One nice thing about this feature (for Apple) is that it now allows Apple to get something it did not have before: usage statistics. Granted, Apple Software Update enabled Apple to see how many people were updating their Boot Camp drivers, but it was a poor measure for how many Boot Camp installs were actually being made.

Anyone in the industry will tell you that people often don’t update software. In addition, those downloads were homogenous; you could download a Boot Camp 1.x, 2.x, or 3.x update and deploy these across thousands of systems with a single download. The Boot Camp Assistant pulls down different bundles for each system, requiring it to be done on the computer, and having the computer pull that file down from the web.

As such, the Boot Camp Assistant is likely what Apple is using to keep track of how many people are using Windows on their Mac at any given time. And, it gives them per-model counts, so they can track how many, say, MacBook Air users are choosing to give up precious SSD storage in order to run Windows. Considering the bundles are model-specific, they could even be keeping track of how many people, for example, chose to install Windows on a 64GB MacBook Air versus a 256GB MacBook Air.

My point in conveying this information is that you should always re-download Boot Camp drivers with each Windows install. There is certainly a lot of interest in Apple (or at least, there should be) in evaluating which Mac models are going to be moved to ARM-based processors, and which will stay on more-powerful Intel CPUs. Windows support is a key factor in that, Apple does want to know if that feature is important to you (even if they have no interest in replying to your emails stating such).

If you look at Apple Support Documents, and the Apple product pages, they refer to the product as “OS X Lion“. Not “Mac OS X Lion” or “Mac OS 10.7″, simply “OS X Lion”.

Note that this title lacks two key things; Mac and 10.7. More specifically, if you look at an Apple Support Page’s affected products listing, it will appear like this:

Mac OS X 10.0, Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.2, Mac OS X 10.1, Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.5, Mac OS X 10.6, OS X Lion

Why the change? It’s not quite clear. Apple still refers to the product as Mac OS X under the About This Mac feature in 10.7.2, so there is a bit of mixed branding.

I do suspect though that this late change in branding implies that Apple may be prepared to do what many have rumored; blend iOS and Mac OS in some way down the line. It may or may not happen with Lion itself, but there has been considerable talk of ARM-based devices that resemble netbook-style MacBooks, instead featuring multi-touch displays and an ARM CPU.

In light of Windows 8 running on ARM, and notebook makers eager to combine ARM and Windows to increase profit margins, and deliver lower-cost computers (to combat tablets primarily), Apple may see the need to quickly respond to the rise of Windows ARM. Having a product that is “Lion” but also not necessarily the power, prowess, and capacity of a “Mac”, could allow Apple to retain customers that would otherwise defect to the lower-cost Windows ARM offerings.

Such a change also allows Apple to mix branding while creating a hierarchy of devices. With iOS devices focusing on portability, and Mac being the Cadillac brand of premium personal computers, Apple could create a middle-ground offering that runs on ARM, runs Lion, but requires recompiled software and functions as a middle-ground between the two products.

It could be one of the best moves Apple makes. Honestly, how many iOS device owners would buy a $400 Apple netbook? How many $2,500 MacBook Pro owners would buy one?

Apple has said netbooks may not be in their DNA. They never said they wouldn’t compete in that price-point or arena. This is a small change that could mean big things for where Apple takes Lion, especially if that means taking it to ARM… which they now happens to be a strong point for the dual-core Cortex manufacturer.

Back when Apple was burying Copland, there was a hurry for a new platform. Basically, it was down to two key rivals; BeOS and OpenStep (previously NeXTStep). Solaris and some oddball deal for Windows NT were also on the table, but weren’t main choices.

Now it has come to the table that Apple bought NeXT because of ambitions to move to Intel. Well, not really.

Apple needed a modern kernel that wasn’t rooted in machine code. BeOS and OpenStep were great candidates for this. Windows NT too had shown it could exist on PowerPC and Intel at the same time, which was why Apple was eyeballing the platform too.

Really though, this wasn’t the main reason. Apple has always had ambitions to run Mac OS on Intel. This dates back to the Star Trek project, which began a good decade before there was even the idea that Apple would be in the shape it was in by the late nineties.

