Macworld 08... Thinner Air

Hi-ya. 

Being the unabashed Apple fanboy that I am, I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the announcements from Apple CEO Steve Jobs's keynote at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco this past Tuesday.In the keynote he made four announcements, so for the sake of organization, we'll use that format to discuss them.

1.Time Capsule

In short, a very, very cool idea. Steve explained it best during the keynote as a less annoying companion for Time Machine than your wired external hard drive. It utilizes Apple's awesome Airport Extreme 802.11 N wireless technology to wirelessly back up your system and comes in the impressive 500 GB version and the you'll probably-never-need-this-much-space 1 terabyte version at $299 and $499 respectively. On top of that, it's also a full Airport base station. Those are pretty great prices for very big hard drives and when you factor in the wireless feature, you can't help but say hats off to Steve and the guys at Apple for this one. I personally don't use the Time Machine feature because I don't have a real reason to do so, but this is certainly the way to go in my book if that appeals to you.

2.iPhone and iPod Touch Software Updates

For iPhone owners, this isn't a very big deal. You all get a free software upgrade of the already 

awesome features that came with your Jesus Phone. The Maps application now uses the phone's GPS capabilities to pinpoint your exact location to make finding your way to places easier. A new feature is the web clips capability that is similar to the one that was introduced with Leopard's version of the Safari browser. It allows the user to essentially create their own widgets out of sections of their favorite web pages and, on the iPhone, post these widgets to their home screen. Speaking of home screens, the latest update allows users to customize their home screen and flip through up to 9 different ones.

It's iPod Touch owners, like me, that have reason to be excited about the update. That is, if you can justify the $19.99 price mark Apple has placed on it. The update adds the Mail, Maps, Weather, Notes and Stocks applications to the iPod along with the new customizable home screen feature and Web clips. Personally, I have been waiting for this update for a while mainly for the Mail application because it by far my favorite native Mac application. Maps is a cool application as well, I just don't know how much I can say for its overall worth in terms of use because you will need to have the Wi-Fi connections in order to use it. Of course, that goes for all of the iPod touch's internet features, but any maps program would be better suited if it could be used anywhere on the go.

The Weather app will also be cool but is also limited by the need for a Wi-Fi connection. I will never use the Stocks app. But I am excited about the Notepad app. I've wanted that for a while as well. The customizable home 

screen feature should have come standard in my opinion, but I will use it.

3. iTunes Movie Rentals and AppleTV "Take 2"

I think this is a huge step in the rental industry, albeit a late one. When Apple first released their AppleTV a year ago, it was done very sloppily with very little hard drive space and almost zero push for the product. After nearly falling flat on its face the AppleTV is back with an all new software update bearing the name "Take 2," allowing users to stream content directly from the internet AND rent movies in standard definition and HD. Of course you can also rent movies for use on your computer or iPod too, but this move is one step closer to the end of movie rental chains and the dreaded late fee.

When renting through iTunes you download a movie from apple and once it has completed at least 30% of the download you can choose to begin watching. If you choose to wait, you have 30 days to begin watching, but once you hit play you must finish within 24 hours. Also, within that 24 hours, you can watch it as many times as you want. Once your 24 hours are up, the file disappears from your computer automatically. I'm not sure how that works on the iPod front, but I'm guessing that the next time you sync it, it takes it off.

Like I said, I am very much for this and at $2.99 for SD and $3.99 for HD, the prices beat or match that of the big rental chains, and hey, you don't have to drive to get them or wait to they come in the mail. Thanks, Apple.

4. MacBook Air

Weighing in at only three pounds and measuring in at 0.76 inches at its thickest point and 0.16 inches at its thinnest, this 13-inch laptop dropped jaws when Jobs slyly pulled it out of its manilla envelope. This little guy surrounded Mr. Jobs's keynote with a considerable bit of buzz. The rumors were flying for months in advance about what Apple's new ultra-portable laptop would thrill us with and much of those rumors turned out to be true. 

There was one rumor however that didn't turn out true, and it was the one that we all held most dearly. Early on, it was said that Apple would attempt to price the Air competitively with Dell at around $750. So when Steve broke the news that this piece of art would put us in the hole a cool $1799 at the base price, our hearts broke. 

Another big rumor that did come true was that about the solid state hard drive not unlike those that power the iPhone, iPod touch and iPod Nano. Basically these are very tiny hard drives with NO moving parts, making them extremely more durable and perfect for on-the-go use, not to mention the boot time with a solid state drive is next to nothing because they are lightning quick. However, some of us neglected to think about how new the technology is and how much something like this costs. At its base price, Air holds a regular 80 GB hard drive, but the consumer can opt for the $999 upgrade to the 64 GB solid state hard drive. All in all, if you want the the solid state version of the Air, you're looking at spending about $3,000. Wow is right.

On top of all this is the sheer fact that this is not a very practical laptop. I paid about $1700 for my nearly maxed out MacBook, which boasts a 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive. Without the solid state hard drive, the Air would be a downgrade that would COST me $1300 bucks.

But it isn't all bad for the Air. Since there is no included optical drive with the Air, the guys at Apple brainstormed and came up with two great ideas. The first is the ability to use the optical drive of another computer on the same network be it PC OR Mac. All you do is install the software on the other computer you want to use and its drive is now yours. This is mainly for software downloads and installations and I don't know if it would work for watching movies or not. The second option is the super slim SuperDrive that allows you to both view and burn DVDs and CDs. Best of all it's only $99. Wow. However, for those hoping to score a cheap burner for their existing system, it ONLY works with the Air.

Overall, the Air is really for rich Apple supporters who want an oversized PDA when they're on the go to do their work on. But don't dismiss the Air yet. As with all successful Apple products ( iPod, OS X, AppleTV, etc.), it will need time to reach its full potential. Until the price drops and more realistic reasons to buy the thing surface, marvel at the sheer beauty of its design and the mere fact that it actually exists and REALLY is that thin.

In my book, MacWorld went pretty well this year. Three hits for Apple, and only one slight miss. I'm going to end up definitely using two of the announcements and in regards to the Air, its probably a good thing it ended up being so expensive in that it saved me from buying another computer 6 months after buying the Mac I'm on now. 

Basically, yeah, the Air is expensive, but get over it.