The dust has started to settle after the Keynote Presentation Steve Jobs gave at Macworld 2008. I don’t like to be one to quickly react. If you have met me in person you know I can be quite. I’m not being “aloof” but rather I like to soak up what I’m hearing, process the thoughts and give well thought out reaction. Their is a benefit and wisdom to initial reactions but I like to get all the facts too. Last year the big announcement was the iPhone and you know how excited I was that it would be a game changer and so far I have been very impressed and enjoy a usability with a phone/smart device that I never experienced with previous tools that could do some of the same stuff. Steve did report some very positive numbers on the iPhone and a free software update that added some functionality became available. The iPod Touch which is essentially the iPhone without the telephone part also got an update. New iPod Touchs being sold will get the update for free but current owners will have to pay $20 for the upgrade. A lot of people are not happy about that. I have mixed feelings. I think $20 is fair for what they are adding and I have paid more for software on my computer that had done a lot less but I can certainly understand the bad feelings out there.

I want to share my opinions on what I consider the three big annoucements; Time Capsule, Apple TV - Take 2 and MacBook Air.

Time Capsule is a hardware complement to a feature build into the latest version of Apple’s operating system, OSX Leopard. Time Capsule is essentially Apple’s Airport Extreme Wireless base station combined with server grade hard drive. The advantage of this is one can back up to Time Capsule without having to connect a Firewire or USB external hard drive. In my personal opinion that is a nice starter compliment to time machine but if you already have a wireless router it may be hard to justify this purchase. My first reaction was, I need one of these but there are better options out there. I’m seriously looking at the Drobo for my on site backup and storage solutions. Drobo will give me the ability to switch out hard drives on the fly without being hardwired into a wireless router. Drobo’s upfront cost may more but in the long run I’m sure it will be a better purchase. If you are looking at getting a wireless router for the first time I would say go ahead and get Time Capsule but seriously look at the Drobo option.

The next major announcement was Apple TV coupled with an update to the iTunes Store which now offers movie rentals direct from the Apple TV with no interaction with a desktop or laptop computer required. While I think the added option of renting movies in both regular and HD format nice I am actually more excited that people will be able to subscribe and download free podcasts. It’s amazing at how much good content is available in the form of podcasts. Some of produced or repackaged material from sources like PBS, The History Channel, etc. but many, many more are produced by people and organization that otherwise would not have a chance to distribute their content to the masses. Some of the reasons are financial resources but beyond that a lot of podcasts are in such niche interests that it would be hard for them to get air time through traditional television channels (pun intended). A couple of my favorite video podcasts are MacBreak, Photoshop User TV, definitely a niche audience and TED Talks, and while the Apple TV may not be the only device that can get this kind of content into the living room it does appear to be one of the most user friendly and I support and device that delivers great content from alternative sources to places other than on a computer.

The final product announced was the MacBook Air, billed as the world’s thinnest notebook. The very thin form factor certainly looks attractive and if I did a lot of traveling, especially on airplanes it would be a tempting purchase. As with a lot of Apple products it’s already steeped in controversy because of the design Apple chose. Major design issues people are having difficulty with include a battery that can’t be replaced by the user and the absence of an optical drive, otherwise known as a “superdrive” or drive that can read and burn both DVD’s . While they do provide the option of buying an external optical drive it has the feature of using an external drive on another computer on the same network.

The theme of the keynote was, “There’s Something in the Air.” I’m sure for the most part that referred to the name of the laptop, MacBook Air but also the focus of everything in the keynote had to do with wireless networking, Time Capsule allows one to backup a laptop computer wirelessly on the network, Apple TV now allows you to buy movies and music and well as podcasts across the network bypassing a computer on the network and finally the MacBook Air is lightweight but also is heavily dependent on a wireless connection.

The MacBook Air reminds me of the introduction of the original iMac.  The original iMac was the first computer they introduced without a floppy drive. People thought Apple was crazy for not including a floppy drive but now it’s hard to find a computer with a floppy drive. While I like DVD’s for movies because of the special features that come included and often get very frustrated with optical disks, sometimes they don’t burn correctly and other times the size is either to large or too small for certain projects. I find myself using either USB Thumb Drives or External hard drives.

I realize a majority of you reading this may not be Apple Computer owners or are interested in them.  While’s it’s pretty evident that I am very passionate about Apple products and like to bring notice to these announcements because more often than not what you see Apple release is a foreshadowing of other products and technologies that may become available from other companies down the line.  What are your thoughts?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 9:17 pm and is filed under Innovation, Portable Media, branding, podcasting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.