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It's hard to believe that the Macworld keynote was only a mere 10 days ago. We now know all about the iPhone, a release date for the Apple TV, the 802.11n capabilities of the Core 2 Duo Macbooks, and we are only three weeks into the new year. If you have been living under a rock or on an island for the past three weeks, you might of missed out of some of the big announcements. Hell, if you have been on the internet constantly for the last three weeks you still might have missed some announcements. I have decided to put up some news summaries and a time line of the next few months for Apple users.

1. iPhone announced - It was the most popular story of all-time on Digg.com. During the Macworld keynote address, Steve Jobs revealed a cell-phone that could revolutionize the way we view cell-phones in the same way the iPod revolutionized the way we view MP3 players. The phone features a touch-screen, a video iPod, a full-fledged Safari web browser, and the ability to listen to any voice-mail without listening to previous voice-mails first. The phone will be released in June with a $499 price-tag for 4GB of flash memory as well as $599 for the 8GB model.

2. Apple TV to be released in February - You could also call this the forgotten announcement of Macworld 07. Steve Jobs announced that we will see the Apple TV ship in February. It is now available for pre-order at Apple.com. The Apple TV will feature a 40GB hard-drive to keep programming on the device. The device also has the ability to stream songs, TV shows, movies, and podcasts from up to 5 computers in any household. The Apple TV will retail for $299 and will see a release in February.

3. New build of Leopard seeded to developers - This isn't news that will catch the eye of a typical Mac user. OS 10.5, also known as Leopard, should see a ship date sometime this summer or late spring. No announcements from Apple on an exact date yet, however the new OS seems to be coming along nicely.

4. 802.11n has been already been shipping on new Macs. - 802.11n is a new WiFi standard that allows information to be transfered over a network faster. The speed boost means nothing if you only use your router for the internet. However, if you plan on transferring long video files to your Apple TV, it would be beneficial to have a faster transfer speed. This new technology solves this problem. Apple didn't tell users that any computer shipping with a Core 2 Duo processor can already handle this new technology. This nice bonus for recent Mac buyers will be enabled after the user pays a small $2 fee. The download to allow this feature should be available by the launch of the Apple TV.

5. Beatles available on the iTunes Music Store - Many critics gripe at Apple due to a lack of the Beatles on the iTunes Music Store. This problem seems to have been all but solved in the last two weeks. Beatles album art was shown at Macworld and several sources have claimed to have seen new iPod ads featuring more Beatle album art. Beatles fans can now rejoice and put out money for digital Beatle downloads.

6. The Super Bowl commercial. - It seems that Apple Inc. has bought a chunk of commercial time during the Super Bowl in which they will reveal a new product. The internet is running rampant with rumors of a touch-screen video iPod. The announcement of the Beatles on iTunes is much more likely.

7. Apple is not a monogamist. - The Macworld keynote brought up several interesting partnerships. Cingular and Apple reached agreements for exclusive rights to the iPhone as well as a couple other projects. Apple also announced partnerships with Google and Yahoo! to bring great features to the iPhone.

8. Paramount to add movies to iTunes. - Macworld also brought an announcement about movie content on the iTunes Music Store. Paramount will be adding movies to the store which should double the amount of videos currently available on the service. This will be great for when the Apple TV is launched and users are looking for new movies to watch. If only Apple would announce a subscription or rental service...

9. Office 2008 for the Mac. - Microsoft recently announced Office 2008 for the Mac which should see a launch later this year. Take that PC users who just got Office 2007. Microsoft loves us more. I'm just kidding, don't kill me! Anyways, Office 2008 should bring Mac users the features and functionality which PC users will enjoy with Office 2007. This announcement is important because it shows that the Mac user base is important to big developers like Microsoft.

Here is an abbreviated time-line. If you don't have time to read the whole post, which I guess you might have already done if you are reading this at the end of the post, check this out.


I hope you all enjoyed this little news summary/ time-line. As always, feel free to leave your opinions by sending me an e-mail at TeenageFanboy@gmail.com or by posting in the comments section. I also invite everyone to register for our message board to post opinions here.

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Well, it's over. The Macworld keynote has come and gone. The big news of the keynote was the iPhone. The iPhone announcement has become the top story of the year on Digg.com in less than 10 hours. The phone has gone way beyond anything I imagined it could be. The price point is high, however the device will replace your iPod and cell-phone while providing features that neither device is currently capable of. As great as this device sounds, this post is not about the iPhone. This post is about the Apple TV and how it will revolutionize home entertainment as we know it.

Apple announced yesterday that the Apple TV will be released sometime in February. It will ship with a retail price of $299. I won't spend much time talking about the specs of the machine. All the technical mumbo jumbo can be found here thanks to Engadget.

The Apple TV hasn't really received the best of receptions. Many critics have cited that the X-BOX 360 does the same exact things for the $100 more. The 360 is also a great gaming platform which offers HD movie downloads.

The Apple TV is still a much better alternative for iPod or Macintosh users. The Apple TV is basically Front Row for a television. If you haven't used Front Row, it is a media center which uses nearly the same user interface as the iPod. Anyone who has used the interface understands that it is wonderfully intuitive. Music, videos, pictures, and podcasts are all perfectly arranged into categories.

I understand that the X-Box 360 might have a similar feature set. However, Apple announced a little something many people might of forgotten after they heard about the iPhone. I will quote this announcement from Engadget.

"There was an article recently stating that iTunes sales have slowed dramatically; I don't know what data they're looking at..." (Shows chart with insane upward slope.) "We are selling over 5 million songs a day now. That's 58 songs every second... the last time we talked we were the fifth largest music retailer in the US. We have now passed Amazon; we sell more music than Amazon and we are now #4."

Apple's big weapon is the iTunes Music Store. Many people might still pirate through torrents or P2P, but Apple has proven that there is a market for legal music downloads. Apple has shown with these statistics that people will pay for music. Plain out, people will spend money in an online music store. Apple is now the 4th largest music retailer in the US. Apple has proven that people will pay for digital content. Apple has greatly increased the amount of movies available on the store thanks to a recent agreement with Paramount. Apple needs to find a way to bring more television programs to the service while lowering the prices through some sort of subscription program.

The Apple TV might not win over X-Box 360 owners or those with HD capable TiVos. Apple will be able to win over users who have purchased large quantities of content from their online store. Apple might also be able to win over a large portion of young users. The young generation has shown that it would prefer one service at lower prices over multiple services. Land line phones have become a thing of the past among the twenty-something group of users who only own cell-phones. These users can now download and buy the single shows they watch weekly instead of giving anywhere from $50 to $90 a month into the hand of a cable company. This deal is sweetened by the fact that this content can be taken anywhere on an iPod they already own.

Digital distribution is a thing of the future. Apple has created a device that will connect an online store and the television better than any other product available. The product will revolutuonize how we look at entertainment when it launches next month.