- The MacBook Air, Apple's entry into the ultra-light notebook business, was
finally revealed. The notebook weighs only 3 pounds and is super thin; only 0.16
inches with a 13.3 inch screen that's LED backlit and a full keyboard that's
also backlit. It also comes with a built in camera. It will come with an 80 GB
hard drive with an option for a 64 GB Flash based drive. The processor is a
version of an Intel Core 2 Duo (either 1.6 Ghz or 1.8 Ghz) and is 60 percent
smaller than Intel's normal processor. Prices start at $1,799 and the first
notebooks will ship in two weeks.
- Time Capsule, a wireless hard drive that's designed to back up your Mac
notebook data. It will come in 500 GB and 1 TB versions in February.
- New iPhone features including Maps with location, customizing your home
screen, sending text messages to multiple people and a way to see lyrics to the
songs you have on your iPhone. These come with a free automatic update.
- iTouch will also get new features including maps, email, weather and more.
While these features will be put into every new iTouch from now on, previous
owners will have to pony up a whopping $20 to get the new features.
- iTunes movies rentals were finally and officially revealed after months of
rumors. Most of the major studios (including Apple rival Sony) will have their
films on iTunes for rent beginning today with about 1,000 films by the end of
February. The catch? New films won't be available until 30 days after their DVD
release. Rental times are 24 hours for $2.99 for older films and $3.99 for new
movies. There will also be films in HD that will cost $1 more.
- A new AppleTV version was revealed which gets a new interface and a way to
bring up photos from online services like Flickr.
- The micro-DVI out is single-link only, meaning it can drive a 24-inch monitor,
not a 30-inch. There's no DisplayLink converter / adapter yet.
- Remote Disk comes on the install DVD -- ironically, Apple expects you to carry
around a DVD to install so you can access someone else's DVD drive. Righty-o.
- It uses MagSafe, but the new connector is angled 90-degrees to stay out of the
way. You can use a regular MacBook / Pro adapter, assuming you don't mind the
side being propped up a little (or hanging off the edge of a table). You can
also use the - MBA's 45w adapter on other machines -- the plug should still fit,
but the adapter may not have enough juice to charge AND power a running machine.
- The MacBook Air superdrive needs special hardware in the MBA to work -- Apple
wouldn't tell us if any other devices will be able to use the thing, but we
imagine the ~500mA USB outputs won't be enough.
- The speaker is mono only (not stereo), so your audio output will suffer a bit.
The audio comes out of the keyboard holes in the right side, and it sounds a
little funny.
- The port array folds down, it's not a door over ports that don't move. It
feels extremely sturdy.
- Duh, the only audio input will have to be via USB or the built-in mic.
- The machine comes packaged with micro-DVI to DVI and micro-DVI to VGA
adapters, but you have to snag the S-Video and composite adapters separately.
