MINI owners like Macs

Posted on by Ian C.

I cut my computer teeth on microprocessors – specifically, building my own 6502 based 1KB computer back in the late 1970s! I can still read 6502 Hex code 😉
My school back then had no computers at all, and at University we worked on terminals to a semi-mainframe. I’d seen a few “desktop” machines, but my first real experience with them was after I graduated, when I joined a company developing 6502-based products on CP/M systems. The first computer I worked on had a 8MB hard drive (yes, MB not GB), divided in to 2 x 4MB partitions because that was as much as CP/M could handle (of course with less than 64K RAM, programs weren’t big so that was ample storage for all I was doing).

Moving from CP/M to DOS was easy, and after resisting Windows and mice for a long time, I eventually grew to like them (converted by PCB layout programs) … but after more than 15 years of Windows & mice, I still use keyboard shortcuts in preference to mouse clicks.

I’ve looked at Apple computers a few times, but always been put off by (a) the lack of a right-mouse-click and (b) by the lack of compatibility with all the software I know & use. But my recent purchase of an Apple iPhone made me review Apple computers once more …
So I visited our local Apple store (before the huge new one opened), and had a VERY frustrating few hours dealing with sales folks there – but impressed with the products.

Initially, I looked at the Airbook; I saw the same attention to detail that the iPhone offers – those “tricks” that make you wonder “why don’t all computers work like this” … scrubbing the mouse over an iPhoto event to see all the pictures inside, click-dragging to easily select a video clip in iMovie, that sort of thing.
However the Airbook seemed sluggish, and it was pointed out to me that with no Firewire connection, video editing is discouraged.
In the end, I splashed big time and walked out with the portable with the most amazing display (the 17″ hi-res Macbook Pro).

Re-learning everything my fingers know is taking a long time, but already when I return to a Windows PC portable, things are difficult … why can’t I slide my fingers on the trackpad to scroll, for example.
At work, all our PCs are PCs – many still run DOS-based programs developed back in the 1990’s, although we’ve been forced to rewrite a few to run under the quite incompatible DOS simulation in Windows XP (and let’s not mention Vista!).

Like many MINI owners (it seems), Josh has been complaining about the PCs at work and arguing that Macs could do just as well; last Tuesday prior to my work trip to California, he set up Parallels on my Mac and installed Windows XP (easier than installing it on a real PC apparently); then he installed one of our companies RS232 based communications programs, plugged in a USB RS232 cable and installed the Windows drivers – and almost magically, the program was running and communicating with our products!

Windows on MacBook

I took both my Mac and the twice as bulky HP portable to California, and worked with both. Parallels proved itself reasonably capable of mimicking a PC, and the Apple clearly exceeded the HP (running hours instead of minutes on batteries, being lighter/easier to transport, and offering the higher resolution clearer display). I’m hoping that by my next work trip, I might be able to take just the light machine!

So, since there seems to be a strong synergy between MINI owners and Mac owners, let’s hear what else I’m missing … 😉

[By the way, there’s a whole negative side to this Macbook that I’ve skipped here, like the fact that the machine I have is #3 from the store! We’ll save that for a chat at the bar]

A different flavour of Fruit!

Posted on by Ian C.

Yes, it’s happened … goodbye Blackberry, hello Apple!

Blackberry and Apple phones

An early – and expensive – birthday present 😉

In some ways, I feel that the iPhone is a little like our MINIs … when I first heard about the iPhone I felt “interesting … but I don’t want one”
But then came the day when I actually saw one close up, and tried it – actually it was an iPod Touch, but similar – and using the web browser to visit GBMINI was a revelation! Look at how it renders the webpage exactly how it looks at home … look at how the text is readable even though it’s teeny tiny … and wow, it redraws wider if I turn the thing round, even easier to read 🙂
At that time, I had no idea about zooming, scrolling, etc – but it was so cool and it just seemed to work “right”. Once you’ve tried one, you don’t want to use a regular one any more – similar to how I feel with MINIs.

