I visited my local Apple Store this week. My primary motivation was to get the free replacement for my faulty iPhone 3G power adapter. Coincidentally, I recently noted that my MacBook Pro battery might be eligible for a free replacement. So I took that along as well. Finally, this was my first opportunity to have some “hands-on” time with Apple’s newest products (new iPods, new laptop computers and the new LED Cinema Display). The result was a pleasant visit to the Apple Store, one that was both informative and occasionally surprising.

Reservations recommended

As Apple suggested, I made a reservation with the Genius Bar before coming to the store. I am pleased to report that the process worked perfectly! I arrived at the store about 20 minutes before my appointed time. I checked in with a concierge and my name was added to the queue. I was called within about 10 minutes, a few minutes before my scheduled time, despite a waiting list of drop-ins that was over two hours long. In other words, it definitely paid to have made a reservation in advance.

Bootable iPods?

The iPhone power adapter was replaced without any problems. The MacBook Pro battery was a different story.

Before the Genius could determine whether or not my battery truly qualified for a free replacement, further diagnostics were required. To do this, the Genius attached an iPod to my laptop and set about to boot from the iPod. I commented that I thought Apple officially discouraged booting from iPods. He informed me that these were specially configured iPods sent from Apple, designed just for this diagnostic purpose. Sure enough, after holding down the Option button at startup, to get to the Startup Manager screen, the iPod appeared as a startup drive named “EFI Boot.”

As you can imagine (given my interest in methods for booting from USB flash drives), I was intrigued by this EFI Boot option. Evidently, this was not simply a case of a standard install of Mac OS X on to the iPod. I asked, more directly this time: “Could I (as an end user) set up an iPod to do this? Could you tell me exactly what Apple had done here?” The answer was “No.” That is, he wasn’t sure exactly what Apple had done (or he wasn’t telling), but he was sure that Apple was not providing instructions to end users on how to duplicate the feat. [I later tried a Google search and similarly failed to turn up any details about an iPod EFI Boot option.]

As it turned out, it may not matter much: the boot process failed to work. That is, my MacBook Pro failed to boot from the iPod, stalling at the gray screen. In the end, the Genius had to refer to an online Apple database to get the needed information. Eventually, he informed me that my battery’s serial number was not a “winner”: Only some batteries in the cited date range were eligible for replacement; mine was not one of them. I’m not sure why Apple couldn’t simply list the qualifying serial numbers online, potentially saving me a trip to the Store. However, it is consistent with Apple’s general reluctance to go public with any details regarding problems with its products. Still, given how smoothly the whole Genius reservation process had gone, I was not inclined to complain.

The MacBook Pro & LED Cinema Display play very well together

Having completed the business portion of my visit, I turned my attention to the new products in the Store. I wound up spending most of my time playing with a new MacBook Pro connected to a new LED Cinema Display. Similarly connected to the Display were a standard Apple keyboard and mouse. The overall result was quite impressive.

Set up this way, I could work with the MacBook Pro as if it were a desktop Mac, ignoring its built-in trackpad, keyboard and display and instead using the Cinema Display with its connected components. I did notice an occasional lag when attempting to scroll a window with the mouse. But it otherwise worked perfectly.

Of course, when desired, I could quickly and easily disconnect the MacBook Pro from the Cinema Display — and have a fully functional laptop computer. For users who want both a laptop for traveling and a full desktop setup when at home, this is as close as I have seen Apple come to both letting you have your cake and eat it too. If you currently own both a laptop and a desktop Mac, it definitely starts you thinking about whether you could get by just as well with this MacBook and Cinema Display combo. As a bonus, the combo offers a dual display capability, without the need to purchase an additional monitor: the screen on the MacBook Pro can be set up as a second display when a Cinema Display is attached.

Two additional notes about these products:

• I tried to operate the Cinema Display with the MacBook Pro in “clamshell mode” (that is, with its lid closed). It didn’t work. The MacBook Pro just went to sleep, shutting off the display. I asked a salesperson if clamshell mode was supported. He said yes. But when he tried to show me how it worked, the MacBook Pro again went to sleep. Eventually he gave up, claiming he wasn’t sure how it worked after all.

• The new notebooks and Cinema Display all have glossy displays. To put it mildly, I am not a fan of these shiny screens. At the Apple Store, the reflective glare was immediately obvious and distracting. I could see my face in the display almost as if I were looking in a mirror. The store lights behind me were also annoyingly visible. Admittedly, as you start working, you tend to “refocus” your eyes and don’t notice the reflections as much. Still, I much prefer a matte display — such as the older Cinema Display that was sitting next to the new one in the Apple Store and showed no reflective glare at all!

As every Mac Observer reader knows by now, Apple has dropped the FireWire port from its latest MacBooks. The result is a lot of angry Mac users, and a controversy over exactly how important it is to have a FireWire port on a Mac. Although much ink has already been spilled on this topic, I wanted to add my own two cents.

Although I would prefer that FireWire remain an option — for all the commonly cited reasons (such as maintaining the capability to connect FireWire hard drives and FireWire-based camcorders), the complete demise of FireWire now appears inevitable. It absence from Apple’s MacBooks is just the harbinger of what’s coming down the road. So we might as well start getting used to it.

If a MacBook is your second Mac, and your main Mac still has FireWire, this should be a relatively easy transition. Even if a new MacBook will be your only Mac, odds are that you’ve never used FireWire and will not even be aware that the port no longer exists.

In other words, this ought not to be a big deal.

Except there is one big deal here and it is a critical one for me: Target Disk Mode. As a troubleshooter, I am loathe to give up on this feature. If your Mac crashes at startup, the ability to use Target Disk Mode to connect it as an external drive to another Mac (assuming you have a second Mac available, of course) is the simplest and fastest way to potentially repair the drive or at least recover data from it. It is also the best way to transfer large amounts of data from one Mac to another.

