Even before Steve Jobs concludes one of his legendary keynotes, the grousing begins. This time has been no different.

Too many Apple fans get caught up in the pre-keynote hype, rumors and wish lists that build expectations for extremely cool but utterly unlikely wonder-toys. Disappointment is almost a given.

People wanted a 3G iPhone – they didn’t get it. People wanted a WiMax-enabled touch screen mini-laptop, but got only the MacBook Air. People wanted to be blown away by another game-changing product like last year’s iPhone.

Wall Street has also given the keynote a thumbs-down, slicing $9.74 from AAPL yesterday and so far another $8 today, leaving the stock hovering at $160.

I have been amused over the past few days by frequent glowing references to the 2007 MWSF keynote, which -- benefiting from the hindsight of the iPhone’s success -- is considered a classic.

Lest we forget, many Mac faithful were distraught over the absence of Mac news in last year’s keynote. Yesterday Jobs gave us a new Mac laptop and new hardware to back up our Macs. Just last week he gave us new pro desktops and servers.

Most of the discontent on what Jobs did announce has centered on the MacBook Air. Critics don’t like its sealed, non-user-replaceable battery, its lack of an optical drive, its lack of Ethernet and FireWire ports, its slower CPU (well, slower than a regular MacBook’s). Sure it’s thin, but it’s still too wide and long, they moan. Australia's APC magazine actually posted article listing the top 10 things wrong with the new MacBook.

The new MacBook Air

A few have defended the MacBook Air, noting it is not positioned as a primary machine but as a highly portable companion to a more powerful Mac. It won’t be for everyone. But it will have a constituency.

Disenchanted Apple fans weren’t the only ones finding fault; several media pundits weighed in as well with a negative take on yesterday’s events in San Francisco.

Perhaps the worst example was Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine, who interprets the keynote’s dearth of paradigm-changing products as evidence that Apple has become a tech follower, not a leader.

An ultra-portable notebook, online video rental, a networked backup storage device have all been done, he writes. “There isn’t an iPhone in the bunch,” Ulanoff yawns.

Of course, that’s what the “experts” said one year ago when Jobs introduced the iPhone. There were plenty of smart phones out there already. Apple was late to a crowded market and would get eaten alive. Yesterday Jobs noted that the iPhone had snapped up 19.5 percent of the smart phone market in its first quarter of availability.

Ulanoff undercuts the new iTunes Movie Rental service with the same “others are already doing it” argument. Coupled with the new Apple TV software (the hardware remains the same), Apple appears to have an end-to-end digital video download solution brewing that could someday rival its iTunes-iPod digital music behemoth. It’s a big deal.

Others may offer movies over the Internet, but no one combines all the pieces the way Apple does. No one has this kind of integration between the Internet, your computer and your TV, much less offers multiple options for viewing purchased content. Who else can put a rented movie on your iPhone and your HDTV?

True, this year’s keynote did not have an iPhone to dominate it. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that while there was less flash, there was more substance. Don’t be surprised if the pre-Macworld speculation next year dwells on whether Jobs’ 2009 keynote will be as crammed with as many juicy announcements as the 2008 edition.

Posted by David Zeiler at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivered no huge surprises in his keynote address this morning in San Francisco, but still hit home runs with the new Macbook Air laptop and the iTunes Movie Rental Service.

Both had been rumored in recent weeks, but one can never be sure what’s going to happen in a Macworld keynote.

Though he saved the MacBook Air for last, the iTunes Movie Rental Store announcement was probably more significant in terms of what it will mean to Apple in the long term. This move should position Apple to dominate the realm of video downloads.

Jobs said that all the major film studios were on board, a major coup for Apple. The rental service will offer new films 30 days after their release on DVD as well as a library of older films. New films will cost $3.99 to rent, older titles $2.99. The iTunes Store also will continue to sell movies and TV shows at their current prices.

Customers will be able to watch the movies instantly, and can view a film as often as they like within 24 hours of starting the stream. If a user wants to finish watching their movie on their iPod or iPhone, they can do that, too. Users have 30 days to launch the stream before the rental expires.

