17 January 2008
Apple continues to blow me away

Filed under Technology

Whether or not you’re sold on all the products, face it: Tuesday was the most exciting day for Apple since the release of the iPhone (or even its announcement 1 year ago). 4 majorly big things, culminating in what had long been common knowledge on the Internet: the release of the ultra-thin Macbook Air.

There’s been a lot of criticism of the Macbook Air since Tuesday: who is it for? Why buy it? OMG Apple fails, right? After all, it’s no power machine, running on an oldhat processor. Many people point out, correctly, that upgrading the basic Macbook to 2 gigs of RAM would produce a computer with nearly equal specs at a significant price reduction.

Folks need to learn: it’s not what the product is, but what the product does. And what the Macbook Air does over the Macbook is provide ultra-portability to the masses: for the first time, a 3(!) pound notebook that just works is available. True, there are what can be described as design flaws: a lack of audio in and ethernet ports may come back to bite this thing. But both of those can easily be converted (at a cost) into USB. Stereo speakers would have been nice, too, but in an ultra-portable with a headphone jack, they’re not absolutely essential. Sure I would have liked to see a MacTablet, but this is pretty darn close.

Another thing: it’s not what this product is, but what the next product is. Pity on you if you can’t see the convergence of form factors happening. Apple devices are slowly moving to the singularity: a full on computer in a package the size of the iPhone is years, not decades, away. The limiting factor is the screen dimensions on which they show the eye candy.

And here’s the kicker: I don’t even think the Macbook Air was the killer app on Tuesday. For all the talk of Time Capsule and the iPhone/iPod Touch refreshes, the defining Apple moment was the iTunes Movie Rentals. In the span of about 20 minutes, Steve Jobs killed Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and most of Netflix. With high speed internet reaching ubiquity, over-the-ether movie rentals were inevitable. But take it one step further.

What Apple should do is copy the iPhone apps/widgets business model to movie rentals and music downloads for independent filmmakers and musicians. Aspiring artists can Radiohead the mainstream record labels and upload songs, albums, or indie films onto iTunes. Your movie’s or album’s world premiere could happen in hundreds of living rooms at the same time. Apple could even take a rake on the distribution and first-time filmmakers might still achieve the holiest of Hollywood grails: profitability.

There’s thousands of aspiring filmmakers who just became more enamored with Apple: a whole distribution mechanism could be coming soon to a home theater near you.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes, MacBook Air

 ::  Adam