iPhone Update and TimeCapsule – First Take

Michael Gartenberg | January 14, 2008, 11:59 PM

The first new product shown was called TimeCapsule. Simply put, it's an airport base station with a hard drive integrated and optimized for TimeMachine use with Leopard. Capacities are 500gb and 1TB for $299 and $499. It's really a backup appliance with a focus on one thing, backup. What's interesting is that Apple chose to keep the focus backup only. While some folks might lament functions like storing or streaming content, I think Apple's approach is correct and makes it far easier for consumers to understand and use. It's not a glitzy product, but it's not supposed to be.

The second update was for iPhone. Apple announced that they sold 4 million, well on their way to their stated goal of 10 million before year end. Not surprisingly, there was no new iPhone but a new software update. Most of the details of the update have been leaked but include map locations without GPS, webclips to the home screen, the ability to customize the home screen (useful for when the iPhone SDK appears), support for SMS to multiple folks and lyrics support for iTunes. The iPod Touch also gets updated with the weather, stocks, notes and mail clients from the iPhone. New units will ship with them, existing customers will pay $19.99 through iTunes. All important but not the big news of the day.