You pop in the special Digital Copy disc, and on a Mac, a window automatically pops open telling you to launch iTunes. In iTunes, you are directed to a page where—get this—you enter a code printed on slip inside the DVD case. The "download" completes, and you have a copy of the show that's identical in file format to anything you get from iTunes, and it's locked to your account in the same way. Only you copied it over from a disc. This just feels wrong.

As you might expect, the disc and code are useable just once. So why the hell was there a disc at all? I imagine this whole thing would be simpler if Fox would just print the slip and let you redeem it with a bonafide over-the-net download via iTunes.The version itself looks great, about equal to the DVD, quality wise, and far better than the downsized legal version that Toast 8 lets you move to your iPod if you TiVo'd it when it originally aired. (In case you're wondering, the DVD is good too, with a Seth MacFarlane/George Lucas interview and a reel showing all of the Family Guy Star Wars references throughout the years.)

I am a fan of this concept. DVD sales aren't doing so hot, and something like this could really perk them up. Think of all the TV series box sets that would be way more desirable if they came with an automatic iTunes version. Yes, I know there are ways to do it yourself, but those ways are time consuming, not to mention of legal dubiousness. (I think ripping a DVD for yourself is well within the fair-use doctrine, and that Roxio and Nero, not to mention iTunes, should be all over that, but I still worry that the legal squabbles will continually make it hard for mainstream software to embrace it. The music biz may be casting off DRM, but Hollywood is a much more organized, high-tech beast.)

Fox doesn't appear 100% committed to this. Maybe it was just the need to keep it hush-hush before the Jobsnote, but the case bears a single little sticker saying "Digital Copy," with no mention of iTunes anywhere. Nor was there a reference to this clearly valuable bonus feature anywhere on the case itself. Even on Amazon, there's no mention of the fact that you can rip it to your iTunes. That's why it was all the more surprising when I found the second disc inside: a whole disc wasted for something that they didn't even mention on the label. That's strange marketing, Fox. Very strange. [Official Site]

It turns out that, surprise surprise, you pay a premium for a tiny form factor. The MacBook Air is seriously expensive for the guts you get inside, but Apple isn't the only company guilty of charging insane amounts for smaller computers. Just look at the Sony Vaio TZ150N, for example. $2,100 for a 1.06 GHz processor? Are you kidding me? I don't care how small, it's still a rip-off.

The best deal—if you don't mind an extra pound of weight and half-inch of thickness—is the Dell XPS M1330. It bests the MacBook Air in nearly every single category, delivering about 30% more processing power, 50% more memory, over 300% more hard drive space, plus a dedicated graphics card. All of this, for $300 less. But also, two hours less of battery life, thanks to the new smaller and more efficient Core 2 Duo processor in the MacBook Air.

But it's really no surprise that a form factor as striking as the MacBook Air's warrants a premium price. Super-slim and light laptops as a category have yet to come down from the stratosphere, dollar-wise. It's a form factor that SSD just makes loads of sense for, lightening them up and cutting down on battery life, but that drives the price up even further for the time being. Chips are still getting smaller and screen technology keeps improving. In a couple of years, these form factors will be reasonably priced with great specs, but until then, prepare to pay a huge chunk more for a bit less power, just so you can brag about having the thinnest computer on the block.

[Gizmodo's Macworld 2008 Full Coverage]

Here's the beef on the $99 Superdrive:

• Slot-loading
• Built-in short USB cord
• Works with DVD±R DL, DVD±RW, CD-R/RW
• Slightly bigger than a CD case at 5.47 x 5.47 x 0.67 inches
• 1.09 lbs

• RJ-45 socket for 10/100BASE-T Ethernet
• Built-in 4.6 inch USB cord
• Bus-powered USB 2.0

The MacBook Air is all "green": bromide and PVR free, packaging is 56% smaller and mercury and arsenic-free glass. Looks like Al Gore will be getting one to fly in his private jet.

Amazingly enough, it's only $1,799.

Technical specs

• .16 to .75-inch thickness on top
• 12.8 x 8.94 inches
• 3 pounds
• 5 hours of battery life with everything running

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor at 1.6 or 1.8GHz, motherboard the length of a pencil.
• 800MHz frontside bus.
• 2GB RAM 667MHz DDR2 standard.

• 13.3-inch screen, LED backlit.
• 1,280 x 800 pixels
• Micro-DVI adapter (for DVI, VGA, composite and S-Video output)
• Intel GMA X3100 Graphics processor with 144MB RAM shared

• 1.8-inch 80GB HD or 64GB Solid State Drive (no moving pieces, but for a stunning $1,300 price increase!)
• Multitouch trackpad with gestures. Pans, zooms, rotates, etc.
• 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1.
• Optional external HD for $99, USB-bus powered.
• Full backlit keyboard.
• One USB 2.0, one audio port, one Micro-DVI

[Apple]

