tinfoil, whiskey, and computers

I always look forward to Macworld.  It’s an exciting time for Apple fans like myself.  New, innovative technologies always are introduced.  This year’s Macworld, however, was disappointing.  Let me run down why.

• Movie rentals
• We expected these, and his Steveness delivered.  Unfortunately it’s almost as bad as everything else out there.  What we got was a mix of pricing, $2.99, $3.99, and $4.99.  That’s for catalog, new release, and HD movies.  That’s very disappointing.  The beauty of iTunes is that it’s 99 cents for every song (that is until they introduced the DRM-free stuff.)
• There is a 24-hour watch limitation.  That sucks too.  We already have that horrible limitation with the Microsoft DRMs out there.  What’s the purpose of a 24-hour limitation?  Let’s say I have an Apple TV, my laptop, and an iPod.  I want the option to watch on each, which I will have.  But there is no guarantee I will be able to watch within a 24-hour artificial window.  I am regularly on the road for work and sometimes it’s just not possible.

• New iPod touch software
• It’s $20!  WTF?  Since when did Apple start charging for these types of upgrades?  It should be free for iPod Touch early adopters.  The only reasonbly significant addition is Mail.  That’s really for of an omission from the first release than a “new” feature for the second.  Come on, Apple, do the right thing.  Reward your loyal early adopters with software that should have been in the first release.

• Time Capsule
• This is cool.  I like it.  My only question is, can I use my current Airport Extreme base station with my own external drive and finally have it work with Time Machine?  Is there a software update that makes this possible?
• Apple’s page for Which Wireless Are You?  seems to indicate I can’t use my current base station with Time Machine.  If that’s the case, then screw you, Apple.  You promised it would work in Leopard and had it in release candidates.

• MacBook Air
• This is maybe the biggest “oh well” of the lot.  It’s thin, sure.  But it’s too big.  Yes, too big.
• Thin is nice, but 13.3″ still makes it “huge” compared to what it could be.
• Why no SSD standard?  I realize there is a cost associated with SSD, but Dell sells a notebook with a 32GB SSD for $1600.  Apple could do the same.
• Why not do something truly innovative and use a small SSD combined with some NAND flash for storage?  That would have driven costs down.  Limit the SSD to, say, 8GB, and utilize the NAND for storage as in iPods.
• Battery life is a HUGE disappointment.  5 hours?  Big deal!  I get that on my 15.4″ MacBook Pro
• Let me get this straight, less battery, slower CPU, slower HDD, ugly and fat bezel.  Fantastic.  I see no tremendous advantage.  The new touchpad is cool, but not that cool.  Thin is cool, but not without everything else.  I need more power, I need smaller, I need solid state.  Without that, it’s just another MacBook without an optical.

• Apple TV
• This, I liked.  Simply a free software upgrade with some much missed features.  Frankly, these were features that should have been in the first version.  And it’s free.  You hear that, Apple?  Free.  Not like the iPod Touch missing features which cost $20.
• Price drop.  Not only is the update free, the cost of the product went down.  Sounds good to me!  Sign me up!

Overall, not too happy or excited with this Macworld.  I expected movie rentals to be innovative.  They aren’t.  I expected the Macbook Air to be innovative.  It’s not.  I didn’t expect Apple to charge for a simple software upgrade of missing features.  They did.

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