Steve Jobs Keynote – Live Comment & Analysis
The Steve Jobs Macworld 2008 keynote presentation is happening right now. This blog entry records my comments and analysis live as Jobs presents…
What everyone is really waiting for is a new Mac notebook computer. Let’s see how long Steve takes to get to that… if he gets to it at all!
1. Leopard Uptake
20% of Mac install base has upgraded to Leopard. Five million copies sold so far.
Not sure what those figures mean… does that mean that there are only 25 million Macs in use today? With Vista having sold 100 million copies so far, that would make Vista alone four times more popular than the entire Mac install base. That can’t be right, can it?
2. A new product announced – Time Capsule
Seems to be a wireless router with built-in hard drive. Serves a category where people have a laptop in the house, but no desktop or server… and want to back up to an external hard drive that they don’t want to plug/unplug. I have no idea how big that category is…
3. iPhone Sales – 4 million sold in first 200 days. An average of 20,000 iphones per day.
Not clear to me if the rate of sales is accelerating or decelerating currently. No comment on the launches of iPhone outside the US, or any breakdown of sales outside the US. In the US, iPhone is selling less than Blackberry, which is selling twice as fast.
4. iPhone / iPod Touch Software Updates Released Today
Google maps now has a location feature. Enhancements to SMS (send to multiple recipients), customization of home screen.
No surprise that Apple would bring the iPhone version of Google Maps in line with what Google already offers for other phones with their Java app. Lots of people will be pleased with the SMS enhancement.
Apple has added e-mail and maps to the iPod Touch. Very interesting move, and may drive further sales of the Touch. You have to pay $20 for the upgrade.
5. iTunes Movie Rentals
4 billion songs sold to date. 125 million TV shows sold. 7 million movies sold. Now will offer movie rentals… 30 days after DVD release. HD movie rental is $4.99.
Sales of tv shows and movies, in particular, have been below expectations. Now they’re going to try rentals to see if that’s what the market wants. All the major studios are on board. Not sure if they have anything exclusive relationships though.
The movie rental offering will have movies available 30 days after the DVD release. Seems a pretty dumb thing to do to me. I guess this is what the (clueless) studios wanted, rather than what Apple wanted. What part of “people want to watch things when they want, not when the studios say they can” don’t these people understand? Oh well, I guess they should get back to not doing anything about resolving that writer’s strike that’s seeing people drift away from supporting the franchises they’ve all invested in so much…
6. Apple TV – version 2
Now, you don’t need a separate computer. It just works by itself. You can still sync with a computer if you want, but not necessary.
I think it’s a software update, rather than a hardware update. If you want to buy or rent video content from the iTunes store, then this looks like a great little device in its version 2 incarnation – very easy for people to use. And the price drop from $299 to £229 is useful. Not sure how great it is if you don’t want to get your content from iTunes though: I don’t feel tempted to switch from streaming video to my TV through my Xbox 360 (I don’t use iTunes). The user interface on Apple TV is looking really great, though.
Not sure why, but somehow I’d feel like I’m being gauged if I bought one of those. Apple TV 2 is all about connecting to the iTunes store for renting movies. Given that, they should either give the box away for free, or at least bundles 20 movie rentals with it for free.
The keynote has been going for 50+ minutes, and no talk yet of that rumoured new super-thin-and-light Mac notebook…
Aha… here we go!
7. There’s Something In The Air! The MacBook Air. World’s thinnest notebook. 13.3 inch widescreendisplay. 0.16″ at its thinnest, to 0.76″ at its thickest. 80GB hard drive as standard. 64GB SSD option. 1.6GHz or 1.8GHZ Core 2 Duo. 5 hours battery live. 2GB RAM as standard. $1799.
The thickness ranges from 0.4cm to 1.9cm. Significantly thinner than the closest Sony Vaio – the TZ series. To get it that thin, they’ve left out a DVD drive… which is clearly a compromise (same compromise the equivalent Vaio). You can buy a DVD drive accessory for $99. Multi-touch gesture keypad – lots of people are going to love that. Shipping in two weeks.
