Macworld 2008 - The Results
A rather subdued Macworld this year, only five major announcements.
1) The iPhone gets some upgrades. Maps can pinpoint your locations, you can move stuff on the homepage, webclips, blah, blah. Nothing terribly exciting really. The iPod Touch also got updated with 5 of the apps currently on the iPhone: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather, Notes. The kicker? If you already have a Touch you have to pay $20 for the update. It comes free on all new Touch’s. I have to say I’m well not impressed by that, especially considering the Apple TV update, which does way more, is free.
2) iTunes rentals. This is something I was interested in after thinking about it. You can rent movies, watch them once and you pay $4 (or $3 for older titles). However it seems you have to wait till 30 days after they’ve been released on DVD before they’re available in the iTunes store, what’s that all about? It’s good to see lots of movie studios getting behind it though, I think digital rental is gonna be a lot bigger than digital purchase. FOX is also going to start including iTunes versions of films with their counterpart DVD, starting with Family Guy: Blue Harvest. Of course the international stores won’t get rentals until a “later date”.
3) Apple TV 2.0. This one’s interesting, you now don’t need a computer to go with Apple TV. You can access the iTunes store to rent movies, buy songs, view photos on Flickr or .Mac and Youtube too of course. What’s interesting is that it’s not only the new Apple TV’s that can do this, a software update will allow the old models to do it too. So why didn’t they just do that from the start? Doesn’t make any sense. It also gets a price cut down to $230 from $300. Hopefully it’ll sell better and they’ll come out with a true Apple TV 2.0 sometime soon.
4) The last and biggest announcement, not really a surprise though since everyone knew it was coming. MacBook Air, the world’s thinnest notebook. Boy is it thin too! But it’s not for me, way too fragile looking. No optical drive so they’re releasing an external Superdrive counterpart which I’m hoping will work with all Macs as I might invest in one of those for DVD burning purposes. $1800 for the lowest spec one or $3100 for the SSD model. I’m interested to see just how thin this thin is in person but I doubt I’d ever buy one, it looks like it’d snap with one drop!
5) The announcement I’m actually excited about: Time Capsule. It’s being touted as the counterpart to Time Machine as it’s a wireless external HD with a built in Airport base station. I’d love to get the 1TB version as I need a new router anyway and to have a wireless back up solution would be excellent. I’m wondering if you can partition it though because normally the Time Machine backups take over the whole drive and I’d like to use it to store video files. It works with PC’s also though so I could set Mum’s PC to back up to it also just in case she manages to break her PC.
So that’s it for another year, I wonder if the MacBook and MacBook Pro’s will get updated to be thinner now that Apple has the know how and the smaller chip. Hopefully they will.
I was surprised to see a lack of Leopard updates, they did say how well it’s sold but nothing about a Stacks fix which was rumoured.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:28 am
whoa whoa whoa so I have to pay for this iPod touch update even though I only bought the bloody thing on Sunday!? The world is robbing me blind!
Amy xx
January 16th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
There’s usually a date from before the release where if you bought it you can get them free. You might wanna try that, I shall check for you cos I’m lovely.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
It would seem Apple aren’t doing the same thing for this, so £13 you will have to pay I’m afraid.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Jesus, are you kidding me?! Right well they’re going to get an angry email from me, I wouldn’t mind so much if they’d warned me there’d be updates coming soon when I actually bought the bloody thing! Oh this world!!
…But thanks for checking my lovely!
xx
January 18th, 2008 at 5:36 am
From Engadget:
“If you got your touch after January 1st, you should still be within the window of Apple’s price protection, meaning Apple’s standard policy for this stuff should allow you to update your touch apps and apply for a credit back on the $20 levy. The Apple mothership didn’t yet confirm, but multiple customer service agents said those who bought online shouldn’t have a problem getting their Jackson back, son (and those who bought in an Apple store should run on over to get a $20 refund). Let us know how it goes for you — and don’t say we didn’t warn you, just in case you wind up being stuck with a $20 charge for apps you should never have had to pay for in the first place.”
January 18th, 2008 at 9:20 am
I don’t understand, “don’t say we didn’t warn you”..? When was I warned?
Amy
January 18th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Oh I never actually thought of that. Most shops offer you a 14-30 day price check window where if the price drops you can get the difference back. Take your Touch with the receipt and box to the Apple Store tomorrow Amy and if they don’t give you it just return it, leave and come back an hour later and buy a new one
Then you’ll get them free!