As since this is the BIG DAY of the year for Macophiles -- the day Steve Jobs presents his "Stevenote" presentation at the Macworld Expo, we thought we'd ask Patrick and Rex about any announcements that will have an impact on custom media -- and, say, on what we get to use around the office.
See the chat after the fold:
Patrick: First off, one of the big announcements for us came before Macworld, when Apple announced last week some major enhancements in speed and power to their tower Macs -- the Mac Pro -- and to their Xserve line. We're already analyzing these products for our designers who can't wait to get their hands on them.
Rex: Yikes, you would have to start off with the expensive stuff.
Patrick: The designers and I think of them more as the "productivity-enhancing" stuff.
Rex: Like I said, the expensive stuff.
Patrick: We'll see how fast you order one of those MacBook Airs.
Rex: Oops. Did you notice I did that already -- it's an awesome computer for travel-warriors.
But let's move on to some of the announcements that relate specifically to things we've been talking about here on the Custom Media Craft blog recently: specifically, the idea of mediacasting that we are currently featuring. If you take a look at our mediacasting ideas for 2008, you'll see a few that were demo'ed by Jobs this morning in a very dramatic fashion. Specifically, the idea of photocasting, or screensaver-casting. Check out the portion of the presentation when Steve Jobs demos the AppleTV and you'll see the concept of Flickr photocasting incorporated into that product. Hook one of those up to your HDTV and with a few clicks, you can be "catching" a photocast or screensaver cast from your friends -- or favorite organization -- via Flickr or other RSS-fed sources. Frankly, however, I think I'd still hook up a Mac mini to my HDTV rather than an AppleTV, but the concept is well demonstrated with the AppleTV.
Patrick: You're right on the Mac mini. You and I have both experimented with the AppleTV for a year, now -- and we've experimented with a Mac Mini setup in our conference room for longer than that. I think the AppleTV at the lower price announced today, along with all the new access to movies may get more people to look at it, but a Mac mini costs $300 more and turns your HDTV into a computer, not just a means to catch content.
Rex: Bottomline, I think this is one of those Stevenotes that may not be as thrilling as last year when he announced the iPhone, but that will probably provide the foundation for some very interesting developments in technology related to content distribution. The iTunes rental model hooked to an AppleTV, for example.
Patrick: So what will be your first purchase?
Rex: You mean after those designer towers?
Patrick: Yeah, and after your Macbook Air?
Rex: I think the quickest thing I'll be doing is unsubscribing from Netflix as my next laptop won't have a disk-drive.