Analysis: Investors Not Impressed By Steve Jobs' Keynote at MacWorld

Authored by Jay Baage on January 15, 2008 - 8:18am.

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a super-slim new laptop Tuesday, MacBook Air, as well as movie rentals on iTunes in his much anticipated keynote at MacWorld. However, investors were not impressed and sent the stock down 4.3 percent at of 10.40 am PST.

Expectations were sky-high on Steve Jobs when he took the stage at the annual Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, a place where he has taken the wraps off CE hits like the iPod and the iPhone in the past.

But the MacBook Air and iTunes Movie Rentals could not match the weight of earlier announcements and sent the Apple stock tumbling down 4.3 percent, but its important not to forget that it is still up 84 percent over the last 52 weeks.

While there was no “wow” product this time, the MacBook Air has a lot of potential. It comes standard with an 80-gigabyte hard drive, with the option of a 64GB flash-based solid state drive as an upgrade.

It represents a step into the future and a new class of lighter lap-tops with a flash-memory, making it not just lighter, more energy-sufficient with a 5 hours battery life, compared with competitors at 1 1/2 hours.

God knows I’ve has to endure a lot of pain through the years, carrying around lap-tops that weigh a ton. I think MacBook Air is just what the doctored ordered for me and a lot of other people with the same experience. Price $1799.

Also, the announcement that Jobs has managed to get all the studios to sign on for video rentals through iTunes is big, although new titles will not be released immediatly, but be available "within 30 days" of their DVD release. The price is $2.99 for library titles, $3.99 for a new releases.

However, it is a little disappointing that he did not address the whole DRM-debacle, since iTunes still is the number one (legal) digital music store

For a recap of the announcements, click here for a report from TechCrunch that live blogged the event.

Joakim Baage

Poll: Will You Rent Movies From iTunes?

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