Updated 21 May, 2012, 5:50 pm IST

MacWorld 2008: Apple Macbook Air Steals the Show!

16 Jan, 2008, 4:34 am IST | by Abhimanyu Radhakrishnan |

The new Macbook Air – 'the world's thinnest notebook' – was clearly the highlight of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote at MacWorld 2008 which has just kicked off in San Francisco. We're not covering it from location at Tech2.com but here's a quick summary of the major announcements from the keynote:

Macbook Air – a super thin laptop with an 80GB hard drive or a 64 GB SSD but no inbuilt CD/DVD drive.
Time Capsule – a 1 Terabyte hard disk which also doubles up as a Wi-Fi base station and allows Mac users to wirelessly backup all their data.
Free software update for the iPhone – version 1.1.3
Paid software upgrade for the iPod Touch, which includes new apps like Maps, Mail, Weather, Stocks etc.
iTunes movie rentals, including HD movies.
New software and lower price for Apple TV.
Free digital copies of purchases of 20th Century Fox DVDs.

The first two in the list above should be available in India in about a month if recent Mac launches' time-to-India are anything to go by. We suspect though, that US demand for the Macbook Air will delay its availability in Asia and therefore India for longer than four weeks.

The iPhone software update will take a while to be cracked so Indians using hacked iPhones will not be able to take advantage of the update immediately. However, once it IS cracked, the much desired "SMS to multiple contacts" feature will be a welcome relief.

The fact that existing iPod Touch users will have to pay ($20 if you have an iTunes account, which itself is not possible with an Indian credit card!) for the software update is a major downer! If the iPhone update is free, why charge for iTouch? New iPod Touches though will come with the new software, so we advise you not to buy the iPod Touch in India till the new ones have hit the shelves in a few weeks.

The iTunes store is not officially accessible in India and neither is Apple TV so the last three don't really matter to Indian readers of Tech2.com but I'm sure many of our tech-savvy international readers are scoffing at the last item. Nearly everyone who legally purchases DVDs has figured out how to create digital copies of their own stuff, but then again, the movie and music industries seem to be in denial. We're surprised that Disney didn't sign up on this as well, since Steve Jobs is the company's largest shareholder.

There's some excellent coverage of MacWorld 2008 at Engadget and Gizmodo for those of you who want all the dirty details!