Jobs wows the faithful; Wall Street is underwhelmed

Nice concept and I certainly like the marketing of Apple. However, for just over $2k I’d rather have a 2.5lb Panasonic toughbook that is truely a business machine that offers bluetooth and a touchscreen.

AppleZombies, have faith in yourselves and not in somebody who is trying to sell you something. Believe not in the drug companies, the HMOs, the car companies or the banks eager to pour high interest rate cash down your throat. And enjoy your Apple Toys until the battery fails. PC’s? Not so great. Macs, IPODS, IPHONES, ITUNES? A hair better but still plastic planned obsolence.

First of all, I would like to point out that yes, those who are new to Apple, or aren’t infatuated with its beyond amazing products, won’t exactly considering the things unveiled yesterday ‘must-haves’, but Apple Inc. has a very loyal following of customers. They are basically all Apple. I for one, refuse to buy another phone until the next iPhone is released, and I will not be caught using a anything but a Mac. I love Apple with an undying passion, and that will never change.

Concerning the Keynote, I loved every minute of it. Including the somewhat boring segment with Randy Newman. Every year-everyday I mean-Apple blows my mind. They truly do lead the world in innovation, they’re unbeatable. Despite the critic’s disappointments, I’m not at all disappointed! I’m beyond happy to have seen what I saw yesterday. I only use iTunes, and nothing else, therefore I’m excited that I can rent movies now! The Apple TV re-do is very exciting too! I can’t wait to get my hands on that new software. And like Mr. Jobs-my hero-said, ‘…we still have 50 weeks to go!’ That, is a long time…and I am beyond confident that Apple won’t stop now, 2008 won’t only begin or end with a bang, it will explode with excitement all year.

Josh;)

I thought this was a pretty good keynote. I read the highlights and then watched the whole address. The Macbook Air is exactly the kind of computer I’ve been wanting to get my wife. And Apple addressed the problems I had with the AppleTV. I am finishing my home theatre in two weeks and it looks like I have to run one more HDMI cable for my Apple movies.

If anything, the keynote was a letdown because of all the speculation. People took their shots at guessing the next product, and that took the suspense out of it. The same thing has been ruining the Oscars lately. Stop trying to guess what’s next and just enjoy the ride.

As for Steve not dropping the “One more thing…” line: It’s been done to death and it needed to go. It created a format that constricted his address and forced him into set-ups that no one could deliver on thanks to people’s speculations. From here on out, we won’t be sitting on the edge of our seat waiting for the line. We can just enjoy the news.

Lastly, Apple fanboys are that way for a reason. They have experienced great products and great service. Of course they are going to trumpet the company. Those of you who want to put down Apple for doing things differently, well, you can keep doing things the same old way, (RJ45/Windows/optical drives/etc.) and you’re going to be left behind. Fortunately, the companies that you have put all your stock in, are the same companies that are going to be picking up Apple’s ideas and calling them their own in two years, so you’ll catch up eventually.

I like Apple and have owned Macs for almost 20 years. But why build a laptop, or anything else with a sealed battery? Just where is the common sense in that? As for rushing out to buy the latest item, I have never and will not do that. It isn’t the smart thing to do. These “must haves” are baloney. They’re more like “I wanna haves”. My G4 is doing just fine; maybe later this year I’ll but a new iMac.
These new products may be for consumers, but they can very easily be used in business. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that.

So what if some of the Apple offerings are already made by other companies and out on other phones. It means NOTHING if nobody knows about it. It is not just innovation, it is also marketing. If Nokia has such and such for 2 years and Motorola has such and such for 4 years and Apple can still make a play off of those “old” features that goes to show just what failure Nokia and Motorola are.

The stock always drops on the day of an Apple announcement, due to daytrading.

The MacBook Air isn’t just for “kids”…this is a serious business machine. Today my company had a meeting to discuss purchasing 20 of them as business machines. They’re perfect for business: thin, lightweight, totally wireless, perfect traveling, running MS Office and making PowerPoint Presentations.