Apple Announces Major Software Upgrade for iPod touch

MACWORLD SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today
announced a major software upgrade for the iPod(R) touch, making the best iPod
into even more — the world's best Wi-Fi mobile device. iPod touch customers
already have the most advanced mobile web browser in the world with
Safari(TM), and now Apple is adding five more great mobile applications —
Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes. The iPod touch software upgrade also
includes new features such as Web Clips, a customizable home screen and
beginning today, the ability to watch iTunes(R) Movie Rentals. New iPod touch
products shipping from the factory will include the software upgrade and
existing iPod touch customers can get the software upgrade for $19.99 by
purchasing and downloading it from iTunes (http://www.itunes.com).
"These amazing new mobile applications make iPod touch not only the best
iPod, but the best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world," said Steve Jobs, Apple's
CEO. "With its revolutionary touch interface and software, plus its stunning
3.5 inch screen, iPod touch is evolving into the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile
platform of the 21st century."
Mail on iPod touch is a rich HTML email client that fetches email in the
background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services and displays photos and
graphics along with the text of the email. Users can configure Mail for
Google's Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, .Mac Mail or most POP or IMAP based mail services
with just a few clicks.
Maps on iPod touch features the ability to automatically find your current
location using nearby Wi-Fi base stations*, and use it as a starting or ending
point for directions or to find local points of interest. Users can get
real-time traffic conditions, and view maps in map or satellite view, or a
hybrid view which combines map and satellite views so you can see major street
names overlaid on satellite imagery.
Stocks and Weather allow users to access live stock and weather reports at
their fingertips, and Notes lets you jot down information on-the-go using the
intelligent keyboard.
The iPod touch home screen can now be customized, allowing users to
reorder and add new icons, with support for up to nine different home screens
which they can easily flick between. With the new Web Clips feature, you can
even create custom icons on your home screen for your favorite websites. Web
Clips are a great way to easily track web sites that you frequently check such
as news, blogs, sports sites, movie listings and more.
With Apple's new iTunes Movie Rentals, movie fans can rent movies on their
computer, easily and quickly transfer them to their iPod touch, and watch them
anywhere on iPod touch's gorgeous 3.5 inch screen. Users can also now navigate
forward or backward through their movies by chapters, select alternate
language tracks and view subtitles, if available.

Pricing & Availability
The software upgrade for iPod touch is available immediately. New iPod
touch products shipping from the factory will include the software upgrade and
existing iPod touch customers can get the software upgrade for $19.99 by
purchasing and downloading it from iTunes (http://www.itunes.com). iTunes
Movie Rentals are available in the US only. Further information for iPod touch
can be found at http://www.apple.com/ipod.

*Availability and precision of Maps positioning features will vary
depending on actual location.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple
II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh.
Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-
winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional
applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its
iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered
the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

(C) 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac
OS, Macintosh, iPod, Safari and iTunes are trademarks of Apple. Other company
and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Apple Enhances Revolutionary iPhone With Software Update

MACWORLD SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today announced a free software update for its revolutionary iPhone(TM) 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(R) Movie Rentals right on their iPhone. With its revolutionary multi-touch user interface and pioneering software, users can
easily add significant new features to their iPhone through software updates whenever an update becomes available. New iPhone products shipping from the factory will include the software update and existing iPhone customers will automatically get the update for free when they sync their iPhone with iTunes (http://www.itunes.com).

"iPhone doesn't stand still — we're making it better and better all the time," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've delighted millions of users with this revolutionary and magical product and it's great to share these improvements with them."

Maps, one of the most popular and helpful applications on iPhone, has a new interface that is simpler and easier to use and adds incredible new features such as the ability to find your location automatically. With just the tap of a button, iPhone can now triangulate your position using nearby Wi-Fi base stations or cellular towers. You can use this as a starting or ending point for directions or to find local points of interest. The new hybrid map view combines map view and satellite view so you can see major street names overlaid on satellite imagery.

Users can now create Web Clips — icons on the home screen that take you directly to your favorite websites, including to the exact spot you have zoomed into. Web Clips are a great way to easily track websites that you frequently check such as news, blogs, sports sites and movie listings. In addition, users can now customize their home screen by repositioning any of the icons, and even create up to nine different home screens that they can easily flick between.

iPhone's new software update also adds the ability to send the same SMS text message to multiple people, and iPhone saves a history of your text messages, so with one tap you can send a new message to the same group.

With Apple's new iTunes Movie Rentals, movie fans can rent movies on their computer, easily and quickly transfer them to their iPhone, and watch them anywhere on iPhone's gorgeous 3.5 inch screen. Users can also now navigate forward or backward through their movies by chapters, select alternate language tracks and view subtitles, if available.

Pricing & Availability
The iPhone software update 1.1.3 is available immediately for free via iTunes 7.5 or later for all existing iPhone customers in the US, UK, Germany and France. New iPhone products shipping from the factory will include the software update and existing iPhone customers will automatically get the update for free when they sync their iPhone with iTunes (http://www.itunes.com). iTunes Movie Rentals are available in the US only.

Further information for iPhone can be found at http://www.apple.com/iphone.

*Availability and precision of Maps positioning features will vary depending on actual location.

The Bare Facts:
• After setup, all Macs on network are automatically backed up wirelessly and constantly.
• USB port is so it can act as print server; no word on whether you can attach addional USB disks.
• No hidden bricks: The sleek design includes a built-in power supply.
• Full three-port Gigabit Ethernet router (fourth port is for WAN); 802.11n network supports up to 50 users.

Official Press Release:

Apple Announces Time Capsule

Wireless Backup for all Your Macs

MACWORLD SAN FRANCISCO—January 15, 2008—Apple® today introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard™, the latest release of Apple's Mac OS® X operating system including the amazing Time Machine™ automatic backup software. Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Simply plug it in, then easily set up automatic wireless backup for every Mac® in your house to a single Time Capsule with just a few clicks. Time Capsule offers the benefits of a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, and comes in two models: a 500 gigabyte model for just $299 and a 1 terabyte model for just $499.

"Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voila—all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With Time Capsule and Time Machine, all your irreplaceable photos, movies and documents are automatically protected and incredibly easy to retrieve if they are ever lost."

Built to work seamlessly with Time Machine, Time Capsule lets users wirelessly back up all of the data on their Macs, find lost files and even restore all of their software. In the event a file is lost, users can wirelessly search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file. If it's ever necessary, Leopard can also easily restore an entire system from the Time Machine backup on Time Capsule.

