Fraser Speirs Cocoa and Photos

Macworld Reflections

For me, the iPhone software update is the most exciting thing out of today’s Macworld keynote. The new features look very, very good but the iPod touch just became a seriously compelling product. I bet everyone who has one feels like Christmas just came again.

It will be interesting to see how well the location features work on the iPhone. A quick test here at home located my house to a radius of about a block. I guess that’s working with just the cell tower triangulation, but it’s probably a good-enough 80% solution for most non-driving uses.

I’m not even fractionally interested in the Apple TV, but I bet that the movie-on-demand cable services just had heart failure. I’ll look again at the movie rentals when they escape the USA.

The MacBook Air is an absolute marvel of engineering. What they’ve put in there appears to be a seriously impressive feat. Interesting, though, that it’s priced between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. There are several nice things about this machine: the remote disc technology looks great. Personally, I think the demise of the internal optical drive is overdue. I hope they redesign the next generation of all the other portables to have other things in the machine in place of the optical drive - another battery or a second hard drive would be welcome. All that said, though, did you notice that this is the first Mac in a long time that doesn’t have FireWire? That’s a fraction disappointing.

That said, however, you’re still paying a chunk more money for less computer, both physically and performance-wise. I’ll reserve final judgement until I hold one, because I get the impression that the Air could well be much more compelling as an object in your hands than as a spec sheet on the web. Right now, I’d describe it as “impressive but not immediately compelling”. I’ll definitely be looking at it for my next laptop, but it’s not clear that more money and fewer features than a MacBook makes great sense unless you’re permanently on the road.

The price of the SSD storage device is out in the realms of lunacy right now. I thank in advance all the crazy people who will buy it and drive down the price but, in the UK store, the cost just to to upgrade to SSD on an Air is only £60 short of the cost of an entry-level MacBook. Unless you work on your laptop while jogging, I’m not seeing the value proposition right there. Also, I’m disappointed that they didn’t make the 160GB hard drive from the iPod classic available. I just think 80GB isn’t enough and there’s no way that that drive is going to be user-servicable.

Look what £1400 buys you in the UK:

MacBook Air: 1.8GHz Core 2, 80GB drive, 2GB RAM.
..or..
A stock Black MacBook, 4GB of RAM from Crucial.com, a 320GB hard drive upgrade from Dabs.com and you’ve still got £250 left over for an iPhone.

Like I said: on paper, it’s deeply impressive but not immediately compelling unless you are literally damned to eternally wander the earth looking for somewhere to lay down your Mac and do some email.

As for Randy Newman, well, I wasn’t sure if it was another Noah Wyle incident in which life at Apple was imitating the art of Dan Lyons. I can just imagine Fake Steve writing up the behind-the-scenes story of Randy and Paul Otellini taking bong hits of Larry Ellison’s high-class marijuana backstage during the keynote. Who’s going to close out the WWDC keynote? Larry Ellison and two strippers?

I’ve been happy for a while that I got an iPod Touch and didn’t hold out for the iPhone, and today’s update’s totally underscored that. Now I really do get the best of both worlds (I don’t actually want or need the EDGE connectivity; I have two phones already).

I’m reserving judgement on the iTunes rentals/Apple TV stuff until it hits. The Apple TV update won’t arrive until the new boxes start shipping in a couple of weeks, but it’ll really just be a UI update… and the Flickr integration (woo). Rentals won’t hit until “later”, same old non-US story, and that’s what it’s really all about.

I’d definitely buy an Air over a plain MacBook now (if I could afford either), but I doubt it’s everybody’s cup of tea. My MacBook mostly gets used (nowadays) as a pretty terminal to a bunch of UNIX machines, for running TextMate, iTunes, and normal Internet stuff; all the important stuff is stored remotely, so the smaller disk is no big loss; the decreased size and weight are a boon, though, as I carry the thing to and from work every day.

I think the Air is impressive only from a pure-Apple standpoint. Compared to the PC world it’s not up to much, especially the thinkpads. The X-series gets a real-world battery life of 9 hours, is smaller in all dimensions except thickness, and has a full spread of ports.

I’m most disappointed in the Air because it’s still too large in footprint: I wanted something like the PB 12″ that would disappear into a camera bag, and this one is actually *bigger* than the MacBook! The slow HD and weak graphics will make Aperture a pain, so I’m not sure it has any advantages at all!

The price is just the final nail. I fear this is another Cube: I’ve not seen so many negative comments on Apple forums from Apple fans for a long time.

I think I concur, mostly …

I can see the MacbookAir becoming the defacto road warrior machine, just imagine all those business suits who’ll grab one, but I think it’ll also be popular (despite the price) amongst the university crowd, I can see the parent buying spree each year ‘for little Johnny to go to uni/college’. I also think you can’t under estimate the ‘in the flesh’ attraction of the device in the Apple store, I can see them flying out once people start turning them over in their hands.

