[Hawaiian_Starman]

$20 iPod Touch upgrade for something that ought to have been there in the beginning???? Another strange twist in Apple's quest to redefine "customer relationships".

[Rugby]

we all do.....

[Rugby]

well nothing really oooooooh in my view, but there is plenty to come and yes they do launch new gizmos on a regular basis (in ze old days it was once a year and whatever came you had to live with...). Had hoped for a minitower (as many others) ah well

[JoJo]

"especially because his uncles were compulsive gamblers."

On a Macworld Expo blog? Completely uncalled-for.

Stick to mac commentary. You're marginally better at it than you are at social commentary.

[ChasmoeBrown]

Wow, that shot at Randy Newman and his family was REALLY crass, classless. When did Rupert Murdoch buy out MacWorld? What's next, the MacWorld Factor? Snell & Colmes?

[pkeene]

I really, really hoped Apple's new ultralight was going to replace my 12" PB. Sadly, that won't be the case.


Peter

[Aquia33]

Well the investors did not like what SJ had to say, the stock is down a whopping $11.96. That is a big kick in the ass! Look for a kick up tomorrow? Or maybe next tuesday when the quarterly report is made public.

[kellie]

All in all, pretty good from my point of view.

I'm glad to see the free iPhone update, although I wish MMS had been included with the update. The ability to SMS more than one person at once is something I've wanted for a while. There are still things that can be improved, but that's good.

I'm really glad that the AppleTV update is free. I was getting worried that I would be required to purchase another box. It didn't seem to make sense to screw the few people that did buy one, but hey, you never know.

The Time Capsule seems interesting, but I think they missed the boat on the larger sales by not releasing it with Leopard. I have a laptop running Leopard, but I also bought a nice new hard drive when I bought Leopard, and had a Time Capsule been there, I would have bought that instead. But now I'm not going to change what I have.

The MacBook Air is interesting, but I don't think it is ultimately what I need. I had been planning to purchase a 15" Mac Book Pro, and I think that's still what I'll get. I wish they had refreshed the entire line to make them thinner, introduced the multi-touch pad to all laptops (I guess that can be done later with software update?) and maybe added a Blu-Ray drive. But I'm not unhappy that none of that happened, just would have been nice.

[mdawson]

Not much of interest to me, but some good announcements none-the-less.
Time Capsule
I do not yet have Leopard, so Time Capsule is just interesting reading from my standpoint.
iPhone
It’s a cell phone so I really could not care less about it. For iPhone users there seems to be some good news, but I pretty much tuned out during that part of the coverage.
AppleTV
Well it is not what I hoped, but it is an improvement. We are still way off from getting content strictly through the Internet though, so while downloadable rentals is a good idea, better support of over the air recording (DVR) and optical disc playback/recording are still missing. I would also like to see the ability to rip DVDs the way we can with CDs, but unlike the music industry the movie industry has always gotten away with fully impeding fair use rights.
MacBook Air
I am not much for laptops—they are far too limited for what do and I do not need an on-the-go computer—but this is great news for road warriors. It is not quite the smaller MacBook Pro that many on these boards seemed to be hoping for though. Jobs may think that the optical drive will not be missed, but again full reliance on the Internet and wireless network is not where we are right now.
I am not one to knock Apple’s penchant for being ahead of the game, but optical disc drives are not on the verge of obsolescence at this point so they may really be jumping the gun on this one. Lack of Ethernet may also come back to bite people in the butt, as there are times when a hard-wired connection is the only (viable) option.
Herein lies the downside of the smaller, smaller, smaller mentality. There comes a point where miniaturization has quickly diminishing returns as the size of the product makes it impossible to include certain features.
-----
In all, a fairly decent keynote. Still no small form-factor professional/prosumer system, but I am not surprised by that, as Apple seems to feel that the prosumer market is not worth catering toward. Oh well.

