Of course, it’s past 3 a.m. — the perfect time of night for blog cherry-popping. Finding myself unemployed and running at less than maximum productivity, I’ve hit up the Internet and decided to give this blogging thing another shot. For the next few weeks, at least, I should have an abundance of time to expound on an overabundance of ideas, theories, opinions, etc. To what end, I’m not sure, but at this juncture in my quarter-life I could benefit from the sanity of writing things down to avoid mental cloudiness, at the very least.
So let’s see here, what’s going on in the world …
Tomorrow (i.e., later this morning) is the start of MacWorld San Francisco, and the big speculation right now is ultra-thin MacBooks, a streaming movie rental service, and/or an updated iPhone. Also there’s a rumor about “MacBook Air” — the ability of a MacBook to hook up with AT&T’s wireless coverage much like a cell phone can, providing a huge advantage over Wi-fi hotspotting.
An ultra-thin MacBook with flash memory, no optical drive, touchscreen functionality, and cellular-network connectivity (as rumored) would definitely be a game changer in the increasingly competitive laptop arena. No other manufacturer has yet dared to attempt any such options, and as usual it looks like Steve Jobs is being preemptive — leading the market instead of waiting for the market to lead him. For instance, I wonder how well people will deal with a computer that won’t accept DVDs without an external add-on. It may seem absurd, but then again I do remember Apple being one of the first to eliminate floppy drives and me thinking, Wow, risky risky. Nowadays no one even remembers them floppies — didn’t they have a capacity of 1.44 MB or something? Good God, how did we survive the ’90s?
Not so hot on the streaming rentals. I should probably read up on it more, but on the surface it doesn’t sound like the pay-per-film, 24-hour window model will be a big hit. Plus Netflix pulled a little publicity stunt a few days ago and announced unlimited use of its Watch Instantly feature. Who knows, I could be wrong, but until the Internet can deliver high-quality movies that can be seen on people’s 50-inch HD sets, I don’t see the movie-streaming business taking off.
As for the iPhone, here’s to hoping for 3G access to the Internet. Or if not that, at least a memory boost. I’ve heard of nothing else but great quality-of-life improvements due to iPhone ownership from friends, but I personally felt the 8 GB maximum was a disappointment for an all-in-one media and communications device. Come on Steve, I know you can do it. You probably have a custom-made 200 GB big-daddy iPhone yourself but for some reason are gonna hold out on us for another year or two. Just give it to us now dammit! Oh and please, no more of this AT&T exclusive business. Some of us don’t really care for Mama Bell.
Ah, I’m glad I got all that off my chest with 6 or so hours to spare. We’ll see what tricks our friend has got up his sleeve, and it’s likely that reality will bring some disappointment. Which is why I guess, it’s more fun to speculate and pontificate on what could have been.
Speaking of which, I’m glad the “what-could-have-been” conversation has been delayed with respect to the Chargers, Version ‘07-08. This time one year ago, it was too depressing to think about. Now we as a whole city just pray to God that Philip Rivers will be game on Sunday. Sprained right knee? You could psych yourself out of it Phil! It’s the playoffs!
New England, you’re on. Despite the 176% of experts who are predicting something like an 82-10 blowout, I see a team that is beatable. Seems people are smitten with Brady’s perfect outing against the Jags but have forgotten the near-misses against the Colts, Eagles, and Ravens. Come on Bolts, we can do this!!!
