16
Jan
In addition to last week’s pre-MacWorld announcements, Uncle Steve had his typical “Four Things” to announce this morning at MacWorld San Francisco 2008, and here’s our take on the announcements. Text in red comes from our in-house Apple Fanboy, markbach, and text in blue is from scottc, Apple’s biggest critic.
[1] Time Capsule – An Airport Extreme base station, with a built-in hard drive for backups. It will be priced at $299 for the 500GB version, and $499 for 1TB.One of the nicest features of Leopard was the Time Machine, which did automatic backups of your Mac and set “restore points” in case you messed up the system. The problem was, for laptop users such as myself, it was a pain to hook up an external hard drive all the time. There were hacks to use external network storage, but they weren’t the greatest.
Now, I can automatically back up my laptop and iMac over Wireless, without even a second thought. If it includes the ability to get at my data remotely (for example, if I’m at work and need to restore files I backed up at home), I’ll be thrilled with this product. The $299 price point seems good, considering it’s got a USB port for a printer and 3 gigabit ports in addition to the internal hard drive. The only thing it’s missing is an audio port. I love being able to stream my music to my stereo receiver using my current Airport Express.
Take one part Airport Extreme and one part hard drive. Mix it up, and call it “Time Capsule”. Nothing too exciting but I have to admit that the price is quite impressive. 
For comparison: HP charges $599 for a 500Gb home storage server and the 500Gb Apple is just $299. A 1Tb version is just $499.
Unfortunately making backups sounds like the only thing it can do. Apple could have made it an iTunes server, or a remote access server, but it sounds like they were too lazy to work on anything other than backups.
[2] iPhone SDK/Apps, iPod Touch Updates/Apps, iTunes Movie Rentals – New applications for the iPhone, iPhone SDK available in February, iPod Touch Updates and Applications ($20 upgrade fee), and movie rentals from iTunes.I don’t own an iPhone or an iPod Touch, but several of my co-workers do. The reaction was pretty good to the iPhone updates: people love being able to SMS multiple people, and the bookmarks onto the home screen are neat. The new Google Maps app works really well.
The guy who sits next to me who has an iPod Touch went from “sweet, new apps” to “wtf, $20″ to “whatever, I’ll pay it anyway” in the span of about 2 minutes. That pretty much sums up us Apple Fanboys… and Steve knows it. If you just spent $400 on an iPod and accessories for it, what’s another $20?
On to movie rentals… I’ll just say, “It’s about time.” Pricing is competitive with other services. I just hope their selection is killer, as Netflix only has 6000 movies available for online download. We’ll see about the quality, too. A 384Kb/s video may look good on an iPod, but it’ll look awful on my 20″ iMac screen.
Where to begin… In essence Apple is announcing stuff that should have been in the iPhone from day one. It’s amazing how he can get up on stage and announce “sending a text message to multiple recipients” without breaking out in a giggle.
They bragged about selling “20,000 iPhones a day”. To put things in perspective; Nokia sells that many phones every 3 hours, and has been doing so for the past 7 or 8 years.
If your name is “Palm” or “WindowsMobile” then yes; you should be worried. Because the iPhone isn’t just kicking your behind, it’s kicking the behind of all your family members as well. RIM seems to be the only one not under attack by the iPhone.
Then of course the $20 for new applications on the iPod Touch. Anyone remember the fuss when Apple wanted to charge $2 to enable 802.11n in the Macbook? These applications should have been in the Touch since day one. Instead Apple didn’t bother to include them, and to fix that mistake you get to pay them $20. It’s called Apple marketing, and it stinks.
Then onto the iTunes movie rentals…
MORE DRM infested movie rentals. $2.99 (or $3.99) for a movie RENTAL is a ripoff. $8.99 gets you unlimited rentals from companies like Netflix or Vongo. Amazon Unbox sells most of their movies for half what Apple wants.
But in true Apple fashion I’m sure this will be a success, because people will pay what Apple tell them to pay. And of course, because Apple still has a stronghold on their own DRM protocol on the iPod, only Apple movies can be legally loaded onto it.
[3] AppleTV Take 2 – Software updates for the AppleTV to allow it to use the iTunes rentals and download HD movies. The price was lowered from $299 to $229 as well.Simply awesome. I’m an HD freak, and I held off on the AppleTV until now because it didn’t do HD content very well. The new AppleTV will be a perfect companion to my Tivo Series3, as the Amazon Unbox videos are not HD.
The new price point ($229) makes a lot of sense, and I look forward to playing with one as soon as the new software is available.
AppleTV is like that toy you had as a kid. It’s old, it stinks, it’s falling apart and should have been thrown away ages ago. Apple says it’s “take 2″, when in fact it’s “take 3″ (they added Youtube last year in an effort to revive it).