For those people who complain about the lack of ethernet and an optical drive? Okay, either get the external add-ons, or buy one of the other MacBook models that has the features you want. But if you want super thin and light, the MB Air is the best thing on the market.

Having dealt with Apple on many occasions and having had my iPod replaced for battery issues, I can tell you that Apple does not pry open iPods or iPhones to change batteries or to service them. When I took my iPod in, I was told that this is company policy. Instead, because I was out of the warranty period, they charged me $70 and replaced my iPod with a new one of the same make/model. If it had been in warranty, they would’ve done this for free. Perhaps the friend mentioned in the post below went through a third party for service. Sometimes they claim that Apple is doing the repairs when they don’t actually. I’m not saying they can use this same model for replacing batteries in the Air, but this is the way they handle it with iPods and iPhones.

“Wows the faithful”????
I think Apple has forgotten who its faithful is. The entire world isn’t Cupertino and we aren’t all craving our next latte double grande from Starbucks. The MacBook pro hasn’t been updated since last June and god knows when the Mac Mini last saw a real update other than a simple speed boost. Not even a price cut on anything…it’s ridiculous. This was the worst Macworld ever. This is one fan that is not happy with Apple at all. Unless the iPhone SDK gets its own conference next month, the next time we may see anything is April at NAB. Apple really let a lot of people down.

Apple will replace the battery for free! with the purchase of the battery at $129. Because no prying is involved (unlike the old iPods) just a simple screw removal, damage is almost impossible, especially since the entire computer is made of aluminum and glass. The upshot is that the Apple store will do it within 10 min. (or a sendaway while they give u a loaner with ur data on it!) The 5 hour wifi battery life is amazing. I only get <2.5 on my macbook. With such a high standard config already at basically the same price as a pro, i can see developers and business people buying the air instead of the pro, which is much heavier. The no optical drive was a good move. ( I’ve never used my useless SuperDrive) and the cheap external is so small and looks amazing, not to mention Remote Disc.

RJ45 isn’t going away, but the Macbook Air isn’t designed to replace it. It’s designed to supplement it. This is the laptop you buy for when you’re on the road and can’t use your desktop. It amazes me that so many geeks call it under powered. It’s got TWO fast processors! No, the Core 2 Duo at 1.6 or 1.8 GHz is not the fastest one available, but so what? What road warrior is going to notice? It’s still overkill for more than 99% of users.

Comparing this Mac to the Macbook Pro misses the point. If you need a Macbook Pro, the Air is not designed to pull you away from that computer.

Oh, and to Shan in Philisburg: business users don’t need nearly as much power as “kids” do. Business is repetitive, dull, and it demands very little of a laptop. The Air, Macbook, and Macbook Pro can all easily handle business uses.

Nothing in the show seems really interesting for an average user like me. Ipod look-alikes are killing it off and they think a thinner laptop that you have to add a tone of gear to make it useful will save them? With the economy stumbling, Apple, you definitely need a reality check in the market if you think people will continue to put out money for your outrageously high prices for a cooler looking laptop.

How can you people be dumb. The mac book air isn’t for poweruser or high end device to use for different tasks that we use on mac book pro. The mac book air will be used for simplify use. This laptop is perfect for my wife who can carry around in the house without hard port. The laptop will be primary use for internet use like youtube, create videos, website, etc. It is not for heavy use graphics or something that we usually do on mac book pro. As previous comments did mention, the history repeat itself. If you can remember in past, “No floppy, how can Apple be that stupid,” but then everyone start realized that floppy is history. Now, the mac book air is designed for wireless connection. Now, they complain that it has no hard port. If you complain about it, then go buy mac book pro! Sheesh!

A lot of iPod Touch consumers are disappointed because of the fact that Apple is charging the early adopters $20 for applications that should have been included with the iPod Touch in the first place (Mail, Notes, Weather, Stocks, Google Maps). The iPhone and Apple TV received FREE upgrades yet the iPod Touch users have not.

