MacWorld 08
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 - 11:45am
Jobs's keynote is in a few hours and I'm pretty excited about the speculations. In addition to the typical spec bumps, the rumored new skinny laptop is my most anticipated item.
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/breaking-macboo.html
Granted it may be slightly under-equipped/powered, but I think I can accept the fact that it'll be my 'sidekick' computer.
The one I take it with me on the go, sort of like a bigger PDA. I've been eyeing the Asus EEEPC for the same purpose, but I want to see what Apple has to offer.
*EDIT* under-equipped/powered? WTF was I thinking?!
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Engadet's live blog is up.
It better be priced to compete with the EEE...
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I doubt it. I don't think they'll market it that way either.
This is Apple we are talking about here.
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The Macbook Air looks really nifty.
$1800. (probably over $2k with the SSD HD) too rich for my blood.
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$3100 with the SSD.
That's a sexy form factor, and I have no doubt that they will move millions of them, but personally... I just can't imagine what I'd actually use it for. 5 hours of battery is definitely on the short side.
I was really hoping for a tablet type thing, where they'd take the ideas in the iPhone and run with them in laptop form. I would love to see a touch-sensitive large screen with the brains at Apple behind software to use it.
The Macbook Air is really lovely, but ... it's the same thing with a beautiful design, it's not something fundamentally new.
Yeesh, I'd be afraid of accidentally sitting on that thing and destroying it.
Wow, apparently you don't have a gaming laptop. Hour and a half tops on those suckers.
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I thought we all decided that laptops without optical drives are annoying.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Unless they're sexy.
I had a Gateway without an optical drive, a little 3lb thing. Loved it. Unfortunately the docking station that included the optical drive was twice as thick as the computer itself.
I'll probably order one of these. I'd like to see some specs, but I'm really jonesing for a thinner, lighter laptop that runs Mac OS X.
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Is it just me or is 2008 the year of the dull keynotes? With the Gates & Jobs Keynotes coasting along, there isn't much big news in the tech industry other than the BluRay thing from CES.
I just didn't see anything exciting about Apple's presentation this year. The AppleTV is still priced $30 more than I would like to see it. Movie rentals through iTunes... whoopty doo! . I've got that through the XBL Marketplace already and Netflix might just have the coup de grace with their appliance coming out this year. The "Air" needs to undergo one major revision... ditch the trackpad and become a tablet PC with a multi-gesture touch display. It also gives me the vibe that its a beta product of sorts and might have the same overheating/structural issues as the 1st generation Intel MacBooks.
Just not as impressed as I was hoping to be this year. I guess after the iPhone announcement, Apple set the bar too high for itself.
Gamertag: RiverRatMatt
Witchlight Cycle: Sithis of the Thelis'Thale Clan, Dragonborn Paladin of Moradin
Agreed, although I honestly wasn't expecting too much from this years keynote. The Air looks like good design, but I don't get the audience for it. I'm not saying it isn't there, but I just can't imagine a scenairo where the I'd take an Air over a regular macbook. I do hope this means the multitouch in the Air becomes standard on all laptops.
As for movie rentals, the devil is in the selection. I like doing the 360 rentals, but there's hardly anything I ever want to watch on it. If Apple can bump up the selection, I can see a small win there.
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The price makes it decidedly UNsexy.
XBL: NSMike | Steam | PSN: NSMike | Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278 | GWJ Google Calendar
Beware the curse of the Apple early adopters. Wait until the first revision before you throw down THAT much $$$ for a thin and possibly very fragile laptop.
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I've had so many ultraportables with various forms of external opticals and after a few years of this I decided that a laptop with an external optical is dumb..
$100 that the next Macbook "air" has the optical built in again.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Well, the whole deal is that if you have another PC or Mac, you can run sharing software to make it look like you have an optical drive. I don't think that's been tried before, and it seems pretty clever to me.
How hard is it to share a drive over a network though? I've been doing that for years for machines with damaged/flaky drives or when I'm too lazy to eject the disc.
Gamertag: RiverRatMatt
Witchlight Cycle: Sithis of the Thelis'Thale Clan, Dragonborn Paladin of Moradin
I'll take that bet.
We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all.
"What misconception traveled down the road and made you want to be here?"
