What Will Help New Mac Owners in the Macworld '08 Apple Announcements

Well, the Apple Christmas that Macworld has become has come and gone, and now it's time to check under the loose wrapping paper to see if Santa Steve has left anything for new and potential Mac owners. Their were a handful of new and revised product introductions so let's go through them and see if they matter to us.

MacBook Air
As cool as this Mac seems to be, I don't foresee it being any one's first Mac. It really seems better suited as a companion computer. It just doesn't have the features for a do-it-all computer. However, as the Mac that leaves the office or home and hits the road, it's got the sexiness that will turn heads and impress your peeps. We do like that the MacBook Air can use your PC optical drive, not just another Mac's. That will help a few switchers.

iTunes Movie Rentals
This is another great step in making iTunes the media center of your life. Personally, I prefer to rent movies and own music, so this is a step in the right direction. But it's not much of a feature for a new Mac buyer since it will also be available on iTunes for Windows.

AppleTV Update
This seems like the item it should have been the first time around. However, it's not really a must-have accessory for the new Mac buyer except in that it's a great way to show off your new skills in the iLife programs. Show your movies and pictures that you have on your Mac full screen for the family. Of course, you could do this before on the first version.

iPhone and iPod Touch Upgrades
These are nice-to-haves, but not game changing in any sense. Wait until these get updated for third party developers next month and we'll see them soar. Expect to see them reach further into your Mac and even control it.

Time Capsule
NOW this is what I'm talking about! A new product that takes a complicated process and reduces in the Apple manner to something anyone can do. It's particularly aimed at new Mac buyers because they are less likely to already have a large external hard drive or wireless-n router. Time Capsule combines these to make backing up your Macs even more easy than just using Time Machine. And the price isn't bad. It's actually a deal compared to purchasing separately.

What we would like to have seen
It would be great to have some new or upgraded Macs geared to switchers. A mid-range Mac Pro type Mac that a switcher can keep using their nice display with would be great. As would a laptop with a 3-figure price tag.

Competitive displays from Apple are really needed. The existing line is behind the times and the price points are too high. The rest of the world has caught up and passed Apple here.

A .Mac service that blows away all the other web 2.0 services. Apple should be ashamed of the quality of .Mac. It's as if Steve hasn't used it in 3 or 4 years.

The next upgrade to Leopard that shakes out the remaining bugs.

More cool apps that take complex things and makes them simple. How about a brain-dead migration assistant for switchers? Or a network manager that can work with PCs on the same networks sharing resources like printers, scanners and the like. There really wasn't any software mentioned other than iTunes.

Of course Apple won't be standing still until the next Macworld, so we will continue to look forward to these things making their way to market. Leave some cookies out for Santa.


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