January 29, 2008
Now here’s a web page that packs a punch. Apple has just posted a series of pages titled “Find out how” with pages dedicated to OS X, Photos, Movies, Web, Music and Documents. If you are new to the Mac, or a recent convert looking for a few tips, you should spend a couple of hours watching all of these videos. Good stuff!
Check them out at Apple’s site.
January 20, 2008
I am back from yet another MacWorld in San Francisco, my 22nd. It was a terrific week and certainly the most action-packed, well-attended show in many years. Some friends were kind enough for arrange VIP passes which allowed me to sit right up front for Steve Jobs’ keynote address on Tuesday morning. When Steve pulled the new MacBook Air out of its manilla envelope he was standing right in front of me. Very cool. So let’s review some of the Apple announcements. I will cover products from other vendors in a separate post.
The MacBook Air is an addition to Apple’s notebook product line. There are no changes to any of the current MacBook’s or MacBook Pro’s. The MacBook Air is a very sleek, three pound portable computer that is “The World’s Thinnest Notebook” according to Apple. Having gotten a chance to spend some time with the MacBook Air, I think it’s safe to say that it is impossibly thin. I am sure you have all heard plenty about this product and read all the specs, so I will focus on my impressions. First, it is very, very sexy. When you pick up a MacBook Air, the lust builds rapidly. By the time you have rolled it around in your hands for a few moments, taken a look at the incredibly bright 13″ display, and typed on the full-size keyboard, it will become a must-have. We expect our first shipments of the MacBook Air to arrive in less than 10 days. We strongly suggest you get on our order list ASAP as these things will sell like hotcakes. The MacBook Air starts at just $1,799.
The other Apple product introduced at MacWorld that I found very appealing is Time Capsule. Here is a product, that after about 30 years of personal computing, finally solves the vexing issue of backups. Sure, Time Machine, built into Leopard is a great leap forward, but Time Capsule is the hardware device that makes Time Machine truly special. Basically, Time Capsule is an Airport Extreme Base Station with a 500GB or 1TB hard drive inside. You can put a Time Capsule in your home and receive the benefits of the finest wireless router in the industry with full 802.11n speeds, and, at the same time, enable every computer in your home to automatically backup data _wirelessly_ to the Time Capsule hard drive using Time Machine. The pricing is very aggressive with the 500GB model coming in at $299, or only $120 more than an Airport Extreme without a drive. The 1TB model is $499, which is a steal. Both models are expected to ship in early February.
Next up is a heavily revised Apple TV, but it’s not the device that is being updated, it’s the software. This means that all current Apple TV owners can enjoy every benefit of the new Apple TV software with a soon-to-be-available software update. The big news here is that you can now hook an Apple TV to a television you can get the full feature set without a computer. Oh yeah, and you can also rent movies in either standard quality or HD quality using only your Apple TV and your television. No Mac or PC required. What I find really interesting about this is that we have spent the past few years wondering which of the HD DVD formats would win the format wars, HD-DVD or Blu-ray. Frankly, after seeing the new Apple TV software at work, I am not at all sure it matters. For $229 you can attach a device to your television that allows you to watch movies in HD for only $3.99 or $4.99 depending on the age of the title. And, the Apple TV will also allow you to download any of the other content on the iTunes store to your television, not to mention You Tube videos, your photos from iPhoto or Flickr, and other features. Why spend hundreds more for a Blu-ray player and then spend several times more for each movie?
Another benefit of the new movie rental deal from Apple is that you can “rent” the movie on your Mac or PC and then transfer the movie to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. So, you can start watching the movie on your 60″ widescreen television and then take the movie with you on your iPhone if you need to take a trip. The updated Apple TV software is expected in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we have lots of Apple TV 40GB and 160GB models on the way to PeachMac. The 40GB is now only $229 and the 160GB is now only $329. Here at PeachMac, we have sold more Apple TV’s in the past few days than in the previous two months, so I guess we are not the only ones excited about it.
Finally, we have the updates to the iPhone and the iPod touch. iPhone users can now download a free update to version 1.1.3 which provides some very cool new features such as improved Google Maps with position locator, the ability to customize your home pages, and, my favorite, webclips. Now my favorite web sites can be icons on my home page instead of having to navigate through Safari. I was so excited about this update, I went over to the Apple Store in San Francisco and updated my phone. Great stuff.
iPod touch users get a bonanza of new applications including mail, maps, weather, notes and stocks. Basically, you can turn your iPod touch into an iPhone, just without the phone part. This update is $20 from the Apple web site. While some are unhappy with the additional charge, the real reason for this lies in complicated accounting principals that Apple has to adhere to. While they reserve a portion of the revenue from the iPhone for future enhancements, they did not give the iPod touch this same treatment. Thus, they have no choice but to charge for the new features. Considering the significance of the update, it seems pretty reasonable to us, and hey, we have to pay the $20 to update our demo too.
All in all, it was a great time at the keynote and at the show. Look for our report on other new products from MacWorld shortly.
January 8, 2008
Now that the holidays are over, it’s time for Mac users to rejoice. It’s time for the annual MacWorld show in San Francisco, which is when dozens of new products are released or announced, including some pretty exciting products from Apple.
We already know about a few new products. One is the long-awaited upgrade to Microsoft Office for Mac to the 2008 version. It’s only been four years, but Microsoft is finally ready to release an Intel-native version of Office for Mac. We should have it in stock by January 15th or so. Pricing is much the same as it was for Office 2004 with the Student Home edition going for $149.99. One difference is that the version of Entourage shipping with this package will not connect to a Microsoft Exchange server for email, so beware.
FileMaker, a subsidiary of Apple, is about to release a very cool new product they are calling a “Personal Database” called Bento. We have spent some time playing around with Bento and thought it was very, very cool. You can bring in the contents of your Address Book and iCal into Bento and use it in ways you have not seen before. Bento is only $49 and also will be available at PeachMac next week. A Family Pack, good for use on up to 5 Macs is only $99.
This morning, Apple announced a revision to the Mac Pro, bringing it up to 8 cores of processing power. Wow! That must be a beast. The new Mac Pro is available immediately.
We are off to San Francisco on Sunday to get ready for MacWorld. We will be at Steve Jobs’ Keynote presentation on Tuesday morning and can’t wait to hear what Apple has in store for us this year. While last year’s MacWorld show revolved around the iPhone introduction, we expect this year’s show to be all about the Mac. While we don’t have a crystal ball, we do expect some very, very cool all-new Mac products next week. Naturally, we will keep you posted, and will get the new items in stock just as quickly as Apple ships them.
