Danny Gorog15 January 2008, 10:05 PM
iTunes movie rentals, iPod Touch upgrades, new iPhone firmware, Apple TV 2.0 and the thinnest laptop in the world, called the MacBook Air.
It's around 5am and Steve Jobs just walked off stage. In case you weren't crazy enough to get up in the dead of night to watch the Jobsnote, here's a recap the announcements from this morning's keynote.
Leopard
First up, Steve mentioned that Leopard had sold 5 million copies of Leopard in the first 3 months, and now represents 20% of the Mac OS X installed base
Time Capsule
He introduced a new model Airport called Time Capsule, an Airport Extreme base station with a built-in hard drive (500GB -- AUD $429, 1TB -- $699) that supports wireless Time Machine backup for multiple networked computers.
iPhone and iPod Touch
Next up Steve noted that Apple had sold 4 million iPhones in the first 200 days - averaging 20,000 iPhones per day. These sales figures earned them a respectable 19.5% of the US smart phone market, second only to RIM, the makers of BlackBerry.
Steve also noted that the iPhone SDK would be out 'late February' but a software update for existing iPhone users is available today - this is the same software that leaked in late December. NOTE: Australians with hacked iPhones should NOT apply this update - it will brick your phone
iPod Touch owners were also rewarded with extra apps including mail, stocks, weather, maps and notes - the upgrade costs $24.99AUD for existing owners, but new iPods ship with the extra apps out of the box.
iTunes
As expected, Jobs introduced iTunes 7.6 with iTunes Movie Rentals. All the big studios are on board, including Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, Newline, Fox, WB, Disney, Paramount, Universal and Sony.
There are over 1000 movies available to rent and the rules are simple - you've got thirty days to start watching and twenty four hours to finish watching.
Library titles are US$2.99 and New Releases are $3.99. Movies you rent can be viewed in iTunes or on an iPod. The bad news for Aussies is that movie rentals are US only, with international versions due out later this year.
Movies are DVD quality (640 x 480).
Apple TV
Apple TV received a complete interface overhaul and plenty of new features. Firstly, Apple TV now runs stand-alone and you can rent and buy movies or music without using a computer, however, if you do connect it up to a computer all purchases are transferred automatically back to iTunes (like iTunes WiFi music store on the iPod Touch and iPhone).
While Apple TV supports movie rentals, there's also an option to download HD versions of movies (100 available initially). Apple TV now also supports Dolby 5.1 sound. Photo sharing has also been improved and now supports Flickr as well as .Mac.
In the US, Apple TV received a price drop down to $229 however Australian prices remain unchanged at $449 for the 40GB version and $579 for the 160GB version.Netflix, say goodbye.
The Apple TV 2.0 update will be released in two weeks and is a free upgrade for existing Apple TV owners (YAY!).
 Apple TV gets a brand new interface and movie rentals (but not in Australia yet!) |
MacBook Air
Last but not least, the announcemente everyone was waiting for: Apple introduced a new version of the MacBook, dubbed the MacBook Air.
The Air is Apple's take on a 'thin' notebook and is .4cm thin at its thinnest point and weighs a mere 1.36kg. Apple claims the MacBook Air is the world's thinnest notebook, and their first to ship with a multi-touch track-pad that supports iPhone-like gestures including pinch and zoom.
 This is the thinnest computer in the world, the new MacBook Air |
The MacBook Air features a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 13.3" LED back-lit screen, 5 hour battery life and ships as standard with an 80GB hard drive and 2GB RAM.
Apple dropped the optical drive, Ethernet port and firewire but the Air ships with 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 and a USB port. It's available for pre-order (ships in two weeks) now for $2499. There's also a optional 64GB SSD hard drive which is a $1409 option), and an optional USB Superdrive.
One more thing...
Um, nope. Nothing this year except for a performance by Randy Newman.
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