Just a few days ago I wrote an earlier post about my Wait for Obsolescence regarding Apple’s impending (at the time) announcement of new MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I knew it was inevitable that the machine I am currently typing on, would one day (all too soon I might add) be consigned to a growing pile of aging machines that once sat atop another heap with a much prouder, King of the Hill stance. The only thing I didn’t count on was that after Apple’s announcement last Tuesday, I found myself (or my MBP) still atop that hill as my current configuration matches the “refreshed” 17″. The situation is obviously tenuous, because Apple also announced that they were still planning on adding the same updates that graced the new 13″ and 15″ MacBook and MacBook Pro to the 17″. Then any remaining bragging rights will finally come to an end–with one exception: my MBP has a MATTE screen. We’ll see, but I believe that will allow my MBP to retain at least a bit of a premium for awhile as it will become harder and harder to get your hands on a matte screen MacBook Pro–specially with a 17″ HD screen.

I will grant that nine times out of ten, when you sit someone down, especially in a nice retail environment, and have them compare a glossy screen next to a matte screen, they will naturally gravitate to the rich blacks and saturated colors and declare the contest a no-brainer. Almost every time, glossy will win that contest hands-down. I know that. I myself like glossy screens better than matte for the pure pleasure of viewing photos and movies and all the iLife-goodness that make people want to put their old Dells and HPs out on the driveway for next week’s garage sale items (a week before the sale even starts) and enter into the Mac good life. But those people are not the ones who use their Macs to choose accurate colors for their print or video projects, nor work in environments with glare issues. We simply will have no choice other than to buy third-party monitors or keep our older Cinema Displays and MB and MBPs.

I’m ranting and raving, but this really isn’t quite a hill to die on, even for me, because as I pointed out above, those of us who need the matte option, will just go the third-party route, or hope that our existing matte-equipped rigs won’t look too out-of-date (like the original plexi Cinema Displays) next to the newer gear. And I know very well the human capacity to “just get used to these things”. But it was one of those things where I felt that I had to get my curmudgeon on and let loose if nothing other than to jack up the potential resale value of my MATTE MBP when and if the time finally comes to succumb to Teh Glossy. But for now, I am still enjoying the King of the Hill status while I can.

It could have been argued in the past, that Apple didn’t need to enter into the living room space, as its brand was a technology brand and not a lifestyle brand. Why not just continue to tweak the AppleTV in its current form and pair it up to any HDTV set? I think that will continue to be an option for Apple, but Apple has always been about controlling the whole widget, the whole ecosystem. As of today, this is the one area in Apple’s business model where it has left out such a vital component–and it’s the component that people look at and interact with perhaps more than any other branded technology item in their household besides their mobile phone–and Apple’s well on their way to having that covered pretty well (some may argue the refrigerator, but I’m having a hard time visualizing an Apple logo on that). But with the unparalleled success of the iPod and iPhone as well as changing the name from Apple Computers, Inc. to just Apple, Inc., Apple has already broadcast their intention (or recognition) of being a lifestyle brand.

Personally, I feel that its high-time that Apple introduced its design philosophy to the living rooms of America, and for those that can afford to, to be able to build their entertainment center around an Apple product as the whole widget, rather than just as a peripheral, and display it front and center. I believe that Apple has established a reputation of being able to deliver a dead-simple device that just works. Those that are inclined for a more affordable solution should still have the stand-alone AppleTV as an option–even if it requires a bit more technical savvy. Add to it, the open-source environment and if services like Boxee take off, Apple will soon own the living room and will have become a true juggernaut, rivaling Sony in the home electronics landscape.

Having it be announced this coming Tuesday, might be too much to hope for, as Apple has made it clear that the spotlight will be on notebooks. But there’s always the possibility that Apple may make an announcement in time for the holiday shopping season (assuming there’s still any money left in the world to spend by that time), but it seems to be more likely something that would be announced at Macworld, come next January (just in time for the Super Bowl!). We’ll have to wait and see.

My MBP is the first laptop that I’ve owned. I don’t do a lot of travel and I’ve always been a desktop workstation, power-user kinda guy, so my need to be mobile never outweighed my need for speed. That was, until the last iteration of the MBP came out. While not a Quad Dual 3.2GHZ Xeon, at 2.5GHz, (I opted not to get the extra 100MHz) the Intel Core2Duo chip seemed plenty fast for normal, everyday work and loaded up with 4GB of RAM and with a 512MB Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT card pushing around 2,304,000 pixels (1920×1200) on an HD, matte-finish 17″ screen with a DVI out to power my 24″ external monitor with ease. I finally felt the speed had caught up with my “power-user” needs and haven’t regretted taking the plunge into the mobile world.

But alas, as with all new purchases, time marches on, and while those specs mentioned above at this writing still have bragging rights, within 10 years, they will be a laughingstock. Ten years ago, I was blazing away on a “blistering” 266MHz Beige G3 Tower, loaded with a “mind-boggling” 128MB of RAM and a “huge” 6GB HD with an 8MB ATI Rage video card powering a 21″ Radius PressView monitor (CRT for you kiddies). Hah! But I will have you know, that the above-mentioned system is still running OS X 10.4 (albeit hacked to the max with processor, video, RAM and HD upgrades to be able to run–but it still runs!)

All that is to say, that my bragging rights days are numbered, and Jonathan Ives and the rest of the Apple development team have been diligently at work getting ready to make my current configuration, hopelessly obsolete. Not that I will give in to the temptation to upgrade right away (after all, I’m now over $700BN in debt and my days of bleeding-edge are over), but I know, I’m going to be looking at a new shiny “work of art” and won’t be able to help but notice that my keys don’t “glow” quite as well, or its ability to read my mind and perform work for me doesn’t work quite as fast as this yet-to-be-revealed beauty will undoubtedly be. Yeah, it’s a bummer being Mark Spitz.

Besides his own introspections regarding his short time here on earth to get things done, I have to wonder what Steve Jobs must think about all this—”do people really want to see me dead?” Besides Steve Balmer of course! Seems the press has got a trigger-finger on his obituary and has actually and literally let it slip on occasion. He obviously won’t drop his workload and hastily schedule a press conference to prove in fact, that he is alive and kicking, all rumors notwithstanding.

All that is to say, when and if Steve Jobs does retire to his eternal state (actually, scratch the “if” part), it’s not like we haven’t been prepared for at least the thought of it. From his original scare with pancreatic cancer to his more recent bouts with various “bugs”, to the infamous Bloomberg obituary leak, to the rumor today, we have all been faced with the thought of Steve’s inevitable mortality. While this is a profitable occupation to apply to one’s own life, it perhaps crosses a bit into the morbid side when applied to others.

We seem to have this collective thought that Apple will truly be hosed when Steve Jobs passes onto that bit-bucket in the sky and his pixels are scattered across the universe, but I believe that the decade-plus that Steve Jobs has returned at the helm of Apple, has been sufficient to permanently infuse his DNA into the corporate culture and it will be run forever-after in the WWSJD mode. It may eventually wander off into directions Steve would have never thought to have taken, similar to Disney being nothing what Walt Disney dreamed it would ever become, but the mark Steve Jobs has already left on Apple and the computer world in general has been sufficiently stamped with Steve Job’s thumbprint right smack in the center of it. And that’s nothing to say about the career that still lies before him. Steve is still a relatively young guy and I believe he’s not anything close to being done changing the world if he can help it.