Opinion: Genuine Apple fan seeks exciting Apple Keynote

I was hoping to write a glowing report of Steve Jobs’ Macworld 2008 keynote presentation yesterday, but (even as an ardent Apple fan) I have found myself disappointed.

Granted, it was always going to be difficult for Apple to eclipse last year’s iPhone announcement, but I felt myself wanting more.

Maybe I’m getting too old, but I find myself desiring function much more than form. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that the product announcement I was most impressed with was the Time Capsule. That’s pretty sad in itself, because it amounts to not much more than an upgraded Airport Extreme with a large hard drive in it, and existing software built in to OS X Leopard.

Macworld 2008: Apple launches Time Capsule wireless backup system

apple_time_capsule.jpgSteve Jobs today announced a new hardware and software combo designed to make backing up multiple Macs over a wireless network as painless as possible.

The Time Capsule hardware is a revamped 802.11n Wi-Fi base station (Airport Extreme) with a built in server grade hard drive with either 500GB or 1TB capacity.

Introduced by Jobs as a much more convenient way of backing up notebook Macs (no-one wants the hassle of connecting cables to an external hard drive, he said) but usable by any OS X Leopard-equipped Macs.

Software-wise, it utilises the Time Machine functionality introduced in Leopard.