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One More Thing....

• Darren Waters
• 16 Jan 08, 08:40 GMT

Too much coverage of the Apple announcements on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News website? Well, if you think so, you'll be glad to hear that this will be the last of it for a while....

Now that the Steve Jobs reality distortion field has melted away, what to make of Apple’s announcement? My colleague Rory has done a very good job of assessing the immediate impact of the speech, but what about the nitty gritty?

The headline grabber of the event was the world’s thinnest laptop, but the biggest announcement was almost certainly the online film rentals.

But let’s start with the MacBook Air. Its looks will certainly win over many an admirer but ultra-thin laptop PC users will probably be shrugging their shoulders. Sony's TZ Series and the Asus Eee all offer similar features and increased mobility.

At $1,799 the machine is pitched firmly between Apple’s Macbook Pro and Macbook users.

The question is will Macbook customers pay the extra $300 to gain the increased mobility, and will MacBook Pro users sacrifice grunt for the convenience, all for a saving of only $200.

And what does the laptop actually offer in terms of ultra mobility? Yes it is incredibly thin and at three pounds is 40% lighter than the MacBook.

It’s also the most powerful machine in its class – but has Apple pushed any boundaries in terms of mobility?

It may come with 802.11n wi-fi on board but you are going to need to plug in a USB dongle if you want too go wireless via a cellular network. Wimax would have been a bold, if perhaps premature, step.

The best thing that can be said about it – and one that should not be underestimated – is that the Air is a powerful Mac in the most portable form factor ever.

One thing to add: How does Apple justify charging $999 for having the optional solid state drive instead of a hard disk?

So on to the online movie rentals announcement…

Apple has certainly shaken the tree with its line-up of movie studios and revamp of the Apple TV.

European iTunes users can certainly feel rightly aggrieved that once again they are something of an afterthought in Apple’s eyes.

US customers are right now enjoying high definition films while in the UK a dated episode of Lost or South Park is the best we can expect.

The sheer amount of content available in the US will certainly boost Apple’s credentials as a serious player in the content delivery business.

And the revamp to the Apple TV corrects many of the fundamental flaws in the device that were obvious from the outset.

At a stroke the box is a strong contender to take the central place in your digital living room. But it does not go far enough.

Apple has seen sense and recognised that the box needs to be cut free from the umbilical cord tethering it to the computer while at the same needing the flexibility to take advantage of the Mac or PCs ubiquity.

But the box remains a glorified jukebox. Adding the ability to stream photos from a service like Flickr hints that the boffins realise people want to connect their TV not just to download services approved by Apple, but to other high quality web services.

So why do they have to wait for Apple to drip feed functionality? Opening up the box to third party developers could have turned the Apple TV into a truly multimedia device?

And one point on DRM. Apple has always been criticised for making the iTunes/computer/iPod axis a closed shop but customers have always been free to rip CDs and to reap the benefits of a DRM-free world as well as enjoy the offerings from Apple.

But in the video space Apple’s TV is completely a closed shop – the box can only deal with file formats that Apple approves of.

Yes it can play your home movies, some sanctioned movie trailers and the bought/rented content – but that’s it.

If Apple’s dominance in the music market was translated to the video market, then consumers would be tied into a very narrow range of products.

So what else struck me from the keynote?

The announcements of updates for the iPhone and iPod touch will delight and dismay users depending on which device they have.

To offer the new applications to iPhone users for free, but to charge iPod touch owners is both baffling and a little insulting.

It smacks of Apple once again trying to make an unnecessary distinction between iPhone and iPod touch.

And finally, the Time Capsule announcement felt to me like a solution to a problem Apple themselves had created.

Before the most recent operating system update Leopard was released there was talk of users being able to back up their hard drives over a wireless network using the application Time Machine, Apple’s Airport Extreme router and a hard drive plugged into it.

But when Leopard was released, there was no mention of the feature.

Now we know why. Apple wants us to buy its Time Capsule device, which combines am Airport Extreme with an in-built hard drive.

Going back to the original plan would be far more beneficial to Apple users.