In addition to being the best way to back up a Mac, Time Capsule is also a full-featured Wi-Fi base station with the latest 802.11n technology. Delivering up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g, 802.11n* is built in to Apple's iMac® desktop and the entire Mac notebook line up, including MacBook®, MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air. Time Capsule features a sleek design with a built-in power supply and connections to print wirelessly to a USB printer. With Time Capsule, it's very easy for users to create a secure, wireless network for up to 50 users and set security restrictions such as Internet access limits for children's computers.

At $299 for a 500GB model and $499 for a 1TB model and a fully integrated 802.11n AirPort Extreme® Base Station, Time Capsule can serve as a backup solution for multiple computers as well as the backbone for a high-speed, 802.11n wireless network, making it effortless and affordable for everyone at home, school or work to protect their digital files.

Additional Time Capsule features include:

dual-band antennas for 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequencies;
three Gigabit LAN ports;
one Gigabit Ethernet WAN port;
one USB 2.0 port;
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA-2), 128-bit WEP encryption; and
a built-in NAT firewall supporting NAT-PMP for features like Back to My Mac.
Pricing & Availability
Time Capsule will be available in February through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), at Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $299 (US) for a 500GB hard drive and $499 (US) for a 1TB hard drive.

*Time Capsule is based on an IEEE 802.11n draft specification. Actual performance will vary based on range, connection rate, site conditions, size of network and other factors.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

7:39 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Gizmodo Live at Macworld 2008 Keynote. The keynote starts Tuesday, January 15 @ 9:00 AM PST (12:00 PM EST), but we're going to start liveblogging hours before that, giving you color commentary on the area, the attendees, and any secrets we can glean from uncovered banners.

7:59 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:
We're here! It's dreary as hell (even for San Francisco standards), but we're here, in line, waiting for the keynote to start. There's definitely something in the air, but to us it smells like the pungent desperation of various media types who were forced to wake up at way too early.

8:02 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Crazy. Instead of a Pikmin-like blob of people massed outside the giant aluminum shutters, we've actually got an orderly line.

8:04 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:
And here's it is. $5 if you can spot Mossy/Waldo.

8:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:

And since there's no comment field here in the liveblog proper, feel free to discuss the upcoming proceedings over on the other liveblog post.

8:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We see all our normal friends here: Wired, Ars...I guess that's all the people I know. OH, Macrumors. Can't forget them.

8:25 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:
Someone's excited about what Steve's going to announce today.

8:36 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Top 3 guesses on what's going to be announced today. My guess: new laptop, Apple TV media news and Apple buying out Diebold and leading the way to electronic voting we can trust. Put your guess in the comments.

8:44 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:
There's Something in the Air Update 1: The orderly line has dissolved into a scene outside Britney's first car-cooter-exposure: everyone's in a mob, pushing each other around with cameras, randomly shooting a shot off hoping to get something worth publishing. What's in the air? Sweat. And greed. And more than a little desperation.

8:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Lightning Review. The Gadget: The food.
The Verdict: The orange juice dispensed from a water cooler is classy, but the blueberry scones put it over the top. Definitely worth the money ($0) we paid.

8:59 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Update 2: Mark here, we are trading off the duties of "laptop bitch," making one another hold the computer so we don't need to risk life, limb and foul-smelling crotch on the floor to bring you these updates.

9:03 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We're in! We've done this many times now, so we can safely say that Coldplay is the band Apple designates as the official soundtrack to the "running of the media" every single time.

9:03 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:05 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: It's 9:02, people are still filing in, so it's going to be a minute or two before the keynote gets started. Can you taste it? CAN YOU SMELL IT!?

9:08 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve's added a new song to his playlist this year. Kanye. No one can say Steve Jobs doesn't care about black iPods.

9:13 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here's a question for you: do you like the Macworld keynote during CES like last year, or after CES like this year?

9:13 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Still no Steve, but Feist's 1 2 3 4 is on. And the lights are dimming! Exciting!

9:14 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve's most likely waiting for Feist to end. Nobody cuts off Feist...bitch.

9:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: It's starting! A new Mac vs. PC commercial: Happy New Year 2008. And Steve Jobs takes the stage.

9:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: "Welcome to Macworld 2008. We've got some great stuff for you. There's clearly some great stuff in the air today."

9:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:16 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve's taking us on a retrospective of 2007. iPhone, iPod, etc. He's thanking everyone for an extraordinary 2007.

9:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: He has four things he wants to talk to us about today. The first is Leopard. Over 5 million copies sold, and about 20% of Mac OS X's install base has upgraded to Leopard. Now Steve's quoting Mossberg, Pogue, Ed Baig and PC Magazine for quotes on Leopard. Two thumbs up, as it were.

9:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:20 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:20 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Time Machine: Leopard works great with a desktop machine, but it doesn't work well with laptops because you have to keep plugging and unplugging a USB drive. Now he's introducing a new backup station with 802.11n and server-grade backup station. It's an AirPort Extreme station with ports in the back, allowing you to back up your macs wirelessly to Time Capsule.

9:21 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:22 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:23 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Time Capsule will be sold in a 500GB version and a 1TB version for $299 and $499. It ships February. It also looks exactly like an Airport Extreme, except with different ports on the back.

9:23 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And that's the first thing! The second thing: The iPhone. Today is exactly the 200th day that the iPhone has been on sale. Apple has sold 4 million iPhones to date, which means 20,000 iPhones sold per day on average. What does this mean compared to the overall smartphone market?

9:26 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:27 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:27 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam: Jobs: Joo! (Boom substitute),

9:27 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And today, he's introducing new iPhone features:
Maps with locations, webclips, customizable home screens, SMS multiple people at once, chapters, subtitles, and language support in video, and lyrics support in audio.