The iTunes Movie Rental Store service launches today, Jobs said, with 100 titles, but will have 1,000 by the end of February. At first the service will be available only in the United States, but Jobs said it will be available internationally “later this year.”

Just as significant as the announcement of the iTunes rental service is the vehicle with which many customers are likely to access it: a much-improved Apple TV.

No longer does the Apple TV need to be tethered to a computer for functionality. As I had hoped, the device can access the Internet directly through a wireless connection, allowing it to link to the iTunes Store directly. Customers can browse movies, TV shows and music on their TV screen right from the snazzy Apple TV interface. You can buy or rent.

After you’ve made your choice you can watch the content on your TV or your computer – or your iPod or iPhone. The Apple TV still syncs with your computer, but now it also syncs backwards. So stuff you obtain via Apple TV will be available on your computer, too.

Apple didn’t stop there. The new Apple TV can access photos from Flickr or a .Mac site as well as YouTube videos. Apple has vastly improved Apple TV by allowing a variety of ways to access digital content (though digital rights management was never mentioned … hmmm). And on top of all that, the company dropped the price of Apple TV from $299 to $229. The few who bought an Apple TV last year will get a free software upgrade to enable these features. I think Apple will sell a lot more Apple TVs in 2008 than it did in 2007.

The MacBook Air gave Jobs some sexy new Mac hardware to show off. The 3-pound notebook is wedge-shaped, just .76 inches thin at its thickest point and an astonishing .16 inch thin at its slimmest. It sports a 13.3-inch LED display and a full-sized backlit keyboard (the keys are black). The trackpad is oversized to allow the use of iPhone-like gestures, such as twisting your fingers to rotate an image in iPhoto.

The MacBook Air uses a tiny 80-gigabyte hard drive like the one found in the iPod Classic, and comes standard with a generous 2 GB of memory, the same as the MacBook Pro. The price: $1,799.

But the MacBook Pro’s most distinguishing feature is what it doesn’t have – an optical drive. One can buy an external SuperDrive that connects via USB for $99, but Jobs argued that people won’t bother. “We don’t think most users will miss the optical drive or need the optical drive,” Jobs said. As an alternative Jobs said the MacBook Air will be able to access the optical drives of other Macs or PCs over a wireless network.

The omission of an optical drive recalls Jobs’ introduction of the first iMac in 1997, which omitted a floppy disk drive (though external ones could be purchased as an option). Clearly Jobs foresees optical media – CDs and DVDs – suffering the same fate as floppies.

Jobs also introduced new software features for the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as a new wireless hardware backup device, Time Capsule. Designed to work with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard’s Time Machine automatic backup feature, Time Capsule uses the fast 802.11n wireless protocol and comes in two sizes: a 500 GB version for $299 and a 1 terabyte version for $499. I wish I had known about this before I bought a Buffalo LinkStation a few months ago. (sigh.)

I may have more thoughts on the keynote later.

Posted by David Zeiler at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

One week before Steve Jobs takes the stage in San Francisco for his annual Macworld keynote, the Mac universe is abuzz with the usual rumors and speculation.

Regulations governing Apple pundits require that I contribute to the collective cacophony or forfeit my license to blog on Apple. In that spirit, here’s my take on what might be coming – or not – on Jan. 15:

Mac Pro update – Apple completely shocked me by announcing new pro towers (and server models) this morning. I don't recall Apple ever making such a major product announcement just one week before a Stevenote. So these rumors panned out early. The twin quad core CPUs (giving this Mac 8 cores of processing power) are standard as expected, but there is no mention of Blu-ray DVD support. Steve will mention this, but not spend much time on it.

Retail stats – Steve will probably open the keynote with a rundown of assorted statistics demonstrating Apple’s prodigious business successes. We will hear about how many millions of people visited Apple’s retail stores, and that half of them were “new to the platform.” Steve will tell us how many new stores opened in 2007, and may announce new stores in such countries as China, Brazil and Mexico.

