A number of third-party vendors stand out from the pack at Macworld San Francisco and are bringing new technologies with them, including USB display adapters and 1.3-inch hard drives.
Intuit in the far corner of its booth at this week's Macworld Expo is quietly previewing a major revamp of its personal finance software designed exclusively for users of Apple's Mac OS X Leopard operating system.
While few companies have yet to produce their official shipment numbers, estimates generated by the two research firms have Apple shipping between 1.04 and 1.05 million Macs in the US for the last three months of the past year, resulting in a fourth-place spot for the computer maker and growth of anywhere between 28 percent (Gartner) and 30.9 percent (IDC) over the same period in 2006.
Time Capsule pairs the existing AirPort Extreme with a half or full terabyte hard drive to serve as a backup appliance for Leopard machines running Time Machine, in addition to acting as a simple file and print server. It is offered for both Mac and Windows users, although Windows PCs (or Macs not running Leopard) won't have Time Machine and therefore will access it only as a regular file and print server.
Wall Street's usual suspects have started to weigh in on Apple's Macworld announcements, with most speaking favorably of what company chief executive Steve Jobs laid out on Tuesday. However, at least one analyst was skeptical about the potential for the new MacBook Air.
In a pair of interviews following his Macworld keynote address on Tuesday, Apple chief executive spoke of his firm's two-year initiative to develop the world's thinnest notebook and also weighed in on the iPhone in China, Amazon's Kindle and Google's Android mobile platform.
After suffering a year of media mockery and consumer indifference, Apple TV is poised to leverage its tight integration with iTunes to jump to the front of the line in living room media rentals. The best news: existing early adopters will gain all the new features via a software update without needing to replace or upgrade their existing hardware.
While Apple's iPhone 1.1.3 update has brought features such as map positioning and a customizable home screen, the coinciding release of iTunes 7.6 brings a long-requested feature to the iPhone: drag-and-drop music and video control.
Outside, Time Capsule is nearly indistinguishable from its AirPort Extreme sibling — the device has only a slightly larger surface area (7.7 inches versus 6.5) and height (1.4 inches versus 1.3), as well as a mirror-finish Apple logo. For standard networking, the device is also virtually identical and provides up to 802.11n Wi-Fi as well as gigabit Ethernet and a USB port for printers or shared storage.
As was first reported by AppleInsider last February, Apple's new MacBook Air lacks a built-in optical disc drive, meaning users will need to perform backups and software installs using two new wireless solutions or with the help of the company's new MacBook Air external Super Drive.
Living up to its promise from its last-minute site update, Apple on Tuesday evening posted the streaming QuickTime feed of its Macworld San Francisco 2008 keynote speech by company chief Steve Jobs.
To support iTunes movie rentals and other features, Apple has rolled out a bevy of new patches for its media playback tools. Also, the firm has slipped in an iMovie fix.
Apple at the Macworld Expo on Tuesday had several dozen of its new MacBook Air notebooks laid out on a sprawling matte black showroom table for show-goers to test drive, in addition several non-functional units suspended in mid-air for photographers.
Apple on Tuesday closed out its Macworld keynote address by introducing MacBook Air, the world’s thinnest notebook, measuring an unprecedented 0.16-inches at its thinnest point, while its maximum height of 0.76-inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks.
As one of its first orders of business at the Macworld Expo on Tuesday, Apple introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard, the latest release of the company's Mac OS X operating system that includes the Time Machine automatic backup software.
As expected, Apple on Tuesday announced iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema.
At the Macworld Expo on Tuesday Apple announced a free software update for its iPhone handset that allows users to automatically find their location using the redesigned Maps application; text message multiple people in one message; create Web Clips for their favorite websites; customize their home screen; and watch movies rented from the new iTunes Movie Rentals right on their iPhone.
Apple on Tuesday announced a $20 software upgrade for its iPod touch digital media player that adds Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes applications to the touch-screen-based device.
Twentieth Century Fox and Apple today announced Digital Copy for iTunes, which provides customers who purchase a DVD with an additional Digital Copy of the movie.
Steve Jobs released a flurry of new product offerings in the Macworld Expo Keynote, along with upgrades and updates that touched the entire Apple product lineup from Macs to iPhones and the iPod Touch to Apple TV and iTunes.
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Aidan Malley
Katie Marsal
Daniel Eran Dilger
Slash Lane
AppleInsider Staff
Prince McLean
