Macworld 2008 Keynote Wrap-Up and My Thoughts

All right guys!!  As promised, I’m here to talk about what went down at Steve Jobs’s keynote, and also provide my thoughts on what was announced.  There truly was “something in the air” yesterday. Apologies for my bad joke.   Mr. Jobs first gave us a look back on 2007.  New iMacs, new iPods, the iPhone, Leopard, iLife 08, iWork 08, and much, much more.  Then, Mr. Jobs said that there were 4 things he wanted to talk about with us today.Thing #1: Mac OS X Leopard. He was so pleased to announce this, and I certainly can’t blame him. 3 million copies sold in the first 3 months (or 90 days, as he put it). That’s a million per month in October, November, AND December! How cool is that? An unprecedented success, both commercially and critically. Leopard also is receiving great developer support. And, the last Intel-native app is now shipping? What is it? Mac Office 2008. Then Steve talked about one of Leopard’s new features (he accidentally called it “Tiger”…), Time Machine. Automated backup, and it’s perfect for desktops, because you just plug in an external hard drive, and away you go. But, he said, notebooks are different. You’re constantly plugging and unplugging the drive. And, as the saying goes, “There must be a better way.” And, there is. First new product/service announcement of the keynote: Time Capsule. It’s an AirPort Extreme router with a server-grade hard disk inside it. Wirelessly sync your Mac laptops with Time Capsule, and use Time Machine in the process. All of my thoughts on all the product announcements are after the keynote wrap-up.  Thing #2: iPhone and iPod Touch. Yesterday was exactly the 200th day since the iPhone went on sale. Already, in those 200 days, 4 million of these things got moved! In Q1 shipping data, iPhone now has 19.5% of the US smartphone market!  That’s incredible!  They’re now 2nd behind Research in Motion, makers of the popular Blackberry (Crackberry to those in the know) devices.Now, there’s an iPhone and iPod Touch SDK coming in February to all developers. Here’s hoping for ScummVM on my iPhone or iTouch, not so sure yet as far as which one to get, more on the updates later. First, he said, new software for iPhone users same-day. iPhone 1.1.3 firmware, the same one basically which got leaked out early, see GearLive for details on that if you’re interested, no linky here. Maps with location, web clips on your home screen, customizable home screen, lyrics and chapter/language support in iPod mode, and you can now SMS multiple people at the same time! He then proceeded to demo the new features, which look startlingly similar to the aforementioned leaked firmware. Also, big changes to Maps (aka Google Maps), with such things as Wi-Fi/cellular triangulation (courtesy of Google and an upstart company no one has ever heard of named SkyHook Wireless). Then, 5 new apps for iPod touch, and this software is bundled with every single new iPod touch that rolls out of the starting gates!! Mail (on iPhone already), Stocks (same deal), Maps (same deal), Notes (same deal), and Weather (same deal, but I’m going with Wunderground, which is WAY cooler!).  Now, this is NOT a free update. The price of this update for existing iTouch users is $20. People are guessing that this is Apple’s way of stress-testing the iTunes Store for purchasing iPhone & iTouch 3rd-party apps and games, which is my guess too.  Thing #3: iTunes! This is a doozy, and I’m really excited about ALL these announcements, even more so than Thing 4.  #1: The 4 billionth song was sold last week. Heck, I bought songs last week, and maybe I bought # 4 billion.  #2: iTunes Movie Rentals! Now, I was only expecting maybe 3 or 4 studios, but how does ALL the majors sound? I’m still quite surprised and awed on that front! Now, you have 30 days to start watching your movie, and 24 hrs to finish watching it. Pricing starts at $2.99-$3.99 for catalog titles ($2.99 DVD-resolution, $3.99 in HD with full Dolby 5.1 digital surround sound!), and $3.99-$4.99 for first-run titles ($3.99 DVD-res, $4.99 in HD with 5.1).#3: iPod and iTunes updates!#4: Apple TV Take 2. My favourite quote from his intro is “We have all tried to get movies on a flat screen TV… and we all missed.” New interface, no more ATV tied to a computer, and rent movies, even some in HD with full Dolby 5.1 surround, right from your couch! VERY nice. And existing ATV users get this as a free update. For the rest of us, Apple has reduced the price to $229 from $299. VERY nice, again. This software update is supposedly going to be available within the next 2 weeks. Fat chance of that, but Apple is definitely trying! Steve then demoed the ATV Take 2 for all of us. Then, Jim Gianopulos, studio head at 20th Century Fox, came onstage, briefly mentioning iTunes Digital Copy as pertains to Family Guy: Blue Harvest on DVD.  And now, Thing 4, the biggest doozy of all! MacBook Air, the fabled subnotebook! Thinner than ANY subnotebook on the market, NO optical drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi networking, full-size keyboard & monitor, standard 80 GB hard disk, standard 2GB of memory. There is also a large trackpad, perfect for multi-touch gestures! So, kinda cool, but pricey at $1,799.  MY (INITIAL) THOUGHTS ON:  Time Capsule

• Not a product I would buy unless I got a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air, which is to say, fat chance on both.
• It’s just an AirPort Extreme with an internal hard drive.  And the prices, $299 for 500 GB and $399 for 1 TB, are a bit steep.

