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SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc.'s chief executive, Steve Jobs, reached into an interoffice envelope yesterday morning to reveal the latest addition to the company's lineup: an ultra-thin laptop less than an inch thick, dubbed the MacBook Air.
In the kickoff to the Macworld Conference & Expo, Jobs also unveiled the Time Capsule, a device that will let people back up their content wirelessly, and improvements to Apple's existing product line, including location-based technology for the iPhone and iPod Touch powered by a Boston company, Skyhook Wireless.
Other announcements included the launching of online movie rentals through iTunes and changes to Apple TV, the company's foray into content for couch potatoes.
"All of this in the first two weeks [of 2008], and we got 50 more weeks to go," Jobs said.
While each round of news was greeted by cheers, the event itself lacked the drama of last year's, when Jobs introduced Apple TV and the company's move into the mobile phone business with the iPhone.
"With the exception of the MacBook Air, most of what was announced today was just incremental improvements in business," said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Last year might have been a high-water mark for Apple because they broke into phones and video at the same time, expanded their business in two different directions."
Jobs revealed an alliance with major movie studios and a move into online movie rentals that had long been anticipated. Netflix tried to fight back in advance: On Monday, Netflix said it will give subscribers with unlimited DVD-rental plans free, unlimited access to the TV shows and movies it streams over the Net.
Still, Apple's announcement was significant, McQuivey said. Some companies introduce a new service and then need to sell customers on a new product or device, he said, but 10 million households already have video-enabled Apple iPods.
Jobs said Apple has sold 4 million iPhones since they became available in June.
The iPhone and the iPod touch will also have new features available through a software upgrade, including location awareness - big news for Skyhook Wireless, which has developed technology that lets a device find its location by triangulating with WiFi hot spots instead of using a global positioning system.
Skyhook will help power a new maps function that lets the device know exactly where a person is standing, a technology Jobs demonstrated by getting driving directions from the conference to the nearest Apple store.
"This is obviously a monumental deal for Skyhook that we've been working on for some time," said its chief executive, Ted Morgan. "It's the highest profile and largest number of devices" where Skyhook's technology has been deployed, and "we think it will change the way the industry thinks of location."
But overall, the crowd focused on the MacBook Air. A slender laptop, it epitomizes Apple's slogan for this year: "Something is in the air." The slogan reinforces the emphasis on a world in which movies, music, software updates, and even hard-drive backups will use wireless networks, not cords.
Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
