Obviously nobody expected Apple to be able to top last year's MacWorld when it unveiled the iPhone, but I'm less than excited about what I heard coming out of this year's event. Looking at them one at a time:
- A new WiFi base-station with a built in hard-drive for Time Machine backups for laptops. OK, this is a great idea, though the tech savvy probably already have a server for home backups
- iMovie downloads - with price points of $3-5 per movie, plus restrictive viewing policies (30 days to watch, must finish watching within 24 hours of starting) I don't think this will sell compared to either NetFlix/Blockbuster type services, or PPVs. If you have a TiVo, you can get a PPV for about the same price and watch it whenever you want.
- Revamped AppleTV - the price point is still $229, which is pretty high if they want to use this to spur iMovie. Why not give it away, or price it far lower as a loss leader?
- MacBook Air - this is getting all the buzz, but I don't see why I would buy this versus a 15" MacBook Pro. Sure it's lighter and thinner, but the performance/storage/ports are lacking compared with the Pro. I'm not sure of the target market for this, it was obvious the MacBook was aimed at the college crowd, and it's been a huge success. But who is the buyer for the Air?
I guess we'll have to wait a few more weeks/months for the 3G iPhone, but Apple did note that they've sold 4 million iPhones so far, which is phenomenal.
Don't get me wrong, the iMac I recently bought is the best computer I've ever used bar none, but I didn't see anything today to get excited about.