For many Apple customers, the choice will be between a MacBook priced at, say $1400 and a MacBook Air price $400 more. The MacBook would be more powerful, the MacBook Air thinner and lighter. I don’t know if people will go totally crazy for this (they might, but it seems to somehow lack any real WOW factor). It seems like a useful addition to the Mac notebook lineup, though. Hmmm… seems that it doesn’t have a user-replaceable battery… not a big deal… but lots of people will shout about that being a problem, I’m sure.
Asam Bashir wrote:
You’re there now? very jealous – Not seen keynote yet, waiting for QT broadcast – MacBook Air for specific market, Japan. Might be nice to have a couple around when lounging around and and remote controlling an 8-core Mac Pro….
Posted 15 Jan 2008 at 10:49 pm ¶
simon wrote:
Not there – just “watching” the live blogging on a various sites…
Posted 16 Jan 2008 at 8:49 am ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
Bit gutted really, getting same feeling from rest of Mac Pro people, no Firewire no Gigabit Ethernet, no deal – unless you’re running a pure 802.11 n network at full speed it’s going to be painfully slow to backup or move data around, especially if you’re used to Firewire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet – and without these you loose some key advantages of having SSD.
Again, probably perfect for consumers and will probably do very well in Japan, but not a machine for the Mac hardcore yet who would only be able to use this as a secondary machine and not the main workhorse.
Though, can see some of this technology reaching the MacBook Pro in the next revision – they will certainly use the new Trackpad across the family and since 128GB SSD announced at CES and going into production that will probably make it’s way as a BTO option at some stage.
It’s a sweet machine overall but we where expecting something a little more radical and daring. Still room for a tablet Mac variant – like a MacBook Air but with a touch screen and novel removal/clip on bluetooth keyboard so can use it like conventional laptop but then rip off the keyboard when you want to go extra light. This was an interesting concept done by an artist,
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1358321681?bctid=1364230543
Also, bit disappointed that it’s only 1.6-1.8 core 2 duo, still screaming fast for most purposes, but significantly slower then the MBP currently at 2.6 Ghz. With the original Duo series, the 2400, and the Aluminium 12″ there was no compromise is processor speed or graphics chips….
Posted 16 Jan 2008 at 3:39 pm ¶
simon wrote:
I’ve seen that some Mac fans are disappointed with the Air. Not quite sure why (although I do agree there’s a lack of “Wow” about it) it seems to slot nicely into the Apple notebook lineup to me.
I get that people would have liked more innovation e.g. funky new tablet form factor with multi-touch display. I’m sure that will come at some point.
I also get that people were hoping for a new Pro machine, perhaps with a smaller form factor than the current MacBook Pros. I’m sure that will come at some point too.
But, for what it is – a second machine on the home network; or for carrying around to meetings… the Air looks just fine to me.
Posted 16 Jan 2008 at 4:04 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
Problem is the MacBook Pro is best of breed already, and it’s hardly fat at 1″ already with all the ports. I don’t think you’re going to be able to take a MacBook Air on it’s own for meetings without having a bunch of cables. But sure, nice machine, just not for me.
Posted 16 Jan 2008 at 7:30 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
Next revision of MBP can’t be too far away as the 45 nm fab penryn mobile processors are ready at Intel, combined with existing Santa Rosa architecture, SSD, LED, should see battery life extended to 5-6 hours. Would also like to see optical drive removed and replaced with a built in back-up HD.
With the MacBook Air I think they decided to take zero risks to make sure they avoid any heat issues, as Apple learnt with the epic tragedy that we now refer to as the quest for the mythical PowerBook G5, there is only so much you can do with clever internal heat management, so they’ve done none on MacBook Air and hence the 1.6-1.8Ghz ..
Mobile penyrn should be much more efficient and when combined with smaller footprint provide for some further sliming of machine. If optical drive is removed and SSD used could see it down to 0.8″ range.
