Apple shows MacBook Air & improves Apple TV

James Delahunty
15 Jan 2008 23:09

At the MacWorld Expo, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs showed the thin and light MacBook Air to the attendees. Measuring just 0.8 inches thick and weighing 3 pounds as standard, the notebook packs impressive hardware under the hood for its size and weight. It is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache, clocked at 1.6GHz (1.8GHz optional). A 4200RPM PATA hard disk drive provides 80GB of storage space.
An optional 64GB solid state drive (SSD) is also available. As for memory, 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM is onboard. Graphics is powered by an Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory, driving the included 13.3" display, which has a Native Resolution of 1280x800. It simultaneously supports the native resolution on the built-in display and up to 1920x1200 on an external display.

By use of two included adapters, the MacBook Air supports DVI and VGA output. Two further optional adapters provide output for Composite and S-Video. For a WLAN, the notebook is IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible. A USB 2.0 port and an Audio out port is also included. Built-in to the notebook is an iSight camera. The included battery is advertised as being capable of operating for five hours on a charge.

In addition to offering the new MacBook Air, Apple also announced the availability of movie rentals and a new update for its Apple TV device, aimed at attracting more consumers. Apple TV was originally designed as a device that effectively links the iTunes software to your television of a home network. "It's not what people wanted. We learned what people wanted was ... movies, movies movies," Jobs said.

He announced a price drop for the Apple TV models of $70 each, bringing the costs to $299 for the 40GB model and $329 for the 160GB version. A software update for the first Apple TV models will be available soon. It adds support for iTunes new movie rental service, which rents out catalog titles at $2.99 and new releases for $3.99. For $1 extra, you can go Hi-Def. HD movie rentals are available in 720p. and over 100 HD titles are available at launch.

Apple TV users will also now be able to retrieve photos from a network computer or Flickr, and will be able to watch more than 50 million videos available from YouTube, according to Jobs.