Paige Albiniak

The leaks were right!
January 15, 2008

Apple Chairman Steve Jobs talked about four things this morning in San Fran:

1) The Leopard Mac OS –Um, who cares? I know it rocks and I’m sure Wall Street wants to know all about its fabulous growth, but I personally couldn’t care less. Still, I admit that I find Leopold more interesting than the fact that Microsoft Mediaroom is up to one million users. Whoopee.

2)  Upgrades to the iPhone and how it sells 20,000 units daily or 4 million in the 200 days it has been on the market, putting Apple in second place in the smart phone business, substantially behind RIM, the company that makes Blackberries. RIM has nearly 40% of the market; Apple has nearly 20%. There’s also several software upgrades for the iPhone and iTouch – the coolest of which, IMHO, is the addition of GPS-like functions due to a partnership between Google and Skyhook. That right there could save an iPhone user $200-300 because they don’t need to go buy another gadget. But of course they want to.

3) Apple has signed up every major movie studio to place movies on iTunes’ new movie rental business. Movies will cost $2.99 for older releases and $3.99 for newer releases. Once purchased, you need to start watching within 30 days, and finish up within 24 hours once started. One cool feature is that you can start watching a movie on your PC, transfer it to your iPod and finish watching it elsewhere, like on a plane, for example. New releases will arrive on iTunes 30 days after their DVD release and some 1,000 movies will be available on iTunes by February. Apple also is releasing a free software upgrade for the five or so AppleTV owners who want to download movies from iTunes that way. Oh, and HD movies cost $1 more, whether new or old. Still, Netflix lets you watch FREE online commensurate with your subscription, which in my view is more economical than iTunes’ pay-as-you plan.

4) Finally, as promised, Jobs announced the ultra-thin MacBook, which is the something that was in the air. Ok, it’s thin, but I don’t think it defies gravity. Anyway, it costs $1799 – pricey in today’s laptop market – and you can preorder now to receive it in two weeks. Here are the specs: 3.0 pounds, 0.16 -0.76 inches thick, 13-inch display, full-sized keyboard, multi-touch gestures, iSight, 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo standard, 2GB memory standard, 80GB hard drive standard (64GB SSD optional), 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR standard, and MagSafe. Yes, I want one but any money I have lying around is going to my upcoming dive trip to Honduras. So I’m back to tapping away on my HP lappie that now seems HUGE by comparison.

Wait, glitch! No user-replaceable battery on the new MacBook, which makes geeks grumpy.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of every moment of Jobs’ presentation, check out Gizmodo’s live blog, complete with beautiful, illustrative photos.

Posted by Paige Albiniak on January 15, 2008 | Comments (0)