9:30 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here are the numbers for the iPhone's first full quarter of shipping (Q3 2007). RIM has 39%, Apple has 19.5%, Palm has 9.8%, Motorola has 7.4%. In just one quarter, they managed to grab second place.

9:31 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:31 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:31 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Webclips: On the iPhone's Safari browser, just pick out a website, hit the "+" button, and hit "Add to home screen", and it'll be added as an icon on your home screen. Hit the button from the home screen and it'll fire up Safari and take you there. You can even customize the shortcut to a specific part of the web page.

9:33 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Rearranging icons: Hold down an icon and all the icons on the screen jitter (the leak was right!), allowing you to drag stuff around to rearrange. You can now have 9 different screens to hold all your apps or webclips (internet shortcuts).

9:34 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:35 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: All these updates are available today, for free, for all iPhone users.

9:35 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: So how do you get locations without GPS? Apple's partnering with Google and Skyhook. Google helps you triangulate cellphone towers, and Skyhook helps you triangulate Wi-Fi data. When you go past a Wi-fi hotspot or a cell tower, the phone remembers the data and uses it to calculate where you are.

9:36 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:36 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: How about the iPod touch? They're adding Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes and Weather. For existing iPod touch users, it will cost $20. If you buy a new iPod touch, it'll be free and built-in.

9:37 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Multiple recipient SMS: Just as you'd expect. Pick different recipients at the top, type stuff, hit send. It's also customized for the iPhone's "conversations" because it remembers all the recipients under that one "conversation", so you can send multiple messages to the same people easily.

9:38 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: The third thing Steve's talking about today: iTunes. They've sold 4 billion songs, 125 million TV shows and 7 million movies. TV shows and movies have sold more than "everyone else put together", but "did not meet our expectations". "There's a better way to deliver movies over the internet." What is it? iTunes Movie Rentals.

9:38 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here are the studios involved: Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, New Line, Lion's gate, Fox, WB, Disney, Paramount, Universal and Sony. What's missing?

9:39 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve says "We have every major studio", and that they'll have all the great first-run films.

9:40 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:41 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:41 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: 1000 films by February, and movies will be available 30 days after the DVD release. You can watch them anywhere: Macs, PCs, iPods and iPhone. You can watch instantly, meaning streaming. You'll have 30 days to "start" watching it, and then 24 hours to "finish" watching it once you've started to watch it. You can watch the first half on your computer, transfer the movie to your iPod, then watch the rest of the movie on the airplane. Here's the cost.

B. Lam:

9:43 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Old releases: $2.99. New releases: $3.99.

9:43 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:43 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: iTunes movie rentals launches today, and it's a free software update for iTunes. Free update for iPods and iPhones in order to support this. Support for the US comes today, but international support comes later this year.

9:44 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:44 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:44 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:45 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: But how about the AppleTV? It was designed to be an accessory for iTunes, but people wanted it to be "movies, movies, movies". Here's AppleTV, take 2. It still syncs with your computer, but no computer is required for AppleTV. You can rent movies directly onto your AppleTV and watch them on your HDTV. You can rent in either SD quality or HD Quality with 5.1 surround sound.

9:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: You can also view audio and video podcasts on the AppleTV, photos from Flickr or .Mac, YouTube videos (>50 Million), Buy TV shows and music (which will be streamed back to your computer), or play iTunes content & photos streamed from your computer.

9:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: HD Rentals pricing: $3.99 for old titles and $4.99 for new titles. $1 more than SD.

9:47 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:48 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: There's a new interface for AppleTV (picture coming in a sec). The UI is centered around the movie rental experience.

9:48 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: HD Rentals pricing: $3.99 for old titles and $4.99 for new titles. $1 more than SD.

9:49 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:50 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve's demo-ing a sample movie, Blades of Glory. Once you've queued up enough of the movie, AppleTV will pop up a message saying that it's ready to play. He says it usually takes about 30 seconds before something's ready to play.

9:51 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:51 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: He's now showing a scene from Die Hard, featuring Justin Long (the Mac guy).

9:51 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Damn, they cut it off right before Justin Long came in!

9:52 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:54 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:54 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:55 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Now Steve is demoing podcasts and music video downloading. Podcasts queue up and stream just like you'd expect, and music videos work the same way they do on iTunes on your PC.

9:55 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Fake Steve is also liveblogging this AS REAL STEVE, which may or may not blow your mind. Check it out.

9:56 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:56 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Slideshows stream directly off the .Mac servers, which means you may be able to view your friends' pictures directly on your TV.

9:58 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

B. Lam:

9:59 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Flickr: You can view a friend's pictures, or even their friends' photos. Of course, this is all set to music from your own iTunes library. Uh oh, tech demo problem alert! No photos, just music. The screen is blank (because of flickr). WE SWEAR IT'S NOT US.

9:59 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam: Boom count: 1

10:00 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:00 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:01 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Apple TV: The new software will be available via free software upgrade, which means you don't need to purchase a new box. Nice!

10:01 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:03 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: New pricing as well. It's $299 now, but they're kicking it down to $229 starting today. They're shipping the free software update to existing owners and new units in just 2 weeks. (Polite applause follows.)

10:06 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: "The first studio that signed up with us for iTunes movie rentals was 20th Century Fox". Now, he's introducing Jim Gianopulos, the Chairman & CEO of Fox. Jim's taking the stage and talking about movies and business.

10:06 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:07 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Non-Steve Jobs intermission, essentially. Jim, the Fox CEO is talking about formats, and business models, and giving people choices. "The next format will be Blu-ray, apparently."

10:08 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We were right! Jim says his movies will have a free iTunes version of the movie residing on the DVD that you can transfer onto your portable devices by copying it over. The first movie that has this: Family Guy's Blue Harvest, their Star Wars parody episode.

