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It's Day 2 at Macworld, and even though the crowds have simmered down a little since Tuesday, the place is by no means dead.
For instance, you still have to elbow your way through a crowd to get your hands on a MacBook 
Air, and they must have at least two dozen of those things on display.
At first glance, the Air reminded me of the photos Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) 
released of the Folio before sending that product to an early grave -- but the Folio was something you couldn't quite call a real computer. It was, according to Palm, a companion unit to a smartphone, or some such marketing jargon.
Small Matters
The MacBook Air, on the other hand, stands on its own skinny legs. The demo units are running Leopard, and performance for simple tasks looks good. It runs on a 1.6 or 1.8 GHz Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Core 2 Duo chip. This isn't anything you'd want to weigh down with hard-charging applications, of course, but for anyone whose primary use of computers is through online portals and wireless communications with external devices like home servers -- or perhaps the equally new Time Capsule -- something like the Air makes sense.
Aside from its size and lightness (3 lbs. and no more than .76 inches thick), another standout feature is its large, multitouch track pad, which lets you manipulate images by pinching and swiping, just like you can with an iPhone or iPod touch. Hopefully this technology will make its way to the next generation of standard MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
Of course, the size comes with limitations, the first of which is storage. At most, you get 80 GB, and that's with the standard configuration. Paying more actually gets you less storage (64 GB), though that model uses a more durable and more efficient solid-state drive.
The next casualty of smallness is the CD/DVD drive. There isn't one built into the Air; you'll have to use Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) external drive (which, admittedly, is pretty small in its own right).
The CD-free nature of the Air, though, isn't just a sacrifice on the altar of convenience; it's also a statement from Apple. Remember when the first iMacs came out with a CD drive but no 3.5-inch floppy drive? Some people wondered how in the world they would transfer data back and forth. As Apple had correctly predicted, though, that form of physical media was on its way out the door, to be replaced with CDs and the ability to e-mail files and download them from the Web. Omitting a CD drive from the Air may be a similar statement. Apple's pushing hard to get users off discs and onto digital downloads in music, movies and TV shows.
Size also forced Apple to cut down on universal serial bus ports. The snap-out panel on the side has just one USB port, along with a micro digital visual interface port and a headphone jack. USB expansion units are plenty cheap, but that's just one more peripheral to add to the bag.
Finally, there's the question of battery power. The Air is not meant to be tethered to a desk; it needs to be able to roam free. Apple says you can browse on the Web for five full hours on a charge. That claim is pretty impressive, and it may point to advances in iPhone batteries as well. Unsatisfactory battery power was one reason Apple gave last year for not making the first generation of iPhones 3G-compatible.
Buying an Air with the flash drive option will likely result in better battery performance than the standard configuration -- but that adds nearly US$1,300 to the price.
Kicked Up Video Quality
The iPod nano has been praised for the clarity and brightness of its tiny video screen. However, when you use a cord or module to take video images to a big screen from any iPod -- nano or otherwise -- the results are usually less than amazing.
Creative and DLO have both come up with solutions for upscaling iPod-based video for viewing on a big screen in high definition.
Creative's offering is the Xdock HD, a module about the size of a hardcover book. iPod goes in, upscaled high-definition video comes out. When I stopped by, the display unit was showing video from "Mission Impossible III" in 720p, but a Creative rep told me the company intends to have 1080i quality output available when the product launches in the spring.
The Xdock also upscales the sound, taking the iPod's basic stereo output and turning it into surround sound. iPod music can also be sent wirelessly to any room within about 100 feet using the company's X-Fi receiver.
For a Few Dollars Less
DLO's HomeDock HD, also to be launched in the spring, doesn't sport the same surround-sound and remote-sound features as the Xdock, but its target price is more than $100 less than the $399 target for the Creative unit. Other than that, the devices are quite similar. The HomeDock upscales video to 1080i -- and, like the Xdock, allows the user to browse the iPod's content with a custom interface. DLO's unit features a user interface similar to iTunes' Cover Flow.
Both products are impressive in terms of how they improve the quality of the video coming out of the iPod, but they face some competition with other ways of bringing hi-def digital content to the TV set that don't require the iPod to be the middleman, such as Apple TV.
I brought that up with DLO rep Sally Comollo, and she made some good points. For one, Apple TV outputs exclusively through HDMI (high-definition media interface), an input standard found only on newer TVs. DLO's HomeDock -- and the Xdock, for that matter -- allows hookups with older standards like component video.
Also, these iPod docks don't require the user to have a wireless home network, perhaps making them a more attractive option for the less tech-inclined.
Finally, iPod storage sizes are growing so large that a lot of users simply load them up with all the video in their iTunes libraries every time they sync. A separate trip to the computer to load up video isn't always necessary.
Smart Storage
The Data Robotics booth is tucked into a little spot in the West hall (that is, the hall not hosting Apple's own monolithic presence), but despite its size, it was drawing a considerable crowd when I wandered over.
Drobo, a breadbox-sized device made by Data Robotics, is a redundant storage system designed to be cheaper and easier to use than maintaining a RAID (redundant arrays of independent disks) system. It's targeted at individual consumers and small and medium-sized businesses.
Its four slots accommodate whatever make and whatever size of hard drives the user likes -- be they dirt-cheap 80 GB drives or more costly 1 TB units. The Drobo folds all of its drives into a redundant system that can survive the destruction of one of the disks and apparently requires little active upkeep.
Drobo has been around for half a year; the company came to Macworld to announce DroboShare, a new NAS (network-attached storage) unit that allows users to share data over a local area network. The device works on Mac , Linux and PC platforms. Company CEO Geoff Barrall told me about half of Drobo users are Mac users.
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