If Apple could deliver an alternative to FireWire Target Disk Mode (allowing the mode to work via USB or Ethernet, if that’s possible), I would not think twice about getting a MacBook sans FireWire. Without such an alternative, I won’t be buying one, at least not until I have no other choice.

Otherwise, I note that Apple has flip-flopped on FireWire before (omitting the FireWire 800 port on MacBook Pros and then returning it in the next update). Perhaps Apple will do a similar reversal with FireWire on the new MacBooks. I doubt it. But I can hope.

I’ve just returned from my 16-day trip to Japan. I travelled from Tokyo to Kyoto and further west all the way to Hiroshima. With me throughout these adventures were my iPhone and MacBook Pro.

Originally, I had planned to take only my iPhone, leaving my MacBook Pro at home (not wanting to carry around its extra weight and bulk). I ultimately changed my mind, primarily after assessing the restrictions and costs associated with using my iPhone overseas (as I detailed in my recent iPhone Atlas column). This decision turned out to be a wise one, but for a reason I had not anticipated (as I will explain in a bit).

True, it was not essential that I have either my iPhone or my MacBook Pro with me. You could argue that it it would actually have been better to leave them home, so as not to be distracted from the real purpose of my trip: enjoying the sights and culture of Japan. However, having access to the Web was more than occasionally helpful in getting background information related to our sightseeing.

I also appreciated the ability to track the fast-changing news events back home, most notably the presidential campaign and the economic crisis. While I might have been less anxious if I were totally unaware of these events, I inevitably heard about them anyway — via CNN on television (there is an English language broadcast in Japan) and the International Herald Tribune newspaper. Web access merely provided a convenient way to quickly get details unavailable from these other sources.

Finally, while I stuck to my resolution to refrain for any work-related writing while on the trip, I did minimally use Internet access to keep up with my email and Mac news. I especially followed the hoopla surrounding the release of Apple’s new laptops and Cinema Display. With just a minimum investment of time, I avoided being overwhelmed by a backlog when I returned home.

iPhone vs. laptop; Wi-Fi vs. Ethernet

Getting back to my original intent to have only my iPhone with me in Japan, I had planned to use it to connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi when in my hotel room, avoiding the costs of 3G network roaming. This was not a good plan. Not one of the hotels I stayed in had Wi-Fi access! And I was staying in some first-class hotels. They did have Internet access, but only via an Ethernet connection. I am not sure why Wi-Fi wasn’t generally available. Perhaps, I was just “unlucky” in my selection of hotels. But I don’t think so.

I was especially surprised because I think of Japan as generally more technologically advanced than the U.S. I expected Wi-Fi access, if anything, to be more widely available in Japan. Maybe these hotels put in Ethernet networks before Wi-Fi was well established — and before most hotels in the U.S. had any type of in-room Internet access. As Wi-Fi usage became common, U.S. hotels installed Wi-Fi networks, while Japanese hotels stuck with their already installed Ethernet networks.

However, I suspect that even this is not the primary explanation. For one thing, I found Wi-Fi access to be in surprisingly short supply anywhere. In the U.S., Wi-Fi is available (often for free) from coffee shops, fast-food restaurants, book stores, libraries and assorted other locations. You’d be hard-pressed to be in any metropolitan area and not find nearby Wi-Fi access. In Japan, Internet Cafés were more the rule, where you pay for time on one of the café’s computers. This is typically less than ideal for foreign visitors, as the café’s keyboards and screen displays use Japanese characters.

I did discover free Wi-Fi access at a McDonald’s in the Kyoto Station. Perhaps, due to my inability to read Japanese, I was unaware of other Wi-Fi locations. Perhaps Wi-Fi access is much more common that it seemed. But, again, I don’t think so.

As for Ethernet access in hotels, this was more than adequate for connecting to the Internet via my MacBook Pro. Surfing the Web via the connection was no different than doing so in the U.S. It some ways, it was preferable to Wi-Fi, as Ethernet is generally faster and more reliable. However, it was completely useless for my iPhone. There is no way to connect an iPhone directly to an Ethernet network. Had I stuck with my initial intent to bring only my iPhone, I would have had no in-room way to connect to the Internet at all.

In retrospect, I wondered whether a work-around would have been to take an AirPort Express with me, using it as an intermediary between the Ethernet connection and my iPhone. However, I have never tried to connect to an AirPort Express from an iPhone without having a computer available to initially set up the network. As such, I am not certain if or how this would have worked. While I intend to experiment with this before my next trip, I am sure others already know the answers (if so, feel free to chime in with your comments).

Bottom line

In the end, almost all of my Internet access in Japan was done via my MacBook Pro. I hardly ever connected to the Internet via 3G on my iPhone. I transferred only around 16MB of data for the whole trip, primarily from checking AP and New York Times news articles (I never used my iPhone for email). I stopped accessing the Internet via my iPhone altogether during the last week of the trip, as I was concerned about late charges not being posted to my bill until after my one month of International Data Package access ended (if this happens, you are charged the much higher non-package rate!).

While I was glad I had both my iPhone and my laptop with me, I am not sure I will be taking them on my next international trip. It certainly would have been easier not have the laptop to lug around. And it would have been cheaper to keep the iPhone at home (or at least never use it for phone calls or Internet access). Perhaps by my next trip, I’ll have a compromise solution: a much lighter alternative to my current MacBook Pro — a new MacBook, a MacBook Air, or an entirely new product that Apple may announce at the upcoming Macworld Expo.