Personally, I can’t really use it as a replacement myself, I need the extra disk space and memory for VMware, as my laptop is my primary machine, but if you have a desktop/iMac then I can see the attraction. Nice to see the DVD disappearing, some systems I deal with have had remote console/DVD via Java for a few years, offering CD/DVD drive access and VNC like capability and its worked superbly, so nice to see this filter from the server room down into the home machines.

Interesting that the HD technology in the MacbookAir is PATA, which I guess is because its really 1.8″ not 2.5″ (4200rpm?), so the SSD is large by 1.8″ standards, might explain the price hike.

BTW, the Black Macbook would also get you the old drive in a FW enclosure for £20 extra as well … I’d still rather trust my drives to FW than USB, power over USB still seems flakey in comparison.

So when will Apple allow you to tunnel back to the house to stream your iTunes direct to the device, as I can’t see you keeping your library on it. A BTYM like tunnel would be great for the man in the street instead of ssh/ssl setup routines and bonjour frigs, perhaps Justin Miller is on to something with his new app!

At least they learned from the Macbook that they needed to include all the useful video adapters and make sure that it was prepped for any eventuality when it came to hooking up to projectors.

BTW, looks like Front Row will diverge from AppleTV again when v2.0 is released, so much for the recent parity in that product set …

@Craig

That’s a good point re parity with FrontRow and Leopard - I wonder if FrontRow will get an update as well?

Fraser - you have mail re your thoughts on the Apple TV

Honestly, I think the MacBook air fills a perfect niche for a lot of people. Nearly the ENTIRE cafe crowd is a perfect match for this computer - its svelte, super light, has a tremendous “toss it unprotected in your sling bag” allure like the macbook does while still giving much more than adequate power for doing all the usual tasks one does on the road: compose and edit music (if a 1 core 1GHz PB12 can do it, I guarantee you this thing can), edit and retouch photos at least to the degree you’d do it on a laptop anyway, and the big thing we all use computers for at cafes: writing, posting, and IM/twitter/sms/etc. Sure the price is a bit steep, but one always pays a premium for that type of portability.

As for the ThinkPad X series, well lets just say we use them extensively in the office I work at (I’m one of the few rebels) and even with the huge and heavy extended battery, when the wireless is on and cranking, there’s NO WAY those things get anywhere near 9 hours. Try 3-5, tops. And that’s a fat and heavy laptop to get there, too.

Yes, I think the lack of firewire and a few other bells and whistles is sad, but the thing has a very specific purpose and it really seems to me that as a secondary computer for a creative individual, its nearly perfect. I can think of many more day-to-day situations in which I’d prefer to have the Air over my Pro than I can *realistically* think of conversely. When the odds are stacked that way, the Pro becomes the niche machine and the Air becomes the commonplace.

The choice is fairly clear to me: the Macbook is a desktop replacement for the small or cheap crowd, the Pro is the desktop replacement or substitute for the serious computing crowd, and the Air is the desktop *complement* for just about everybody.

That said, I agree with Fraser, the iPhone and iPod Touch updates are the most useful announcements as they affect me directly and positively.

“the iPod touch just became a seriously compelling product. I bet everyone who has one feels like Christmas just came again.”

Well, I would if I didn’t have to pay $20 (I haven’t looked up the UK price- fifteen quid perhaps?). On the other hand, Christmas has a nasty habit of giving people overdrafts, so perhaps the comparison isn’t completely off.

> I get the impression that the Air could well be much more compelling as an object in your hands than as a spec sheet

I think it’ll be most compelling on your back. It’s 60% the weight of a MacBook. That’s much more back-friendly.

It’s not meant to be a primary machine for people who use Aperture or similar high-end software. It’s for people who travel a lot, and just want internet, music and typing.

Outside of multi-touch, the one thing Apple has done to the iPod over the years is make it smaller and thinner, and it’s worked wonders. I think, as the price comes down, the same will prove true for the MacBook Air.

Paul (Mison),

My understanding of the $20 charge is that it’s required (or at least motiivated by) under Sarbanes-Oxley regulations in the US. I don’t know if it needs to be $20, or if it just has to be a nominal charge, but the fact that they’re not selling this as an ‘upgrade kit’ for new iPod Touches but installing it by default, reminds me of the 802.11n enabler charge of last year.

@Paul (Mison):

It’s a $20 (12.99 in the iTunes store) charge for something you didn’t buy the iPod Touch for in the first place (unless you jailbroke it, of course, but you didn’t get the support the $20 buys you, and couldn’t upgrade without losing that).

Yes, it’s a bit sucky that they charge for it now but roll it in for new iPod Touches, but that’s accountancy rules for you.

I heard a whisper that Apple got into trouble for the price of the 802.11n enabler with the SEC (in that the SEC didn’t consider it a high enough price as compared to what you actually got for it—i.e., they thought it was just a token charge), but I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it might explain why the price for the iPod Touch upgrade (and it is an upgrade, rather than an update) is slightly pricey.