So the MacWorld keynote is over and I’m disappointed, again.
There were a few points Steve wanted to announce:
Time Capsule – Very cool, but it’s long over due. People have been trying to get this on the Airport Extreme since it came out. And speaking of Airport Extreme, why do they even still have it? It’s now been reduced to being merely Time Capsule minus the hard drive. At the very least you should be able to buy a driveless Time Capsule and be able to upgrade later. Of course then you couldn’t be charged extra for a “server class” hard drive.
iPhone updates - And the crowd goes wild for features that should have been there from the start. (And they could have just added a GPS receiver.) Oh, and if you got the iPhone you’re set with the new updates but if you bought the iPod Touch we’ll you get charged $20 for not being able to afford the iPhone. Dumbest thing since Quicktime Pro.
iTunes Movie Rentals – Big. Friggen. Deal. You get 30 days to start watching and 24 hours to finish watching. That should be plenty but I keep looking at the numbers and feel constrained for some reason. I wish Canada had a better version of NetFlix. (P.S. Songbird for the win!)
AppleTV – Still not worth it. The fact that you don’t need iTunes on a desktop to use the Music Store is good. The fact that if you don’t to be part of Apple’s Walled Garden the AppleTV is useless. I need to buy a box for the privilege of purchasing from Apple? Do not want. But, that said, if this can be hacked to become useful I might actually see myself buying one as something to replace my Xbox Media Center. The flickr intergration is nice, but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s interesting that none of these features were talked about as being additions to Front Row when it would be a perfect fit.
MacBook Air - The Good: Small, light, multi-touch trackpad, LED backlighting. The Bad: Price, performance, non-replaceable battery or ram. The Ugly: At the current price it’s the best reason not to buy a Apple laptop. All the good features are obviously going to be moved over to the other hardware and they’re going to be a better value. Apple always prices things too greedy, especially with first round hardware. (See the price drop in AppleTV for example, I just don’t think they were selling.) I would love a MacBook Air, but it’s just not worth the price. I was actually expecting this to come in under the MacBook.
Oh well, there’s always next year right?
This is the most I’ve ever enjoyed tennis.
