MacWorld 2008 Product Announcement - What My Gut Tells Me
Last year, around this time, I attended my second ever MacWorld in San Francisco (January 14-18 this year). For the first time last January however, I was on a Media pass and had access to Steve Jobs’ Keynote Address (January 15 this year), the most exciting event in the Macintosh year. New products are introduced, older ones spruced up, and everyone in attendance waits, breath bated for “one more thing.”
Last year’s big announcements, talked about like this year’s coming sub-Macbook (more on that later) was the iPhone. I only half-believed it would really happen, yet there I was, about 20 rows back from the stage, watching Jobs demo this fabulous device. I called my wife on the way out of the hall (on my soon-to-be-archive-boxed) Blackberry and told her “I am so getting one of those,” and yes, I do believe I used those exact words. On that day, I pre-ordered an AppleTV (the other announcement) and though that product has been a bit of a slow-starter, I love it.
This year, the rumors are of a sub-notebook, a portable computer without a hard drive or optical media (CD/DVD drive) that’s much smaller than the current most portable Macintosh computers. I’ve read the rumors and looked at the Photoshopped mock-ups with a lot of skepticism (I mean, who predicted in any reasonably accurate fashion, what the iPhone would look like?). But today, I drove my heir to school and on the way back, my mind snapped my own prediction into place, seemingly out of nowhere.
Here it is:
I love my Powerbook. Actually, I’ve loved ALL my Powerbooks, from my grey-scale 190 to the aluminum G4 I now carry. Probably above them all, I love my Lombard the most. It is still in my possession and I fire it up every now and then for fun and nostalgia. I love the Powerbook line because it gives me mobility, even though it’s every bit as powerful as any desktop computer I would need. If I were one day to lose almost everything I own, as long as my Aluminum Powerbook survived, it would probably be a while before I bought another computer. I just wouldn’t need another one.
But I have to admit, except for music and video, my storage needs are less and less considerable. I keep most of my data in the cloud, using Amazon’s S3, my own webservers, Google Docs, etc…I’m pretty computer and platform independent. But, when I use my Powerbook, the thing that frustrates me most often is battery life. I get 2+ hours on each of my batteries, sure (more when most of the work I’m doing is writing with the fabulous WriteRoom), but the truth is, I’m constantly looking at the battery gauge to see how much juice is left. And what’s taking up most of that power? Simple - hard drive, display and the EVDO card, when it’s plugged in and running.
So what if Apple did away with the hard drive and optical drive (using flash memory for storage), made the EVDO built-in (which I think would have to make it more efficient) and used one of those new lower-powered LED displays? Probably 4-5 hours on a charge, I would imagine. More, if you’re spending your time in WriteRoom.
What would be left, would be a machine that was designed to interface with all the other machines on my network and the internet and just do what I need it to do, 99% of the time:
- Write
- Web
- Some limited graphics
- Share data with my other devices
So, I think next Tuesday, Steve Jobs is going to introduce a machine that’s free of the responsibility of the desktop machine. Touch-screen, multi-touch, blah, blah, blah, I don’t know about. But watch for a Mac free of the responsibilites of the desktop. If this device comes to life, it’ll make the Powerbook look like a guy in a three-piece suit and the MacBook like a newly-minted MBA. This machine will take up the mantle of the free, wandering thinker/artist/creative type.
And though I’m not going to MacWorld this year, after I hear about it, I’ll call my wife on my iPhone and tell her “I am SO getting one of those.”
Technorati Tags: Apple, Jobs, Keynote, Macbook, MacWorld, Powerbook, Secret
