Real Kato Blog: Apple Watch: Additional Macworld Thoughts

There are a few questions and observations that have popped into my head since Steve Jobs' announcements at the Macworld keynote.

iPhone. Two desperately-desired features that Jobs didn't announce today: cut-and-paste, and MMS. Yeah, I suppose I could email pictures to people, but not everyone uses their phone for email, especially people without iPhones.

However, the improvements to Google Maps are fantastic.

Time Capsule. A standalone backup device is nice, but does this mean Leopard will also support Time Machine backups to other network-attached hard drives? I can build my own Time Capsule for way less than what Apple's charging. Then again, if you were thinking of picking up a $179 Airport Extreme base station anyway, then $120 extra isn't too much for a network-attached, backup-enabled hard drive.

MacBook Air. Notably absent: an Ethernet port (a USB-Ethernet adapter is available for $29), a FireWire port, or any method to dock the machine to make more ports available. There's only one USB port, so you'll need a hub to connect your external optical drive, your Ethernet adapter, your iPhone, and so on. Now I see why it's called the MacBook Air... Apple clearly wants you to use this machine wirelessly.

Also: there's no 160GB drive as a BTO option; that's a curious omission, since 160GB iPods are available. A 32GB flash drive option might have been nice too; the 64GB flash drive as a $999 BTO option is awfully expensive.

Actually, if you think about it, this machine offers no real performance advantage over a regular MacBook; in exchange for thinness, an LED-backlit display, more standard RAM, and a backlit keyboard, you get a slower hard drive, a slower processor, no optical drive, and fewer ports. Also you pay $700 more. It's a cool machine, but clearly only for those who are willing to pay for "cool".

Update: Also noteworthy: no user-replaceable battery; lack of a built-in optical drive raises questions about how to boot a machine from DVD (e.g. to install a new OS from scratch); lack of FireWire seems to preclude Target Disk Mode.

Movie Rentals. Obviously there's a new form of DRM protecting rented movies from iTunes. But surely, it's just a matter of time before the DRM is broken, and people figure a way to (a) burn the movies permanently to DVD, and/or (b) work around the time restrictions such that they can play the movies indefinitely. How will studios react if the hacks get widely distributed?

Also: what kind of DRM exists on the files on Fox's DVDs? I'm curious to know what prevents people from widely distributing that file, as there's obviously nothing that ties it to a particular iTunes account or computer.

Permalink 2 Comment

Posted by Ken in: techwatch

Comments

Comment #1 from Cori May (Guest)
2008 Jan 15 - 5:33 pm : #

I hope you don't mind; people at work were oohing over the MacBook Air, so I copied your comments (citing you). We're not a Mac people at Bioware, so I did not want them to get tooo excited.

Comment #2 from Ken (realkato)
2008 Jan 16 - 11:00 am : #

Updates: Apparently, you can boot a MacBook Air wirelessly using Remote Disc. Nice. There's reportedly a wireless Target Disk Mode too, though I can't find verification of that. However, you can run Migration Assistant wirelessly.

Daring Fireball has a similar analysis.

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