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

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.

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.

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’.

This be Skullcandy’s latest iPod/iPhone dock and it just rolled off the line into the hands of Skullcandy so we’re sans specs at the moment. Looks pretty cool and it’s tiny.

Here’s another pair of earbuds, but these are made of wood.

Here’s the Double Agent. It eliminates all wires and MP3 player. It accepts SD cards, which is wicked hot and controls are on the right cup.

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

But this is Apple. They are a media darling. The Apple TV might have sucked in 2007 but Take 2, the new software, looks like it might be the behemoth that knocks out everyone from Blockbuster to Vudu. Here’s why.

Apple knows iPods. They’ve sold millions of them, iTunes is everywhere, and people know — generally — how to get movies onto their iPods. Some of them know better than others, but most DivX downloads are going straight into MPEG4 and onto iTunes for later consumption.

So now this new $229 Apple TV is waiting in the Apple store. Whereas before the Apple TV seemed like a glorified USB drive, now it offers interactive features including movie downloads and rentals. It’s got HD content, a fat hard drive, and quick streaming. It’s waiting patiently for iPod fans who might want to watch Ratatouille on their HD TV without buying an HD disc player.

In short, this is the beginning of the end for disc formats. Apple didn’t invent the MP3 space that took down the record labels. It made it accessible to everyone and dumped very sexy hardware on the world. The Apple TV has a nice interface, it plays well with iTunes, and it costs about the same as competing devices. Blu-Ray/HD DVD are dead, long live downloads.

As for the MacBook Air, laptops have been pretty ugly for a few years now. Lenovo dropped a few nice notebooks but anyone who is still getting their laptops from IT knows that laptops, on the whole, are ugly and big. The Air is pretty and light.

Again, these are not breakthroughs, they are refinements. Sony and the rest did ultralights years ago — Apple made them drool-worthy. Netflix and TiVo and Amazon all serve up video, but Apple made it as easy as plugging in some cables. Don’t believe me? Watch the space under your cable box for an HD DVD player or Blu Ray. When it doesn’t arrive by next Christmas — “Meh, I never got around to buying one” — then we’ll talk about next steps and, for many people, that next step will be Apple TV.

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]

Let’s start with the obvious: no optical drive. I don’t think I need to list the many things that are available in spinning disc format exclusively, and the idea that you should pack around an extra drive (however compact) or piggyback on someone else’s kind of defeats the purpose of having an “ultraportable” notebook. I don’t use my drive that much, but in fact it’s indispensable even when I have enough USB drives to fill all my pockets.

Next, the processor. It’s fantastic that they’ve managed to micro-size the Core2 Duo, but for any kind of serious work — video and audio editing, watching HD video, playing games or emulating Vista for work — even my MacBook Pro is barely pulling it, and it’s got the Air under its thumb processor-wise. Not to mention that RAM is totally un-expandable; serious Photoshoppers will spend a lot of time waiting while they use that nifty multi-touch to zoom into their 400MB uncompressed PSDs.

And the inputs. One USB, one Franken-DVI. Hope you like plugging and unplugging things! It says it’s built for the wireless world – yeah, okay, but that world is make-believe right now. Sure, you could bring a hub along, but this goes along with the earlier complaint: what’s the point of a mega-portable laptop if you have to bring along a whole support team? It’s like a ditzy model-actress’s entourage: you just want to take the girl out, but she has to have her make-up guy, her photographer, her PA, and she’s totally incapable of doing anything on her own.

And lastly, let’s be honest: did we really need things to get that much thinner? My MBP is a great size, not too heavy, and it’s thin enough that there’s quite a lot of leftover room in the laptop compartment of my bag. The Air is whisper-thin but it does still weigh three pounds and its not like you can fold it up and put it in your pocket. What is losing that last half an inch doing aside from attracting stares?

There’s no doubt in my mind that a lot of people will buy this laptop, but its capabilities are really more in line with the Eee PC than a MacBook, and the Eee costs thousands less and actually is ultraportable. The price point is so far removed from this machine’s potential that it makes the iPhone look like a bargain. I’m glad Apple is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with current PC tech, but right now this computer looks like a bit of a lemon. A sexy lemon, though.

Edit: Apparently I’ve stirred up the hive, so I guess I need to address this one point more clearly. (I already did in a comment but who reads ‘em?)

The MacBook Air is not a subnotebook. The Eee and Everex, and Redfly are subnotebooks. They are tiny, basic, and are designed from the ground up to be micro-sized and limited. The Air is trying to be a regular notebook but failing – what Apple has done is take a regular notebook and flatten it (very well I might add), while simultaneously crippling it. Everything about it is a compromise except the width, and even the width doesn’t make it small; a real subnotebook is more than thin, it’s small in the other ways too. It may be thin, but with a 13.3-in. screen it’s not going in any cargo pockets. Look, it’s a sexy little thing but at that price it’s an atrocity and it is not a subnotebook or ultraportable. Sorry, but size, price, and hardware put it in budget laptop territory, and it’s simply not competitive there except in sex appeel. (Sexy lemon — get it)

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.

Apple’s site says that “Remote Disc lets you wirelessly use or ‘borrow’ the optical drive of a Mac or PC in the vicinity.” I assumed this meant over a network but I got hung up on the word “vicinity” and thought for a second that it might have something to do with Bluetooth. It doesn’t. It indeed works over your wireless network.

Okay great. So it works just like a regular drive, right? I’m just borrowing it. I ain’t tryin’ to hurt nobody, no how. I can put a DVD in my regular computer, plop down in the living room, and watch the movie on my MacBook, right? No, you can’t. It needs to be fully transferred first.

What about games? Can I play a game that needs to access the CD or DVD for copyright purposes and/or to load new levels as the game progresses? Again, no. It doesn’t work like that. You’d have to dump the entire disc onto your hard drive and then use some sort of disc drive emulator — not an overly easy proposition for most folks.

It basically works as a file transfer device. You can install software over a network but after that, you’d better not need to access the disc for anything else. If you do, you’ll have to buy the add-on DVD SuperDrive for $99.

MacBook Air – Wireless [Apple.com]

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.