January 22, 2008Apple's thinnovationBy Byron Lawson | Northside High School  Byron Lawson is a senior at Northside High School. Apple once again amazed the public while at the same time raising the bar even higher for its competitors. On Jan. 15, during the keynote event at Apple’s annual MacWorld conference, four new pieces were shown: Time Capsule, iTunes movie rentals, Apple TV Take Two and the product that stole the show, the MacBook Air. First unveiled was Apple’s alternative for wireless backup, Time Capsule. Built for the new Mac OS X Leopard, users can now back up their Macs and PCs without wires. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said MacBook and MacBook Pro owners had been inconvenienced when backing up data to an external drive because the laptop had to be tethered to the drive. The issue has now been averted with Time Capsule, which serves as both an Apple Extreme Wi-Fi base station and a built-in local hard drive. With the new wireless standard, 802.11n, backing up data is blazing fast and simple. With this product, users can back up every Mac or PC in the house with the 500-gigabyte and 1-terabyte hard drives. Time Capsule will be available for retail soon at $299 for the 500-gigabyte model and $499 for the 1-terabyte model. Another product unveiled was iTunes Movie Rentals. Rather than wasting effort and gas (which, at roughly $3 a gallon these days, is no laughing matter) you can simply click a button and your movie of choice will immediately begin downloading. You can begin watching the movie as soon as you purchase it, even while it downloads in the background. The pricing is also competitive. It is $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases. Movie rentals last up to 30 days after the purchase date. For 24 hours after the rental has been played, you can watch the rental as many times as you wish. Following this announcement, Jobs showed vast changes in how the Apple TV will work, referring to it as the company’s “take two” with the product. Owners will be able to purchase and rent movies directly on Apple TV without the need for a computer or iTunes. Since the product is geared more toward high definition, Apple revealed it will release movies in high definition for only a dollar more than the standard version ($3.99 for library titles, $4.99 for new releases). Purchases made through the Apple TV will swiftly sync to your Mac or PC. However, rentals will not. The Apple TV retails for $229 for the 40-gigabyte model, and $329 for the 160-gigabyte model. Last and best of all was Apple’s biggest announcement of the expo: the incredibly thin MacBook Air. Touted as the world’s thinnest laptop, the MacBook Air wowed critics, weighing in at only 3 pounds. Jobs presented the glossy, 13.3-inch laptop in a standard interoffice envelope to emphasize its small size. The MacBook comes with a 1.6-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (with a 1.8-gigahertz option) and 2-gigabytes standard for RAM, which unlike other Macs, can’t be upgraded. Apple also surprised the audience with a (nonreplaceable) battery life of five hours with Wi-Fi. The batteries in other laptops of that size allow for only two to three hours of use. What it’s lacking is an optical drive (which reads CDs and DVDs). It was excluded because of the compact size. But instead of watching a DVD on a laptop, you can rent a movie on iTunes and trade CDs for an iPod. Also, you can use the Time Capsule for back ups instead of using DVDs. From 0.16 to 0.76 inches thick, the new laptop has a full-size backlit keyboard, built-in iSight webcam, and a new large track pad which mimics features of multi-touch. The MacBook Air will retail for $1,799 for a 1.6-gigahertz processor with a 80-gigabyte standard hard drive and $3,098 for a 1.8-gigahertz with a faster 64-gigabyte solid-state hard drive. November 1, 2007Touching the future -- a review of the iPod touchBy Byron Lawson | Northside High School A review of the new iPod touch (16 gigabyte) When Apple Inc. held the press event Sept. 12, I was as excited as any other tech geek because I knew history was about to be made. But when the iPod classic, the full-size iPod model, was unveiled, my heart sank. Before the press event, I, among many others, theorized Apple was announcing the release the iPod touch, an iPhone without the phone function. When Apple finished the new specs on the iPod classic, my worst fears had indeed come true; they won’t be doing the iPod touch after all, I thought. Instead, they’re just sticking to the old style, at least for now. Then something happened. