Macworld: Steve Jobs Speaks and the World Goes Crazy!

I hate Apple, if Microsoft did half the things that Apple does, they would be sued for Anti-Trust. I despise the fawning fanboy press and Jobs’ arrogance. With that said, I’m real close to purchasing a new Macbook or iMac in the next few days. Not because I want to run Leopard, but because I want to run Windows on it. Even with my hatred, I’m big enough to admit that they are innovative and create some pretty amazing hardware – even if the software sucks. I bought into the hype last year and purchased a Macbook Pro and my experience from dealing with little weasely “know it all” store clerk to dealing with Apple’s many proprietary bs was horrible. I was nickel and dimed on everything from being forced to purchase Quicktime again – because my Windows account didn’t transfer. To purchasing a Mpeg compression codec because Apple only supports .Avi and quicktime. My experience was so awful that I sold my Macbook Pro 30 days later (the store refused to take it back – even though it was well within the return policy) at a $1,000 loss. But even still, I’m real tempted to get the MacBook and run Windows Vista. I just love the hardware, but despise the software.

I watched the Macworld Press Conference today and was completely under whelmed. Wow, you can now rent movies on iTunes. Big deal, I could do that on my X-Box 360 for the last year. Renting movies over the Internet is a fantastic idea, but until the studios get rid of their draconian DRM, it’ll never work. While they hype the fact that you have 30 days to watch your purchase, they neglect to mention the small print that once you start you only have a 24 LOUSY hr viewing window. I’ve been burned by the 360 download several times, so there’s no way I’m getting suckered into “renting” a digital download again. I’m the type of person who rarely watch home movies in a single sitting. I get distracted and come back to it a few days later.

The Macbook Air is an overpriced piece of junk. It looks beautiful, but really about the only thing you can do with it is write on it. I mean really, it only has a 1.6 or 1.8 Core Duo chipset, no firewire or ethernet ports (what do you do if you can’t go wireless?), no optical drive so you can’t watch DVDs on it. Again, I love the idea of it, especially considering my 17 Inch m9700 Alienware is like putting a 10 lb brick in your bag, but it’s too stripped down. Apple TV is pretty slick and something I may consider actually purchasing, but then I realized that I could get a Apple Doc for about $60 that connects my iPod to the TV and gets the same results at a 3rd of the price. But at $224, it is tempting, not for the rental program, but to be able to watch a ton of Internet video with minimal fuss.