Are you getting one? Waiting for the multi-touch to come to the MacBook Pro? What the hell is Air?

I’m truly grateful to Microsoft for having a Blounge™ at Macworld. It saves me the headache of scrounging for an outlet and the seats are ultra cushy. But I feel like a caged animal on display. The jealous and annoying Macworld attendees stop and gawk and point fingers. What’s the big f*cking deal? These people need to get a life. In fact, some a-hole is peering over my shoulder and telling me to inform all of you that all the booths here just have iPod cases.

Some of the people in here aren’t even bloggers. They’re just some random weirdos that snuck in. The woman to the left, for instance, is not a blogger. Not that I really care, but the fact that people will sneak in here to get a some M$ branded M&M’s is mind boggling. They’re literally coming in here and taking handfuls at a time then leaving. WTF?! Are people that keen on free crap like Office for Mac coasters that they’re willing to throw a tantrum to get in here. I don’t understand it. Has society become that pathetic? Or am I just hungover and cranky?

If you’re looking for hardcore protection for your MB or MBP then take a gander at RhinoSkin’s latest offering. The aluminum case should catch the eye of road warriors or frequent flyers. Chances are your precious won’t get a ding or scratch when it’s encased in this beast that’s lined with neoprene. You always have access to your ports and when it’s all closed up you can still keep charging. It’s also ventilated on the bottom so as not to fry your MB/P. Pricing starts at $129 and goes up to $149.

Product Page

Star Wars + USB flash drives = Awesome.

Mimoco

I don’t usually get excited over laptop sleeves as they’re all pretty much the same, but Marware’s Sportfolio sleeve was too cool to pass up. What makes it so special? Something about the Orca skin makes it uber soft to the touch and smooth. I also liked the top loading version they had. They had a sweet little iPod Nano case dubbed the Sidewinder that has a little slide-out cord management thing. Yeah, it’s a thing to me, I don’t know what else to call it.

Sleeves start at $29 and go up to $39 while the Sidewinder retails for $25.

Crumpler makes great gear and their booth is always top notch. This year they’ve got some crazy theme that I don’t quite understand, but it’s certainly eye catching and the best of the bunch. For Macworld they’ve launched the Squirrel line and they’re bigger, better and more kickass then anything else out there.

There are five different models, which are named from smallest to largest in the first thumbnail. The larger bags have removable bumpers depending on what size laptop you have so your 15-inch isn’t swimming around where a 17-inch would be nice and cozy. Prices start at $40 and go up to a couple hundred. I’m toting around my CES bag right now and I regret not bringing my Crumpler gear. *sigh*

Crumpler

DLO, makers of so many rad iPod cases and docks we can’t keep track of them all, has outdone itself with its new HomeDock HD. While it’s tempting to say it’s just another iPod dock with video out, that would be incorrect.

The HomeDock HD doesn’t just feature HDMI and component out to work better with your HDTV, it also features upconverting technology, meaning it can take the video on your iPod and upscale it to 720p or 1080i. Now, most iPod video is less than standard definition, so that’s some serious interpolation on the part of the dock, and it’d be easy to dismiss as crap, but after having seen the dock in action, I must say it performed better than I thought.

It’s not true HD, that would be impossible, but it looks better on the HDTV in the demo booth than standard definition TV looks on my HDTV at home. Images were clear, and there was little tracing or movement artifacts, though they weren’t altogether absent.

Like most DLO items, this isn’t for everyone, and in fact it might leave many scratching their heads, but there will doubtlessly be someone who reads this who’ll want one as soon as they hit the market later this year.

Last night the nice people who are sponsoring Macworld’s Blounge, the Office for Mac group at Microsoft, took us bloggers out for drinks and eats, and then to a surprise show. I’m all about rock n’ roll, before I was a blogger I was part of the northwest indie scene, so I was reluctant to see Hootie or Nickelback or some other band Microsoft would consider “hip”. Thankfully MS gives the Mac unit quite a bit of leeway, and they booked one of the greatest bands ever for the launch of Office 2008 for Mac: Devo!

Did I take a few snapshots at the show? You know I did. A couple more after the jump, with video to come later today. Read More

Axiotron’s tablet was pretty impressive, but I wouldn’t buy one. It’s pretty hefty and cumbersome. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still cool and all, but not for me and $2,300 is an awful lot. Although, it’s cheaper than an Air.

