Steve Job’s hour long speech at Macworld 2008 has come and gone, almost as fast as 2007 itself. Theres been a ton of cool gadgets that have dropped in oh-seven from Apple, the iPod touch, iPod nano, huge iMacs, MacBook Pros, and of course… who can forget the iPhone. Steve, in my opinion, has dominated the market and is making it seem silly for anyone to not begin “the switch” (thanks to Leopard housing Bootcamp).
Now, back to Macworld 2008, Apple today announced many great products and current updates. At this rate, I’m really excited to see what the rest of 2008 will bring, but only time will tell.
The first, being most obvious, is the Macbook Air (worlds thinest notebook). The Macbook Air has the same touch technology as the iPhone screen, so on the trackpad you can pinch, swipe or rotate by simply moving your fingers. The keyboard is full size and is light sensitive (illumination). One of its greatest features, other than the obvious powerful hardware upgrades, is its blazing-fast 802.11n2 and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR wireless technologies. There are two different models, both 13″ in screen size, one being really nice, and the other being really expensive. I’m sure you’ll check them out yourself.
Next, we have iPhone updates, myself being an iPhone owner, this I couldn’t wait for (even though 3rd part applications aren’t due till late February). The update, 1.1.3, features multiple (nine) “Home” screens, the ability to move your icons around (to any screen you wish), tons of Google Map updates (including the ability to pin point any place you wish, and the phone to currently set the map to your location via Earth). Also, the iPhone can save web bookmarks to the home screen icons, including zoom and location information. Thank God, now we can send multiple SMS text message to multiple users (even though we got no copy and paste update, lame). The last, big feature, of the January 2008 update is the ability to rent movies via iTunes and view lyrics from the mp3 your currently playing. If you don’t currently own one of these… I highly recommend them.
The iPod touch (still 8 and 16Gb models), maybe the best iPod yet. A few updates here, the iPod touch now features Maps, Stocks, Weather, Mail, and Notes, all of which were exclusively iPhone features before (lucky for you iPod touch owners).
After the first Apple TV bombed out, I highly doubted Steve Jobs would continue the product. Little did I know. Apple TV 2 (40 and 160Gb models) is out, and better than ever (I guess). It now features full 1080p (me) down to 480p (your grandma), and still doesn’t support WMV/DivX/XViD. Honestly, there isn’t a lot to tell apart from the old and the new, you can now rent HD movies via iTunes on it, yet… if it were sitting on a table, identical.
Last, but not least, we leave you with Time Capsule. Time Capsule is the perfect companion to Time Machine (Leopards backup system), and best yet… it is 100% wireless. The new product drops in, in two models, a 500GB ($299) and a 1TB ($499), both with server-grade hard drives. Time Capsule claims to be five times faster at transferring data and have at least twice the range as 802.11g wireless networks, thanks to 802.11n wireless technology. Other features include wireless drive sharing (both Mac and PC), printing without wires, WPA/WPA2 and 128-bit WEP encryption (along with a built-in firewall), and best yet… it works with iPhone, Apple TV and all your other Wi-Fi devices.
That, my friends, is Macworld 2008 in a nutshell. Enjoy.