Steve’s passing has opened up a lot of history… people who weren’t there, weren’t rooting for Apple at the time, and even those that patently disliked Apple at the time… all want to know how Apple got to where it is. But, those that grandstand grand plans, will make history a bit too blurry to set the story straight down the road.

To be clear, Apple acquired NeXT because OpenStep matched BeOS in terms of being a potent operating system platform that Apple could build on. What gave NeXT the edge, was Steve Jobs himself, who was grooming Apple leadership to give him the bid.

For what it’s worth, Intel’s x86 talents would not give them an edge in the PC world until after Motorola spun off its PowerPC assets… there was, after all, plenty of competition in PowerPC, provided by Motorola, IBM, and newcomers like Exponential (which now as Intrinsity makes advances in ARM… but that’s for another day).

I’ve often argued that it took a crusade to change Apple’s mindset, and I was always referring to one guy. That one guy was right on most of the time. That guy changed the world.

It’s taken me a couple of days to put together comments on Steve’s passing. There are few people that I have ever felt their loss would hurt either myself, or the world, as much as his did. Every time I talked to him, even in the times I didn’t agree with him, I knew he would change the world.

I’m honored to have rooted for him when few did. I am humbled that he, and everyone on his team, paid for my college education (I bought AAPL at $4/share post-splits, right about when he returned to Apple). And, I thank him for making some insanely great products. Steve, humanity will never forget you.

For starters, I use the 500 GB Seagate Momentus XT in my MacBook 13-inch Late 2009 machine. This is a bit of an oddball in Macs, as it is one of only about two or three machines that purely uses the NVIDIA MCP79 chipset to power the entire system. The only Intel chip in this machine, is the Core 2 Duo CPU.

As such, the update process may differ starkly from other Mac models. For the previous SD24 and SD25 firmware updates, it was much more of a breeze than other Mac users, my Mac happily booted from the CD-R image, and ran the update.

One major configuration change that I made however was switching to a dual-drive configuration, with a SSD drive in the other drive bay, instead of my optical drive. Combined with FileVault 2′s EFI bootloader, my Mac decided it was not going to boot from the optical drive. At all. I couldn’t even boot a Windows install disc. Obviously, I’m going to be looking into that a bit more later.

But, realizing that firmware SD28 fixes a critical data corruption issue, I had to move to Plan B. Which, was to take my MacBook apart, and pull the hard drive out. I took it into a PC about seven feet away, and booted the install disc that I had just burned.

The entire install process took all of about two minutes. The firmware update downloaded to the drive without any issues, and I pulled the drive out of the PC, and put it back into the MacBook.

Then came the moment of truth: Would the MacBook boot from the drive with the updated firmware. If you read my most recent article on Momentus XT, you would know that with Momentus XT updates in the past this was no certain thing.

Thankfully, it booted fine. I am writing this post right from the drive, and haven’t had any issues with it since. It has passed a SMART self-test and I’m about to run a long drive self-test as well.

My biggest concern in the wake of the process is that Seagate continues to not have a Mac hard drive firmware update solution for their internal drives. Apple has the code to facilitate this; they have offered it on many Seagate and other HDD manufacturer-built drives when they shipped from the factory with this code. I implore Seagate and Apple to share the update binary for Mac so that Mac users can update any hard drive from inside Mac OS X. It does no goodwill to Apple to keep that code to themselves.

The lack of a Mac updater aside, the update hopefully, hopefully puts an end to Momentus XT’s woes, because the underlying technology is solid. It’s the best balance between the ideals of extremely-fast storage, and extreme capacity. I’m seriously afraid that the 1 TB version of the drive has been held up due to the marketing blunders that these firmware issues have caused. The only thing I can suggest to Seagate on that front is to give it a new marketing name, apart from Momentus XT…

… and to send me a review copy. I’d be happy to tear it apart and let people know it’s as solid as a standard hard drive.

However, I will say that I am disappointed at the pricing that has emerged on other web sites (here’s just one for example).

At double the pricing for Amazon’s Cloud Drive, I can’t say I’ll be using iCloud. For $120/year I get unlimited storage on CrashPlan, for up to 10 computers worth of storage in my house. Other online backup services combine online backup with mobile app access to all your files, at one low monthly price.