He should gloat about yesterday’s Bernstein Research report that showed Apple’s annual sales per square foot of retail space light years ahead of other retailers. At $4,491 per square foot, Apple not only clobbered Best Buy at $991/sq. ft. but also handily outshone other upscale retailers such as Saks ($388/sq. ft.), Coach ($1648/sq. ft.) and Tiffany and Co. ($2,746/sq. ft.).

Leopard stats – Steve will tell us how many copies of Mac OS X 10.5 have been sold since its launch at the end of October. Whatever the number, it will be the best operating system launch in Apple history. Leopard also will have had the fastest adoption rate of any Mac operating system version.

Office for the Mac 2008 – Craig Eisler, the new general manager of Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit, will join Steve onstage to introduce Office for Mac 2008. There will be a tedious demo.

Other software – Since iWork and iLife both were released in August, we won’t hear of them in the keynote. In fact, it’s hard to say what other software might get mentioned, since Apple got most of its upgrades out over the summer. He might spend a few moments on the prosumer video editing program Final Cut Express, which was updated in mid-November.

Video – The other week I predicted some major video-related announcements at the Stevenote. We will hear about the new iTunes movie rental service, heretofore unannounced by Apple but widely reported in the mainstream media. Various news reports over the past few weeks have said Apple is on the verge of making deals with almost all the major film studios, including 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount and Sony, MGM and Lionsgate. Availability is the major question here; if the deals aren’t final, the service may not launch for a few more months.

Apple TV – Going hand-in-hand with the iTunes Store movie rental news should be an announcement of a new, improved version of the Apple TV. This is not a shoo-in, but it would make a lot of sense for Apple to fix this product by adding the ability to record TV shows (like a TiVo) and access the Internet independently of a computer. The pièce de résistance will be integration with the iTunes Store, so that music, videos and movies could be ordered directly from the user’s sofa with the included remote control.

New iPods – You got ‘em in September. Let’s not be greedy.

iPhone updates – Some think Steve will announce a 3G iPhone next Tuesday; my gut feeling is that it’s too soon. Even if he does announce it, you won’t be able to buy one for several months. One thing we will get at some point during the keynote: stats on how many iPhones have been sold, and a recap of the product’s launch in the U.K., France and Germany. Steve might announce the next nation(s) set to get the iPhone (Spain? Italy? Japan?), but I haven’t read any rumors that further deals are near.

Steve will definitely mention the software development kit that will allow third-party developers to write programs to run on the iPhone. Although Steve has said the SDK would be available in February, he might wow the crowd by announcing its immediate availability.

One more thing ... One product the rumor sites have convinced themselves is coming at Macworld is some sort of Mac subnotebook, something smaller and lighter than a MacBook. This device could incorporate the same touch screen technology used in the iPod Touch. It could use flash memory in place of a hard drive, or at the very least will use flash memory to speed boot times. It will use a LED display (Apple has committed to using the more environmentally friendly LED technology in all its displays.) Despite the prevalence of rumors about this, no one is quite sure what such a beast will look like. But the odds are high we will see some incarnation of a MacBook Mini.

For anyone who’d like to follow the keynote live (it starts at 9 a.m. PST, or noon Baltimore time), several Web sites will be posting updates during the event. I prefer Engadget, but a full list of sites offering coverage will appear on MacSurfer the day of the event.

Posted by David Zeiler at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

The reports that Apple has signed a deal with News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio to allow people to rent its content from the iTunes Store could be a fundamental clue as to the company’s next major product focus.

Recall that Apple’s efforts in 2007 were dominated by the iPhone, right from Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote in January. Yes, the company kept releasing new Macs and refreshed the iPod line for Christmas, but the iPhone was the center of attention all year long. It even drew resources away from Leopard, the latest version of Mac OS X, delaying its release for several months.

I’m guessing of course, but it would make sense for Apple to set video as its theme for 2008, starting with Jobs’ Macworld keynote on Jan. 15. Video currently is Apple’s weakest link, since its other businesses – the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone – are all going gangbusters.