Margaret, also, is close to falling for an iPhone – although she’d never own a MINI. So I guess they’re not quite the same 😉

Anyway, to put this slightly “on topic” (do I have to do that for my own website):
I tried the iPhone in GBMINI#6 tonight – with the R50/R52/R53 factory iPod interface. The iPhone put up a message about not being compatible:

And yet, it actually played fine, working just like my regular iPod with the factory interface – which is, pressing CD6 to get any music (I haven’t bothered creating MINI1-5 playlists), and basically having no ability to navigate or see what’s playing.

You can press <> to navigate track by track (or 10 tracks at a time if you hold the buttons down), but with no way to know where you are, it’s best just to use random play mode.

Random play actually works better on the original factory iPod than on the R56 – in that pressing <> skips to the previous/next RANDOM track, but against that, the HU forgets that it’s in random play every time the car is turned off (or even if you just switch to radio).
Another plus of this factory solution over the R56 is that it continues where it left off after you turn the car off – but the negative here is that if you disconnect, then on re-connection it goes back to track 1. That’s a big pain in the iPhone, since you’re very likely to remove it from the car whenever you park.
Finally, you can’t look at the iPhone to see what’s playing, since it displays an unhelpful blank message, curiously though, you can still browse the web, check email – and presumably use the phone (but the wire’s not long enough – I’d have to put my head in the glovebox!)

Meanwhile, back in the land of iPhones – and following DB’s lead – I put the Content Robot iPhone WordPress plugin on to GBMINI … so now, my website displays quite differently on an iPhone to how it displays normally.
I can’t decide if I prefer the original “webby” layout, showing complete entries and pictures but very small text, or the iPhone custom layout which is much easier to read, but doesn’t show the whole page:

iPhone web page formats

Feedback, please 🙂

The first mod for GBMINI#6

Posted on by Ian C.

I haven’t decided whether to stick with the factory stereo and iPod adaptor, or put in something aftermarket like the Alpine in GPMINI; so far I’m definitely missing any useful iPod control – the factory system for the R50/R53 is really not very functional! You have to set up playlists called MINI1/MINI2…/MINI5, otherwise you can choose “all tracks” (which is what I’ve done so far, since I haven’t yet set up any MINI-specific playlists). The R56 iPod interface was more useful than that … but at least this older one doesn’t seem to take a minute or more to get ready to play music!

My normal habit would be to choose “random” play and see what comes up – if I like it, I can turn off random play and stick with that artist/album for a while. If I don’t like it, I can ship to the next track (which didn’t work on the R56, but does in the convertible). However, this factory system “forgets” that random is turned on, every time you select a different source (radio, CD) or turn the car off and on again.
So now, it’s switch on the car, and press “RND” every time.

Also of course, there’s no display of track/artist/etc, just a number. And no practical way to select a specific track either – when not in random mode you can -> skip to next track, but pressing that however many hundreds of times to get to a particular artist/album/track would be crazy!
Yes, I can set up the special MINIx playlists, but if you put a reasonable number of tracks in any one playlist, you still wouldn’t want to step through it; and if you make small playlists, you only have five possibilities to choose from!

I tried selecting a track on the iPod before connecting it, pressing PAUSE and then connecting it – didn’t work! The factory interface just did nothing at all (I think it was trying to find “MINI1” playlist); if I pressed “CD6” to select “all music” then it would start from the first artist/album/track and not play from the paused track I’d selected already.
Maybe if I set up “MINI1” playlist to be all tracks … I wonder if that would work then to be able to pause a track and then connect it?

So, I bought an AUX input cable, planning to connect up Sirius. But the AUX input cable isn’t working?! It never shows “AUX” when you step through the different MODEs; I did the “blind” cable install by pulling down the drivers knee bolster, but I’m 99% sure the cables connected OK; I guess I have to disassemble the downtubes and pull out the radio to check for sure.

Meanwhile, a quick question: is there anyone out there with the factory iPod in an R50/53, also with AUX input connected and WORKING?