Jan

16

Manna from heaven

January 16, 2008 | 4 Comments | Joshua Gans

Steve Job’s keynote at the annual MacWorld conference has become some sort of major religious event. In it he outlines Apple’s initial offerings for the year. This time the speculators got alot right and there is plenty of great stuff around:

1. Time capsule: those using time machine have worked out that it pretty much requires a dedicted hard drive to be useful. That is not much happiness for laptops. Well, to compensate Apple have integrated a hard drive into their Apple Extreme networking unit. That means back-ups for all computers in the house; wirelessly if you want. This will be at the top of my shopping list.

2. Upgrades to iPod Touch: the iPod touch gets applications and is now pretty much an iPhone but without the phone. The applications cost $20 for existing users. I upgraded mine and it works well. The $20 is a bit odd but I am pretty sure it is an artefact of Apple’s deal with AT&T. Of course, it has Google Maps but no location in Australia or without the Phone bit. By the way, the location on the iPhone works with mobile phone towers and a database of 23 million wireless hotspots (including private ones that are not open but are visible). Someone will raise a privacy concern but then again, if you have a visibile network anyway …

3. iTunes movie rentals: I wanted to check this out but it doesn’t seem visible on the US iTunes Music Store as viewed from Australia. But it looks terrific and pretty close to a death nail in the physical movie distribution business. They also have HD rentals (but not purchases) but it is unclear how large the files will be. And it is cheap: $3.99 new releases with no chance of a late fee. You have thirty days to view and a 24 hour window that includes transferring to iPods. Apparently, there will be international distribution later in the year. I wonder whether the Video Easy/Blockbuster merged firm in Australia will pressure content providers to keep it out (if so I hope the ACCC takes a good look at this after they approved the merger partly based on the prospects for non-physical distribution). But Telstra’s movie rental service is surely going to be wiped out by this if it reaches our shores.

4. DVD transfers: another beginning of the end. 20th Century Fox is shipping a transfer to iTunes/iPod option on its new release DVDs. That means you can buy a DVD and like you did with a CD, transfer the movie to the computer. It is a great risk management strategy for Fox. It may be concerned people would hold off on DVDs until the technology resolves itself. But this option insures consumers; at least, partially.

5. MacBook Air: the world’s thinnest computer has reached its limit. It is still a laptop and not a multi-touch screen but it is as thin as this is ever going to get. I was very tempted to hit the pre-order button with its 64 solid state drive and incredibly long battery life. But there is no rush. However, it is a major step forward and shows what is to come. It marks the end of optical drives, the era of the single USB port, and has multi-touch in the keypad; although I am not sure how useful that will be even if it is very cool.

It will never be the case that we will match last year when Jobs took the world by surprise with the iPhone. But this is pretty good with plenty of disruption and a ton of innovation. My expected consumer surplus rose today.


Comments

4 Responses to “Manna from heaven”

  1. flapple on January 16th, 2008 8:27 am

    We have seen more product innovation by one firm (apple) in the personal computer sphere in five years, than the whole rest of the industry put together. Obviously there has been technical innovation around drives, chips displays etc. However the beige box computer seems to have not changed in 20 years.
    Apple seems to be the only company actually delivering products for ordinary consumers that improve the way they use their computer.

    Obviously this is driven by the vision of one Mr Steve Jobs, but is there something intrinsic to the rest of the market that they stuggle with consumer focused product innovation?

  2. Recep on January 16th, 2008 8:37 am

    Time capsule is on the top of my shopping list too.
    I wonder what the size of the rental movies will be, as this will be the main determinant of my purchases (rather than price). I already find my 20GB internet plan insufficient…
    I will wait and see about the MBA; may prove to be efficient to take to work – but this would also mean that I’ll be taking work home.

  3. aaron on January 16th, 2008 11:09 am

    the apple tv innovations are cool … let’s hope that they’re not confined to the US. the macbook air is too expensive in my opinion. and did you know you can’t change that long-life battery yourself …

  4. Josh on January 17th, 2008 2:55 pm

    alot isn’t a word. You might be looking for “a lot”