10:08 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And now the fourth thing they want to talk about today. "There's something in the air. What is it?" MacBooks, apparently!

10:08 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:09 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Today they're introducing a third kind of notebook, MacBook Air. "It's the world's thinnest notebook."

10:10 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:10 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: What does this mean? The Sony TZ series are thin. "We looked at all of them out there. They generally weigh about 3 pounds." In Sony's case, it weighs 3 pounds, 0.8-1.2 inches thick, and a 11-12 inch display. They also have miniature keyboards, and they don't "run them as fast as they could."

10:11 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:11 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:12 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Thinness: MacBook air goes from 0.76 inches down to 0.16 inches at the thin end. The thickest part is thinner than the Sony TZ Series. 0.76 vs. 0.8. It's so thin, it even fits inside a vanilla envelope. Steve whips out a manilla envelope.

10:14 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:14 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Out comes the MacBook Air. It's silver (aluminum?), has black keys, is super super thin, and Steve can hold it easily with his fingertips. "It's the world's thinnest notebook," he reiterates. It has a 13.3-inch widescreen display. "And the display is gorgeous." It's an LED backlit display that's instant-on. It also has a built-in iSight camera, and a full-sized keyboard. Backlit too, with a trackpad and multi-touch gesture support on the trackpad.

10:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: You can turn on different types of gestures in the settings, like moving around a window with your finger, panning around a photo with two fingers, rotate a photo by twisting a finger, swipe between photos with three figners, and zoom in and out with pinching.

10:16 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: "How did we fit a Mac in here?"

10:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here's what's inside. 1.8-inch hard drives, like in the iPods. There's also an optional 64GB solid state disk. What else is in there? A complete Mac board, which is a little wider than the length of a pencil.

10:18 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:18 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:19 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here's the CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Inside, 1.6 GHz standard, with a 1.8GHz upgrade available. Apple asked Intel to shrink their Core 2 Duo processors down to a package 60% smaller in order to fit it inside the MacBook Air. And here's Intel's CEO Paul Otellini to talk about it.

10:19 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:21 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Paul says: The CPU is the width of a dime, the thickness of a nickel, and we didn't think we could do it.

10:21 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: The other features: flip-down door that has USB 2, microDVI port, and a headphone jack. The other side is a MagSafe connector. As for wireless, it's got 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. It doesn't have an optical drive internal, but you can buy a separate USB-powered SuperDrive that's especially made for the MacBook Air. $99.

10:22 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:22 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: What do you do with an optical drive? Play movies, install software, make backups, burn CDs. What's Apple's alternative? iTunes movie rentals, Time Capsule for backups, iPods for listening to stuff in your car, and a new feature called "Remote Disc" for installing stuff via CDs and DVDs.

10:22 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:23 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Remote Disc: Special software loaded on other machines with optical drives that allows MacBook Air to borrow their drives to install things from CDs/DVDs. You can even borrow drives from PCs.

10:23 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:25 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Battery life: With Wi-Fi on, browsing the web, you get 5 hours of battery life.

10:25 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:26 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: MacBook Air Price: $1799. Ships in two weeks. You can pre-order online now.

10:26 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:27 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: So to recap, here are the features. 3.0 pounds, 0.16 -0.76 inches, 13.inch display, full-sized keyboard, multi-touch gestures, iSight, 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo standard, 2GB memory standard, 80GB hard drive standard (64GB SSD optional), 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR standard, and MagSafe.

10:27 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve just threw up a new ad showing off the MacBook Air, using the same MANILLA envelope technique he used earlier.

10:28 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:30 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And here are the details on the MacBook Air that eco-fanatics care about. It's got an Aluminum case, and a mercury-free and arsenic-free glass display. The circuit boards are BFR free and PVC free. The packaging has 56% less volume than the regular MacBook. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!

10:30 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: To recap on what he's talked about today. 1) Time Capsule, the wireless backup utility. 2) iPhone update and iPod Touch update. 3) AppleTV + iTunes movie rentals. 4) MacBook Air.

"All this stuff in the first two weeks, and we've got 50 more weeks in the year to go."

10:32 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And for the entertainment at Today's keynote, Randy Newman.

10:36 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Randy's singing a song about America, the president, and comparing them to Hitler and Stalin. USA! USA! USA!!!!!

10:39 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: "It pisses me off a little that the Supreme Court is going to outlive me." What the crap is he singing about? We have no idea. We think he's gone nuts.

10:41 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: The first song's over, but now Randy Newman's just riffing about random stuff. The next song is from Toy Story. Randy says he wrote another song to go with the love scene between Buzz and Woody, but the scene was cut. This guy is blowing our minds right now.

10:43 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Aaaand it's over. Holy crap. Who knew Randy Newman, the guy who makes the songs your kids play over and over and over again, would sing such crazy crap about our government?

11:31 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And it's over! Thanks to everyone for reading, and check Gizmodo's main page for hands-on updates VERY soon. See everyone shortly. -Jason, Mark, Brian and Adrian

11:32 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We've got hands-on of the MacBook Air here.

11:32 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We've got hands-on of Time Capsule here as well.

1:26 pm ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here's hands-on of the gesture pad on the MacBook Air.

1:30 pm ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And our AppleTV take two impressions.

1:30 pm ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We also discovered the MacBook Air's fatal flaw.

1:33 pm ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And our hands-on video and impressions of the iPhone 1.1.3 firmware.

MacWorld January 2008 Keynote Rough Outline; draft 5

Greetings! Welcome to Moscone Center

Quick Overview: iPod/iTunes

- Today: 30 indie labels releasing their entire catalogs in iTunes Plus

- iTunes doing extremely well (sales figures/market share)

- Another new game today: Chess

- 3 iPod games released last month accidentally (supposed to be for today)

- Our new models are doing better than ever

- Sales figures, market share

- iPod has been extremely profitable for us this holiday season

- Many more to follow in the next few months

iPhone

- SDK is unveiled!

