Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2008 -- 6:15 p.m. -- at my desk
I used a Christmas analogy the other day to talk about the approach of Macworld and now I'll use one to start off the analysis.
It wasn't quite equivalent to receiving nothing but socks and fruitcakes Christmas morning, but it also wasn't exactly Santa's best work either.
In general, Tuesday's Macworld was just OK. There was nothing shocking by any means, unless you count the fact that there was NO Mac mini released, which everyone thought was a lock.
And we iPhone lovers? Well, we got precious little with the exception of downloadable songs over the cellular network and a .99-cent app to control Keynote over Wi-Fi called Keynote Remote.
There's different themes for iPhone slideshows that can be synced to your iPhone, and that sounds interesting and all, but I just don't ever see myself syncing to change a theme for a photo slideshow. Truth be told, I try not to sync much because it takes so darn long.
I really wouldn't read too much into it that there wasn't much iPhone-ness in this keynote. Like Apple said when it announced the end of its participation in Macworld, Apple has lots of cool ways to get news to people. And when the time is right, they will. There will be all kinds of new models for iPhones down the road, whether it's a smaller one, a clamshell ... we just don't know.
The next thing that I anticipate is a 32GB or even 64GB iPhone. And I don't expect that to come with much fanfare. It will just happen. The price of another model might drop and this might fill the void or the new model(s) might just sit on top of the 8GB and 16GB.
When the iPhone changes form factor in some way, well, that's gonna be huge. And that's going to be worthy of one of those invitation-only events that knock our socks off. And believe me ... just because Apple isn't presenting at Macworld doesn't mean they aren't going to do the announcements right.
Right now, I'm looking forward to 2.3 ... although there hasn't been all that much buzz about it. Maybe we'll at least get 2.2.1 as a maintenance update for all the bugginess that exists in 2.2. I swear I can't get through an entire game without a crash and I certainly can't look at the Facebook app for more than 5 minutes without either a crash or that dreaded white screen where the text just disappears.
Overall, today, there was some decent stuff. The new iLife looks very nice. The face-recognition software is very cool and the collaboration with Google Maps is nice too. iMovie is looking more like a competitor to Final Cut Express with every update and Garageband's awesome music lessons are a neat thing to continue to set this unique software apart.
iWork looks fine. Nothing mindblowing behind the new iwork.com beta. There's a lot of unanswered questions there -- how much will it eventually cost, how much functionality will it have and how will it all eventually interact with the cloud and the iPhone and MobileMe? There's no question that it will, but how it will happen is still open to debate.
I like the fact that iLife is still included with Macs and that the price tag hasn't increased from $79 for the single license and $99 for the 5-user license. I also like the fact that iWork can be purchased for $49 with any new Mac. If it's not going to be free, there needs to at least be a discount.
iTunes losing its DRM chains and having variable pricing is a good thing. And 30 cents to upgrade to a DRM-free version of the song is better than what I was expecting, which was having to pay full price to have to purchase the song again. Sure, 30 cents a song can get very expensive when you are talking about hundreds of songs, but I like to think that it could have been worse.
And finally, the MacBook Pro is remarkable in terms of the unibody enclosure and the new battery technology. I'm not sure how I feel about the battery being non-removable. The fact that it should last 5 years means that even if I want to have it replaced (at $169 at Apple -- a little steep, I think) -- the chances of me using a computer beyond 5 years seems a little slim. Although maybe a computer that's so big and powerful will last a long time, however, new technology is always going to overtake what came out today and will need to be replaced. You won't want to have USB 2.0 (no matter how many ports) when USB 3.0 hits the mainstream, for example.
I'm looking to replace my almost 5-year-old computer and I was interested in looking at the merits of a maxed-out 17-inch vs. a maxed-out 15-inch with LCD screen. Turns out that Apple charges $1,200 (that is not a typo) to upgrade from 4GB RAM to 8GB. I know there's 3rd party RAM to consider, but it's still crazy expensive. And to go from the base 2.66 GHz to 2.93 GHz it costs $300. Then you pay more for a bigger hard drive (you start with 320GB and that's not much these days) and of course AppleCare. And if you want the matte screen, $50.
But I digress. I'm saying that the 17-inch MacBook Pro is a great advancement but to really get it at its most powerful, you are talking about a $4,000 investment.
What were your thoughts about today's Macworld? Am I missing anything here? What do you think the next iPhone update holds?
Leave me your thoughts here in the comments or on Twitter.
Thanks for calling -- and thanks very much for following me today here at the blog and on Twitter. I hope you all found it to be very useful. I know it's an iPhone blog and I concentrated on more Apple than iPhone today, but I feel like Macworld keynotes are all worthy of coverage because of what they can mean for the future of the iPhone.
2 Comments
Al said:
I can't believe there was no mention of the saved blurry iPhone email-to-email photos. I convinced my iwife to get an iPhone and this awesome iPhone element is flawed. This should be an easy fix. I would have at least appreciated its mention from apple.
SCOTT'S REPLY: So many times they don't mention the things that should be mentioned, only to update in an upcoming software update. Here's hoping that's the case, Al.
Bryan Preston said:
Hi Steve,
I'm a long time listener and first time caller. I travel a fair amount for work and also happen to have lots of different acquaintances from jobs and schools past all over the place that I like to connect with in person when I have the chance. Often times, though, I seem to forget people who live in the areas that I'm traveling to only to realize after I got back that I didn't have to be grabbing that beer alone in the hotel lobby. Is there an iPhone app out there that would show me all my contacts within a certain number of miles from my current (or specified) location? Might be cool if it could differentiate between business and person...
Thanks,
Bryan
SCOTT'S REPLY: Hi, Bryan. Nice to have you with us. Thanks for the comment. Wow, I don't know of an app like this, but I'll tell you what ... I love the premise. This is one of those things that if a developer is reading and could do this, it could stand to be pretty popular.
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