Early adopters have been played yet again by Apple (cause Mr. Steve Jobs announced that every iPod touch leaving the factory from the 15th will come pre-installed with those applications).

The discussion boards of Apple as well as many other tech news sites were flooded with upset users of the iPod Touch.

Apple is at least a year ahead of its competition. Obviously the iPhone made a huge impact because less that a year later AT&T’s biggest competition, Verizon, scrambled to make a similar product. The MacBook Air is revolutionary and as someone said before all the other companies are franticly searching for a rival product. Now all Apple has to do is start creating T.V.s and they will completely dominate the technological industry. Way to push forward Apple instead of waiting for your competition to do so.

To: lo, Minneapolis, MN
It is a big deal when a company updates their products too quickly. when you cant use a piece of hardware because you dont have the latest OS.. it forces you to buy or upgrade yoru system. It’s how Microsoft and Apple stay in business. for example: You cant buy an ipod and plug it into an ibook. It wont work.

Buy the rumor, sell the news. It’s a classic case.

The MacBook Air will go the way of the cube. I need a computer to run my computer? Really? With no firewire, and no card slot, no ethernet, and only one USB port, it’s more of an internet appliance, and an expensive one at that.

The real news is the iTunes movie rentals. It re-invigorates Apple TV. It gives an alternative to PPV movies over cable (my cable system still doesn’t work right). I’d pay the $4.99 for a HD movie rental. But $3.99 is really the sweet spot, and expect to see HD movies at that price by the end of the year.

Here’s the hidden problem. Jobs showed a :30 second lag before starting a standard definition movie order starts playing. Perfectly acceptable. In HD, however, I’ve heard some say you’ll have to download the movie overnight (the file size is exponentially larger). That won’t do in the “I want it now” atmosphere of today’s consumers. For the record, the HD movie he showed in the keynote had already been downloaded. “Here’s a movie I’ve already started watching…” is how Jobs put it. That’s not going to fly with Blu-Ray rentals hitting your corner video shop. But I’ll probably buy an Apple TV anyway.

I love Apple. I don’t yet own an iPhone (not enough storage, no push technology, no 3G), but would have considered buying if it was revamped. I’m typing on a MacBook Pro right now, and own only Macs at home. But the keynote was too weak. Better to introduce the new towers in the speech, killing Randy Numann and put the MacBook Air as the …one more thing.

Amusing to read the comments from PC fanboys who always have something negative to say about Apple. Freud had a term for it, the PG-rated version is, ‘peepee envy’.

PC fanboys can’t stand that Macs are so freakin’ great that Apple users LOVE their computers. When’s the last time anyone gushed about their Wintel PC (which surely stands for ‘piece of crap’)??? I don’t have to worry about viruses, blue screens of death, or which version of Vista to not buy and other insanities inflicted on PC sheep by Microsuck.

As for the commenter who derided Apple as producing products only for ‘the kids’, I’ll take that as a compliment. It’s the kids who will tell you where the future lies in computing. God forbid Apple should ever start making products which cater to the sensibilities of 40 year olds (and I’m 42!!!).

Uh??? Fans are not ‘raving’. The general sentiment on Apple forums are negative. But then, this is CNN, where you get news based on appearance, rather than reality.

It’s not just about replacing the battery, it’s about having enough juice for as long as you need it. If I’m in an 8 hour meeting, a day of classes or a 10 hour flight, a five hour fixed battery doesn’t cut it.

It means I’ll either have to find a place to plug in or carry an external battery - which, since Apple has its own proprietary power connector, is actually fairly hard to do.

I also love the classic “If Apple has decided we don’t need it - we don’t” mindset. Well, *I* need ethernet because at work we’re not permitted to have a wireless network. Lots of places are like that.

Maybe in the distant future, wireless will that ubiquitous and the internet will be free and fast.

And that’s when I’ll consider a MacBook Air.

