Friday - January 12, 2007
MWSF 2007 Concludes... and No New Macs from Apple
The 2007 Macworld
Expo concluded today, and the big announcements of the week were the
iPhone
and the AppleTV.
On Tuesday, Steve Jobs took the stage of San
Francisco's Moscone Center for his infamous Macworld keynote. He introduced 2
new Apple
products, the iPhone and the AppleTV. He
also announced additions to the iTunes Media Store and the company's name change
from Apple Computer to Apple Inc. He did not release any quarterly results, any
new Macs, any new versions of Mac OS X, any new iApps, or any
new Software products. No version updates to existing software were released
either. The AppleTV will not ship until next month, and the iPhone will not ship
until June. Honestly... I found this to be the boring Macworld ever! This is the
first Macworld I can remember where there were NO NEW MACS! Apple silently
released a new Airport Extreme, and even though it has several
new features, it was not even mentioned during the
Keynote.
The best release of Macworld did not come from Apple at all, but from OWC and Axiotron, who jointly released the ModBook. This was the closest thing to a new Mac released at Macworld 2007.
The ModBook is a tablet version of Apple's MacBook with an onscreen keyboard and handwriting recognition. There have been many rumors about Apple releasing a tablet-Mac (ie: iTablet), and many people have requested one. Well, the rumor finally came true... only it wasn't released by Apple. The only drawback to the ModBook is it's price. They start at $2199 and go up from there. While this price is reasonable for a 64-bit dual core tablet, it is not practical for most Mac users. In my opinion, the ideal price range for a device like this is $1000-$1800. Still, this is an exciting release and one that has been requested for quite some time.
At the beginning of the keynote, Steve Jobs made a reference to "putting the Macs aside for today" and revisiting that topic later in the month. Let's hope Apple has some more things up their sleeve over the next couple months, to keep the Mac geeks happy.
-AMP
The best release of Macworld did not come from Apple at all, but from OWC and Axiotron, who jointly released the ModBook. This was the closest thing to a new Mac released at Macworld 2007.
The ModBook is a tablet version of Apple's MacBook with an onscreen keyboard and handwriting recognition. There have been many rumors about Apple releasing a tablet-Mac (ie: iTablet), and many people have requested one. Well, the rumor finally came true... only it wasn't released by Apple. The only drawback to the ModBook is it's price. They start at $2199 and go up from there. While this price is reasonable for a 64-bit dual core tablet, it is not practical for most Mac users. In my opinion, the ideal price range for a device like this is $1000-$1800. Still, this is an exciting release and one that has been requested for quite some time.
At the beginning of the keynote, Steve Jobs made a reference to "putting the Macs aside for today" and revisiting that topic later in the month. Let's hope Apple has some more things up their sleeve over the next couple months, to keep the Mac geeks happy.
-AMP