David Emery OnlineVacuum
15 January 2008
I’m a bit disappointed.
Such is the levels of hype; the frenzy that we all build ourselves up to. The reality is almost never as good. Of course, this year it was far worse because last year they managed the impossible: they delivered in the hype, with the iPhone.
What’s also worth remembering is that part of the hype is the unexpected; the notion that Apple will do something no-one has even thought of, which they managed in the iPhone and have spectacularly failed to do this time round. In fact, let’s quickly recap my predictions from yesterday:
MacBook Thin
”...although I hope it won’t be called that.” and it wasn’t, although I’m not convinced about ‘Air’ as a product name. MacBook Nano would have been better, if you ask me.
I was also right about solid-state disks being to expensive – they’re a very expensive upgrade. I was also right about them using iPod Classic disks, although I have no idea why they’re not using the larger one as well – the only thing I can think of is that it’s too big.
All in all I’m not blown away by the MacBook Air – it seems to be sacrificing too much (processor speed, disk space, ports) for the all encompassing goal of making it really really thin. I would have much rather got something slightly thicker but much smaller in width and depth – it’s essentially the same size as a MacBook in everything other then height.
Glad they dropped the optical, although as they were introducing ‘Remote Disc’ (which is pretty nifty) I was really hoping they were going to introduce a software download store, but alas it wasn’t to be. I was also gunning for a ‘One more thing…’ of built-in EDGE/3G networking in the MacBook Air, which would have been very cool.
Apple TV 2
“It’s either going to get killed or overhauled, and I think it’s too important for the overall video strategy to die quite yet… Also, the iTunes store must be coming to the TV now it’s on iPods.”
I’m utterly non-plussed by the Apple TV update. It’s a free software update, which is interesting, but I don’t think there was that much wrong with the UI to start with. Can’t see it making much difference to its lacklustre performance, to be honest, although the iTunes Store will hopefully help.
iTunes Movie Rentals
“it wouldn’t surprise me if the fine details aren’t quite as nice as we (and Apple) would normally like.”
I don’t think the details ($3.99/$4.99 for 24 hours within 30 days) are too bad, actually, although moving them between devices looked pretty clunky. I’m impressed they got so many studios on board – fingers crossed it comes to the UK fairly soon-ish.
MacBook Touch
“I’d be really surprised if we saw either a larger iPod Touch, or a Mac tablet with a touch interface” ... and we didn’t, although I like the multi-touch gestures on the MacBook Touch. Can’t see why we wouldn’t get them on other MacBooks though.
iPhone
“I wouldn’t be surprised if – other then a ‘it’s doing very well’ – we don’t get a mention of the iPhone but if we do I can see it only being either about the SDK/forthcoming software features or maybe a memory hike + price reduction.”
1.1.3 is a nice software update, and it’s good to see the other apps made available for the Touch (and £12.99 is a good price I think) but there wasn’t anything interesting going on for the iPod this time round.
What we won’t see
“We’re not going to hear about Mac OS X 10.5.2… Aperture 2.0 we won’t hear about…not sure we’ll hear about new Cinema Displays either.”
I would have a pretty perfect score card if it wasn’t for Time Capsule which I simply forgot to mention; it’s probably actually the nicest thing they announced – I love the concept of just being able to bung one on the network and magically have everything backed up.
Well, that’s pretty much it for another 6 months. One thing I will say – Steve really wasn’t on form today; there were a lot of mistakes (Tiger instead of Leopard, Time Machine instead of Time Capsule) and it didn’t seem to ‘flow’ well. Hell, we didn’t even get a ‘One more thing…’.
I wonder what it was supposed to be?