Posted 16 Jan 2008 at 7:43 pm ¶
simon wrote:
Yes. The MacBook Pro seems to have been out for a while now… it’s due a total redesign.
Posted 16 Jan 2008 at 8:06 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
Good move on the video rentals though, makes sense, cost about same as renting out a DVD or buying a per view off sat/cable, and better quality and faster download then your friendly torrent site. Wonder how much it costs to rent a Blueray title?
Posted 16 Jan 2008 at 8:19 pm ¶
simon wrote:
I think Blu-ray and HD-DVD rentals are often the same price as regular DVD rentals.
The problem with renting the HD discs, though, is that the rental companies tend to not carry enough stock – so right now, people often have a wait to get hold of the title they want.
Clearly, there’s no such problem with downloadable rentals… Apple ain’t gonna run out of bits. And *fundamentally*, downloadable rentals are much more convenient for consumers than renting discs – faster, no need to return etc. etc.
The main competition for the Apple TV Take 2 is the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. The new Apple offering looks better than than the Microsoft offering – cheaper for HD movies, more studios signed up, so Apple will soon have a bigger library.
For people that want to rent movies, Apple TV looks like a good offering. However, the studios really need to stop dicking around and at at least offer these the same day that the DVDs go on sale. Otherwise, people that want to *download* their movies, will *already* have downloaded them before being given the chance to download them legally. Personally, I think they should do the rentals *before* offering the DVDs for sale… but it seems the studios aren’t smart enough to figure out that’s the right way to go.
Posted 17 Jan 2008 at 9:26 am ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
Considering this is such a huge shift in attitude for the studios then they’re probably just playing safe. Once they see the success of video rentals then they might be more willing to change strategy.
This isn’t just about Apple TV though, it’s the whole of the Apple ecosystem of consumer devices from it’s computers right though to the iPod range. Apple TV is the top of the presentation range but to just compare Apple TV to Xbox numbers is wrong. You have to consider the number of household using iTunes vs number of households with Xbox. Movies rentals are available on any devices that can run iTunes, and that includes Windows boxes. Just look at all the rouble you had to go through to get your Xbox talking to your PC, the average rental consumer isn’t that bright, Windows is fundamentally difficult for the average consumer to use with ease – the opposite of how iTunes works.
In a few years I think we’ll reflect on this announcement and only then be able to truly appreciate the shift that just happened in the whole market. Whilst HD-DVD and Blu-Ray has divided all the studios, this Apple announcement seems to have united them – shinny plastic discs, no matter what format they carry are old technology in most consumers minds. Apart from getting HD-DVD or Blu-ray with your Xbox or PlayStation, is anyone else actually running out to buy standalone players? And how many of those with Xbox and PlayStations are actually watching high quality movies with those boxes? Then compare that to the number of people watching movies and podcasts on their Apple gadgets? It’s not just about stuff you buy to watch, it’s all that’s available in iTunes that includes exported content from TiVo(EyeTV) content that consumers are using their Macs to record combined with all the free material available through podcasts…
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/01/17/bbc.iplayer.for.apple.tv/
Posted 17 Jan 2008 at 5:01 pm ¶
simon wrote:
I do think it’s reasonable to compare AppleTV with Xbox, since this is how the respective companies want people to watch downloaded video on their bigscreen TVs.
It’s actually going to be interesting to see who wins this “watching downloaded movies on big-screen TVs battle” – Apple or Microsoft. Obviously still early days.
Right now, Apple’s offering with AppleTV Take 2 looks superior. However, also right now, Microsoft has ten million homes with Xbox 360s actually connected up to Xbox Live.
The question is: will Microsoft’s offering catch up in terms of library size before Apple TV can reach critical mass?
You’re also right to point out the iTunes store is still the market leader for downloaded video sales overall (Xbox Live Video Market place is second, I think) though.
Posted 17 Jan 2008 at 6:04 pm ¶