As per Twitter recommendation I picked up some Sennheiser CX300 earphones. They sound pretty good and I managed to pick them up for a fiver – no they aren’t fake, or at least they’re the most convincing fakes ever – which isn’t so bad.

The problem is that the iPod Touch headphone jack seems to be optimised for the slightly shorted Apple earphones. This means that all non-Apple ones are a millimetre too long which equates to the garbled sound, like it’s coming from the next room over or something. You could get it working by pushing really hard on the headphone jack but that’s really impractical.

The solution, ram a dart in it until you’ve warn away some of the plastic inside. It works fine now although I’m not sure if I’d be able to sell it with a clear conscience.

I can kind of understand why MacBooks are so popular. They are nicely designed and run as smooth as something that’s really smooth – I just woke up, give me a break.

The one thing I don’t get is why is there a need to have a glowing light on the side of it while it’s in standby. Surely there is a better way to let me know the thing isn’t off. To be honest I won’t mind but a quick Google reveals that I can’t disable it. So thanks to Apple I have to have a giant pulsating light next to me when I sleep.

What?!

Today’s announcement from Apple was a disappointing one, mainly because after all the hype, I found out that the device isn’t really aimed at me.

It was always going to be an uphill battle. Personally I have a MacBook and an iPod Touch, so I questioned why would I want something in-between. My MacBook is as portable and as powerful as I’ll need, for a while, so the iPad can’t help me there. As far as mobile gaming and app use, my iPod Touch does those things perfectly – and it fits in my pocket.

I guess it’s aimed at a crowd of people who don’t need a full PC or Netbook but don’t mind shelling out more this device. Although I could ponder who that crowd actually is for hours, I won’t. The point is that the device isn’t aimed at me and if Apple can target the e-reader crowd then they’ll have something. However, I think that the price will put a lot of people off.

At least I don’t feel like I’ve been Appled. That was a fear I had going into this presentation, of feeling like I had to buy the next product, but luckily I don’t.

I hate them. Well that’s not entirely accurate as I spend most of the day using them but I hate the shear number of them. Why do we need Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer 5.5 through to 8, Chrome, Opera and many more? It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that all of them see the internet in different ways. Safari and Chrome use WebKit, Opera uses Presto, Firefox uses Gecko and Internet Explorer uses the mess that is Trident.

Why do we need multiple ways to see the same information? Most people use Firefox nowadays and although I prefer the way WebKit renders pages, Mozilla have built a great browser.

When it comes to consoles, I can vaguely understand a necessity of choice – in fact all forms of media should be delivered in multiple formats. With consoles it forces competition, which in turn forces innovation. The internet doesn’t need competition, it’s a tool, not an entertainment outlet.

Standardise the internet, please ISO get involved.

You’ve got to wonder why everyone isn’t doing it. Take some bleeding edge technology, a smart idea and make the product look desirable through clean and thought-out design.

How many laptops look awful? Clunky buttons, random flashing lights that you shouldn’t have to see, physical buttons that disable wireless and hinges that weren’t built to stand the test of time – these are just a handful of problems you’ll find with ordinary laptops. Not the MacBook though, it’s not another Dell or Acer monstrosity.

Whether you agree with any of the above is irrelevant because everyone must be able to agree with how well Apple play the PR game. Just sending out invitations that reveal a little bit – but not enough to spoil the event – they’ve created buzz. Numerous blogs have posted them over the course of the day, numerous blogs have alluded to an iSlate.

Personally I’m not interested from a consumer point of view because i’ve got my iPod Touch and MacBook and I’m content with them for now. Unless they make a real convincing argument.

I guess I’m a little bit curious because I have to be, they could be making a serious step towards gaming. They did invite Kotaku among other gaming sites, so it must involve gaming somehow. Could you imagine an Apple console?

Just think about that one.