Macbook Air and internet movie rental make a splash at Macworld
Macworld is always an exciting time for the consumer electronics industry, and Apple rarely fails to disappoint analysts and gearheads alike. The annual expo this year was no less thrilling, as Apple announced two major innovations that are sure to impact the technology community in the coming months. CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air, which he described as the world’s thinnest notebook computer. He also announced the launch of a internet movie rental service through iTunes. While not quite as impactful as the iPhone was at Macworld 2007, these two new products have the potential to change the way we interact with technology.
The MacBook Air, which will retail for $1799.99, is just .76 inches at its thickest point. The laptop was purportedly designed to fit inside a standard manila envelope, and Jobs drove this message home by pulling a MacBook Air out of a manila envelope at the show. It features a 13.3 inch widescreen display and a full-size backlit keyboard, and it weighs just 3 pounds. Leopard fans will be pleased to know that it ships with that operating system. The trackpad allows pinching, swiping, rotating, and other touch actions that iPhone users have come to love. It even works within Safari and iPhoto, so one could use a reverse pinch to increase font size on a website or to zoom in on pictures.
MacBook Air seems to be a product geared towards wireless file sharing. The standard unit will not come with a CD/DVD drive (though they’ll sell you an external one for $99), and Apple is suggesting that most users will use iTunes for music and movie playback. The notebook will also wirelessly access external hard drives, so one could download music from another PC or Mac. There would also be no need to back up files on disk, as TimeKeeper will wirelessly keep track of all your file updates. But what about software installation disks? MacBook Air has a feature called Remote Disk which allows you to access the optical drive of another computer in order to install software.
Does it seem to anyone else that Apple is jumping the gun? The era of CDs and DVDs is not over quite yet, and Apple is rushing the demise of these storage media. For example, how useful would Remote Disk be if you didn’t own another computer to use as your optical drive? MacBook Air could not really function unless everyone user had an old computer as well. What if you already own hundreds of DVDs and don’t want to buy them on iTunes? While I applaud the move towards true wireless functionality, Apple might be too far ahead of the curve on this one.
iTunes new movie rental service is likely to make Apple a lot of money. All of Hollywood’s major studios have agreed to participate in the service, which signals a major change from a year ago, when just a few of the movie studios were selling films on iTunes. The rentals will cost $3.99 for new releases and $2.99 for older titles, and subscribers will have 24 hours to finishing watching them after they first begin playback. The announcement also details changes to the beleaguered Apple TV, which saw a price drop from $299 to $229. The product will now let users rent or buy movies directly from Apple TV, without the annoying intermediate step of transferring titles from computers to the set-top box. Both the movie rental service and the improved Apple TV will allow customers to explore new ways of purchasing movies. The iTunes service is expected to rival Netflix, which recently expanded its “Watch Instantly” feature so subscribers could stream movies while waiting for their next DVDs to arrive by mail.
Macworld is an exciting time to technology experts and consumers alike, and this year’s event was no exception. The MacBook Air is one step closer to the touchscreen notebook we all crave from Apple, despite its design shortcomings. Apple TV is now set up to be a money maker for the company, especially if users respond positively to the new iTunes movie rental options. Apple’s innovative designs and cutting edge technology will continue to impress us in Macworld conventions for years to come.
By Haley January Eckels