The darn thing is not upgradable or maintainable in any way. Want a larger hard drive? Too bad. Want more RAM? too bad. Battery died? Too bad.

The MacBook Air has a very high brick potential.

Interesting, Apple jumps ahead of the curve once again.
Why do Macbooks do so well, simlicity and size - they’ll do everything you need and do it well. It’s the main reason people buy into Apple hardware.

the Air extends on that principle. I can rarely think of times when I use more than one USB port anyway - and I use cameras, external hard drives, regularly!

It also shows an interesting point about Blu-ray also. He can’t completely get away from the fact that a DVD drive is needed sometimes (hence the Remote Drive option), but he’s basically saying the Gates said: Blu-ray and HD-DVD will be the last of the physical formats - it’ll be all digital from then on. Jobs is just realising what a lot of people want now, downloadable movies, music, etc.

Start selling OS X on a USB drive? I’ll take that…..

No xMac, no sale.

(The xMac would be basically an iMac with a PCIe slot for good video cards, and without the screen. Sort of like an Apple minitower PC. This is the bread and butter of the computer market, and the large gaping hole in Apple’s lineup)

And not having the fix for existing Airport Extreme AirDisks out when you launch a new version of the product with the AirDisk built-in (the Time Capsule) is also pretty darned lame.

Get it together Apple!!

Wow… so many haters. All you rabid PC people are like republicans. I’ll bet you even still buy American cars. It’s like global warming all over again. You don’t want to admit what’s happening. It’s a sea-change man! The average consumer is waking from his nightmare of slow, undependable, poorly designed Window’s based PCs. Apple will ALWAYS survive on “must have” products. They are of the highest technological, design, and construction quality. When was the last time anything Window’s based was “must have”? Yeah, a lot of it does have to do with hype. But hype, combined with the actually delivery of real, tangible, quality tech goods is a killer combination. Just look at Mac’s market share for “personal computers” (and here I always thought that PC stood for “piece of crap”), it’s up to 8%, from the 2-3% it was just a year or so ago. You PC people will scoff at that, I’m sure. “What’s 8% compare to 92%”? It’s the sign of the times man. People want technology that enriches their lives, that expresses the beauty, the simplicity, and the power of technology. So let Mr. Businessman try to rock out on his Zune as he flies coach into the future of tech… oh wait, he can’t find the driver for it. Bummer man

I can see the Air being good for students and other people that have to haul their computer around a lot. I have a Powerbook G4 and in a shoulder bag that thing can start to hurt pretty quick.

I’ve had the G4 for 4 years and never had to replace the battery. Most people upgrade computers more often than every 4 years, so I doubt the lack of removable battery will plague most buyers. It’s small and thin at the expense of other features, which will be fine for people who really want a light weight machine and don’t usually use an optical drive while on the move. I doubt it will sell great but I see it as a “bridge” product. You can bet they’ll be integrating the Air’s tech into the rest of their laptop line soon.

The iphone is “not appropriate for business use?” You obviously have never seen one in action. All the Blackberry users in my office are jealous of me because of my iphone.

You must be that guy on the left of the screen in those Apple commercials.

“I love how people complain that apple upgrades their products too soon as if someone is forcing them to buy more and more new things.”

Lo,
Have you never had applications that no longer support the older technology you cling to? If not, good for you, but rest of world gets on with using the most appropriate and functional tools possible.

Elmer-DeWitt didn’t listen to everything Jobs said. No eithernet cause the “MacBook Air: is just that, both light and wireless (airwaves?). The idea is that its cutting edge, most places today, and more in the future will be wireless (Philly for instance will be city wide wireless soon). Report the issues correctly, and everyone needs to learn the new technologies - do we use chorded phones at home anymore?

WOW all PC people I see? Microsoft forever, well all the bashing on Mr Jobs and the keynote and the new/old products….My basic peanut gallery comment I use apple simply cause IT WORKS BETTER, no argument and I have have used both platforms for years and simply in the multimedia biz, PC cant hold a candle to the performance and piece of mind! UP THE Apples!

