normally I am not that interested in Steve Job's Macworld presentation. I find that tends to be a bit like fast food, you enjoy it at first, but soon the feeling wears off and you need to good and eat something more whole some.
However, this year I have started using an ipod touch as a mobile browsing device and occasional video player. In terms of sound quality it is not as good as my existing mp3 player. So I was interested to see if there was anything interesting that was going to be announced. Also I have just bought an Asus 701 (eee) and the rumour that Apple might do a product that sits between the touch and a notebook.
So what did I think of the annoucements ? Well the iphone is just starting to get functions that my phone already has eg. find location based on the triangulation of mobile transmitters and multiple receipents of sms messages which I think just about every real phone already has,
For the touch 25 CHF for 5 applications seems a bit absurd but Apple tends to charge for service packs which is unusual in the industry.
As for the Macbook air it looks like another Newton or Cube. It is style over substance. The non user replacable battery, lack of wired or mobile network access and a single usb port seem to bad decisons made to make it look slim rather than to make it a useful device. Also the keyboard looks like it is one of those horrible retro Sinclair QL ones.
So it felt like that fast food meal....was the Snake oil sales man back in town ?
you may note that i was something of a critic myself of this years expo, at least from the point of view that i cannot really see anything to buy that suits me as an apple fan.
i would like to say though that the macbook air keyboard is like the macbook keyboard and their new external keyboards, and i must say i like it very very much. just personal opinion of course.
so very true, keyboards are really a matter of taste. I touch type and so I like a keyboard where when you press a key there is a lot of downward movement. I tried out one of those Apple keyboards in a shop and it felt like I was using a calculator. I also wonder whether you would have more problems with RSI with one of those keyboards as there is so little movement in the keys and you would place more strain on the muscles.
As you said different people like different types of keyboards.
The keyboard doesn't look like it would perform very well, but in reality, it's actually pretty decent. It's actually an improvement on the old keyboards.
Excuse me but I have to correct you there. Apple doesn't charge for service packs. For example, having bought Tiger at the end of 2006 (I like to wait for others to sort out the problems inherent with a .0 release, and then a bit), I am now up to 10.4.11, all for free.
Apple do charge for major releases, but every one I have bought so far* has been worth it - not only for the added functionality, but the speedup on my humble iBook.
* except for Jaguar (10.2), which should have been free. It was free in the US in the time window I bought my system, but we in Switzerland had to cough up.
I managed about a third of his speech and decided that peeling some spuds was more exciting
So why doesn't it have more stuff built in? All this talk about the Dell XPS made me check out the specs, and some have built in mobile broadband. I'd have to plug in a USB dongle (as I do with my Powerbook) and then there's no more USBs, not even for my ithin optical drive.
and that's not the only weakness. The whole device is somewhat stupid, if you ask me. It's equally big as my macbook. but I can't change its battery, I can't add RAM, I can't swap harddrives. I have to send it in for 5 business day to get the battery exchanged - which will cost about 220 Fr. btw.
the idea of miniaturizing stuff is SHRINKING the NECESSARY STUFF. Not leaving it away and charging as much for it as though it were still there ...
will await a notebook with true flash memory that is affordable .... Samsung Q1 or something of that ilk... now that will be real portability, with speed & all the bells & whistles ...
Yeah, Apple don't get it right every time. Apple TV was not good at first, the ipod boombox thing has disappeared, and I'm not sure about this MBA. If it was truly portable, that would be a big plus in my book, but it isn't.
I still wouldn't throw an MBA down the toilet if I was given one
Dear Steve, please give the ordinary, less-exciting Mac hardware some air time, too. Yes they get updated too but if you countinue like this you'll go from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Gadgets Inc. Also, please don't brag about the new multiple recipents functionality for SMS on the iPhone. And the ability to change the wallpaper on your phone shouldn't be part of a $20 deal.
The MacBook Air is of little use to most, but maybe some of the technology will make it to the other product lines later.
10.1 was free for those in possesion of a 10.0 license. And there's an update program for users who bought their Macs weeks before a second digit upgrade. 10.2 on the other hand never was free as far as I know.
But the whole argument is an old hat really. The jump from Windows 2000 to XP internally was a 0.1 version jump (NT Version 5.0 to 5.1) for example.
In the 2007 Keynote, wasn't Steve all excited about the fact that they had changed their name from "Apple Computers Inc" to "Apple Inc"? EDIT: See Apple_Inc