Apple announces new products and updates to old ones at Macworld 2008
Written on 12:06 AM by Mujtaba
iTunes Digital Copy: customers who purchase a DVD of a Fox movie title will also get an iTunes Digital Copy which can be transferred to iTunes and then viewed on anything that connects with iTunes. The first DVD is “Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest,” which is a parody of Star Wars.
New software and price point for Apple TV: starting today Apple TV is $229, and new software coming later this month will let you rent movies on the iTunes Store directly from your widescreen TV–no computer required. By end of February there will be more than 1,000 titles to choose from, including over 100 in high definition with 5.1 Dolby surround sound. DVD-quality Movie Rentals will be $2.99 for older titles and $3.99 for new releases. High-definition versions are $3.99 and $4.99, respectively.
iTunes Movie Rentals from just about every movie studio: As mentioned above, you can now rent movies through iTunes and watch them on your Mac or PC, current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV. Partnerships with 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema make it all possible.
iPod Touch software update: For $19.99 your iPod touch will have Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather, Notes, and the ability to watch downloaded movies from iTunes Movie Rentals.
Firmware 1.1.3 for iPhone: Free update for iPhone will include the ability to find your location, text message multiple people in one message, create Web Clips for your favorite websites, customize your home screen, and watch rented movies from the new iTunes Movie Rentals (see above).
Time Capsule–wireless backup for your Macs: working with Time Machine this allows for you to wirelessly back up all of your Macs. Time Capsule includes a combo 802.11n base station with either a built-in 500GB ($299) or 1TB hard drive ($499).
MacBook Air–the world’s thinnest notebook: Measuring 0.16 inches at its thinnest point, with a height of 0.76 inches, it fits into a manila envelope. The MacBook Air includes a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, full-size and backlit keyboard, built-in iSight video camera, and a multi-touch trackpad. Inside there’s a 1.6 or 1.8 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, 2GB memory, 80GB hard drive, 802.11n, and Bluetooth 2.1. The MacBook Air is available for pre-order today starting at $1,799 and it will ship in two weeks.
Read more about the announcements at .
Joel’s Opinion
That’s a whole lot of new stuff coming from Apple so far this year. Let me comment on each one, piece by piece.
MacBook Air: Very cool and I can see this thing flying off the shelves. They also announced a $99 external Superdrive for the MacBook Air and some interesting software that lets you use another computer’s CD/DVD drive. This definitely makes up for the lack of one. I think it’s a great laptop but I personally couldn’t justify the extra money and would stick with the MacBook at this point.
Time Capsule: I like the wireless backup but why can’t it just be software that works with everything I already have? Time Machine encourages me to use my own hard drive so why make me suddenly buy a new hard drive just for this backup?
iPhone Firmware 1.1.3: I love the idea of using hotspots and cellular towers for triangulation. I think this is my favorite announcement, by far. I was really hoping that he was going to say, “the SDK is ready one month early!” but this is pretty good too.
iPod Touch software update: definitely a needed upgrade but charging for it? That’s really bad form and I have to wonder if there will be an attack on Apple for this one, similar to the reduction of the iPhone pricing so soon after release.
iTunes Digital Copy: I don’t buy DVDs so I really don’t need this. I can see the appeal, though, since it’s faster than ripping.
New software and price point for Apple TV: I’ve been thinking about buying something like this for a while now and this price point and functionality may be just what I need. I rent movies and always forget to watch them, so I pay a lot more than $3.99 for them. This will be a welcome addition, though only having 24 hours to complete watching them is a bit of a drag.
iTunes Movie Rentals from just about every movie studio: At least most of the new movies will be out on this service. I think it’s 30 days after DVD release, so that’s not bad at all, though I’d like it to be at the same time as DVD release.
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