And removable battery.
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Upon reflecting a bit upon this, let me pose this question: What product could've Apple announced that would've made you write a check for it today?
I've long consoled myself with the fact that while I like Apple, their design, and above all, their OS, I'm not their target market. I'm not in my mid 20s, I don't have a huge commute or mobile lifestyle, and my work does not buy my toys. I go to work in the morning, go home and play with the kids until their bedtime, and then spend the rest of my night at home with programming/gaming/wife-ing. So even though the iPhone looked amazing, there was no way I was buying it because it just wasn't for me. I don't use a mobile phone that much and I'm never away from the internet for more than 20 minutes (my commute on a bad day)
So to answer my own questions, the product I would've bought today would've been a Mac Pro type computer with much less power for much less price. I.e. any desktop mac without a display and upgradable features. But I don't kid myself, I don't think that is ever coming.
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Fast updating, color E-Ink display-based tablet with Kindle-like connectivity and e-reading features with iPhone-like mapping, movies, etc.
"THE HELL ASS BALLS." - Prederick, expressing frustration in the time-honored way.
*drool*
XBL: NSMike | Steam | PSN: NSMike | Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278 | GWJ Google Calendar
Another thing I would've loved to have seen, but still wouldn't have bought. I thought the uptake on e-ink displays would've happened much faster honestly.
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Coldforged nailed it. My check would be in the mail for that product.
Even just a multitouch tablet without the Kindle stuff might have gotten a check out of me.
This is just the same stuff, smaller... I wanted something really new.
The combination of an Airport Extreme and a hard drive for backups is a nice idea, though.
Headless iMac with cable card abilities and HDMI out (although I know it'll never happen).
I really want a Mac that can slip into the spot my DVR occupies, combines the mini with the Apple TV and a bit more processing / graphic umph.
Oh and what happened to the obligatory "one last thing"?
With the announcement of the upgraded Mac Pro's a couple weeks ago and the MBA in the general body of the Keynote, I was like holy sh*t, what could be the "one last thing".
Then Jobs announces Randy Newman and splits? What's up with that?
Yeah disappointing. I guess you can't get a breakthrough product every year.
ATV is more attractive, but I'm not in hurry to shell out $230 to rent movies for more than I do now with DVD.
AirMac is the MacBook line of the future, but the model I really want is $3k. I'll pass. Is the keyboard fugly in this thing or what? I thought Apple didn't go with black keys on their new iMac keyboard because it was fugly looking.
The most appealing announcements were the Time Capsule and the iPhone update. I can't believe Apple only marked up the price of the Time Capsule $120 over the Airport Extreme. Not a bad price for a 500gb hard drive. OF course the even more cynical will say the AE was over-priced by at least $50 to begin with.
iPHone update with the new map functions, finally make webpages icons and switch your icons around is nice. iTouch too got a nice update although it's $20 for current iTouch owners from what I read.
I guess I was hoping for a small laptop in the $600-$800 range that's not much more than a networked computer/iPhone/consumer electronics product. A true 2nd computer for the mainstream not one for CEOs.
I was hoping for the iPhone2 also. Be nice to have 3g for future proofing as well as 16gb storage.
And I wanted content pricing to be lower on the ATV and more content deals announced other than just rentals. Be nice too if the Time Capsule/ATV product were combined or you had a $500 gb ATV for $330 that could be used as a networked wireless hard drive as well. Where's the DRm-free music on iTunes?
He only did 'one more thing' like, once, didn't he? Everyone's been talking about one more thing ever since, but I don't remember seeing any more.
So the air mac is about the same size as a macbook (~9"x12") has a slower processor, less battery life, and costs $800 more? I guess I am missing the picture. Is 3lbs (air) vs 5lbs (book) really that big a deal? This is the first product that Apple has done in several years that just looks like a flop on initial impression to me. How many people really care about 2lbs? I think they totally missed the boat here.
I was really looking to buy a sub-notebook or tablet for light internet use on the go. Guess I will go with the eeePC. It is not as polished as I would have liked but at $400 bucks it is cheap enough I will not feel bad throwing out out in a year or two when somebody finally does a sub/tablet right.
Who, what, where?
What do you tablet-lovers think of that ModBook?
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ModBook