fast, and I like to have an optical drive.
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Then that is not for you. MBA is for portability and instant on.
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Kolen Cheung said:
Then that is not for you. MBA is for portability and instant on.
Agreed. If there was no such thing as an iPad, I'd be all over the 11" MBA. I don't know if I'll ever get one, but my wife loves hers and I'm certain she would stick with the Air and get one of the new ones if she had to replace her current Air. She likes it for the exact reason that it's so light. She complains about the heft of my MacBook Pro every time she has to use it.
But I'll tell you the real advantage of the MacBook Pro in my opinion--it's not the optical drive. It's the fact that you can remove the optical drive and replace it with a second SATA hard drive. That's what I did. I now have two hard drives in my MacBook Pro. I rarely need an optical drive, but when I do, I stream it over the network. It's great having so much free space. I have a 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive as my main drive and a 350 GB 7200 (which was the original drive that came with my MBP) as a secondary drive.
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R. Mansfield said:
you can remove the optical drive and replace it with a second SATA hard drive
You should get a flash drive then. Though that still won't allow you to have instant on, but then loading Logos should be much faster. For about a hundred dollars you can get a 64 GB, which should be enough for the Logos4.
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I keep my iTunes library on the second drive. It's about 256 GB right now. I don't think a Flash drive could handle it :-)
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Any progress, Kevin? If it has finished indexing, I would be very interested to hear how Logos Mac is performing for you.
www.darinallen.org
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It finished the initial indexing. But it seems to index every time I start the application or restart the computer. Doesn't talke long now, but really annoying.
When it is not indexing it runs great. No lag except where there always was lag on Windows (notes with more than a line). I haven't had time to do too much as I am still getting things set up.
Learning a new OS is a little frustrating.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0 -
On a trip in UA right now, will gladly do some videos once get back to the US. Let me know what is it that you want and I'll record it for you.
Truth Reformed Bible Church, Colorado USA
Teaching Elder.
Evangelist, currently preaching in Ukraine
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Kevin A. Purcell said:Dennis Miller said:
Why not just get a regular Macbook pro with a faster processor and larger memory and storage capacity for about the same price. Is having to wait a minute or so for the thing to boot really that big of a deal to settle for something less?
As Ben said, Portability. I have a thick and heavy HP and it weights about 6 lbs. I have to carry the power adapter too since it dies after about 3-4 hours. Pretty good, but not 7 like the 13-inch. So now I'm going to carry around my iPad and my notebook and they will weigh less than my HP combined.
If you don't want portability, then definitely don't go MBA.
In regards to portability, I have the 13" MBPro that came out in the last refresh in May. Before that, I had a Gateway Win 7 computer that weighed over 10 lbs. This computer is so light compared to anything else (other than the Air) it's just ridicules.
As far as speed is concerned: I know the MBA has a slightly slower processor, but with the performance of a friend of mines Air with a SSD I would gladfully accept the 13" Air even over my 13" MBPro. That SSD makes up for the 200 MHz slower processor - no question in my mind.
Wilson Hines
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I had to meet up with a friend over at the local mall on Monday, so I got there early to take a look at the MacBook Air in the Apple Store. It's rather nice and easy to type on, the screen resolution is outstanding, and I must say I was very impressed with it. I still think it would be a bear to work with for an extended time for L4M because I am spoiled rotten by my 22 inch monitor and still yearn for something bigger.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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Wilson Hines said:
As far as speed is concerned: I know the MBA has a slightly slower processor, but with the performance of a friend of mines Air with a SSD I would gladfully accept the 13" Air even over my 13" MBPro. That SSD makes up for the 200 MHz slower processor - no question in my mind.
I've never used another MB until yesterday I was in Best Buy and played around with the fastest, most powerful system they had. And mine is faster on some tasks and just as fast on others. That one had a Core i5 processor but only a 5400 rpm hard drive.
In my experience with Logos, it handles almost everything with aplomb, except notes. Notes was a problem on Windows too. It does seem slightly more sluggish in Mac than on Windows. But as someone said that is because the Mac version is slightly behind the Windows version in optimization.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0
