Steve Jobs’ kicked off Macworld San Francisco ‘08 today at 7 pm (Finnish Time, that’s 9 am in SF). I was looking forward to the Keynote as always, since usually Apple has a few new tricks up its sleeve at MWSF — and 2008 was no exception. The only thing ’spoiling’ the surprise of this year’s Macworld were several rather (in retrospect) accurate rumors/leaks about some of the soon-to-be-new Apple product. If you want to watch the Keynote for yourself, then I suggest you ignore everything I’m about to say and not read this post.
Apple’s new operating system Leopard has sold 5 million copies; that’s a lot. And according to Steve, it’s the best selling Mac OS X ever. I’ll be buying Leopard too at some point, just haven’t really decided when. But since the new update 10.5.2 is out and everything’s running smoothly according to the IT-world, it’s probably going to appear on my shopping list this spring. The new feline OS has a lot of new features that I’m excited about, chiefly among which is Time Machine. Which brings me to Steve’s first pointer:
1. Time Capsule
Time Machine is used to backup your data on Macs to a external Hard Drive. Unfortunately, it didn’t support file transfers over Wifi — and boy did that suck. Thankfully with this new gadget, an Airport Extreme and a Hard Drive come together: Time Capsule. It’s something I’ll be buying along with Leopard. My current Buffalo Terastation has a lot of space (1TB) but it’s huge, noisy and because of Macs’ WebDAV, transferring large files over HTTP is sluggish. It works well with Windows but unfortunately not so well with Macs. Shame, as it’s a decent piece of hardware. Time Capsule supports Wifi 802.11n and will be available in February with two different Hard Drive sizes: 500GB (299€) or 1TB (499€). Pretty neat.
2. iPhone
I was looking forward to Steve introducing a new 3G iPhone for Europe. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. The current version has done well though; according to Apple during the 200 days of selling it’s sold 4 million units. That’s a pretty decent amount; people have been going crazy for that phone over in the States. Unfortunately for us over on the other side of pond, the current version of the iPhone just doesn’t cut the mustard compared other competing phones in terms of features. And that’s really one of the main things I’m looking for. I’ve fallen completely in love with my iPod Touch’s interface, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a 3G iPhone. The sales figures for Q1 in the US are impressive; the biggest marketshare being RIM (Blackberry’s) 39.0% and Apple 19.5%.
Apple’s releasing a SDK in February for both the iPhone and iPod Touch, which essentially are the same device. Also, they’ll both be getting some new software and updates. I’ve got the iPhone’s Google Maps app on my iPod, but the thing it lacks is its ability to actually pinpoint you on a map, a feature Apple’s adding now. Using cellphone triangulation, the Maps app will be able to pinpoint you on the actual map; a feature I’d love to have too. Webclips (which basically is website bookmarks), adds website links straight to the home page on your iPhone. Useful? I guess. The customizable home screen is a welcome update. The thing I don’t get is why it wasn’t available in the first place. Another idiotically late update is the ability to send multiple SMS’s — now that should’ve been available right from the start. The iPhone will also feature a Lyrics ‘plugin’ with the music player for songs that support lyrics (?). So all in all, some pretty decent changes. I’m still a little pissed off about not getting a Euro iPhone. Apple will be releasing a new 1.1.3 firmware update, which I hope to god will get jailbroken.
3. iTunes
Steve talks statistics. iTunes gets movie rentals, which will be available to the public in 30 days after DVD release. The terms of renting are that you have 30 days to start watching the movie and 24 hours to finish it once you’ve started. But you can watch the movie as many times as you want during those 24 hours. Also once you’ve started the movie, you can transfer it to any Apple device and continue watching it. Surprise, surprise this is only for the US, the International release will be coming later this year (at least it’s coming). The rented movies are supported by all macs, current Generation (6th) iPods and the iPhone. No surprise there.
Another cool thing is actually AppleTV. The originally launched device was a bit of a bust, which amazingly Steve agreed with. So now Apple’s bringing out “AppleTV: Take 2″, which is basically a software update for the AppleTV. The price of the device has been dropped (no Euro-price, but the US gets it for $229) and the good news for current owners is that the software update is free. The AppleTV is now more Apple + TV, in terms that you don’t actually need a computer at all if you don’t want to - you can rent movies (see above) — in DVD or HD-quality, yey — view audio/video podcasts, photos from your computer and also from Flickr & .Mac. You can also buy TV-shows, music videos, music and all that other multimedia stuff, all with just your TV and the AppleTV. Pretty neat. It can also automatically sync with computer and you can watch videos from computer through the AppleTV, just like before. It has a new GUI and Steve claims you can start playing a rented movie in just under 30s. It requires a ‘modern broadband connection’, which in non-fanboy terms means “a very fucking fast connection”. So HD-quality movies here in Finland at least will be a dream of the future, as the current broadband connection cost a god damn arm and a leg. I just hope we get those 100/100Mbit cables sometime in the near future so we too can enjoy those HD-quality movies off of the Tubes.
On a side note, the HD-podcasts were pretty cool, especially the snowboarding.
4. There’s something in the Air
This was the big announcement everyone was waiting for — a new Mac. And so Steve introduced a new ‘in between model’ called Macbook Air, which is apparently the world’s thinnest notebook. Usually when companies say “this is the smallest this and the tiniest that” they’re full of shit but Apple could be telling the truth with this one. It’s crazy small, just 0,76″ at the back and an insane 0.16″ in the front. W00T?!
The thing that makes it small as hell is that fact that there’s no internal optical drive. A USB optical drive is available for $99 but Apple insists that you won’t need it, since with Time Capsule, AppleTV and other wireless standard, using devices won’t require cables. The Macbook Air has a really small yet powerful Intel Core 2 Duo processor that Intel shrunk an amazing 60%, a 13.3″ LED backlit display and boasts a full keyboard. It also has a 80GB Hard Drive, Bluetooth, the 802.11n standard superfast Wifi and the usual Firewire/USB/Audio ports. A pretty decent getup. Since the HDD is only a measly 80GB, Apple’s selling a 64GB SSD Hard Drive as an accessory. But that’s probably going to cost a truckload. Another feature that’s going to be coming out on other manufactures’ laptops is the MultiTouch Trackpad, which lets you use those multitouch gestures in lots of different apps inside OSX. Since Macbook Air is supposed to be completely cable-free, installing software on it might sound like a challenge. Apparently it comes with a special software that allows you to wirelessly use another computer’s optical drive over a network. Sounds interesting, we’ll see how that works out. But all in all the Macbook Air looks like quite the machine, especially if mobility is an important feature you’re looking for in a laptop. Its starting price is at $1699, which is about the equivalent of the old 12″ Powerbook G4 (which I also have). [image via MacRumors]
One more thing…
This time at Macworld, there was no ‘one more thing’. Which seems strange, if you’ve followed these Keynotes during the previous years. So what did I think about MWSF2008? Well it wasn’t as awe-inspiring as the last one but still an all around good show (2007 had the introduction of the iPhone as well as a change in the company name ‘Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc’). I was really looking forward to that 3G iPhone but I’m equally satisfied with the release of the SDK. The AppleTV update seems cool, and especially the news about it coming to Europe. I wish Microsoft would do the same with the Xbox Live Marketplace content. Also the new Macbook Air looks very cool. I might even consider buying one some time in the future, if I get tired of lugging this 15.4″ powerhouse around — my 12″ Powerbook was a god send in terms of space. So that’s my two cents on the matter.
[Watch the whole MWSF2008 Keynote]