But Jobs, like Alexander the Great, is always looking over the horizon toward his next conquest.

Much has been said this year about the failure of Apple TV to make an impact. Jobs has described it coyly as a “hobby.” Video sales at the iTunes Store have been decent but not great. Of the major film studios, only Walt Disney has made new releases available for purchase (it could be Jobs’ membership on Disney’s board helps a tad).

The television component of the iTunes Store took a giant step backward when Apple’s running spat with NBC Universal resulted in the removal of shows from NBC, the Sci-Fi channel, the USA Network and other Universal properties.

The technical hurdles of selling video over the Internet haven’t helped, either. The large files – a typical movie on iTunes is about 1 gigabyte, or about 200 times the size of a typical pop song. Even for users with broadband Internet connections, gratification is not exactly instant.

It’s the sort of glum confluence of circumstances that can cause even large and otherwise successful companies to throw in the towel. Wal-Mart, for example, announced yesterday that it has canceled its movie download service -- less than a year after it launched.

But one thing Apple has proven in recent years is that it often can succeed where others have foundered, such as with the iPod or its chain of retail stores. Solving video over the Internet is exactly the sort of challenge Apple relishes.

Apple now can put its experience as a video vendor to use as it crafts the most user-friendly option for consuming video over the Internet.

The move to rentals makes complete sense, and probably was inevitable. In the years Apple has dabbled in offering video downloads, it has learned that fewer people want to own video than do music. If people didn’t want to rent videos there would be no Blockbuster or Netflix, not to mention the various “video-on-demand” services provided by cable companies.

The deal with Fox shows Apple is serious about getting video right. The content, according to the Financial Times of London, will be new. It will be encoded with Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management software, but it should play on Macs, iPods, iPhones and on a TV via Apple TV. In other words, users will be able to watch the rented video pretty much on a variety of devices, unlike other services that restrict the user to a single device.

Apple is even licensing FairPlay to Fox for use on its DVDs. This will allow the video to be ripped legally to a computer for transfer to a video-capable iPod or iPhone.

The millions of handheld video-capable devices Apple has sold over the past few years surely supplied a major piece of leverage in securing this deal. In the case of the iPhone and iPod Touch, one could download the content directly to the device through iTunes. What studio wouldn’t want a piece of this action?

The Financial Times article said Apple “is understood to have been in talks with Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount and Warner Brothers about making their new releases available on iTunes to buy or rent.”

Expect video to be the centerpiece of Jobs’ Jan. 15 keynote. He almost certainly will announce the Fox deal then and possibly deals with other studios (I can’t imagine that Disney isn’t already signed up to add rentals to its iTunes catalog).

The long-neglected Apple TV figures to get a significant upgrade and be integrated into Apple’s video strategy as one of the ways to access the rentals. If Apple TV 2.0 can connect directly to the iTunes Store and includes some TiVo-like features, it could go from flop to hit overnight.

Apple isn’t far from having a killer video strategy. It has most of the pieces in place already. It just needs to bridge the gaps and then integrate those pieces as only Apple knows how.

Then watch how fast Apple’s “hobby” disrupts the entire movie rental industry.

Posted by David Zeiler at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                    

By the time Steve Jobs took the stage Tuesday morning to announce new Mac products, everyone knew that new iMacs were on the agenda. Because Steve had invited the media to Apple’s campus, a rarity he usually reserves for such momentous occasions as the debut of the iPod, expectations were high.

Sure enough, Jobs introduced a revamped line of iMacs just minutes after he began his presentation. The new iMacs now have glossy screens, aluminum cases, are significantly thinner and feature an optional wireless keyboard. The 17-inch model is no more; Apple now offers two 20-inch models and one 24-inch model. Perhaps the most notable news here is the pricing: at $1,799 the 24-inch model is $200 cheaper than its predecessor; the midrange 20-inch price remains the same at $1,499 (and as usual offers the best balance of price and features). The low-end 20-inch iMac is $200 more than the cheapest 17-inch had been, but the same as a beefier 17-inch offering. Overall, you’re getting more iMac for the money, and that’s always a good thing.

