TechRadar just put an opinion piece online sure to grate with the Apple faithful. Rob Mead asserts that Snow Leopard is “little more than a service pack” and that “Windows 7 has raised the bar—and OS X 10.6 can’t reach it”.

The article goes on to lambaste Apple for having the audacity to release a system upgrade that doesn’t have any huge new features, and suggests that because of this it will “inevitably be crushed under the wheels of the mighty Windows 7 juggernaut”. I find that viewpoint perverse in the extreme.

First and foremost, criticising Apple for Snow Leopard being all about architecture rather than new features is rather like having a go at the driver in front of you for turning left after they’ve had their left-hand indicator flashing for the last quarter mile. Apple has been upfront about Snow Leopard from the start, saying that it’s about next-generation technologies and not new features.

Mead claims that this will make it a tough sale, and there at least I agree. But the fact that Snow Leopard looks much the same as Leopard isn’t something we should complain about. While I’d love to see a unified UI, I’m glad Apple—with the exception of QuickTime X—has avoided yet more pointless ‘make it look different in screen grabs to make people think it’s new’ gimmicky UI changes (see: the hideous Leopard ‘glass’ Dock and the semi-transparent menu bar, the latter of which subsequently caused much back-peddling).

Also, I’d sooner see Apple plugging the gaps for once, rather than losing focus by concentrating on the next big thing. It’s done the same with OS X iPhone 3.0, largely making important tweaks rather than wowing the audience. Likewise, Mac OS X 10.6 improves Stacks, Finder and Mail. AI for ‘intelligent’ PDF text selection in Preview might not be a show-stopping feature like Time Machine, but it’ll certainly provide the “real world benefits these changes will bring” that Mead thinks is missing from this release. The same is true for the 6GB you’ll claw back on your hard drive, the video-editing and sharing now built directly into QuickTime X, out-of-process Safari plug-ins, and the Exposé/Dock mash-up that obliterates one of the consumer-oriented Windows 7 features that had stolen the limelight—its revised taskbar.

Mead also complains about PowerPC support being ditched, and here I just say: tough. Technology moves on, and we’re three years past the Intel switch. It’s not like you have to bin a PPC Mac if the latest operating system won’t run on it (in fact, my sole PPC Mac quite happily waddles along on Tiger and is still regularly used), and to attack Apple by claiming people who splashed out on powerful Macs three or more years ago will lose out is risable.

Apple is a company that has always moved forward far more quickly than the likes of Microsoft, and it doesn’t look back. Apple shouldn’t compromise its important ‘overhaul’ upgrade, which sets the foundations for its future, just to cater for products that were end-of-lifed three years ago.

So, the new touchscreen Zune is on its way, which Microsoft believes is going to give Apple’s iPod touch a serious kicking. Aside from the fact that the new Zune looks a little too much like a lighter, I’m still confused regarding Microsoft’s strategy for this product.

On the face of it, the Zune has a lot going for it: strong media support, a decent screen, HD out, WiFi, a built-in HD radio tuner. But many reports suggest it’s still going to be a US-only product, which seems absolutely bonkers if true—after all, I’m pretty sure Apple sells one or two iPods in Europe, Australia, Japan and elsewhere around the globe. (Some rumours contradict this, suggesting Microsoft is planning to release the new Zune in a ‘limited number of European markets’.)

Mostly, though, this appears like the perfect product to kill off the iPod, rather than the iPod touch. This is the device Microsoft should have released before September 2007, not some time in 2009. The reason: objectively speaking, OS X devices aren’t about the hardware—they’re about what you can do with the device. Microsoft can crow all it likes about HD output (especially given that the device’s storage will be filled rather rapidly if you add a load of HD content) and a radio receiver, but until the company has something that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the App Store, Zune will be yet another also-ran.

If you’re in the UK, the MP expenses row sparked by the Telegraph can’t have escaped your notice. My current highlight: an MP who claimed for two packets of Tampax for himself. One wonders what a male MP could want with Tampax in order to do his job, but then it’s probably best to stop thinking about that rather quickly.