Some of you people are so childish.

Osinga: Have your friend return to an Apple store and they will fix the problem with his iPod. This is NOT a widespread problem.

Shan: I’m a business user, and the Air would serve my extensive business purposes just fine. I’m not a kid. You probably still miss the floppy disks (5 1/4″) and want RS232 ports as well. Fairly reactionary response to a non-threatening newer idea. Security is what you make it–but obviously you’re a Windows user and that’s a major concern in your normal use of a computer.

DTST Toronto: The iPod Touch came with a well-known and obvious feature set. Since when do new features have to be added for free. Free-tard.

Dan Boston: I still have the original batteries on my MacBook (5 years), cell phone (5 years), iPod (3 years). What kind of crap do you do to your devices? And if you bothered to do any reading, you would know that GPS can drain a cell phone battery in a couple of hours–so that’s really useful. iPhone sales: what part of 20% market share is not clear to you, in just five months?

MeMe Iowa: Go buy a CAPS key for your keyboard, and learn to use punctuation. “Real GPS” = rapid battery drain. Microsoft DID NOT introduce the Ultra portable–in Japan for several years.

NY: Serious jealousy issues, apparently. Yeah, Apple’s success is because editors don’t have the guts to stand up to them. Uh huh. Go finish your algebra homework.

Great, just what a need more viruses.
PC is a safer machine.

The Mac Air is cool but will not be a must have of 2008. In its purest form its a laptop and laptops are never a must have, especially ones that cost $3K. The biggest news of this show was the movie rental announcements. That has the potential to disrupt the entire business and change the way most of rent our movies. Netflix sees this and has already moved in that direction. If Apple is to make gains this year it will be because of Apple TV and the movie deals not the Macbook Air which will have plenty of cheaper competition in 6 months.

Let’s just pretend for a moment that he world was run by pessimists… where would we be? Certainly not talking about a personal computer weighing less than 3lbs.

Innovation is always accompanied by failure in some measure- but bravo to those who try regardless.

Apple is more about fashion than technological achievement in my honest opinion. I have had a phone with a larger screen, higher resolution, the ability to browse the internet, check mail, connect to my server, etc. for years; talking to Apple folks it’s as if the iPhone was the first of it’s kind. It was the first of it’s kind to look and feel the way it does, but there’s nothing inside it that didn’t exist before.

Apple makes the masses feel as though they’re at the cutting edge when, in reality, they’re just buying into Apple like teens buy into Abercrombie and Fitch. A torn pair of jeans for $90.00.

I’ve been a software developer and computer engineer for nearly a decade now and I’m simply unimpressed with the technological accomplishments of this company in the last few years.

After Oz left there was nothing to this company but a cheesy salesman in a turtle-neck.

Send in my computer so the battery can be replaced? You have GOT to be kidding!

This has nothing to do with “must have” those who buy “must haves” are idiotic shiny object people. First with the Air, Apple is adding an important missing piece in its laptop line, every other manufacturer offers a subnotebook and it is a decent marketshare item. No it is certainly not for everyone (no not a must have morons) although it displays many tremendous new technology advancements that most people just don’t understand but will be using soon. The ipod has succeeded even with its “questionable” battery scenario, wanna bet that all the naysayers will be eating crow? Second, the software updates for the iPhone are tremendous and free. If you must call it a must have then there it is. Stil the leader in the field and leaving the Android in the dust, RIM you’re next. Third there are other products like the wireless backup device that will save thousands of peoples’ skins who can’t get the importance and mechanics of data backup, and the TV thing might actually have some value?!? and more too, your myopia is astounding. Third screw the ipod owners, what a fluff item, if they can afford an ipod they can afford the twenty bucks. Fourth and most important about the tone of the article, Wall Street is nothing but a big slot machine that the collective American public is umbillically attached to, it has no basis in reality and is just a money machine. If it didn’t feel so much like 1929 it would be funny but its not.