- iPhone is coming to Japan in March with NTT DoCoMo

- Four times the memory as original iPhone for the same price

- Starting today: 8GB $399, 16GB $499

- Much more than the 1% market share we asked for in January

- Sales beyond our wildest dreams

- Sales figures, market share

- Best iPod ever

iPhone/iPod Touch SDK

- Automatic updating wirelessly or docked

- Users buy/download in iTunes Wi-Fi Store / iTunes Store (Mac/PC)

- Set your own price: Apps $0-$6.99, Widgets $0-$2.99

- Specify iPhone or both iPhone/Touch (certain features iPhone only)

- Developers submit programs as source code, not executable

- Using Cocoa with Objective-C

- Apps and Widgets

- If using microphone or GSM, iPhone only; otherwise, available for both iPhone and iPod Touch

- Submits source code to Apple for validation (make sure that people aren't abusing the system, prevent malware and viruses)

- Demonstration of exporting from XCode 3 to iTunes Store

- Apps can be free or up to $6.99; Widgets free or up to $2.99

- Developers recieve 70% of revenue for their products

- Licensed under Apple Mobile Software License

- Can download wirelessly from iTunes Wi-Fi Store or docked to computer from iTunes Store

- Demonstration of wirelessly downloading (and running) the app submitted earlier

- Apps and widgets can be rearranged on front screen; front screen scrolls to show all apps/widgets

- Resubmit updated versions of apps; when added to store, iPhone/Touch will ask you to update it next time you use it (or next time you dock the iPhone/Touch)

- Developers can get their hands on a beta version of the SDK tomorrow on ADC and start developing; final version due early February

- iTunes 7.6 and iPhone/iPod Touch Software update 1.3 allowing for Apps mid-February

Example apps/widgets

Apps:

- One of our partners made something cool: Last.fm (scrobble tracks played on iPhone/touch wirelessly without syncing w/ computer)

- RSS Feed Reader (coming with 1.3 update) (read feeds online or off)

- iChat (coming with 1.3 update) (AIM, Jabber/Google Talk)

- Quick demonstration

Widgets:

- Another partner: Twitter (update your Twitter on the fly, see your friends tweets)

- Sports Ticker (coming with 1.3 update) (choose your sports and teams, get updates on their progress)

- Yellow/White Book (coming with 1.3 update) (search for contacts, add them to your address book directly from the app, will sync back with address book on your Mac/PC)

- Dictionary (coming with 1.3 update) (quickly look up words, translate, use wikipedia)

- Quick demonstration

- Try these out on the show floor today

Mac

- Selling extremely well; estimated to overtake Tiger in terms of marketshare by June if you only count the new Macs that come with it preinstalled; even quicker if you include boxed copies

- Sales figures/market share

- Hardware sales figures/market share

- Sales are getting better and better every day

- Leopard released October; doing spectacularly

- 10.5.2 out today - many bug fixes, also addressing a lot of issues and complaints users had such as list view with stacks and certain HIG non-compliance issues

New MacBooks!

- What would MacWorld be without a new Mac? (sorry about last year)

- Completely redesigned MacBook

- Completely aluminum body like MacBook Pro

- 13″ screen at 1440×900

- Two colors: Black and Silver

- Looks gorgeous at 0.8″ thin

- A major feat of engineering - patents abound

- DVD drive pops open on side when eject button is pressed

- New on all notebooks and iMac: iSight HD (720p)

- New backlit keyboard based on recent Apple Keyboard revisions (keys slightly lighter than that of laptop casing, colorwise)

- New matching MagSafe cable (Aluminum ends, cord color matches that of keyboard)

- New matching Apple Remote (slightly smaller with larger overall buttons)

- Intel GMA X3100 graphics

- 3 models

- Completely phasing out the combo drive on all product lines today

- BTO models can upgrade all the way to 2.6GHz/4GB Memory/320GB hard drive

- 4.5 hours of battery life

- Starting at $1199

Product Refreshes

- Refreshing Mac Pro and Mac mini today

- Mac Pro now with Penryn!

- Base model 2×2.8GHz dual-core/1GB/NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB/250GB(1×250GB)/1×16x double-layer SuperDrive

- Upgradeable to 2×3.2GHz quad-core/16GB/NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB/4TB(4×1TB)/2×16x double-layer SuperDrives

- Starting at $2,499

- Mac mini gets slight speed bumps and double-layer SuperDrive in all models

- Base model 2.0GHz IC2D/1GB/100GB

- BTO Upgradeable to 2.4GHz IC2D/4GB/320GB

- Starting at $599

One More Thing

- Been brewing for a while

- YouTube's been in Apple TV and iPhone/iPod touch: now it's in iTunes

- Download YouTube videos straight to iTunes or from iPhone/iPod Touch for later offline viewing (sync back to computer)

- Coming in iTunes 7.6 and iPhone/iPod Touch 1.3 updates

When you look at the Braun products by Dieter Rams—many of them at New York's MoMA—and compare them to Ive's work at Apple, you can clearly see the similarities in their philosophies way beyond the sparse use of color, the selection of materials and how the products are shaped around the function with no artificial design, keeping the design "honest."

This passion for "simplicity" and "honest design" that is always declared by Ive whenever he's interviewed or appears in a promo video, is at the core of Dieter Rams' 10 principles for good design:

• Good design is innovative.
• Good design makes a product useful.
• Good design is aesthetic.
• Good design helps us to understand a product.
• Good design is unobtrusive.
• Good design is honest.
• Good design is durable.
• Good design is consequent to the last detail.
• Good design is concerned with the environment.
• Good design is as little design as possible.

