Thoughts on the Apple announcements Jan 17 2008

Here are just a few thoughts on all the gear that Apple announced on Tuesday - I meant to jot this down yesterday but didn’t get chance.

I think overall, the keynote disappointed me and interested me in equal measures. First up, the Apple Time Capsule was announced. This is quite cool - it’s basically their 802.11n AirPort router re-worked to include a hard-drive. As I currently run an all-in-one ADSL modem/router, it’d be a bit of a pain, as there is no built in DSL modem in this bit of kit, so I’d need to buy one separately and hook it up. However it is a clever idea, as wireless backup is going to be infinitely more useful than wired backup for the legion of Apple MacBook users (myself included). I’ve been on the lookout for a while for a decent NAS, preferably wireless, although above and beyond Time Machine backups, I’m not certain you can use any other space on the Time Capsule drive for run-of-the-mill storage. I’d also be looking for some decent media capabilities from any NAS I pickup (DLNA compliant, iTunes streaming etc). So while the Time Capsule idea is interesting, it has to be said that it’s feature set seems somewhat limited - it seems to be firmly targeted at doing just backups, whereas I think there is definitely a market for a similar product that adds some clever media server and NAS functionality.

Next up, was the iPhone and iPod Touch updates. As an iPhone user, this seemed quite cool - I was however hoping for a beta of the SDK, or some early 3rd party native apps to be announced too. The iPhone update (1.1.3) adds some nice features, although it looks like the cell triangulation doesn’t work over here in the UK (I’m guessing it’s USA first, rest of the world later). We do have the ‘my location’ button however. Perhaps it works in certain areas of the country, or they are thinking it’ll come online fairly soon. The WebClips are a great idea, and being able to organise the home screen really reminds you that the iPhone is so much more than a phone - it’s a brilliant little machine, and even without the SDK, some great apps can now be written to look native to the iPhone, and with a WebClip shortcut, you’d be hard pushed to tell the difference (unless the phone is offline, of course). The iPod Touch update seemed an obvious one - the $20 charge wasn’t quite so obvious. I think that’s a tough sell really, and it’s hard to see exactly why Apple have done it (other than perhaps to give iPod Touch users a reason to save the $20, and save for an iPhone instead maybe). It’s certainly a silly price to put on an update that’ll let you check your mail - but only when you’re in a WiFi hotspot. I’m sure the update will be useful for some however.

Thirdly, was the movie rentals and Apple TV 'take two’. On the movie rental front, this was largely useless being in the UK and all - apart from the obligatory sentence 'US for now, international later in the year’. Outside of all the hype, it’s important to remember that us Europeans that happen to have Xbox 360’s have been through all this before, with the Video Marketplace first coming to the US around 18 months ago, before finally coming online for us shortly before Christmas. I think it’ll really come down to the content that each service offers when iTunes movie rentals finally launches over here, but seeing as I’m yet to use the Xbox 360 video marketplace, it isn’t a particularly big deal for me regardless of when they get their act together. I like the idea of downloading movies, but I’d far rather download to keep, than rent (something that seems to only be available again, in the US, through iTunes). And the movie studios are going to have to realise that people aren’t going to pay the same they do for a physical DVD, to download the movie, especially when it’s released AFTER the DVD. Downloading movies over the net is effectively cutting out physical media and distribution costs, and a retail middleman - it’s high time that this was reflected in the prices given to consumers.

The Apple TV 'take two’ does seem like a good idea, and I like Apple’s rather refreshing 'we made a mess of it first time out’ stance. I also like that it’s simply a software update, and that there’s a price reduction (although more on price later). However I still think that there’s a couple of things that could help it really take off. They should provide 'Apple TV’ as a software-only package to install and run on other Mac’s - many people custom build media solutions using beefier Mac Mini’s, so that they can include more storage, a quicker machine (for things like HD decoding), and TV tuners. On top of a 'software+hardware’ bundle, they could effectively offer 'Apple TV’ as a piece of software on DVD (or available via digital distribution?) for order on the Apple store as usual. This might increase the take-up on the software itself, and would get more people looking at using iTunes movie purchase and rentals, as well as buying iTunes music straight from their TV. Seeing as how they’ve just radically overhauled the product without touching the hardware, I think it’s obvious that the product is the software itself, and decoupling it from the hardware could push the idea over the edge.

