MacBook Air -- I was in love with it when it was announced. but a number of things dissuaded me from immediately purchasing one (i was tempted!)
- no cell-modem support. need this for traveling to work everyday.
- battery is not replaceable. this sucks for airplane trips.
- hard drive is 4200 rpms. this means it is slow, which kills performance.
- no ethernet port. useful!
- usb dongles. do i really need 15 things hanging off my macbook?
Apple also announced the MacBook Air case -- the world's thinnest laptop case. I have to say that this blog post is the funniest thing I've seen about the MacBook Air.
Time Capsule -- Can I bury it and have it backup my Mac wirelessly? Then dig it up 30 years later and realize that I wasted a lot of money 30 years ago. Steve reinvented iSCSI. All we wanted to do was use an iSCSI device to back up our MacBooks. But no, you had to brand some lame item. Oh, and Steve-o, AirPort Express has USB ports for hard drives -- why can't I use those? This is exactly why I hate Apple.
iPhone -- Yay, I can finally determine my location (within 2 miles) using Google Maps. (note sarcasm) Where is my file browser? Where is my ability to store the Caltrain schedule and view it without an internet connection? Who cares about multiple SMS and rearranging my icons? Grr!
The best part of the iPhone update is a feature not documented on any blog. Somehow they missed it. Apple changed from using the POP interface of Gmail to instead using the IMAP interface. The IMAP interface means your iPhone is always in direct sync with your Gmail account, which is tremendously useful.
iTunes movie rentals and Apple TV v2 -- This feature has so many flaws it isn't even funny. Only 24 hours to watch the movie (but 3 months to start watching, weird). HD versions are only available for Apple TV, not when downloading with iTunes to your PC. Oh, and did I mention that Netflix is letting you download movies for free and watch them whenever you want? Oh, and Netflix has 6,000 items now; iTunes will have 1,000 items by the end of February. Apple, just give up, seriously. This is a silly feature that I'll never use.
I thought MacWorld would top CES, but it seems like both have let me down this year.