Ive's inspiration on Rams' design principles goes beyond the philosophy and gets straight into a direct homage to real products created decades ago. Amazing pieces of industrial design that still today remain fresh, true classics that have survived the test of time.

The similarities between products from Braun and Apple are sometimes uncanny, others more subtle, but there's always a common root that provides the new Apple objects not only with a beautiful simplicity but also with a close familiarity.

Braun Atelier TV and latest iMac 24

Braun T1000 radio and PowerMac G5/Mac Pro

Detail of the radio perforated aluminum surface

Braun T3 pocket radio and Apple iPod

Braun L60 sound system and Apple iPod Hi-Fi

Braun LE1 speaker and Apple iMac

Some people will probably call these examples a "rip-off" but, in a world where industrial design and art is constantly being recycled into new work, I just see Apple's products as a great evolution to classic concepts. Now, as I look at Rams' work I can't help but to wonder: which of these old Braun designs will Apple revive next? Is there a MacBook Air—the rumored ultra-slim wire-free portable that seems to be the favorite bet for tomorrow's keynote—in there?

Hopefully, we'll discover at least some answers tomorrow. See you at Macworld! [Design Museum, Dieter Rams and O Globo Online]

What we know for sure
• Without naming any specifics, our unofficial conversations with people inside Apple points out at a 2008 full of new products. Not new versions, but actual new products. According to them, as their consumer segment gets stronger by the day, the company can take risks that before were unthinkable.

• The same sources says that, although Apple is going to keep spacing these releases through time, the overload of information for this keynote requires their marketing agenda to be extremely focused, even more than during previous events. Getting the Mac Pro and Xserve lines at the keynote was only going to add clutter, so a decision was made to present them earlier, also knowing that the pro segment is well informed and taken care of by Apple specialists through the world.

• Last keynote served to launch one of the biggest consumer-oriented bets in Apple history: the iPhone.

• Other sources inside Apple confirmed us that, after the introduction of the Intel architecture, the company's strategy was not to update the external design of their hardware for the time being. The idea was to complete the migration, keeping it as invisible as possible. So instead of introducing new designs as an element of disruption, they kept the looks steady to transmit the idea of continuity and stability to an existing user base wary of yet another major architectural change in the platform. Once the transition was solid, the company was going to start changing the looks of each of the product lines, one by one, starting with one of their core products: the iMac.

• Apple is closing deals with studios on movie rentals and pre-ripped iPod/Apple TV movies included on disc.

• This is the year when Apple goes completely green.

• Although this receives no publicity whatsoever and is often overlooked by the press, there's a way to know what kind of products may appear at keynotes: while Apple doesn't communicate what new products are going to be announced to their own marketing and sales forces through the US and the world, the mothership communicates what kind of clients may be interested in the products to both the sales and PR teams, especially overseas. That way, they can plan and invite the adequate clients and media outlets to these events.

What we can reasonably expect
That said and looking at the current product cycles, here's what we can expect almost for certain:

• Apple TV. While the Apple TV never lived to the company's hopes and later was downplayed as a hobby (more like a "let's test the waters and keep a feet in this market," as our sources point out), the fact is that movies and TV series are one of the cornerstones of iTunes' expansion plans.

Apple knows that a solid presence in the living room is a must to make this happen. This is why we will probably see a new Apple TV, worthy of being called the iPod of the living room. Perhaps not in its current form, but yes, an AV product.

• Apple Cinema Displays. Long overdued and surpassed by the competition at this point, the Apple Cinema Displays could be renewed in this Macworld. However, with new Mac Pro systems without any aesthetic change, don't expect a revolutionary change in terms of design. Most probably, it will be an evolution that will match the current professional desktop and in line with the looks of the latest iMac.

However, knowing Apple's obsession with green, their 2008 deadline and, why not, Steve's pal and board member Nobel friend, we think there's a very high probability of seeing state-of-the-art technology in the new displays, with LED backlighting.

• iPhone. It is going to be one year after the announcement of the iPhone. We logically expect time to be devoted to the product, perhaps with announcements to highlight the incoming public release of the iPhone third-party software SDKs. Expect no 3G yet, however: our sources inside Telefonica, the Spanish telecommunications giant, point out that 3G will come later in the year, coinciding with the spanish launch of the iPhone. The AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson pointed out that it will be out in 2008, but didn't say exactly when.

• MacBook Pro. Realistically, the MacBook Pro will probably be the Real Big Bang for next Tuesday morning. With the Intel transition over, and following the iMac revamp, the MacBook Pro has a very high probability of receiving a major facelift. One that will mirror the dramatic changes of the previous grand redesign of an Apple portable—which coincidentally matched a big architectural change—the PowerBook G4 Titanium.

While there are rumors about an specialized ultra-slim MacBook, some are pointing out at the lack of optical drive, the most logical step for Apple is to make all of its portable product line as thin, light and complete as they can. Instead of making a niche product, their best interest is to make all their laptops, which are their most popular computers, more attractive than those of the competition.

To do this, technologies like LED backlighting, solid state drives (in line with the flash drive memory news that have been reaching the public through 2007, positioning Apple as one of the biggest clients of various flash memory companies), new processors and tighter reduction of components will most probably make their way through all the product line.

One more thing
While the above could be perfectly real, there's always the dream factor, the "one more thing." A totally new product that will take everyone by surprise. Looking at the rumors, and as we discussed in the past, it may be some kind of magic tablet, so well made, cheap and practical that could overcome all the current limitations of the Tablet PC platform. It could also be an ACME Food Synthesizer or anything we can dream about.