Updated iPhone & iTouch

•  Jury is still out on iPhone for me.  But, at least we get a form of GPS.
• However, I’m still considering an iTouch.  Now it’s a bit more serious, frankly, with e-mail support on iPod Touch (FINALLY!!).  I’d probably get a VoIP app when the 3rd-party apps start filtering out at the end of February, and I’d basically have an iPhone without being tied to AT&T.

iTunes Movie Rentals

• Awesome!  Prices are absolutely right, and having HD movie rentals with full Dolby 5.1 surround sound for just $1 more is absolutely a FANTASTIC value!
• Also, transfers to iPods and iPhone seems seamless enough for me.
• Has Xbox Live Video Marketplace REALLY missed the boat?  I don’t really know, but Apple TV is being heavily pushed as a “stealth set-top box”, and now that this has come to ATV, I’m now seriously considering it!
• Full thoughts on iTunes movie rentals soon, because most of them came online today.

Apple TV Take 2

• Apple TV got a much-needed price cut, and as I said above, I’m now seriously considering it, as well as a HDTV and Dolby 5.1 surround sound system!

iTunes Digital Copy

• Sounds cool enough, but I need to see how this works for myself.  Full thoughts later, after I get a chance to use it with the Family Guy Blue Harvest DVD.

MacBook Air

•  This sounds QUITE cool, but I was expecting the price to be below where the MacBook’s price is right now (i.e. a target price of $599 or so for MB Air).  $1799 is just too much money for a 2nd Mac.

Also, as far as my predictions go, I was right to a certain extent on all 3.  –BJ

Macworld 2008 Predictions

Hey everyone!  Hope everyone had a grand new year!!  It’s that time again, time to predict all of the cool stuff that comes out of Steve Jobs’s mouth during his 90-minute keynote next Tuesday.  This year, I’m really psyched for all the cool products!  Here are my predictions:

1. Steve Jobs will preview for us iPhone 2.0, and he’s going to say that it’s going to be available in June.
2. Steve Jobs will have several hardware surprises up his sleeve, including a new subnotebook and an HD camcorder that is named…iSight!
3. Steve Jobs will spend the entire second half of the presentation talking of nothing but iTunes and iPods, including iTunes movie rentals (hopefully with a concession for the “blind bat” market), more TV shows that you can purchase on iTunes, DRM-free music, Beatles on iTunes (and several Beatles iPods, with color schemes such as “Yellow Submarine” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”), iTunes-encoded movie files on DVDs from Fox, Warner Bros., and Disney, as well as the new version of iTunes, iTunes 7.6, which was basically telegraphed because some lucky bloke got his hands on an early copy of the Family Guy: Blue Harvest DVD (out to the public January 15th) and found this out.

Also, on Tuesday, January 15th, between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., I am NOT to be disturbed, as this will be my time to scour the live blogs and see if I’m right on my above predictions or not.  After it all ends (or after the keynote gets uploaded to iTunes), I’ll come back and tell you what I think.

 

BJ

Will iTunes get our favourite superspy, James Bond, soon?

Hey, I was just reading all the neat headlines on Commander Bond dot Net, and I found this article talking about James Bond going on Xbox Live Marketplace!  Since MGM already HAS a deal with iTunes, I think that at least SOME of the Bond films will be announced to be going on iTunes 1 week from today, at the Macworld Expo keynote by Steve Jobs.  I’ll also be  giving my thoughts and predictions soon!

Apple Event Today…

I know I’m not the only one wondering about what Apple is going to do at their big iPod event today at Moscone Center West.  But I saw this fantastic post on the MacWorld forums that read a little like this:

“I think Apple is going to provide more announcements of content providers coming on-board. I think the providers are going to be big, that’s one reason why I think Apple told-off NBC with such gusto. They wanted to make an example out of them. (and they did), what better candidate than a 4th string Microsoft lackey.”

What big content providers are left??  There’s Disney Channel, ABC, ESPN, Fox, CBS, Nickelodeon, Discovery Channel (and its partners), Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and more.  If there’s something I missed, I’ll know about it if it’s true.

Here is some wild speculation, imho: Big, earth-shattering Muppet-related news: Muppet Show, Muppet Babies, Dog City, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Bear in the Big Blue House, and related CDs/Albums ALL on iTunes!!  I do hope that something of the sort happens, although there will be more than the fair share of earth-shattering news anyhow.

They need to make an example of NBC, and NOW.  I hope that I’m proven correct.

BJ