Crastinate

Yesterday, Steve Jobs gave his highly anticipated keynote speech at Macworld. At last year’s Macworld, Jobs announced the revolutionary iPhone. So the crowd was expecting another revolutionary product or product enhancement. And what did they get…not that. Let’s take a look at the 4 “big” announcements:

iPhone

Jobs announced a few new applications (nothing special really) for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This means nothing to a large portion of iPhone users who have hacked their iPhone galore and have dozens of applications that already perform the tasks that these new applications perform. What we really want to hear is about the upcoming SDK. How open will the iPhone be? Will it be what we hope? An iPhone that allows any third party to create an application for it? I highly doubt it. Apple has always been about keeping others out of their party. They make great products, and so they thrive even when against the trend of openness. Don’t expect them to change their stripes. I’ll give them credit for the SDK when I see it in action. Right now, this is just a bland update.

Movie Rentals

Apple has teamed up with almost all of the major studios to deliver movie rentals to your iTunes or Apple TV. Am I the only one tired of being told how many ways I can pay for renting movies? It is nice that Apple offers us the option, but I would like to see a Netflix payment model for renting movies. That would be a nice announcement.

Apple TV – Take 2

This was a load of crap. Jobs admits that they screwed up with Apple TV. It hasn’t been successful. So what does he do? He gives a software update that allows you to rent movies on your Apple TV without needing the connection to a computer. Who cares? The problem with Apple TV is that its use doesn’t justify its cost. It’s still just an easy way to get files from your computer to your TV. The same can be done with a wire. What should I pay for this feature? I don’t know, $50? Nope, it’s still really expensive. $229. That is WAY too much for this simple functionality. It wouldn’t take much to make this a killer product. All you need to do is add a much bigger hard drive (or the ability to add one yourself) and add DVR functionality (there are some great free Linux DVR operating systems). Oh, and an SDK for that would be nice as well but not required. Many people are paying $10 a month for sub-par DVR functionality. Just add DVR to this baby and everyone would buy one.

Macbook Air

Apple launched a new laptop called Macbook Air. The Macbook Air is an EXTREMELY thin and an EXTREMELY expensive laptop. Check out this comparison from Gizmodo. Very cool but very expensive. My question for Apple on this one is who are they targeting? If people are going to shell out 2 grand for a laptop, would they be able to settle for a device with such low specs. Maybe. I’m not expecting this to be a huge hit though. Nice to see some innovation here, but it’s nothing that will change the industry at all.

I know I’m pretty critical of Apple in this post. Apple has had a $20 price per share drop in their stock over the past 2 days so I guess I’m not alone.