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MacBook Air

Today, Apple announced another unbelievable feat in engineering—the MacBook Air.

This is the thinnest notebook on the planet, measuring just 0.16″-0.76 inches in thickness—no, that’s not a typo. And it only weighs 3.0 lbs.

This is a fully featured notebook, not a sub-notebook as many rumor mills suggested it might be. Let’s run down the specs: 3.0 lbs, 0.76″ thin, 13.3″ widescreen LED backlit display, iSight, full-sized keyboard w/muti-touch gestures, USB 2.0, 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, 80GB HD (64GB SSD option), 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, Magsafe power connector, priced at $1799.

A few unique features to this MacBook—there’s no ethernet or CD/DVD-R drive. The MacBook Air is meant for total wireless. Don’t worry, the lack of CD/DVD-R drive shouldn’t be an issue either. There’s a new software feature called Shared CD Drive, which allows you to mount a drive on another machine to for CD software installs. If you really want one, you can also purchase a USB drive for $99.

The honest truth is, I’ve probably only used my CD/DVD-R drive a handful of times in the past couple of years—typically to install new versions of OS X and occasionally to burn a CD. If I wanted to burn a CD and had a MacBook Air, I’d just use one of my other Macs, or do it at the office. So, I don’t think I would miss it.

MacWorld 2008 Recap

This has to be one of the most substantial sets of announcements that I can recall at MacWorld. Here’s a short recap of what was announced:

1. Time Capsule is Apple’s answer to personal/small business back-up needs. It’s basically an Airport Extreme with a built in “server grade” hard drive. It will be available in two versions $299 for 500GB and $499 for 1TB
2. Updates to the iPhone software. Apple has added:
   • Maps with locations—no GPS needed. Apple is using a combination of Google and Skyhook to pinpoint your location via cell towers and Wi-fi spots.
   • Webclips—basically shortcuts to webpages.
   • Customized home screens w/drag-and-drop to move items around.
   • SMS multiple people.
   • Chapters, subtitles, and languages for movies.
   • Lyrics support for music.
3. iPhone SDK coming in Feb 2008.
4. Updates to the iPod touch software ($20 for existing, free w/new iPod touch). Apple has added:
   • Mail
   • Maps
   • Stocks
   • Notes
   • Weather
5. iTunes Movie Rentals—watch it anywhere: Mac, PC, iPod, and iPhone. 30 days to start viewing and 24 hours to finish. Start watching on your Mac and finish it on your iPhone on the plane. $2.99 for old releases and $3.99 for new releases.
6. Updated Apple TV—order rentals w/o a computer. Now you can order rentals directly from Apple TV. The interface has also been updated w/a focus on movie rentals. You can also view photos from Flickr and movies from YouTube. This is just a software update, which is free. So, there’s no need to purchase a new Apple TV. The new price for the Apple TV is $229 (originally $299).
7. MacBook Air—the world’s thinnest notebook. This thing is ridiculously thin—thin enough to fit inside a vanilla envelope. The thickest part of the MacBook Air is thinner than the thinnest part of the Sony TZ series. The specs include a 13.3″ widescreen LED backlit display, built-in iSight, full-sized backlit keyboard, trackpad with multi-touch gesture support.

First off all, congrats to Jobs, Ives, and company for the MacBook Air—that thing is an amazing feat of engineering—absolutely amazing. I’ll be writing more on this later.

MacWorld 2008 Predictions

MacWorld 2008 starts today with the traditional Keynote address by Steve—otherwise known as the Stevenote. The MacWorld Keynote is arguably the most anticipated event every year. So, what are my predictions for the Stevenote this year?

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air will be a small, thin, sub-notebook. While a rumor, this one has some pretty good backing to it so far. Orbino, an Italian company has already announced a case for the Airbook. Techcrunch has pictures of a billboard leading to a subway that claiming there’s something in the air. And Wired even shows the following images. And Apple even has a Will we see a MacBookAir Tuesday webpage up.

Is that sexy or what?

Updated iPhone

3G and 16GB.

iPhone SKD

Something Steve already promised, so this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Movie Rentals on iTunes

Also floating around the rumor mill for quite sometime, so this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Updated Apple TV w/HD DVR over WiFi

Yeah, this one might be a stretch, but I can dream, right?

Time Machine Backups Over WiFi

Why not? Apple’s pushing their WiFi products and Time Machine. So, this seems like a natural transition/evolution.