Following on from yesterday’s Macworld Keynote, here are my quick thoughts about the announced products:

Apple TV

Negatives:

• Not flexible enough for the price (£199 in the UK)
• Only 720p. 1080p is inevitable, and compatible sets are now becoming available
• No YouTube – this is a huge mistake in my view
• Video content appears to come only from iTunes, which is very limiting

Positives:

• 40Gb disk and Intel processor. More power and flexibility than I expected
• The ability to sync content from another Mac. I wish I could do this easily with my Mac mini

Overall, it’s not bad, but I’d rather pay twice as much and get a Mac mini, with far more power and flexibility.

iPhone

Negatives:

• The release date is too far away, especially in Europe and Asia. The mobile market moves very quickly, and Apple (like Palm with the Treo) are playing a dangerous game if they stagger their global rollout too much
• No UMTS or HSDPA. For the UK, this is a very big deal. All the cool Internet features are going to be terrible over GPRS
• No memory expansion slot. Not a big deal, but it would be nice
• It’s not clear whether third party apps are supported. This is very important
• No GPS. Again, not a big problem, but it needs to be there in version 2.0
• 2 megapixel camera. This is going to look pretty terrible in 12 months time
• So far there’s no mention of it being available off contract

Positives:

• The interface is an even bigger advance than the Treo was. Nokia and the other mobile phone manufacturers should be seriously worried
• What looks like a serious, grownup OS in a phone
• Wonderful multitasking
• Gorgeous 320×480 screen
• Physically it looks great
• Very clever use of tilt, proximity and light sensors
• Great video and music playback

I’ve very impressed with the iPhone, but the release date and lack of 3G mean it’s unlikely to be my next device. The Nokia N95 is still in the frame for that role. However, an HSDPA iPhone 2.0 in Summer 2008 would be very interesting indeed.