Axiotron

“All thin notebooks have compromises,” says Mr. Mossberg and we have to agree. Clearly the Air isn’t for all of us, but folks with a huge, nasty IT-department Dell will think of this as a breath of fresh “air.” Ha! Willie!

The good people at Apple were wise enough to let me have a few moments with their new MacBook Air, and I fell in love. I took these revealing photos that point to a couple of things we hadn’t heard about, like the 2GB standard RAM is 2, 1GB sticks. And if you look closely, you can see some of my drool.

Our gallery software’s not working due to our crappy hotel Internet connection, so I’d recommend hitting up the rest of this post with broadband. Read More

I know, I know: dead horse, beaten. But we always love the things we can’t have — yet.

So just how well does the multitouch on the new MacBook Air work? Very. Take a look at me, a novice, whipping my way through several images on Preview. Now imagine if this was all of your downloaded porn. Now you want one, don’t you.

The above picture is Skullcandy’s crown jewel for Macworld. The FMJ headphones for the iPhone. Don’t worry BlackBerry Curve users because they’re compatible with your far superior smartphone, too. Heh. The FMJ’s are housed in aluminum with noise isolating ear buds with 11mm drivers doing all the thumping. They’re shiny and Skullcandy is pretty good at what they do so I wouldn’t worry about them being another set of janky iPhone-specific earbuds. They’re on sale for $80, but if you’re at Macworld you can pick up a pair for $40.

For more Skullcandy goodies keep on truckin’.
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I want to thank FastMac for hooking me up with an extra MacBook battery to use today since my other one crapped out during the keynote. This one is actually calibrated and I know my MB won’t go into sleep mode at the 30 minute mark. Thanks, FastMac. You saved my ass.

Announced today from FastMac is the iV iPhone external battery case. What does it do? It’s a mashup of case, extra battery and flashlight! The neat thing about this gadget is that it will still slide into an Apple dock with the case and it charges both the iPhone and extra battery. It adds 24 hours of talk time and 21 hours of video playback with 72 hours of audio playback and 720 hours of standby. Sweet, right? Of course it is. I know I use my phone to find my way around in the dark and now the iV makes it a bit easier with a built-in LED flashlight located in the rear. It retails for $79.95, but if you’re at Macworld then you pick one up for only $69.

Product Page

Well, the Stevenote’s over and we got a new laptop, a wireless hard drive, and an iPhone update. Oh yeah — iTunes movie rentals. Individually each of these announcements aren’t very exciting. The Air looks pretty cool but it doesn’t have a removable battery. The iPhone update upsets the true fanbois because it’s not unlockable even after hackers laid hands on pre-launch software. And everyone can do movie rentals, right? Heck, even Netflix can do that!

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Josh just pointed out his original post on the Air. This was back in June, people. Trust us. We’re professionals.

Back on June 20, I reported that there’d be new, slimmer MacBooks coming in October that along with being made from new materials would also feature some “speeds and feeds” updates to the internal components. Today, another “trusted source” told us this was correct and added that the iPhone’s multi-touch technology is theoretically supposed to roll out with all the new laptops, including those coming out in October. The feature will be built into the touchpads, allowing you to navigate through your notebook’s files, applications, etc. the same way you can on the iPhone. (Yes, I know you can already scroll with them, that’s nothing new. I’m talking about all the other finger gestures that can be done on the iPhone’s screen.)

There’s no reason to believe that Apple isn’t capable of adding this functionality and it would definitely be a sweet addition. Just having it for flipping though your iTunes Library and for zooming in on photos or docs or sites would be great. Here’s hoping this comes true.

Multi-Touch On MacBooks In October [CrunchGear]

First, let me just say that the Air is an extremely impressive piece of technology. The miniaturization, the optimization of space, the blatant disregard for current standards — it’s everything a revolutionary machine should be. Except it isn’t one. It’s a flight of Apple vanity that is completely impractical for anyone who needs to do more than the most basic functions with their computer. Find out why inside.
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If you’re like me, you might have felt that Jobsy glossed over the Remote Disc feature while talking about the new MacBook Air. “It’s like having a drive in your MacBook except there’s no drive! Boom! Time to move onto the next item. Boom! Bam!”

Whoa-ho-hold it. How does it actually work? The silver-tongued Matt Hickey was able to pry some more info out of one of Apple’s product managers.

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Kind and patient reader Jameson walked us through 1.1.3 in iChat. After three different attempts using different hardware, we finally got a good take. I’m going to go take a nap now.