The world according to Apple

Apple CEO Steve Jobs threw back the curtains on the latest addition to the temple of Mac Tuesday. You can read a blow-by-blow account of the keynote here and here.

Here's my take on the four pillars of fruity goodness this year.

1. The Macbook Air. Drool... this is my next laptop. Apple had to be creative to make this thing as thin as it is. They even shrunk the CPU packaging to make the 1.6 and 1.8 MHz Intel Core 2 Duo take up a bare minimum of space. The hard drive is either an 80 GB 1.8 inch model (much like that in the iPod Classic) or a 64 GB solid state version (which costs a pretty penny, that version of the Macbook Air costs over a grand more). The keyboard is full size, unlike many other micro laptops, and the screen is 13.3 inches.

Some things had to go entirely, namely the optical drive. People have been flipping out about this, but to me using a peripheral is not the end of the world, I rarely use the optical drive as is, and the thickness of optical drives is a major factor in why conventional laptops haven't been getting any thinner.

Another popular bitching point is the lack of an ethernet port for wired internet connectivity. Personally, going portable and sans wires is the whole point of buying a laptop. I suppose it depends on how reliable your wireless is, if you've got to deal with a buggy router it might be a problem, but that is a router issue not a problem with the laptop. In case you're wondering, the Air uses 802.11n draft 2.0 (will somebody call the IEEE and tell them to finalize this standard already?). Its backwards compatible with a/b/g and even has Bluetooth.

This is the best looking laptop I have ever seen. Silver seems to be the order of the day, which is easy because the case is made of aluminum anyway, although there are a couple of photos on the Apple website that hint at a black version. The screen is glass and lacks the lead and cadmium usually found in displays, and the motherboard is PCP free.

Surprisingly, the Air is affordable, $1 799 in the US, 1 899 Canadian for the 80 GB, 1.6 MHz version. And the pulling it out of the envelope stunt? Genius.

2. Time Capsule: This is actually one of the more interesting announcements, despite Tom and Molly of Buzz Out Loud lukewarm reaction of "meh, it's a network attached hard drive." But it actually is a pretty good product design, or rather a combination of products. Not only is it network attached storage (500 or 1000 GB worth), it is also a wireless-n router. At $329 Canadian for the 500 GB version, it is actually cheaper than buying most combinations of a NAS drive and a wireless-n router separately. It even makes the wireless backup for Macs running Leopard actually work. For Windows types out there, it also works for XP SP2 and Vista (no auto back-up, of course). The Time Capsule is pretty much a complete home network in a box, with 3 ethernet ports and a USB port to easily share your printer or add even more storage. Sign me up for this one, too.

3. iTunes 7.6 and the (somewhat) new Apple TV: well, the Apple TV still does not do the DVR thing, but the software update does make it an independent set-top box rather than an accessory. Apple TV can now make purchases directly from iTunes, including the new rental service (which is based on a business model so weird it could only be Apple, but anyway), limited flash support, and photos from Flickr (the demo gremlins got Jobs here). The price even dropped $70 to sweeten the deal. People who already own one can get the upgraded software free. I'm still holding out for a DVR-enabled version. Archos beat Apple to the punch here with their TV+.

4. iPod Touch and iPhone Upgrades: The Touch will get a minor software facelift, although due to an apparent accounting glitch the upgrade will cost $20 for existing Touches. Yeah, stop crying, early adopters. You clearly have lots more disposable income than the rest of us. The iPhone gets a few tweaks including cell-tower triangulation location-finding (the poor man's GPS). Jobs points to this as an example of how the iPhone is not standing still. Yeah, well, its been standing perfectly still in Canada for the last 6 months, so I can't really get excited one way or the other.

So while this year's keynote didn't get everybody excited, there were some solid products to show off and I'm already saving up for my Time Capsule and Macbook Air. Incidentally, the investors didn't like it, Apple's stock is way down. There's just no pleasing some people.