To the guy who explained how Apple will replace the battery in your Ipod, Iphone or in the new Macbook Air for a small fee I want to mention that the condition of your device is often not the same when it is returned to you.
The casing of the Ipod and the Iphone are not easily removed. There are screwdriver-like tools that are used to pry the back off of the units. These tools can easily bend and scratch the metal and when that happens, Apple doesn’t even apologize for it.
I have a friend who sent his Ipod in to get the battery replaced and now the backing is so bent from where they pried it off, it won’t even slide easily into the case he carries it in.
Is this what you want done to your 3000 dollar laptop?

Keyword here is kids. None of these devices are appropriate for a business user. Obviously Apple is targetting a kid-centric market.

RJ45 going away in 3 years? You got to be kidding me. It is years away before wireless can catch up to wired speed. Not to mentioned the security pain that comes with wireless access.

“cant last forever on must have producst” .. ? Seems lie the perfect way to survive. Not only are they must have producst, they’ve been must haves consistantly for at least 10 years.

They deliver on new tech faster and more consistantly then almost anyone does. Even when they dont have an exclusive on new tech they put things out with so much style that people opt for their version instead.

Sure I can cobble together a network hard drive to do most of that stuff, but some rich guy isnt going to want to display it in his NY studio as peole do with apple products.

..and all this from someone that doesnt even own one of their computers or phones. Wall street is just used to expecting too much and getting it too. As with the Imac they’ll learn soon enough after the sales continue to grow.

I love how people complain that apple upgrades their products too soon as if someone is forcing them to buy more and more new things.

what about how apple wants all existing iPod touch users to pay $20 just to get the fuctionality they should have got to begin with. Way to slap your early adopters in the face.

I remember when the iMac was introduced that had no floppy and only USB. Everyone complained and said Apple was nuts. Got to have a “printer.” Try to buy a serial printer today. My kids dont know what a floppy is and the idea of needing to be wired to the internet seems so last decade. In 3 years the rest of the industry will catch up and produce a laptop without an RJ-45 but by then every Mac will be portless with UWB. Oh, and I have only replaced one laptop battery ever.

The 64GB SSD option is only $999. Jobs did say it was expensive. (It is $300 more for the faster processor.) While the online store features the base model and the fully loaded model on the product page, after selecting one, you can configure the processor and storage options independently.

A laptop with a non-replaceable battery? Are you kidding? Just buy a new one in a year or two when the battery dies. Gotta love the Apple fanboys, if only for their blind loyalty to whatever crap Jobs deigns to sell them. Those iPhone applications are pretty spiffy….for 2005. My Motorola Q9h with WM6 has GPS that works with Google Maps right out of the box. No need to wait 6 months for Jobs to start coming out with applications. And it has 3G voice and data, real Bluetooth, voice dialing(!), and hundreds of apps ready to go. And I can replace the battery any time I need to. Wake up folks - the economy is slowing and the consumer is tapped out. Apple is due for some mean reversion with no must-have products on the horizon. Don’t hold out hope that there are 10 million people waiting for the 3G iPhone. 4 million iPhones? Stop gloating and add up all of the Windows Mobile and Symbian devices sold and come back to reality.

This is the most un-impressive roll of technology that some of it is out there already. let look at the four things he showed. First a wireless hard drive with wireless router as if this something new, people start making SD wi-fi cards already, and by the way I can just connect my external hard drive to my wireless router and that will do the trick. Second, iphone have maps with locations (get a real GPS, which already there on some phones). SMS to multiple people this made me really laugh my 4 years old nokia do that, still iphone can not do video my 2 years old phone do that !!!, and some other application people already have on ipod touch and iphone with jail break. Third, apple TV and video rental that is ok, but let hope luck for not only for apple but all online renting outlets and let hope the internet can withstand these bandwidth hogs, also it seem the apple Tv is not doing that well and the price cut is a must. last the macbook air is ok not that wow the idea of Ultra portable computers was introduced 3 years ago by Bill Gates but Microsoft is not a hardware company, and the hardware companies may seen this as not really some worth investing in simple not allot of people will buy it and I will buy a dell XPS 13.3 and not this one and do not tell me it do not run OS X because I do not care both will get me to the internet and run Microsoft office and I do have a macbook and it is perfect as a thin and light notebook and I do not need to carry allot of accessories with me!!. and the thing that made also laugh how showing that borrowing DVD or connecting devices over wireless connection as something new, they better do some research before they claim that. Simply the 2008 macworld is not impressive as the 2007 with the iphone and 2006 with the intel chips.

