I have just seen Steve Jobs ( Apple ) 2008 keynote speech

edited January 2008 in Chit chat
The products his company comes up with are fantastic and each year they seem to make the products better with more features and easier to use. Thy do seem to be leading the field in just about every area of online entertainment. the only failure in the past few years has been Apple TV ( i wonder how badly he wanted to call it iTV :) ) but they seem to have now made that a piece of kit that lots of people, including me, would like. You can now, with a downloadable software update use it to download films DVD or HD quality and watch them without the use of a pc or mac . You have to hand it to him hes bloody good at running a computer company.

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/f27853y2/event/index.html?internal=fj2l3s9dm
Post edited by swordheart on

Comments

  • edited January 2008
    I wonder what kind of a gaming console Macintosh could come up with. I bet they would end up being alone against Nintendo.

    ( BTW When did they stop using the Macintosh name in favour of just Apple? )
  • edited January 2008
    I'm in the strange position where I love the look of Apple products, but would never buy them - I just cannot find a use for them, and cannot justify replacing any of my current machines with an Apple.

    I've never been much of a stylish person, so I don't think I'm part of Apple's demographic.,
  • edited January 2008
    I only became an Apple user fairly recently (bought my PowerBook G4 in late 2004). It's still the best laptop I've ever used: not only is the industrial design very clean (while I'm hardly a stylish person, I appreciate uncluttered design that looks nice), and OS X is very pleasant to use.

    I got the PowerBook in 2004 not just because of OS X, but when looking at comparable laptops - i.e. 10 to 12 inch screen, reasonably good CPU for the size of laptop, DVD burner, proper FireWire port) the PC competitors were actually more expensive. The only PC laptop competitors that weren't were these gigantic luggables with all the disadvantages of a desktop and all the disadvantages of a laptop, but the advantages of neither.

    When I replace the laptop, it'll be with a MacBook Pro. However, I doubt it'll happen for a while - the G4 PowerBook has proven to be very robust (I don't have a fancy laptop case - it just gets thrown in my backpack when I travel along with shoes, clothes and other sundries and then unceremoniously carted around the place) and I really don't have the need for massive amounts of CPU power so the G4 is perfectly adequate.
  • edited January 2008
    aowen wrote: »

    3) MacBook Air. It sure is pretty, but frankly I find having a DVD burner is very handy. It would be nice if they could upgrade the OS to add the new trackpad features to existing MacBooks, but my machine is faster, has more RAM, and doesn't really take up much more room. The laptop that I'm excited about is the MkII Asus Eee PC.

    I'm thoroughly unimpressed by it...woowoo its very thin...its still 15x12 in the other dimensions!

    Give me a 1 inch thick one that was only 7x5 with one of those laser projector keyboards instead please!

    Or even a 'pull out' flexible lcd display...can't wait for those to go into mainstream production....laptop in a tube.
  • edited January 2008
    I got my Asus EEE PC today, and at ?220, it made the Mac Air look very very expensive indeed. There's only so much power you need when on the move.

    Plus my Eee is in Sinclair Black. It feels like a Sinclair product too, just like the Nokia 770 that this is replacing did.
  • edited January 2008
    aowen wrote: »
    For anyone who doesn't know already I'm a Mac user and have never owned a PC. With that caveat out of the way...
    Ditto.
    1) I don't care about the iPhone. I use my phone to make calls and send text messages.
    I'm tempted. I don't own a mobile because I hardly ever phone anyone. I loathe talking over the phone, so I avoid doing so. However, there are times when a mobile comes in useful. When I have had a mobile I either leave it at home, or find that its battery has discharged. An iPod on the other hand would get frequent use, so an iPhone with telephone ability would be nice. My wife has a Sony Walkman phone; IMO the UI is awful, so that isn't an alternative. The Nokias she looked at didn't impress either. You can get iPhones in India, but I would prefer an official release.
    2) I don't care about iTunes movies. They are only available in the US at the moment and they aren't offering anything that's not made by Hollywood.
    I think I would like this once the UK store is open. I have a UK credit card so I can buy stuff from the iTunes store. Even if most of the stuff is Hollywood it would be an improvement on what's on offer in the local DVD stores. Firstly, of course, Bollywood reigns supreme. Not my cup of tea. I like ogling the girls, but that encourages my wife to assault me. Secondly VCD is more popular here. Hollywood stuff does make it here, but usually only the most anodyne material. It would be nice to have (legal) access to more films.
    3) MacBook Air
    I'll be keeping my MBP. I'm not sure what the market for this is. The MacBooks are cheaper, and pretty slim anyway. The MBP has proper graphics, not much more expensive and hardly bulky.
    4) Time Capsule.
    I'm happy with an external HDD and a FW800 cable. I use the MBP as a desktop, so cables don't bother me.
  • edited January 2008
    Nice keynote, hated the bit about $20 to upgrade your iPod Touch to version 1.1.3 I shouted rip off!