Lastly in the keynote, and most disappointingly - the MacBook Air. Don’t get me wrong - it looks incredible, and from a design standpoint is great. I also think the specs are about right, and think that the multi-touch trackpad is a great idea. However with all of the rumours in the build-up, there was definitely a sense that something really radical could be announced - not just a marvel of design, but something that technologically pushes the boundaries. I think that being able to cram a computer that powerful into something so light and thin is brilliant, but with the 'Air’ name, and the slogans surrounding 'cables not included’, I sensed that Apple was about to do something special. Something like induction charging, thereby waving goodbye to the power cable. Now of course this kind of technology is still very early stage, but if anyone was going to take it and run with it to drive innovation and consumer adoption, it would be Apple. Imagine not having to run a power cable to your laptop! The other potentially gamechanging rumour that was floating around was having a wireless broadband solution built-in to the machine, either EDGE (like the iPhone), or even 3G, or perhaps even a way to share the iPhone’s EDGE connection over Bluetooth. This would have been groundbreaking, and it would have meant that the new laptop they were announcing, like the iPhone, was usable anywhere. With the iPhone connection sharing option, it could have driven iPhone adoption too. That doesn’t mean that at some point I won’t look at getting a MacBook Air - I think it looks like a decent piece of kit. But I just think with the hype that they knew the rumour mill would crank out prior to MacWorld, having something with one or both of these incredible technologies in might have pushed the keynote over the edge - instead, with the lack of a 'One More Thing’, and the economy as fragile as it is, Apple stock took a tumble. It’s also worth mentioning that the Air does have a few hurdles - notably, it’d be interesting to see how hot it runs (remember the original MacBook’s and MBP’s?), and also with the lack of an optical drive (not including the optional, clunky external superdrive), the 'remote disk sharing’ feature touted needs to work really well.

That was it for the keynote, although there is one other bit I want to touch on - pricing. I mentioned while talking about the Apple TV price reduction that I’d come back on to pricing, and the reason is because once again it seems that us in the UK are getting a raw deal. Now it’s possible that it’s the same elsewhere internationally, but speaking just for myself when browsing these new goodies on the Apple store, the price difference between here and the US is staggering. For example, the base MacBook Air over in the States can be pre-ordered for $1799. At the current exchange rate (1.891), this would put it at £951.35. However, on the Apple UK store, pre-ordering the MacBook Air costs a whopping £1199! That’s a difference of £167.65, on the base model alone (and an increase of around 26%). And to doubly illustrate my point, how about the cheapest Apple TV, shortly to be updated with 'take two’? In the US, the 40 GB Apple TV is available for $229, which is the reduced price. This equates to £121.10. In the UK, we will pay £199 for the same thing. That’s an increase of 64%, for the same item! This has been going on for years with Apple gear, and they usually give some excuse about VAT and the added cost of doing business in Europe. But the notion that that has to result in a 25% to 65% increase in various prices is crazy. The bottom line is that as a fan of Apple products, I definitely think that they could do better to bring prices down over here so that comparing the UK and US stores wasn’t quite so frustrating :-)

So over-all then, the SteveNote at MacWorld this year had some good points (innovative Time Capsule, cool looking MacBook Air, iPhone update), and some bad points (lack of innovation on new MacBook bar the design, movie rentals being US only for the time being, new gear being completely over-priced over here). Still, the circus that is Steve Jobs giving a keynote (this year completely bringing Twitter down) is always fun and worth following. Looking forward to the announcement of the iPhone SDK next!

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