Still, the new iMacs are hardly a huge leap forward. But things got much more interesting once Jobs moved on to the software: updates to both the iWork and iLife suites, which many had not expected until later this year or even the Macworld show in January.

The biggest surprise was the addition of a spreadsheet, called Numbers, to iWork. That makes the suite fully capable of replacing Microsoft Office. While the subject of yesterday’s post, NeoOffice, remains a usable (and free) alternative to Office for the Mac, iWork now becomes a much better option than it had been. If you throw in Apple’s free Mail program, iWork now has an answer for all four Office for the Mac components -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. And each of iWork’s components can read and save in Office’s file formats. And despite the addition of a third component, the price of iWork remains a mere $79, far less than the $399 list price for the full retail version of Office 2004 for the Mac. While businesses may continue to need Microsoft’s package, most home users will find iWork a more than adequate substitute and far easier on their budgets. If Jobs really wants to get Microsoft’s goat, he could release iWork for Windows. Maybe in 2008, eh?

Jobs also announced an update to the Apple’s iLife suite – iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand and iWeb. He demonstrated several nifty new features, particularly the “Events” in iPhoto, which allows better organization of thousands of images, and a completely revamped iMovie that makes it much easier to browse video files and create movies faster than before.

But the major news here was all of Jobs talk of “Web 2.0” features. Apple has added more integration and sharing features to its online service, .Mac, so users can create an online photo gallery that syncs with iPhoto. Friends can contribute to your online album; the images will automatically download to your Mac. If you have an iPhone, you can access your gallery there, too.

Similarly, iMovie has picked up more sharing features. You can send your movies pretty much anywhere you like, including to your iPhone or to the .Mac Web Gallery. Along with further enhancements to iWeb, Apple’s Web site creation software, it’s clear that Jobs has gotten the message sent by such phenomena as MySpace, FaceBook and YouTube. People want the ability to make stuff (photos, videos, blogs) and share it with the world. Apple was a pioneer in the concept of the “digital lifestyle,” and now has the tools – the iLife software paired with its .Mac online services – to capitalize on that concept having gone mainstream. And the iLife suite comes free on every Mac, offering yet another incentive to switchers from Windows.

Although no one will hail today’s iMacs as any sort of breakthrough, they and their Mac kin, primarily the MacBooks, bring in a major portion of Apple’s profits. The software announced today – what you can do with a new Mac -- will be the reason people will buy them, and should help maintain the Mac’s momentum in picking up more market share.

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

As usual, Mac fans are disappointed with a Steve Jobs keynote. The reaction to Jobs’ Monday address at the Worldwide Developers Conference has tended mostly toward “no new Mac hardware” with a generous helping of “we’ve seen most of this Leopard stuff before.” Even Wall Street gave it a thumbs down, shaving $4.30 off Apple’s stock price.

While people shouldn’t fault Apple for failing to produce new hardware at a developer’s conference (it’s a bonus if it happens), the dissatisfaction with Jobs lengthy Leopard presentation is his own fault. Leopard, the next major version of Mac OS X slated for October release, dominated the keynote. At last year’s WWDC, after demonstrating many of the same elements he showed Monday, Jobs teased that he could not reveal some “top secret” features for fear of tipping off rival Microsoft. The gang up at Redmond, still desperately trying to finish up the long-delayed Windows Vista operating system, had no prayer of cribbing anything from Jobs’ August presentation. In fact, Microsoft was forced to bail on numerous features it had promised years earlier just to get the darn thing out the door.

My theory is that Jobs was concerned some of Leopard’s features might not be ready in time for its release. Learning from Microsoft’s mistakes, he labeled Leopard’s less certain features “top secret” and let the Mac rumor sites speculate on what marvels were to come, generating hype Apple could not hope to fulfill.

I watched the keynote on the streaming QuickTime feed the other night. As Jobs ran through his 10 Leopard features, I noted that only the first three – the new Desktop, the new Finder and Quick Look – had not already been previewed at last year’s WWDC. Fine features they are, but not quite deserving of the label “top secret.”

