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Some quick thoughts and reactions to the MacWorld 2008 Keynote.

My first reaction is that I guess I am a little underwhelmed.

I am guessing that when I see the MacBook Air for the first time in person that it will be love at first sight, but I’ve got a MacBook Pro and I love that and there is no way that I could justify purchasing another laptop. I do wonder how well it would run World of Warcraft though.

On AppleTV, if it had a Blue-ray DVD player built in, I might consider it. If it had the Blue-ray plus some DVR functionality, then I would definitely buy it and happily pay twice what they are asking. We just got a beautiful new HDTV during Christmas and as predicted it has become a little bit of a puppy - meaning that you can’t just get an HDTV, you need to get food and shots and a bunch of other things with it. (We’ve basically redone our entire living room including new furniture since Christmas because of the television - pictures later.) If I weren’t thinking about a new car later in the month, given what AppleTV “Take 2″ is still missing, I probably would head out today to buy a PS3 for the Blue-ray DVD player and a Tivo Series 3 HD-DVR for the DVR functionality.

(Note: I do very understand that including both of these features are opposed to the iTunes model and are extremely unlikely to happen in the next or the next beyond that AppleTV, but if Apple wanted to dominate the living room like they do with portable media players, then this is the table stakes. Ideally, AppleTV should simplify my living room without forcing me to abandon my current investment in DVDs or my Tivo lifetime subscription. I don’t think I am quite ready to make that leap yet, but given the opportunity, I’d love to replace 3 devices with one that also allows me to leverage at least some of my previous investment in physical media and doesn’t completely lock me into a PPV model).

On the iPhone update, well, I’ve been actively clicking the iTunes check for update button since the update was announced during the keynote and just about 1 minute ago, the update to my phone was completed. The updates are all seem pretty nice (I haven’t played with them yet), but none of them totally knock my socks off. What I wanted most of all was for my To Do’s and Notes to sync to the phone. Unfortunately, I guess I am still going to have to wait for that.I think the huge news about the iPhone is that it appears that the SDK is still on track for (late) February. I am really looking forward to when this happens.

Other than that, I was hoping for an OS update. I know it is coming and can wait a little bit, but it would have been nice to have it today Also, I had hoped (even though I didn’t believe it would happen) for a next generation Newton. That would have been something for which I would have gone and stood in line.

I realize that being underwhelmed is simply because I have such high expectations for Apple (so carry on Apple..). I have little doubt that they will be knocking my socks off again sometime soon. It just wasn’t today.

Ok…well, now all of the software updates are available, so I need to reboot (and play)!