Steve Jobs unveiled five new best things yesterday in his MacWorld keynote.
1. An external HD for wireless network backups.
2. iPhone (free) and iPod touch ($20) software upgrades.
3. Movie rentals from the iTunes store.
4. A free software upgrade for Apple TV.
5. MacBook Air, a new ultra-light, ultra-thin notebook computer.
NewMexiKen bought the touch upgrade. It added mail, stocks (ugh!), maps, notes and weather directly to the touch home screen. All are welcome improvements. I can now move the icons around the home screen, too, and add webclips — icons for web pages (that is, fancy bookmarks). If you have a touch, this upgrade greatly increases it’s internet functionality and makes it much more like the iPhone, less the phone, camera and speaker. I’m still waiting for the second generation phone before I take that plunge (though, I’m happy to announce I am no longer indentured to Verizon).
The MacBook Air compromises some capabilities to obtain it’s slim case. No optical (CD/DVD) drive. Just an 80 GB hard drive (pretty small with any use of videos). A slower chip. The computer however, is small enough to fit in an envelope. That is amazing enough I guess.
Apple TV has become a lot more useful now because it will be able to connect directly to the internet (no need to work through a computer). It seems to me this is still an emerging technology — TV from the net and not from DVDs or TV stations or cable networks — but the Apple TV is tempting. It costs less than what I paid for the 400 disk CD player I still use, yet will hold much more music, all available with the touch of a few remote buttons. Having one’s photo albums available on the TV screen is also a real breakthrough for digital photos I’d say. $229 for 40GB; $329 for 160GB.