My entertainment never takes priority over my reading.
I repeat that phrase like a mantra as we head into the midterm season, and I try to stay away from midterm malaise – that general laziness we feel upon burning out and the irrepressible desire to sleep, play video games, eat unhealthy foods and watch SNL: The Best of Will Ferrell on Netflix.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun every now and then, right?
I attended girls’ soccer and volleyball games in the past week in addition to the Homecoming Game we all want to forget, and I’ve not limited my interaction with my friends or family.
That is until Oct. 20 when my productivity train was finally derailed. The ladies and gentlemen behind Apple wowed me again with their “Back to the Mac” event.
I’d love to say I have bundles and bundles of cash to spend on new Apple products, but I’d be lying. I am an Apple fanboy in every sense of the word, and a boy can dream, right?
The first announcement was iLife 11, an update to Apple’s consumer-based media creation software that allows any regular Joe to organize photos, make movies and pretend to be musical virtuosos while manipulating Apple’s computerized pianos and guitars.
Next, iPhoto increases geo-tagging capabilities, and throws in better integration with Flickr and Facebook. That’s a step in the right direction, as cloud computing and social networking seem to be the way of the future.
Better editing and effects are new features of iMovie, in addition to the face detection iPhoto had. This isn’t incredibly spectacular, but it’s better than nothing.
GarageBand bulks up its “Lessons” feature so you can self-teach yourself guitar or piano with GarageBand better than before.
Using Flextime notes can now be manipulated, allowing for more creative freedom with less clicks.
Next up in my complete productivity derailment was FaceTime for the Mac. Can I get an “Amen”?
With this, Apple might have just put themselves into direct competition with the videochat behemoth that is Skype.
Apple then stepped up its game and announced Lion 10.7.
Some notable features of this operating system include full-screen applications like Launchpad, Mission Control and, last but certainly not least, the App Store for the Mac.
Finally, driving the stake in any hopes of my productivity, Apple made its MacBook Airs more compact and introduced a smaller netbook-like model. They’re still priced like Apples, unfortunately. You don’t get a discount on less materials here as the smaller model retails at $999, but for certain Apple users the Apple tax is one that’s worth paying.
Midterms still exist, but Apple’s Back to the Mac event gave me a few hours to forget about that and enter into a technological dream world.
Rest in peace, productivity.
Sean Quinn is a first-year political science student. His column appears every Wednesday.