Looking at the patents, the little news about component purchases and the rumors, these can be the possibilities:

• MacBook Ultra-slim. We have seen recently unearthed dock patents that may be connected to a MacBook Ultra-Slim, but like other Apple research work, it may never reach the market or do it at a much-later date. However, we are more inclined to expect a major thickness and weight reduction of all the MacBook and MacBook Pro product line (like happened with the PowerBook G4 Titanium) than a specialized sub-notebook with separate docking station. If that happened, the difference in size and weight need to be huge enough to justify a different product line. Looking at the market size, it may not be justifiable.

• MacBook Touch (Apple Tablet Mac.) Then there is the fabled Apple Tablet, recently revitalized by the Tablet PC's camp renewed activity and the roaring iPhone success. This MacBook Touch is a recurring rumor, but again, it's difficult to believe Apple is chasing this Holy Grail when there is not a clear market for it. We have no doubt that Apple has this kind of hardware working, especially after the experience of the iPhone. But also like the iPhone, which was originally a PDA before it was eliminated in favor of the iPod, the mass market that Apple is seeking may not be ready for it.

And then again, maybe Bill Gates knows something nobody knows when he points out a possibly imminent Apple version of their Tablet PC. With his connections, I won't be surprised. But on the other side, he may just be another looking for a validation of his Tablet PC passion by his biggest nemesis.

• Apple Cinema Displays. Out of gut feeling, I bet Brian $20 that there may be a larger Apple Cinema product for the living room.

However, beyond all these facts, analysis and predictions, at the end of the day the only thing we are sure about is that the announcements will be dense and big. Now, the only thing to discover is if the surprise factor will be as big as the density of the information that will be delivered in the keynote.

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We're very excited about these new products and we think our customers will be too, so we wanted to kick off 2008 by getting them into our customers' hands as soon as possible. They're both available starting today.

Yeah, I figured I'd get that answer. What does this mean for the Keynote? Are they getting the proc bumps out of the way just to make room for the sexy new designs and devices made from scratch? Only The Steve knows. And whatever the answer, one thing is clear. These releases are only the tip of the iceberg.

Right now, the only problem is that the video is saved in a raw format, without compression, you won't be able to pass it to your computer and your recording time will be very limited by the onboard iPhone memory. Fortunately, they are working on the compression and the faster capture now. "Updates in progress will convert the video to Motion JPEG, and we are working on increasing the frame rate" says Layton from Polar Bear Farm, "15 frames per second should realistic soon." They have tried with H.264 compression, but at this time"it's too unstable, and there is a lot of IO software missing, which makes it hard going."

Right now, you can record 5 second clips for free, but for anything longer it's a $10 donation for a license. I asked Layton about what they will we do if Apple introduces video in the next firmare release. "We'll move on to the next thing. We've got other software under development, and like our other publicly released application (Search), we expect Apple to release a firmware update which includes these features at some point."

If you are going to MacWorld 2008, you will be able to check these yourself: the company will be there showing their software all the way from New Zealand, with their own booth. [Polar Bear Farm]

According to the author of this fantasy, "the Keyboard Wireless Dock connects to the dock using Wireless USB. It also has a bigger hard drive, some sort of DVD player/burner, inputs for your USB and Firewire devices. The whole keyboard part itself is used as a large multitouch track pad. Since the keys need to be depressed when hit, you can do lighter touches as you move across the whole thing."

Hokai. It also probably dices potatoes, synthesizes Strawberry Daiquiris and teleports you to other planets full of wonderful civilizations with sculptural Monica-Belucci-style oiled amazons or George-Clooney-style oiled warriors (depending on your preference), that will name you their King or Queen. In other words, it doesn't make much sense.

The black Powerbook-Titanium-style is quite nice, though. The concept may be feasible too: I like the idea of having an on-the-go tablet with touch keyboard for surfing, video, music and photography using a touch-optimized iLife suite. But one thing is some people finding the idea attractive, and the other is people buying it: unfortunately, the market for this kind of device could be quite limited as other keyboard-less Tablet PCs have demonstrated in the past. Even if we assume that Apple's implementation may make a difference, as it did in the case of the key-less iPhone, the market will still be very limited. One thing is a device like the iPhone, for short SMS/mails, and a very different thing is this kind of device.

Furthermore, looking at Apple's recent history, the company is not one that likes to create new markets, but improve on ones that may have true mass-market potential (like the iPod in the music market, or the iPhone in the cellphone market.) That's why a ultra-slim laptop idea, not a tablet, with Flash storage at a cheap price point sounds like a more realistic (and equally as sexy) as this tablet. Down the line, such product may get a touch-screen. At this point, a device like the one pictured here still looks like a risky proposition.

The mini-dock concept, on the other hand, seems like a real possibility for the rumored ultra-slim MacBook. If Apple finally decided to release such a machine without an optical drive, the dock seems like a reasonable combo. At least, a more elegant and more practical solution than their iMac-dock patent (and quite cheaper.) With a real keyboard. Apple did this in the past too with the PowerBook Duo. It was a good machine at the time, but limited. Perhaps like with the case of the Newton and the iPhone, now is the right time to implement all these technologies at the right price.

We will have to wait and see if all these wishes get granted by the Wizard of Cupertino. In the meantime, we can all vote and see what a part of the market, the readers of Gizmodo, really want. [Flickr via MacRumors Forums]

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[There's] a smaller chance Apple may use a combo Blu-ray/HD DVD drive to ensure full compatibility and not get involved in the format wars.

Update: Crunchgear says the secret's out, and it's going to be integrated Redcode inside Final Cut Studio. This means there will be native Red support, editing that 4k video image at a lower resolution so you won't have to tax your box looking at 4k pixels whenever you're editing. [Crunchgear]