What grates right now is the typically weaselly manner in which most politicians are addressing this problem, using typical ‘politician speak’. At best, this is insulting; at worst, it’s showing they’ve learned precisely nothing (which is probably unfair—I’ll bet they’ve learned that in future they need to be a hell of a lot more cunning regarding fiddling expenses). So, in time-honoured tradition, here are some helpful hints for our lovely MPs:

When asked about the expenses scandal, don’t look all mournful or forthright (depending on what you think will get more sympathy) while rattling on about how “the system is broken” and how “the system must change”, unless you’ve never made what amounts to a remotely dodgy claim. If you knew the system was broken and you were exploiting said system, you were involved in what’s tantamount to fraudulent behaviour. The correct answer is not that the system needs to change—it’s that MP attitudes need to change.

When asked if you feel guilty about your conduct, have the integrity to provide a straight answer, using one word: ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Either you did or you didn’t do something wrong. Don’t spin the response to say “every MP should say sorry”. You are not every MP. I’m looking at you, Alan Duncan MP—and, believe me, I’d rather be doing something else… anything else.

When considering making claims in future, here’s a handy tip: when working in a job, you claim what’s required to do that job. It’s really quite simple. When I worked in a design agency, I claimed for a graphics tablet and some software. When I did client visits using my car, I claimed for petrol. Things I didn’t claim for, just to pick a few items at random: having an aga serviced, cat food, horse manure, and having a piano tuned. (On the last of those, I’ll forgive the MP in question if they make a total arse of themselves doing a live performance, tinkling the ivories on prime-time television.)

Also, when considering claims in future, bear in mind that since you’re earning at least £64,766, and no doubt have your fingers in lots of stodgy business pies, you can probably afford to pay from your salary for things like a quiche flan dish and a Vileda supermop. It might shock you to understand that not only do most of your constituents earn significiantly less than you do, but they also don’t get to claim for things like a toilet brush holder (unless they clean toilets for a living, and although MPs plumb the depths are are often surrounded by sh*t, that’s usually only in a figurative sense).

Of course, the real way to deal with this scandal is for all you MPs to stop being conniving, manipulative, shallow, lying, cheating, self-serving arseholes (perhaps learning from the rare odd exception lurking among you), but, hey, you’re MPs, right? Good luck in figuring out your replacement expense plan and working out how to use that to exploit the masses!

Love and kisses,

The general public

All the recent excitement about The Pirate Bay dragged uncomfortable arguments to the fore. Yes, The Pirate Bay was rather flagrant about its enabling access to copyrighted material. But when it boils down to it, The Pirate Bay is merely a search service for finding torrents—torrents that can also be legal, such as videogame demo downloads.

A whole bunch of people noted that The Pirate Bay was being singled out, in an attempt to provide a high-profile casualty and scare similar sites into shutting down. But much larger sites also provide access to torrents, notably Google (via a ‘filetype:torrent’ query).

The logical upshot of this was The Pirate Google, available from thepirategoogle.com. This site merely provides a front-end to a torrent-specific Google search, in the same way thousands of other sites provide access to Google Custom Search. The point is to show that Google’s functionality isn’t, in some cases, a million miles away from The Pirate Bay’s.

Google, apparently, thought differently. At the time of writing, Google’s blocked access to The Pirate Google. I’ll bet the official reasoning is down to the site’s name, in suggesting there’s some link between ‘piracy’ (bootlegging) and Google. It’ll be interesting to see if Google does the same if someone decides to create an identical site with a less controversial name.

With news emerging that Windows 7 Starter Edition only runs three applications simultaneously (and pundits amusingly trying to justify this as an OK thing), we can exclusively reveal that in the depths of Redmond is yet another flavour of Windows 7 about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

Codenamed ‘Shackle’, this low-end version of Windows 7 is designed to drive you as crazy as possible, by only offering out of the box support for Windows and Word. If you try to run anything else, the error pictured above appears. Try a second time and your PC will bark “I’ll show you!” (using the voice of Steve Ballmer), before loudly exploding.

When asked for comment, a Microsoft spokesperson said: “Look, everyone you speak to says they ‘only really use Word anyway’ on their PC, so what’s the damn problem?” When we suggested Microsoft’s multiple Windows flavours and absurd restrictions would likely make more people jump to the competition or increasingly use web apps from Google, Microsoft’s spokesperson whipped out a Zune, turned it up loud, played a sample of Steve Ballmer barking “I’ll show you!”, and set fire to our shoes.