Hardware

Macworld 2008: Analysis of New Products from the Steve Jobs Keynote

By EAN ⋅ January 15, 2008 ⋅  Email this Post ⋅  Print this Post ⋅ Post a Comment

What to expect from Apple in the immediate future.

Time Capsule: Now this is a product I could really get into. Basically a chimera between a hard drive and a wireless router, it seems like the perfect new item to take advantage of Time Machine in a multi-Mac household. Pricing actually seems rather reasonable too. At $299 for the 500GB version and $499 for the 1TB version, the 500GB version is actually $15 dollars less than combining the popular D-Link DIR-655 802.11n wireless router and a 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Pro. Not bad. On the other hand, the 1TB version is a bit overpriced. If you were to combine the D-Link DIR-655 802.11n wireless router with a 1TB Western Digital My Book Premium II, for example, the cost of high end Time Capsule would be around $45 more.

MacBook Air: Filling the gap between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro is a wise idea, as that’s a pretty significant price spread between Apple’s two previous notebook lines. Damn the MacBook Air has a small profile–and its sexy to boot. Absolutely incredible to see Apple taking their designs to a new level. Despite the size, Apple seems to be cramming all kinds of high tech stuff into it. Solid state drive, multi-touch trackpad, iSight, ambient light sensor, LED backlit 13.3″ display, 2GB RAM, 5 hour battery life, and everything else you would expect to see in a modern notebook. There’s no optical drive, but that’s something that you could easily live without. However, the software that allows you to “borrow” another computer’s optical drive sounds damn awesome, but I’d like to see how well it actually preforms with daily use. While MacBook Air isn’t a heavy work machine, with that slow processor and all, it’s one hell of a road warrior. It’s fairly priced at $1799 too–right between the black MacBook and the entry level MacBook Pro. And the MacBook Air is even $100 less than Sony’s TX model which has significantly less processing power, less RAM, and Windows Vista. The top of the line MacBook Air, however, carries an extraordinarily high price point at $3098.

iPhone Software: Updates to the iPhone are always welcome. No complaints here, especially since the updates are free of charge.

iPod Software: The new software seems pretty cool–but a $20 upgrade charge certainly is not. The upgrade really should be free, as these are all programs that can be found on the iPhone as well.

Movie Rentals: This is a big deal, as it could help Apple get the one up on the competition yet again–especially since all of the major movie studios are on board. Prices seem to be pretty fair in comparison to brick and mortar movie rental places like Blockbuster or Hollywood Video which, in my area, charge about $4 or $5 per rental for new releases. I really like the time frame. Thirty days to start a movie is great and the 24 hour time limit to watch a started movie seems like more than enough time. And being able to watch movies on Macs, PCs, iPods, etc. is a really nice bonus. However, while this may be a blow against brick and mortar movie rental stores, I prefer the NetFlix model with their monthly fees. With any luck, Apple will adopt this strategy somewhere down the road.

AppleTV Updates: It’s nice to finally see Apple giving their AppleTV a backbone. Undoubtedly one of Apple’s weaker products since its inception, it really needed a boost in order to start selling, and I think we may see just that thanks to this new update. A cheaper price point (down to $229) is nice to see and the new movie rental feature (in HD to boot) is going to be a big selling point.

Much like the slogan said, there certainly was “something in the air”. Every product announced in the Stevenote dealt with wireless technology. But not just basic Wi-Fi–groundbreaking wireless technology. A router specifically designed to harness Time Machine’s power. A notebook computer that’s smaller than anything on the market and doesn’t need cables to use an optical drive. Updates to extend the innate wireless features found in the iPhone and new iPods. Much needed AppleTV updates to wirelessly rent movies as well as download music and photos.