    IN31
    Owner of iPod Touch running v1.1.3 :lol:

    Our teenage daughter dropped her week old iPod Classic today and killed the hard drive stone dead. Hoping Apple replace it without questioning the scuff marks. I was so mad at her. :evil:
  • edited January 2008
    When I first heard the rumours about the MacBook Air I was very excited. Like Winston, I own a 12" PowerBook G4 (and a G5 desktop machine btw) and I would like to replace it with a MacBook Pro sometime this year. Problem is that the range of MacBook Pro machines only comes in 15" and 17" versions which is too big for my liking. And the smaller MacBooks are too plastic, I really like the aluminium casing.
    So I was hoping that the MacBook Air would be the ideal replacement machine but I felt underwhelmed after the MacWorld presentation. I don't care about the lack of optical drives but to me the machine feels underpowered. I was also hoping that the battery would last longer but that's still only good for 5 hours.
  • edited January 2008
    Do you reckon that the Mac Air was Apple's reaction to the new UMPC market, but designed back in the days when UMPCs meant not very powerful machines running crippled operating systems?
  • edited January 2008
    NickH wrote: »
    I got my Asus EEE PC today, and at ?220, it made the Mac Air look very very expensive indeed. There's only so much power you need when on the move.

    Plus my Eee is in Sinclair Black. It feels like a Sinclair product too, just like the Nokia 770 that this is replacing did.

    Hows that going ? I nearly got one, i know you can put XP on an eee but i wanted one already done so i went for an Easynote XS, have a ton of emulators on it already, love the little machine ! So small !
  • edited January 2008
    ZnorXman wrote: »
    I wonder what kind of a gaming console Macintosh could come up with. I bet they would end up being alone against Nintendo.

    ( BTW When did they stop using the Macintosh name in favour of just Apple? )

    They did in the 90's, with a console called the Pippin. It was an attempt to get into the crappy CDi-style machines that a few companies released around that time:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin

    It bombed, big time.

    It even made the list of the Worst 25 Tech Products Of All Time:

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,125772-page,6/article.html

    I'd like to see them make another attempt though. After all M$ did with the Xbox and they're doing alright. I'd love to see another tech company release a console that blows away the competition, much like NEC did with it's PC Engine. Why the hell they didn't release that console in Europe and clean up is anyone's guess.
  • edited January 2008
    NickH wrote: »
    I got my Asus EEE PC today, and at £220, it made the Mac Air look very very expensive indeed. There's only so much power you need when on the move.

    Plus my Eee is in Sinclair Black. It feels like a Sinclair product too, just like the Nokia 770 that this is replacing did.

    When you've gotten used to it, please post your thoughts on it, preferably in a new topic so it can begin an on topic discussion.

    I'd be very interested to see what it's like, both as a portable workstation (for word processing and whatever), and also as a portable Spectrum and native games player (it might not be too powerful, but as long as it can run Linux ports of Doom and Duke Nukem then that's something).

    It'd be interesting to see if it can work with Linux's DOS emulators too.


    Edit: Should have said, I really wish Sir Clive had released this.
  • edited January 2008
    The 10" screen Eee is a proven myth. The MkII machines turned out to be the ones with WIMAX, starting price $999...
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