What about communication? Calendars? Etc? All freely supported on Google Apps. Which, I might add, is still free for up to 10 email addresses worth. At the current free Google storage rates, that translates to 75 GB per domain name… and domain names cost only a few dollars a year.

I hear the argument all the time that these cloud services are different than raw storage, they make lives easier. Granted, I don’t think iCloud should compete with the “unlimited storage” shared hosting solutions. I think that’s unrealistic.

That said, I think cloud solutions do have to compete with services like Google Apps and Windows Live. If I can store documents via email, if I can manage them in a Gmail view, and if I get 25 GB free from Windows Live SkyDrive… what am I paying for with iCloud?

Of course, there’s the freemium argument as well. People will get “hooked” on iCloud with the first 5 GB, and then want more. And they then won’t want to move. Sorry, I don’t buy it. I think people will get more tech savvy as their 5 GB get used up, and ask even more technically-inclined people for a way to keep the free file bash going.

That may work for Apple too, but it’s far from a cost-effective solution. iCloud may be the best cloud out there, but in terms of bang for your buck, I don’t think it’s there yet. Not with the pricing that has been disclosed, at least.

Lion appears to have fixed that. But, it also brought something really cool along as well.

When I tested the download drivers feature of the Boot Camp Assistant, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the drivers successfully downloaded. Even better, they actually worked! But, one thing did irk me, which was how long it took to extract and complete downloading.

I presumed that at, 500 MB, Apple could be testing some new compression algorithms. And, it looks like I was correct. Apple appears to be testing out some optimization techniques that rival what has been seen in other download managers. These consume large amounts of computing resources, in order to save a few megabytes per download.

The cool bit in all of this is that Apple appears to be using OpenCL to handle the decompression. I was able to monitor it ticking away as the Boot Camp Assistant ran.

This could mean future implications for delivering Apple Software Updates as well as just general computing. As Apple builds OpenCL experience, you can expect that Apple’s own suite of apps will begin taking advantage of this technology on a baseline performance level.

At least, that was what was supposed to happen. See, most iTunes Plus early adopters got stuck with only partial conversions, leaving them with many songs stuck in the jailed FairPlay format. And unlike iOS, the only jailbreak was to downsample and burn to a CD-R audio disc, finally reconverting it back to an AAC.

Thankfully, that is now over with via iCloud & iTunes In The Cloud. Here’s a quick step-by-step to remedy the issue.

Step 1) Find your iTunes Library folder in Mac OS X Finder or Windows Explorer.
Step 2) Do a file search for files within the folder ending in .m4p
Step 3) Make a list of all the audio files listed. Then, drag those results to the Trash / Recycle Bin.
Step 4) Go to iTunes Store > Purchased and enter each song name in.
Step 5) Re-download those songs.
Step 6) Empty the Trash / Recycle Bin.

The result will be your songs have been replaced with iTunes Plus, DRM-free versions of the content. Keep in mind that this may leave some references to the deleted un-Plus versions of the song, but it’s also much faster to upgrade the way I described.

Note: Some songs are still indeed stuck in .m4p. Some record labels never signed onto iTunes Plus, and are still downloaded in FairPlay-encrypted .m4p format.

Unfortunately, Lion appears to be progressing much faster than OpenJDK for Mac OS X. Apple just announced Lion will ship next month…

… But OpenJDK has much more work ahead at this point. It does not appear likely at all that OpenJDK will even hit alpha-grade release quality by July, and I doubt a release will even be available within three months following Lion’s release.

Some hackers will probably find a way to cobble together the Snow Leopard binaries and execute them on Lion. For those that want to play it safe though, my suggestion is to partition your drive and install a second copy of Snow Leopard.

Best of all, you can do that right now, so that when Lion ships, Java can be just a reboot away.

Apple doesn’t go into great detail as to what may fail, but basically a couple of things can happen. One, the thin metal can warp if you open and close the bottom case many times (especially if you upgrade hard drives a couple of times, add in an SSD to replace your optical drive, and upgrade the RAM… like me). The other is that the rubber on the bottom can delaminate, causing the MacBook to look like it has skin cancer.

The solution is simple (now, at least), just head to Apple’s repair extension program page for the Late 2009 MacBook.