TVs, phones and turtlenecks
So what did we learn from today’s Macworld Expo? Buttons are a thing of the past, Apple is no longer a computer company, and turtlenecks are not in season this year. Oh, and there was that phone thingy and that TV gadget.
A pretty impressive display from Steve Jobs during his keynote address, introducing the long expected iPhone and the renamed Apple TV. Good enough for a bump in Apple’s stock price anyway and lots of “oohing” and “ahhing” from the Mac Cult denizens.
I will say the iPhone does look impressive: A 3.5 inch display, 2 megapixel camera, 4GB of storage, and all the widgets you could ever want. $500 for a phone, though, seems a little excessive to me. Plus, I was a little disappointed to find out it is tied to one phone company. A more revolutionary tact would have been to sell it without a network tie-in, though I’m sure that would have really pissed some people off.
More impressive is the Apple TV, which Jobs showed last Fall when it was called iTV. A little 40GB hard drive, component and HDMI video outs, synchs to your music and video collection through iTunes, and 802.11n wireless connection, all for $300. Kind of puts my bulky, $600 homebuilt media center to shame, and really makes me wonder if anyone will go for Sony’s $3,300 XL3 megasystem.
But what’s this about Apple no longer a computer company? It might have escaped notice in all the excitement, but Apple Computer today changed its name to just Apple, Inc. I guess that shouldn’t come as such a shock considering the company’s headlong charge into the consumer electronics realm, but it does stir up some nostalgic ennui. Whatever they decide to call this business, to me it’ll still be the one that gave us the Apple II+.
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[...] I was pretty jazzed last Fall when Apple introduced its set top box to the world and finally we get to see what this little baby can do. CNET has a pretty good review of Apple TV on their site, though it sounds like I’ll be waiting a little longer to get one. [...]