Low. low, and lower expectations...
Dig the price for the 64GB SSD drive version of MacBook Air. Yow-sah! That price is one quick way to throw a very wet blanket over all Apple's smoldering hot success in 2007. I'd say Apple stock price should drop [at last check this afternoon UBS reported that Apple stock dropped $16 a share after Job's keynote and by the end of the day the share value dropped 15%].
No new hardware boost for the iPhone. Apple is deliberately holding back on technology they know they can deliver NOW, like for instance, 16GB iPhones and one might arguably say 3G. The argument against Apple putting 3G in iPhone is the hit the battery takes and not enough bandwidth but all that is rendered bad excuse when other handset manufacturers make 3G phones and 3G is standard in other countries.
Only new iPhone software and even then Apple's software upgrade are some lame tiny configurations to the icons, multiple SMS addressing and Google maps. There is nothing included for text selection, copy and paste, flip screen orientation in apps other than Safari (mail would be a good candidate) or the ability to delete multiple messages. This list of improvements were things that are broken with the iPhone and needed fixing from day one.
I'd say this is a classic case of Apple resting on its laurels and not giving way to a beacon call for improvements from the loyal user community. I just hope someone in the mainstream Mac-media has the balls to call Apple out on their lame refusal to upgrade iPhone hardware.
Thank goodness for Apple customers that Google made their pro-iPhone announcements yesterday, otherwise, there is not much of anything substantial for iPhone users at 2008 MacWorld.
A thin MacBook. Very thin. It's not something to rush out and buy. But it is very thin. Apparently its best feature is that you don't need a computer case because it ships in a yellow inter-office envelop. The worst feature is a very high price tag for inferior technology missing basic elements all portables have like optical drives, fast CPUs, multiple input and output ports, and bigger storage drives. At $1,800 and $3,000+ the ultra thin MacBook Air will take a lot of thickness out of your wallet and hand you back just a bunch of air.
An external hard drive for Time Machine priced at above the going rate for external storage. If you're happy with that offering I have some old Blue & White G3s I can sell you. Apple screwed a lot of Airport owners who over the course of the last year went out and bought the Airport extreme and a 500 GB external USB drive for $150 or $200 hoping that when Time Machine arrived on their desktop, they could back up their desktops and laptops using Time Machine and the beauty of storage connected to their hubs.
When Leopard was finally released, the fact that Airport couldn't accomplish the Time Machine task, it was attributed by Apple to be a bug. Now, Apple specialists on the floor of Macworld, in light of wanting to make sales of their new Apple device, saying the bug will not be fixed for the foreseeable future. Apple wants $299 for a 500 GB drive that does work and $499 for a one TB drive.
AppleTV with nothing to add to the hardware. Movie rentals. As the gonzo roving reporter Robert Cringley said, without DVR and the ability to easily rip DVDs to AppleTV its crap and will never become a part of mainstream America. That's all folks! Goodbye. Hello Randy Newman...
Read Cringley's humorous 'Fear and Loathing" parody here:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/archives/2008/01/apple_macworld.html
In their assessment, Businessweek said that at the prices Apple has set for the MacBook Air, visitors to the Apple Store will not buy it, however, they will go in to the store to see it and maybe they'll buy a $1,000 MacBook on the way out thus it won't be a complete loss.
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