applelogo1[1] I was watching the Steve Jobs Apple event yesterday afternoon, but had to go to work too soon afterward to put down my thoughts at the time. It didn’t seem terribly urgent since there wasn’t a whole lot relevant to e-books anyway.

It was interesting to note that they said the Mac accounted for 33% of their revenue over the past year. What this means, taken another way, is that iPods, iPhones, and iPads—products that didn’t even exist ten years ago—made up just over 2/3 of their revenue. That’s twice as much as Macs, formerly their core product line. But even then, a hypothetical business that made nothing but Macs would have been ranked at #110 on the Fortune 500 just based on the revenues.

Perhaps the most notable thing is that the “Back to the Mac” theme involved Apple taking some of the interface refinements they had made for the iPhone and iPad and bringing them, well, “back to the Mac”. This means that OS X 10.7 (“Lion”) is getting a number of refinements, such as a multitouch trackpad and an icon launching screen, that originated on the iPhone.

What a crazy world we live in, where the latest version of Windows steals Apple’s Launcher functionality, then the next OS X has a launcher screen that bears a lot of resemblance to Windows’s desktop shortcuts (even if it is actually adapting the iPad interface).

But Mac users won’t have to wait until next year, when Lion comes out, to get something new. Within 90 days, Apple will be opening an “App store” for the Mac desktop. It will feature the same instant downloading capability that the stores for the iPhone and iPad have, and the same 70/30 revenue split to app sellers.

Of course, I can hear the cries of the paranoid from here, warning that Apple’s next step will surely be to lock down the architecture and prevent people from installing anything except apps from their app store. But I doubt Apple would try that, because current Mac users wouldn’t stand for it. It’s one thing to introduce a platform that’s been closed from the beginning, but quite another to take away abilities that users currently take for granted. Steve Jobs isn’t stupid.

The improvements to the iLife suite were interesting. Not surprising that they would focus on improving the video editing capabilities, given that everyone with an iPhone 4 or iPod Touch 4 now has an HD video camera in his pocket. It’s funny to compare the fancy capabilities of iLife’s video editing component to the AVID MediaSuite Pro nonlinear video editor I used when I was getting a Mass Media degree back in the ‘90s (on a Mac whose hard drives had an amazing 5 gigabytes of storage—who’d ever need that much space for anything except video editing?).

You can do a hell of a lot more with iLife than you could with that old AVID—and the selfsame AVID was what many TV shows of the day were using. Professional or near-professional quality media production has never been within the reach of so many people. To my mind, it nicely complements the way that anyone can create and publish his own e-book. (And if “enhanced e-books” take off, the two might even be combined!)

And of course, FaceTime is now available for the Mac. (When is it coming to the PC, though?)

And the “one more thing” this time turned out to be the new super slim-line Macbook Air, in 11.6” and 13.3” sizes. These are subnotebook computers built with iPad technology, with solid-state memory directly on the motherboard for instant-on capability and crazy-good (for a laptop) battery life.

For all Jobs’s pooh-poohing of netbooks, he’s made a pair of computers that are in the same size and weight range, with the same lack of removable media drives—albeit nowhere near the same price range.

They start at $999 for a 64-gig 11” model, and go up from there. Probably pretty reasonable for a Mac, but significantly overpriced compared to the $300-$500 netbooks that are the closest competitor in terms of overall functionality. But as any Mac partisan will tell you, you get what you pay for.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Every time Jobs & Co. launch products and software I am always left with the feeling that these guys really think about things far better than anyone else, Jobs is a modern day management genius and really makes great decisions and design. They are really operating in a different league.
    I was intrigued by the decision not to go touch screen but their reasons made total sense despite the predictions of all of the techy guru nerds. I was always sceptical of these predictions since a few years when I used a laptop with touchscreen (pen driven) for a few months. My arm ached all the time. I hated it after thinking it was cool to start.
    I also watched the launch of the Windows7 Mobile phone. The biggest emotion I felt was how unbelievably ugly the UI was. I mean it really is UGLY. That’s not to say it won’t do well. It takes all kinds in this world. But for me I would never use something that visually challenged. Even Android is a Mona Lisa in comparison.

  2. This move seems to be a nod towards the consumer that loves their laptop ardently and would never move to an iPad. Updating both devices covers a larger portion of the market, but also displays the ‘we care about mas users’ banner. Despite the conglomerate’s flaws, at least they aren’t leaving their core customers in the dark in favor of the ‘new’.

  3. In fairness, you can’t REALLY compare the Air to netbooks in the price range you quoted. Apple still has no low end product to compete with Netbooks, because they choose not to.

    Air: Dedicated nVidia GPU Netbook: on-board GPU
    Air: SSD Netbook: Hard Drive
    Air: 5 to 7.5 hours battery life Netbook: Less, although some have extra (heavier) batteries available).
    Air: Higher resolution screen than most cheap Netbooks.
    Air: iLife, Mac OS X. Netbooks: Windows 7 – but not usually Premium or Ultimate and no movie / photo editing premium suite
    Air: unibody all metal solid construction. Netbook: plastic

    There is a market for netbooks. But the air doesn’t play in the same neighborhood.

    PS: Count me in. I have the ORIGINAL MacBook Pro Unibody, so about 2 years old. Time for an upgrade!

  4. I wonder if the niche for netbooks is now being obliterated by the two pronged attack of the iPad and the new Air. A Netbook (one of which my son has) is not rally a full laptop or main computer, while the new Air comes might close 🙂

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