Mac Expo 2007
By Mike Hubbartt
Mac users have waited, not patiently, for Steve Jobs to show new or updated Apple products for 2007. And at 10AM PST on 1/09/2007 we finally saw the future for Apple: appleTV, the iPhone and a new company name – Apple, Inc.
The appleTV streams video and audio from 1 to 5 computers to a television, providing up to 720P resolution, a 40 GB internal hard drive and USB/Ethernet/HDMI connections. AppleTV will ship in February and retail for $299. The length of the coverage for this product was reasonable – I’m interested to see the sales numbers for this year.
The iPhone received the majority of coverage during the keynote address. The iPhone is several things rolled into a single wafer thin package: a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone and an internet communications device. Impressive? It runs OS X, syncs with iTunes, syncs all media (music, videos, podcasts, TV, photos) and calendars. The iPhone a 3.5” screen running at 160 pixels per inch, a single button on the front, is 11/16” thick, has a 2MP camera, headphone jack, Sim card, speaker, mic, proximity sensor. Has WiFi Bluetooth, 5 hrs battery life/16 hrs to play music. Awaiting FCC approval, the 4GB iPhone will retail at $499 and the 8GB iPhone will cost $599 - with a 2 yr contract with Cingular in the US. The iPhone will be available at Apple and Cingular stores, but not before June. I appreciated bigwigs from Yahoo, Google and Cingular made appearances during the keynote, but the vast majority of Job’s keynote was on the iPhone - a product not expected to ship until the middle of the year.
The last thing covered in the keynote was the new name for our favorite computer company: Apple, Inc. Yes, ‘Computer’ is no longer part of the company name, since Apple has grown beyond that part of the market. Good to know, yet I wonder if we can expect future Mac Expos to offer less and less coverage of new computer products.
One product not covered in the 2007 keynote also ships in February: the new Airport Extreme Base Station. It is ready for 802-11n wireless networking, has USN and WAN ports and 3 – 10/100 LAN ports, plus a security slot. It retails at $179. Nice.
iLife ’07 and iWork ’07 were expected to be released – a rumor brought about by pages reserved on Amazon.com’s website prior to Mac Expo. Neither were mentioned during the keynote nor released during the show. A red herring, or unexpected bugs?
To be honest, I was quite disappointed with Mac Expo 2007. I admit I’ve grown accustomed to new or updated hardware and software products receiving attention, and wish Apple had allocated resources to update existing computer products if they were unable to provide new goodies. A faster processor in some of the computers wouldn’t be huge, but still nice to see. I expect Apple was quiet on the Leopard release status as they wait for Microsoft to release Vista. Maybe we’ll see a major announcement from them after Microsoft’s cards are on the table – could be interesting. Until then, let’s hope 2007 is even better for Mac users than 2006.
See you next month.
Mike
