iPhone and iPod Touch get updates at Macworld, and MacBook Air hits the stage in all its thin glory
By Sean P. Aune
The Macworld 2008 keynote was a full boat of announcements, so let’s waste no time getting you to the nitty-gritty of it all.
Leopard - With over 5 million copies now installed, development isn’t stopping on the latest iteration of the venerable Mac OS X. The use of the native back up system, Time Machine, has been a bit awkward for notebooks due to having to attach and un-attach hard drives, so they will be adding a new product named, Time Capsule.
A wireless Airport Extreme base station, this new unit will allow you to wirelessly backup all of your Macs to a central hard drive in your house. Two versions are available: 500 GB for $299 and 1 TB for $499.
iPhone - To date, the iPhone has sold 4 million units, an average of 20,000 per day, and now commands 19.5% of the smartphone marketplace. With the Software Developers Kit (SDK) coming out next month, they figured why wait for everyone to enjoy new applications, so a few new ones are out today. Users can now enjoy Google Maps with location, Webclips, customization of the home screen, and the ability to text multiple recipients.
Google Maps will locate you, and then use that location as your starting point for driving directions to any location.
The new SMS feature will let you pull up multiple recipients just like you would an email going to several people, but still no word on MMS messaging.
Webclips will bookmark something you looked at in Safari, and even remember where you had zoomed the screen. These marks will appear on the home screen, and you can create up to 9 of them.
Not to forget that Mr. Jobs has called the iPhone “the best iPod”, the music side has received new chapter options and language capability.
These new features are available today, for free, for existing iPhone users.
iPod Touch - New features for the little brother of the iPhone were also on the slate. The Touch is receiving Maps, Mail, Stocks, Notes, and Weather features, but this upgrade will cost users $20.00.
iTunes - Coming off their most successful one day sales record for music, 20 million songs on Christmas day, the long rumored movie rentals have finally appeared.
The new feature will include movies from Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, Paramount, Touchstone, Universal, and Warner Brothers. Users can expect titles to appear 30 days after their DVD release, and can enjoy watching them on their Macs, PCs, iPods, and iPhones.
Once you download a movie, you have 30-days to start watching, and once you start, you have 24 hours to enjoy it. If you do need an instant fix, films are watchable in approximately 30 seconds on a broadband connection.
Titles will cost $2.99 for older films, and $3.99 for new releases.
Apple TV - Take 2 is the name, and it has some new tricks up it’s sleeve. Who needs a computer? You can now rent HD quality movies from Apple with Dolby 5.1 for $4.99, with 100 titles available now. Movie previews can be pulled up from the interface, and you can receive recommendations from other users.
Making it more of a true media center, the Apple TV will also now play both audio and video podcasts, pull photos from Flickr & .Mac, as well as synch up with your iTunes. And for even more photo fun, you can pull photo screensavers out of the .Mac galleries.
Carrying on the idea that you no longer need a computer to run the device, you can search the iTunes store directly on your TV screen. All the usual iTunes Store feature are accessible directly, so you can purchase from their selection of over 600 TV shows, as well as their 6 million songs.
Existing users will get the software update in 2 weeks, and users looking to jump in now will find the entry level price has dropped from $299 to $229.
This just goes to show that Steve doesn’t care if his critics have named this product the “iFlop”, he’s standing by it.
Macs - The rumors are true folks: MacBook Air is here. Touted as the world’s thinnest notebook, the new MacBook measures a miniscule .16″ to .76″, and still delivers a 13.3″ screen.
For a laptop of this size, the list of features is impressive: Magnetic latch, LED backlit display, iSight, ambient light sensor, multi-touch trackpad. Inputs and outputs will include 1 USB 2.0, Micro-DVI and Audio Out.
As for specs? Boy-howdy are they nice. 1.8″ hard drive with 80 GB standard, or you can upgrade to a 64 GB solid state drive. The Intel Core 2 Duos were shrunk by 60% for this new take on the MacBook, and will come in 1.6 and 1.8 GHz flavors. The standard configuration will include 2 GB of RAM.
There is a drawback in the form of no optical drive, but there will be a Superdrive accessory for $99, or you can use the included software to borrow the drive of a Mac or a PC.
This new laptop will run you $1799 for the standard configuration with pre-orders being accepted for delivery in 2 weeks.
That’s it for this year folks… not a bad start to 2008 for Apple I must say.
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January 15th, 2008
That’s great news, I loved macworld this year