[Rugby]

I'll follow you up on this commentary (which by the way is a good way of doing it, case by case as they are NOT worlwide):
Time Capsule
ah well wireless HD interesting, we'll see
iPhone
iPhone wot iz an ePhonne ? Sorry but an official iPhone hasn't reached Denmark yet (in official yes but..)
Apple TV
movie rentasl whot wil zey think of nect... well we don't have more then iTunes here, and that's music only no movies or anything ...movies hah
MacBook Air
(sounds like it is in collaboration with Nike...) not my cup of tea nice one though

[fitz]

Although the Keynote failed to mention it, Apple is offering a 10/100BASE-T USB Ethernet Adapter for about $30. And as SJ mentioned, you can add an external MacBook Air SuperDrive for $99. It may not be built in, but it is available.

[plovfald]

Thank you for your coverage....Is it just me or was that the weakest Keynote in many years. Where is the big story? They are all small stories. Were is the more impressive iPhone (read more powerful), or a MacTablet or MediaMac.

Isn't this really the year of HDTV? I think the AppleTV is still a hamstrung offering (limited use, small harddrive). I'm using Handbrake to transfer all my DVDs to my harddrive (for my personal use) and will buy a Mac Mini to use as a MediaMac with my brand new 40" Sony Bravia HD LCD. We need something with the capabilities of the Mac Mini in the AppleTV. Or what about Macs shipping with Blue Ray! Now that would be news!

Why does Apple want to control our use of the content. They make a great platform. Can't they just stick to that and get their hand out of my pocket? I pay enough for the platform as it is!!!

Just look at the stock price today...even Wall Street thought the Keynote was weak.

[lcotler]

Snell did a great job of simultexting the event. Thanks!

I am concerned, however, that this event, and Macworld the magazine, and other things Macintosh are being vitiated by iPod and iPhone. I have zero interest in those things. No wonder Apple Computer, Inc. changed its name to Apple, Inc.

But I don't like it. I want all Macintosh all the time. Anyone else agree?

CC: me at lcotlerATwillitsonline.com

[DisabledTrucker]

My guess is that Apple is waiting for later this year when it holds it's next conference to release the meat, since all this is fat this go round.

Their 12" replacement notebook, the 13" Macbook got slimmer, a new fancy HDD, removed the optical drive, and wired networking connection, a total waste of $3500! Where's the Macbook Touch?

The iPod Touch/iPhone got some new software, another big whoop! Okay so they actually finally released the Maps, Notes, and Mail features people were looking for, so what, the iPod Touch still doesn't get any decent storage for the plethora of videos we want to put on it to carry with us, no camera capability either. The iPhone is still locked into one cellular provider per country, and basically didn't really get anything new.

iTunes can now download rented movies, so what, I wasn't going to pay for movies I can keep, let alone rent them at a higher cost!

Apple TV still is a wanna be, that can now rent those movies and gets a slightly larger HDD, again big whoop! Oh, it also can now play back 720p content, my rips of my HD-DVD's can do 1080p already on my mini!

The only SPAM meat of this was the release of the integrated router and backup drive, not quite a home server and not really of any benefit for those who should be able to do what it's claiming it can do already with a connected drive to the previous Airport Extreme "N" router. Sure it's worthy if you've been putting off the upgrade of the router for a while and want this feature as well but, what about the plethora of people who've already got the components in anticipation of this when Leopard released? Are we now out in the cold?

The only updates currently available after this speech are for iTunes, Quicktime, Front Row, and iMovie to take advantage of the new formats for Apple TV. No mention of the upcomming 10.5.2 update that's been floating around for a while now, no mention of anything actually "Ground Breaking" this year, which leads me to think that Steve must have something really big in mind for the second half of the year during the developers conference. Maybe then we'll see updates to the iMacs, to include the just released Blu-Ray drives that come out yesterday, the new Macbook Touch, and a serious update to the iPod Touch to include a Solid State Drive and camera. That's also when they may finally answer the plethora of prayers and release both a real Media Center, Home Server, and Mini Pro that runs on Mac OS X 10.5.5 with the ZFS that was supposed to be in the Gold release.

Like many others I was so hoping for some real innovation this year from Apple but, it seems that Apple is just pocketing it's success from last year and making nothing new in the process. Steve's saving up for his run for the White House in 2012 so he needs all the extra cash he can gain now.