At approximately 6am local time, while I was happily sleeping, Steve Jobs decided it’d be a great time to kick off his annual Macworld keynote. Last years keynote was okay (hint: iPhone) but I didn’t think it was all that much to get excited about. I’d like to share my thoughts on this years announced products.

Macbook Air - This is obviously the largest product announced this year. At first I didn’t like the idea of an Apple ultra portable but I think the Air is a nice product with a lot of potential. I don’t immediately like the curves that Apple has been all about lately with most of their products, but I guess my opinion will change once I see it in person (I felt the same way about the 2nd gen Nanos). While I find that it’s a nice first attempt, I find that the cons outweigh the pros on this one, for me anyway. Personally I find the price too high and the storage offered a little on the small side. I feel that it’d make a great laptop for students, or those who travel a lot. I think the Air will sell well despite the geeks not being all that into it.

Time Capsule - This is one of the announced products that I will be having a serious look at. I have been looking to get an Apple Airport Extreme to go along with my currently hypothetical Macbook Pro. Having a 802.11n wireless router with 4-gigabit Ethernet ports, a built in 1TB drive for backups and wireless hard disk/printer sharing in one box? Sounds perfect. My only concern is that I would like to mirror the internal backup drive “just in case” something happened to it. At the moment I have no backup procedure (I would like to think that Spinrite would save my ass if something happened to them ).

iPod touch applications - This really doesn’t effect me much as I own an iPhone which already had all of these applications preloaded. I feel that it’s an awesome addition to any iPod touch even if its $27.

iTunes movie rentals and the Apple TV (take 2) - I didn’t take much notice of these, as we’re yet to even get iTunes TV shows in New Zealand. Hell, we barely have the iTunes music store. Either way I think that the HD movies was a great move, however I wonder how large these files are and what they look like when played back on an HD set. As you may have noticed, I recently fell in love with HD after playing my Xbox 360 in 1080p glory. I felt Apple did the Apple TV upgrade right as to offer the update to all current ATV owners, much like Microsoft did with the Zune.

In all, I felt that this keynote was a little bit lacking, but I’m sure we’ll see more delicious Appley goodness later in 2008.