I’m sure this isn’t the first post you’ve seen today about MacWorld 2008, but I decided to go ahead and share my thoughts despite the myriad of blog coverage. To go ahead and get my opinion out there, I think overall MacWorld 2008 was a disappointmet because it lacked anything earth shattering; however, a couple of things caught my eye for future upgrades (i.e., when I need to replace existing equipment and when the prices go down).

I have to admit it would have to be hard to follow the last big Mac show with the announcement of the iPhone…that was pretty cool but I still wouldn’t buy one (not yet anyway). MacWorld 2008 centered around 4 major announcements:

1. Time Capsule
2. iPhone/iPod Touch Updates
3. Movie Rentals / Apple TV
4. MacBook Air

The first one is actually the most tempting to me. Time Capsule is basically an 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station with a built-in 500GB or 1TB network hard-drive optimized to work with the Time Machine feature of Leopard. Unfortunately, I haven’t upgraded to Leopard yet, don’t own any 802.11n compliant wireless devices, and don’t have $500 laying around. I guess my rockin’ Linksys WRT54GL with custom firmware and USB 2.0 external Seagate drive will have to do for now.

The iPhone updates were pretty impressive. I think having Google Maps with location would be really useful. Plus the ability to create multiple custom home screens with your own gadgets would be nice. It is also cool these updates (plus a few more) are all free. The iPhone is one of those devices that would be really cool to have but that just isn’t practical given the cost, lack of security, and lack of large-scale corporate email support. Maybe iPhone version 2.0 will fix this. If the next gen iPhone corrects these short comings AND the monthly subscription price goes down, I may decide to save up the money to purchase one. The iPod Touch updates weren’t as exciting. They were basically just a copy of the iPhone updates with the exception that you had to pay $20 to upgrade. I’m sure some people (aka Chris Harrison) are upset.

iTunes Movie Rentals….who cares? I’m not going to pay 3 or 4 bucks to download a single movie when Netflix offers free, unlimited downloads in addition to mail-service DVDs for less than $10 a month. I do think Apple did a good job getting movie studios on board with the idea and the rental terms (30 days to watch once downloaded and 24 hours to finish once played) were fair. Not to mention you can watch on multiple devices such as your computer, iPod, and through the Apple TV which brings me to the second portion of this update. The Apple TV interface was revamped to support the movie rentals and the software update is free (nice of Apple). Also, I think they dropped the price as well. Either way, I’m not excited about the movie rentals or the Apple TV. Side Note: You can currently download the pilot of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” from iTunes for free.

The last and biggest announcement was the MacBook Air, an ultra portable notebook. Upon first impression the MacBook Air is really cool. Its tiny, light weight, and still has a 13 inch screen and full keyboard. The battery life sounded good as well (Apple claims always do). The MacBook doesn’t have a built-in SuperDrive but can mount CDs remotely via another Mac and has an option SuperDrive USB attachment. The Air also supports the latest and greatest wireless technologies (e.g., 802.11n and the newest Bluetooth standard). One other cool new feature that I hope they decide to port to existing MacBooks is multi-touch trackpad that functions similarly to the iPhone.

So why am I not more impressed with the MacBook Air? Well, for one the largest hard drive you can get is 80 Gigs though you can get a superfast 64GB flash memory based drive. Really though, 80 Gigs is enough most of time (that’s all Lauren’s old MacBook has). The processor is a bit slow too. 1.8 GHz is only so-so. Yes, it is a Core 2 Duo that is amazingly small but I like really fast processors. For the price of the MacBook Air I would expect extreme speed. I guess I should be more impressed than I am…I just don’t have a need for an ultra portable laptop. I’m sure some people do though.

I did come across an abridged version of the 90-minute keynote over at Veronica Belmont’s site titled “The Stevenote (abridged)“. It manages to cover the highlights of the address is 60 seconds which is very cool. However, I watched the entire keynote last night before finding this summary. Oh well, at least I didn’t miss anything.

Well, that’s concludes my thoughts in a nutshell. Like I alluded to at the beginning of my post, my feeling on MacWorld 2008 are a mixed-bag. Please share you thoughts and impression in the comments below. I always like interacting with my blog readers. BTW, thanks for stopping by!