Macworld Announcements

Macworld 2007 brought us three major new Apple products that may change the way the world thinks about gadgets.

Missing the keynote, the new Apple AirPort Extreme provides your home or small business with super-fast 802.11n wireless networking along with printer and hard drive sharing. The AirPort Extreme starts at $179 and is compatible with PC's and Mac's.

The previously announced iTV has been branded as the Apple TV which provides a set-top box to share your iTunes library of music, podcasts, movies, music videos, photos, and more and connect it to your high-definition home theater system. The Apple TV supports wired and wireless connections to allow one computer to sync directly to the Apple TV's 40 GB hard drive and stream iTunes from up to five other iTunes libraries. Supporting up to 720p HD quality video, the Apple TV has HDMI and component video as well as analog or optical audio outputs. This revolutionary media device comes with the Front Row interface and remote for $299 and ships in February 2007.

The biggest announcement at Macworld blew everyone's mind as Steve Jobs introduced three revolutionary products: a full screen touch video iPod, a mobile phone, and an Internet communicator. The greatest surprise of all was that these three products are one device called the iPhone. The multi-touch screen iPod consists of only one hardware button with a complete software driven interface that provides innovative features such as auto-landscape/portrait mode, visual voicemail, wide-screen video, full web browser, Google Maps, and more. Steve Jobs claimed that the iPhone will revolution the mobile phone industry much like the iPod revolutionized the music industry. The iPhone now sports its own tab on the Apple website where you can view videos of the iPhone features in action.

Microsoft Zune Review: iPod Killer or iPod Wannabe

Ars Technica has published a review of the new portable digital media player designed to compete with the Apple iPod called the Zune. The Zune has the same abilities to play music, photos, movies, and tv shows (minus podcasts) as the iPod, so one might wonder what makes the Zune so special. The Zune does have wireless capabilities for sharing your digital media with your other Zune friends and comes in black, white, or brown (and pink). Since the November 14th launch of the Zune the sales have not demonstrated a huge demand for the hip new device. Read the review to learn more about the features and faults of Microsoft's venture into the digital media arena.

My recommendation is to determine what it is you want to do with your digital media (or what you want to do if you had any). If you just want to listen to music the iPod shuffle or Nano should work great for you. If you really want video content then you now have a new choice with the Zune. Keep in mind that any of the digital media you purchase will only work with that company's player. So if you 've already invested money into your iTunes media library you should ask for an iPod to be wrapped up in your stocking this Christmas.