Fact of the matter is; AppleTV sucks. I’ve still got one here sitting in a storage cube, where it’s been ever since I disconnected it, swearing at myself for wasting $400 (I got the 160Gb version).
They are dropping the price to $229. Which happens to be the same price as many vendors charge for the the new TivoHD. Lets compare them for a second:
| AppleTV (take 2) | TivoHD | |
| Digital video recorder with Cablecard support and EPG? | No | Yes (with a monthly fee) |
| Movie Download support? | Yes (iTunes) | Yes (Amazon Unbox) |
| Music playback? | Yes (iTunes only) | Yes, several including your local PC, Rhapsody and iTunes. |
| Download recorded content | No | Yes (With free TivoToGo) |
| Download audio and video podcasts? | Only Audio | Yes |
| Harddisk size | 40Gb (160Gb available for $399) | 160Gb |
| Support for Youtube? | Yes | No |
So there you have it. There is STILL absolutely no reason to get an AppleTV. Unless of course you have a dying urge to watch Youtube videos from the comfort of your living room.
Apple screwed up this thing, and refuse to let it die a quiet death. It should have gone the way of the Apple HiFi or Pippin.
[4] MacBook Air – The world’s thinnest laptop.
It’s sexy. It’s small. It’s light. That’s about the only good things I can say about this piece of junk. I was ready to walk down to the Apple Store (it’s 4 blocks from the office) and get in line, but then I discovered a couple things about Apple’s newest foray into the ultraportable world:
The battery is sealed inside. WTF? I travel a lot, so being able to use my laptop on a long flight is a must. My MacBook Pro’s battery is rated for up to SIX hours, and I have never seen more than 3 hours when it was brand new. Considering Steve said the Air’s battery would last 5 hours, I think 2-3 is a more realistic value. So what do I do when the battery fades over Kansas?
I can’t even imagine what kind of heat this thing is going to put out. I’ve seen my MBP get so hot I could literally cook an egg on it. This thing has even less area to move air around… maybe I’ll be able to grill a steak on it?
Where’s the WiMax? The Air was rumored to contain WiMax built in. Heck, I’d settle for a 3G card built in. No big deal, I’ll just use an ExpressCard. Oh wait, no slot for that, either.
Oh yeah, it’s $3100 with the solid state disk. WTF? I’m not paying over THREE GRAND for a laptop.
Sorry, Steve, you lose.
The Macbook AIR is a 1.6GHz (or optional 1.8GHz) super thin Mac. It’s SO THIN that it will actually fit in an envelope. And we all know how often you need to do that (I just tried putting my Dell XPS M1330 in an envelope, and it fit just fine).
Steve Jobs couldn’t help comparing it to the Sony Vaio SZ series. So, lets do the same…
| Macbook Air | Sony Vaio SZ | |
| CPU | 1.6GHz Core2Duo (optional 1.8GHz) | 2.0GHz Core2Duo (optional 2.2GHz) |
| Memory | 2Gb standard (NOT upgradeable) | 2Gb standard (user upgradable to 4Gb) |
| HDD | 80Gb 1.8″ 4200RPM | 120Gb 2.5 5400RPM |
| Ports | 1 USB, headphones, MicroDVI | Cardreader, Firewire, 2 USB, Microphone, headphone, expresscard, modem, ethernet |
| Weight | 3.0 lbs | 4.0 lbs |
| Video chip | Intel Integrated | Dedicated Nvidia+Intel (hybrid) |
| Optical drive | None | Dual layer DVD |
| Broadband? | No | Yes; Sprint EVDO |
| Price | $1799 | $1860 |
$61 more (MSRP) gets you a machine that weighs one pound more, but has much better specifications. Unless you REALLY need a Mac, you do the math.
Other options include the Dell XPS M1330 which weighs just 0.2lbs more than the Air (when ordered with the LED screen) or even the Samsung Q1 Ultra we recently reviewed.
But of course, none of those machines can run MacOS (unless you hack it onto them). So I’m sure they’ll sell like crazy.
IMHO there is a limit to how thin something has to be. When does 0.2″ make that much of a difference? Once you get into the realm of the Ultra portable a few millimeters difference isn’t going to matter. I would have rather seen 0.2″ more AND a DVD drive. Or a MiniPCI slot (for broadband cellular).
But the best part of the Macbook Air? The battery is not user replaceable. We all know how well that has worked on the iPod and iPhone. I’m pretty sure that this is the worlds first notebook with a sealed battery.
So there you have it… our takes on Steve’s new toys for 2008. Stick around for more MacWorld coverage later this week, including the best of the show from a traveler’s prospective.
Randy said,
great pro/con look at things guys, love the format and this is surely become a fave read of mine.
Q: what’s next for these releases and how soon?
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