TinyCrumb

Macworld 2008 Keynote Thoughts

Another January, another Macworld keynote with Steve Jobs. Today's Keynote introduced some interesting things and I'm getting lots of emails asking what I think so I thought I'd lay my opinion down here in the blog.

Apple TV

I think the update to the Apple TV and movie renting service is quite interesting. Most people seem to be hung up on the 24 hour thing, but that's something I've been used to for a long time as Comcast's OnDemand service provides new movie rentals for around the same price point and you get it for 24 hours. Here's some points in comparison with that service.

• Comcast OnDemand is available to anyone with Comcast cable and does not require extra hardware. The Apple TV requires you to buy the unit first, making the initial investment a bit more steep.
• Obviously the Comcast solution is a bit simpler not having to deal with yet another piece of hardware in my media console, another remote, another interface, etc...
• Comcast has HD content as well, but in 1080i whereas Apple TV provides its HD content in 720p. Being that I have a 1080p TV, neither looks best, and its still arguable about which looks better. It really depends on the type of movie. For something slow, cinematic and artful, 1080i is going to look really nice, but for something action packed and fast paced, 720p seems to win here. Its interesting.
• Comcast movies are usually available the same day as the DVD release whereas Apple TV's movies are not available until 30 days after the DVD release. Althought Apple TV looks like it will have more studios available than Comcast usually has available.

For now, neither solution is a clear winner and really that great on their own. The clear winner is buying a Blu-ray & HD DVD player and renting movies from a service like Blockbuster or Netflix. Yes, its still dealing with physical media, but the benefits of full 1080p content still far outweigh the convenience on in-home downloads.

What I think this keynote has really brought to light is large gap between what consumers want, what the movie studios are willing to give and what technology can currently provide. Full 1080p dolby DRM-free movie rentals and purchases downloaded directly to a home entertainment system is the goal and it looks like the roadmap to that is going to be much longer than I expected it to be ... if ever.

iPhone/iPod Touch updates

I'm really excited to see Apple following through on their promise of releasing cool new features via software updates for the iPhone/Touch. I really like all the new features on the phone, especially with Google Maps and I have once again unjailbroken my phone and given up 3rd party applications and customization in favor of the new release. Of course I'd still love the best of both worlds, but from the Keynote, it sounds like we might have such a thing soon as Jobs mentioned the SDK for iPhone would be out in February. Oh ... and I love the wiggle.

The biggest update for me to the iPhone is the ability to manually manage media, i.e., the same way you can on an iPod. There are many reasons why someone would want to do this, but for my uses it mainly stems from the fact that I only keep lossless music in my iTunes library now days which is inappropriate for a mobile storage-limited device. I will now be able to throw some random compressed tracks on my phone as well as download free content from the iTunes store on the phone without putting it back on my computer. I'm also excited to be able to encode movies for the phone, throw them on there and then delete them from my iTunes library. Thank you Apple.

A special note on the $20 price for iPod Touch app updates. For those of you whining out there... quit it. Apple has contracts with AT&T to still receive revenue over the life of the device, but there's no forward accounting revenue model for the iPod Touch and Apple can't do all this work for free. It must have a way to report and be accountable to the work that's gone in. I suspect if you are an iPod Touch user that you might want to get used to paying for these major updates. My hunch is that if its features that are cross-compatible to the iPhone, they'll come free. If not, you'll pay. $20 dollars seems incredibly measly when you compare it to a major OS upgrade of a mobile device. My educated guess is that this is the exact same thing we saw with the paid "N" upgrade for some Intel machines.

Time Capsule

Very cool.

MacBook Air

Going into this keynote, my one wish was that Apple was going to pay some attention to the MacBook Pro line and give them an update. There's nothing particularly that I want more in a MBP, but the current design has been out forever it seems like and it'd just be fun to see something new and exciting in the best selling Mac product Apple makes. To my disappointment, that did not happen. Instead however, we go the MacBook Air.

Overall I really like the MBA and thinks its kinda nifty. Personally, I do ALL my computing on one machine. A mobile machine. I need the power, screen real estate, graphics and options that a MBP offers so there's no way a MBA would ever apply to my situation, but I can see a market for it and it'll be interesting to watch if its successful. I think this is the first computer I've seen Apple put out that is more targeted at business customers than creative customers. It seems to be more about getting work done than making things. Neat. Here's my short listed review of it:

Pros:

• Its thin. Nice.
• It fits in an envelope. I can't remember the last time I needed to inter-office mail my laptop ... but ok.
• I really like that they ditched the optical drive and ethernet port. I love that Apple is still committed to ditching old technology as soon as they can instead of keeping legacy things around for nostalgia. Just like when they ditched the floppy drives in Mac towers and the modem from Mac portables.
• LED screen.
• Battery life looks to be a good stride.
• When its closed, its purty.

Cons:

• Looks like a PC.
• Glossy screen. Wtf. Its really disappointing to see Apple moving in this direction. The day they stop offering Matte as an option on the Pros I will probably shed a tear.
• Massive screen bezel. Yikes. I thought the MacBook's bezel was thick. It looks like they could have fit a 14" screen in there.
• SSD option is awesome, but pretty pricey and pretty limited in storage. I expect this to get remedied with time though.

It wasn't the most breathtaking keynote I've ever seen, but it was a good one with some cool stuff. Go forth and enjoy.