The street is all wise. It knows that Apple can’t last forever on “must have products”, that offer little substance, power and real-life productive application. Apple right now, is America’s Pokemon, nothing more and nothing less. The stock will dip more during the week because these products are not enough to grow Apple.

Wall Street is reactive, and most of the time they don’t know what the next big thing is any more than my mother. For two years now Apple has pointed the way towards the future with technology interaction. The Air product is a bold step. And that is what makes Apple different. They are not waiting for the next big thing to happen, they are moving toward it, with an amazing engineering team and drive to make products that will only grow in their importance.
The iPhone, no matter what Al Balmer(sp?) and the ‘old school’ Wall Street folks might think, changed everything. And Apple TV seems to have got things right this time. Bypass the cable companies, their horrible interfaces, there dumb on-demand policies and rising fees. (Comcast just raised the price of on-demand movies, at a time of ever more ways for me to watch movies, this seems idiotic).
Look for Microsoft to announce ‘me-to’ technologies in the next few days and to point out that they sell more computers (to large businesses where the computers are used for nothing special and the people go home to hobby, work and play increasingly on a Mac).
I look for the stock to tick up at least $15.00 in the next three weeks, even considering the markets current fears. Yes, spending will be cut back, but that means people will make harder choices, so you better have products that are a cut above the rest.
-M
http://mfearing.wordpress.com/

Nice to see you back in a reporting role, Phil. Good job. Just one comment on Job’s performance: he may not have uncorked a huge surprise for the acolytes at Mosconi but I did think he unveiled a big economic winner with the Apple TV and the new link with Hollywood. Wall Street surely undervalued the deal’s importance.

ex ped: Thanks Fred. Watch how Wall St. reacts next week, when Apple reports the results of its Christmas quarter.

I am disappointed the notebook does not include any built in cellular broadband card or even a PCI-express port to put one in. I will have to stick to my Sony which does accept my Verizon card.

3098 for a laptop is a bit pricey. So is 4.99 for a HD movie with 5.1 sound (3.99 for stereo sound.. who has a stereo home theater systems anyway).

Oh yeah, the update button. nvm

It’s hard to top the iPhone, but that laptop is pretty freaking cool and will leave the competition once again scrambling to follow suit.

The whole market is freaking out right now, but Apple is delivering and people are buying. Investors are a little scared right now, but Apple keeps doing what it does.

The Mac Air sees other computer’s optical drives and uses them? How freaky is that. Even PC’s.

How do you replace the battery on the MacBook? (It turns out that, as with the iPhone and iPod, you can’t — it’s sealed into the gadget.) Where’s the Ethernet plug? (There isn’t one.)

If you are like me you have Apple protection and I take it to the Apple Store and they replace it. Free if it’s still under Apple Care and they will charge you a small fee + the Battery cost if you don’t. No big deal and they are pretty quick too considering you made an appointment online before hand.

There was no new 16 GB iPhone

Too early. Even if they had one people would be demanding their money back from buying the 8 gig iPhone earlier. Been there done that.

I am waiting for the iPhone update when I sync and nothing yet. :(

This gave way too much credit to apple. Seriously, anyone coming out of Apple has got to be positive right? Can they do no wrong? Does any editor have the guts to stand up and thumb down at this whole thing? I guess not, they don’t want to be uninvited to the hottest show in town next year.