Andy Laub

Sometimes I’ll look around and think I have too much stuff. And it’s true – I have a lot of stuff. We have a lot of stuff. No, it’s not an episode of Hoarders when you walk in the house, but it’s just… a little overwhelming sometimes.

Most of the time this feeling comes and goes, but occasionally it reaches critical mass and drastic measures are required. There was a period of time after buying my LeMond in which I owned three bicycles. I don’t think I ever tried to convince myself that this was logical; I think I just tried to ignore it. At a certain point it became clear the Bianchi was purely excess and was no longer a necessary possession, so I sold it.

When I was still in school and basically didn’t have any money, being able to own things was a sort of goal. And while owning things continues to be nice, I’ve also become somewhat attracted to the idea of only owning the “right” amount of things. In essence, carefully managing both the quality and especially quantity of what I have.

That’s why I’m willing to take somewhat of a hit when selling an old (in the sense of having been made redundant) bicycle or iPhone or television. True, making a little extra money is nice, but whoever buys whatever I’m selling is also doing me the favor of getting it out of my life.

At some point in December my left brain and my right brain finally got together on something and concluded that owning two cars is neither practical nor enjoyable. The Miata was fun for awhile, but I really just got kind of sad when thinking about it because I didn’t feel like I was being a good owner. And of course, having two cars means maintaining and insuring two cars, and while the Miata was never a burden, it was definitely excess.

So I sold it. Or planned to sell it, anyway. At the same time, the Saab has been getting long in the tooth, and without the Miata my sole car would be one with an automatic transmission and a lot of miles. So I decided to sell that too. This could have turned out really badly, with one or both cars languishing on Craigslist until I desperately accepted the first offer I received. Worse, I’d miss out on a car that I wanted to buy because of my self-imposed “all cars must fit in the garage” policy.

Miraculously, this was not the case. In what has to be the best Craigslist experience I’ve ever had, I managed to buy a car and sell two others in a span of four days, and actually be pretty pleased with how it all shook out financially. But what really makes me happy is that instead of having two marginally good cars, I now have one car that I can really get excited about.

When Apple announced Facetime as part of the iPhone 4’s myriad of parlor tricks, I wouldn’t say that excitement was my first reaction. Cautious optimism might be a better description: video chat is obviously a very cool and useful feature, but who would I even Facetime with?

A few months and one iPhone 4 later, I had still only used the feature a handful (har) of times. So when Facetime for Mac was announced in October, I was pretty happy to see Apple expanding the system across their other hardware. I was quick to download the beta and happy to see that it basically works as expected. At the same time, I had a nagging feeling that there were better ways to video chat with someone (probably because there are better ways to video chat with someone. Facetime is great fine for phone-to-phone or phone-to-Mac chat, but what about Mac-to-Mac? Or Mac-to-Mac-to-Mac?

It makes me wonder what Apple’s grand plan is for iChat. It’s standard on every modern Mac but is often overlooked; I suspect most users who rely on instant messaging (myself included) install a multi-service client almost immediately, while the rest have no need for any client whatsoever.

And that’s sad, because iChat is a pretty neat application for a few reasons:

1. It’s had video abilities for years, so you can have a discussion with one person or multiple people simultaneously.
2. Screen sharing lets you share what’s on your computer screen with somebody else (or vice versa) – perfect for giving a tutorial or presenting a document. And it works with audio chat!
3. It’s still an IM client, so you can send links, files, or just message in realtime without resorting to email.
4. Facetime doesn’t have any way of indicating whether the person you want to talk to is available because it’s still based off the notion of a phone call. In contrast, instant messaging revolves around availability status.
5. It’s on every modern Mac. And it’s free.

I’ll admit to being a bit of an instant messaging (and to some extent IRC) romanticist. I feel as though I write better than I speak, so the notion of being able to type in realtime has always appealed to me. Interestingly, it seems like instant messaging these days has become more of a business tool, probably a result of those of us who grew up with it (sort of) finding it to be a tremendously versatile medium for communication, and because the younger generation has (logically) moved on to instant messaging in its place.

But what of iChat versus Facetime? For now the two occupy somewhat separate spaces, but Facetime on the Mac is encroaching ever so slightly on iChat’s territory, and bringing with it some strange new standards.

If you own a Mac and you did your software update today, it’s likely you’ve had a bit of time to play with the new Mac App Store. I know I did, and the first (and only) thing I downloaded was Twitter for Mac, replacing Tweetie as my desktop Twitter client of choice. I won’t get into a written comparison (but here’s a side-by-side if you’re curious) since it’s not that big of a deal to me.

What did occur to me after browsing the App Store further was that I don’t really care that much about it. Obviously it’s a new and different way of acquiring desktop software, and I think it’s a good idea, but I’ve probably downloaded more apps for my iPhone(s) than I have for any computer, ever. I just don’t go out looking for new Mac applications very frequently once the need is filled, and new needs come along very rarely.

I’m willing to say that most of my needs are filled on my phone as well, but the two simply aren’t comparable environments. The need I’m generally still trying to fill when I browse the iOS App Store is that of a diversion – something that no one app can necessarily fulfill. When I’m at home on my Mac, I don’t need diversionary software because I have full-bore internet, a a big screen on which to view it, and unlimited bandwidth. On the phone, however, I’m probably more likely to be playing a game that works well on the small screen and with infrequent network usage, and the web is generally relegated to tool-status like many other apps.

None of this is to say that the Mac App Store isn’t a great success; I just don’t see myself as a frequent visitor. On the other hand, it’s already making for some great entertainment in and of itself.