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs continued, “But, we’re not done yet ... far from it.” Looking back, of course, I should have at least been half-expecting this. Continue reading "Touching the future -- a review of the iPod touch" » September 18, 2007Apple refreshes the entire iPod lineBy Byron Lawson | Northside High School So it’s that time again. And once again, Apple has amazed us with its new, fancy (and expensive) iPods. During a special Sept. 5 press event, Apple refreshed the entire iPod line. They also introduced yet another phenomenal device that even rivals the iPhone itself. To start, the iPod Shuffle -- referred to by some as the runner’s aid -- was lightly updated, despite a refreshed selection of colors that seem more washed-out than previous models. The iPod shuffle still retails for $79 for the same 1GB model. The iPod Nano, Apple’s most successful iPod to date, was completely redesigned. Referred to as the "stubby-pod" by a few editors, the new Nano has shrunk in height and expanded in width while still maintaining the impossible slenderness the Nano line is known for. Along with the redesign, Apple has added video playback capabilities, followed by the tagline: “A little video for everyone.” With the seemingly-small storage capacity, it would only seem justifiable for music videos rather than full-length movies and TV shows. The new Nano retails at $149 for the 4GB model, and $199 for the 8GB model. The original, full-size iPod -- which Apple has touted as being a commonly-overused description of the main iPod of their product line -- has been renamed the iPod Classic. The only real update to the iPod Classic is that the storage capacity has been vastly improved to 80GB and 160GB (previously 30GB and 60GB). The iPod Classic retails at $249 for the 80GB model, and $349 for the 160GB model. With the Nano finally being able to play video, the only real difference between it and the full-sized iPod is the storage capacity. Both the iPod Nano and iPod Classic were updated via their interface. Rather than the full screen text lines we’re all accustomed to, Apple sought a new way to navigate the menus by splitting the screen in half. Now, when you blast through the menus in search of a song, you’re treated to a quick preview of album art on the right half of the screen, while reading the information on the left. Despite fears that the new interface will make the screen more difficult to read, reviewers say it doesn’t feel any worse, if not a lot better. Among other interface updates for both the iPod Nano and Classic, Apple has now added CoverFlow as an option to search through your music library. With this option, you’re enticed with all of your albums represented by the album art, and can easily look through them using the innovative scroll wheel we have come to know and love. Now for the new product we’ve been anticipating since January, when the iPhone was announced: the iPod Touch. Somewhat identical to the iPhone -- down to the single physical home button -- the iPod Touch is even thinner, at just 8mm over iPhone’s 11.6mm. If you know anything about the iPhone, you know it primarily for its gorgeous, 3.5-inch multi-touch screen and its incredibly simplified interface. Wi-Fi is also built into the iPod Touch for its web-browsing capabilities using Apple’s accredited Safari browser, as is YouTube and the all-new iTunes Wi-Fi Store. The iTunes Wi-Fi Store allows users to purchase and download songs via a wireless Internet connection. Despite being modeled after the iPhone, the iPod Touch does lack certain core features of its touch screen sibling.Of course, one main difference is the lack of a phone feature, as well as phone-related features such as SMS (Short Message Service) text messaging. Several of iPhone’s applications -- such as Google Maps, e-mail, weather and even the stocks application -- could have been included on the Touch, via its Wi-Fi antenna. Also missing is the built-in 2.0 mega-pixel camera. The iPod Touch retails for $299 for the 8GB model and $399 for the 16GB model. It will be available Sept. 28th. Just when it seemed the announcements were over, Apple had yet more news to roll out. The iPhone was blessed with a major price drop just months after its June release. The 8GB model, previously $599, dropped to $399. Following the price drop was the announcement to discontinue the 4GB model, which sold for $499. Though most believe this was a key element to increase sales for the holidays, early adopters of the phone were left in the dust with their disappointment over losing roughly $200. However, a few days after the announcement, Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to early buyers on Apple's web site. The letter explained technology always decreases in price as time passes, but what shocked many readers was Jobs' offer to give early phone buyers $100 in store credit to Apple 's retail and online stores. Stay tuned for my review of the 16GB model of the new iPod Touch in early October. Byron Lawson is a senior at Northside High School. |
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