Macworld 2008
Those of you as obsessed as we are (read: setting up our laptops at the lunch table) already know today's Macworld news—the overall theme of which seemed to be wireless capabilties—but for the rest of you Steve Jobs today announced several new slick Mac products, the most impressive being "the world's thinnest notebook," the MacBook Air (pictured above) and the all-new Time Capsule (pictured below).
Not for the user looking for loads of power and speed, the new MacBook Air was engineered with portability and wireless capabilities in mind, but it still gives you enough zip with 1.6-1.8Ghz, 2GB of RAM standard, an 80GB hard drive (or SSD 64GB upgrade) and a multi-touch trackpad that allows you to pan, zoom and rotate like an iPhone or iPod Touch. All of this with a full size keyboard and 13.3-inch screen fitting into a body that is 0.76 inches at its thickest and only three pounds. We like the flip-down ports (pictured below right), but the lack of an optical drive might be annoying (there is a super drive accessory available that connects via USB) and there's no access to the memory or battery in case you want to upgrade or change either.
Geared toward the WiFi world, the Air does have the ability to access the optical drive of another Mac or P.C., allowing you to install and migrate systems wirelessly. We were also impressed with the all-new Time Capsule which serves as a WiFi base station as well as a 500GB-1TB backup and storage device that works sans wires with Time Machine in Mac OS X.
Other notable announcements include an update to the iTunes store which allows you to rent and play movies (yes, wirelessly), along with a firmware update (1.1.3) for the iPhone which (thankfully) adds mass texts capabilities and also utilizes WiFi spots to triangulate your global positioning. However, still no search or cut and paste capabilities?!
For more in depth info, visit Apple to watch videos and learn more. Available for preorder, the MacBook Air starts at $1,800 and the Time Capsule at $300.