Don’t get me wrong. I can’t wait to use Leopard on my Macs, regardless of how often Jobs pre-announces its features. But after waiting more than nine months, we get only three cool-but-not-terribly-enthralling user interface enhancements? This warranted secrecy?

When you raise expectations the way Jobs did, people assume they’re going to be blown away. You have to wonder if Jobs simply exaggerated last August to fuel continued interest or if there are in fact more “top secret” features yet to be revealed. We won’t know until October, I suppose.

More thoughts on Jobs’ WWDC keynote:

Leopard looks great -- Unmet expectations aside, Jobs highlighted several things Monday that will significantly improve Mac OS X. I’m looking forward to Stacks, a way to put folders full of related things to which you’d like quick access in the Dock. Clicking on the Stack causes icons of its contents to spread out in an arc (or in a grid, if you prefer) so you can find and select the file you need. I also liked the way the Sidebar will now automatically include the icons of any Macs on your network (and thus easy access to anything on them) – no browsing or logging in required. And I’m sure I’ll heavily use the Quick Look feature, which lets you view any file – a photo, presentation, text document, video, anything -- without actually opening it.

Games – Both EA and id Software made major Mac-related announcements. EA plans to start offering Mac versions of major titles simultaneously with its releases for other platforms, such as Windows and Sony’s PlayStation. John Carmack of id Software showed off a new game engine that is compatible with OS X, meaning they, too, will be offering Mac versions of new games concurrent with those of other platforms. This redresses a grievance Mac gamers have had for many years. Mac versions of major games historically have arrived many months after their PC counterparts, if they arrived at all. While gaming has never been central to the Mac, the increased attention from game developers will make a significant segment of the Mac community very happy and offers further proof of the health and viability of the platform.

Safari for Windows – Regarding my comments on why Apple would release a Windows version of its free Web browser, it appears I was only partly right. I surmised that Apple was using Safari as bait to lure more Windows users to switch to the Mac. A post by an astute reader pointed out that John Gruber noted on his Daring Fireball Web site that browsers do indeed generate income via the search window in the toolbar. Gruber also suggested several other compelling reasons for Apple’s surprising move; his site is recommended reading for fans of the Mac.

Posted by David Zeiler at 3:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Safari for Windows was THE bombshell of Steve Jobs’ keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier today. While Jobs explained the move by talking about his desire to increase Safari share of Web browsers, there must be more to it than that.

As most everyone knows, Web browsers are given away for free. Apple has invested some degree of its limited resources to create a Windows-compatible browser that will generate exactly $0 in revenue and will serve to annoy the restless, competitive giant that is Microsoft.

At least when Apple made the iPod Windows-compatible, it was to grab market share with the goal of making piles of money, a plan that has succeeded spectacularly.

Ironically, Microsoft discontinued support for Internet Explorer on the Mac shortly after Apple introduced Safari in 2003, seeing little point in devoting resources to a product that had no monetary or strategic value.

So what is Jobs up to, anyway?

The only explanation is that Safari for Windows is that it’s bait, a means of luring Windows users into sampling yet another Apple product. According to Apple, the iPod/iTunes combo has helped bring many Windows users into Apple Stores and many leave Mac owners – “switchers,” as Apple likes to call them. Analysts call this the “halo effect.”

Safari has even more potential to siphon off Windows users into the Mac universe. While music is popular, not everyone will buy an iPod and use iTunes. But virtually everyone who uses a computer uses a Web browser.

I’ve seen a lot of grousing from Mac users in forums over the past six months that Apple has “abandoned” the Mac in favor of pushing its multimedia fare (iPods, downloadable movies, Apple TV, the iPhone). When you step back for a minute, though, it becomes clear that all of Apple’s extracurricular activities serve to push more people towards the Mac. Safari on Windows is just one more element of that strategy.

When I get the time I will watch Jobs’ keynote on via QuickTime on Apple’s Web site. I will have more thoughts on his other announcements tomorrow.

Posted by David Zeiler at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)