So, Macworld 2008 was today.

Basically, like many of us knew would happen … the traffic from all the liveblogging from Steve’s keynote sabotaged just about any means of watching any effective kind of live streaming.

Eventually most of us settled on a Web 1.0 type experience (text and images with an auto refresh). It wasn’t pleasant, but it worked.

I’m sure admins around the world wished everyone was using a service like this instead of auto refreshing and sucking up all the available bandwidth (so much for this thing called the “Internet” and “Web 2.0″ for live events such as these)!

But not to fret … Apple’s keynote from today is up (finally).

I watched the keynote video last night while in bed … watching a Steve-e-cast right before bed is a great way to dream of Flash on the iPhone, BTW.

Steve had 4 items to talk about … which you can watch here.

OSX + Time Capsule (Steve’s #1 item)

Pretty cool. OSX has shipped 5 million copies so far. Also, they introduced Time Capsule which is essentially an Airport Extreme with a built in harddrive (500 GB or 1TB) for network backup. Basically, instead of plugging in an external drive via Time Machine you can just now do it OTA or via your physical network. I like the idea … but what do you get besides attaching a USB Hard Drive to an older Airport Extreme? Aesthetics? I guess circumventing USB adds some speed … anyways, it’s a cool thought for MB and MBP owners.

iPhone (Steve’s #2 item)

Rather than comment on each and every item; I’d just like to mention that when Steve talked about the iPhone (#2, if I remember correctly), he only mentioned that the SDK was still in the works (or at least that’s what I read from someone’s commentary from the event) and scheduled for Late February.

He also mentioned Google’s My Location feature integration, as well as a firmware update, and of course, how iTunes and other content distribution (movies) was going to be tied into the platform via Apple TV and iTunes.

So … Flash on the iPhone? We still do not know if that will constitute any part of a later firmware update and/or be included within the upcoming SDK. Again, we won’t no till next month at the earliest (unless it slips out via the partners who most likely already have the SDK).

Apple TV Take 2 and iTunes Movie Rentals (Steve’s #3)

It’s an awesome idea, and nothing any of us didn’t see coming. But the fact that they’ve signed up many of the large production companies is awesome. It’s going to be huge (IMHO).

I also couldn’t help but notice that the new Apple TV UI/user experience in the update looks (exactly?) like what Macromedia (well, Adobe; now) was showing back in 2004-2005 at either MAX or FITC. Can Adobe comment?

#3 was simply what made the show to me. I guess I just love movies … and the fact that I can rent via iTunes and Apple TV is awesome. As soon as they have more than 1000 titles, I think it’ll be “c’ya later Blockbuster and Hollywood video” (at least for me, personally)

MacBook Airs (Steve’s #4 item)

They look cool, sound cool, but are they really practical? I’m not sure. Something tells me I’m going to have to automatically sign up for AppleCare with such a device … plus one heck of a protective case (sorry Apple, but a manilla folder isn’t going to cut the mustard).

You can check out airs, here, as they are available for pre-order. Ultimately, I’ll probably upgrade, but not right away.

I do like the fact that it is a LED backlight display, has keyboard illumination, solid state drive option, as well as it’s overall design footprint. Also the “remote disc” feature is a nice idea … makes a lot of sense for Apple.

They want you to buy/rent movies and other media from iTunes (via Apple TV)!

Is making a thin MacBook AIR without the convenience of a built in optical drive a clever ploy to get you to buy movies from Apple, or a mere coincidence?! I do not know.

To me, it’s just a way for Apple to innovate and bring something new to market.

Also, the touchpad “gesturing” that they borrowed from the iPhone success is definitely very cool (I actually have a post soon about some of that on other handsets). All this is vaguely reminiscent of Palm’s legacy handwriting (Grafitti) … where you learn a new “language” of interacting with your device(s).

Caveats with the AirBook? … Two things that are missing from the Air I noticed a built ethernet jack and firewire port. The former makes sense since the Air is a wireless machine from the get go … however, it’s interesting to note, that there is no firewire (guess they couldn’t fit it).

Anyways, overall I like the idea of “thin”. Just not sure if my habits of slinging a laptop are going to hold up to the rigors of the MacBook Air.

Let’s hope these puppies don’t run hot (like the initial MBP’s) … Otherwise I can just see the “Hot Air” blog and forum posts all over the place!

Summary

I need to get myself to a Macworld next year!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Flash Lite. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.