What We Didn't Get at Macworld

We got "Air," quasi-GPS on the iPhone, movie rentals on iTunes, and Steve Jobs' requisite wardrobe (jeans and a black turtleneck). Here's what we didn't get.

iPhone 2.0, or an early look at third-party applications: While the cat's out of the bag that we'll get a 3G iPhone sometime this year, we didn't get to see it at Jobs' keynote on Tuesday. Maybe we'll get a glimpse later this year—in the summer, perhaps—along with word of larger storage capacities (say, 16GB to 32GB), a case that's a little less slippery, and over-the-air music and podcast transfers. Also MIA: specifics on the upcoming SDK (software development kit) for the iPhone, beyond that it'll arrive late next month. An early third-party application—like a game or an offline RSS reader—would have gotten a guaranteed roar from the crowd (and from me, too), but no such luck.

Built-in 3G on the MacBook Air: "There's something in the air," read the banners, setting the already vivid imaginations of Macheads (myself included) aflame. Could it mean...built-in 3G on a Mac laptop (at last)? WiMax even? Wireless charging? Uh, no—instead, it meant Wi-Fi (no surprise), Bluetooth 2.1 (yawn), a non-replaceable battery (ugh), a single USB port, and no built-in Ethernet. Oh, and no ExpressPort either, meaning your 3G broadband card had better come with a USB dongle (to fit in that lone USB port—who needs a mouse, anyway?). The new, whisper-thin MacBook is one slick (if imperfect) piece of hardware), but calling it the "Air" raised false hopes (as a certain presidential candidate might say) and a near-instantaneous backlash.

A brand-new Apple TV: Instead, we're getting a massive (and free) software update for the much-maligned set-top box—and that's a good thing, actually, especially for those of us who already plunked down $400 for what's turned out to be (until now, at least) a rather expensive, ice-white paperweight.

Mac OS X 10.5.2: The supposedly "leaked" Steve Jobs keynote included the release of a new Leopard update—one that would add more (and still much-needed) stability to the latest iteration of the Mac OS. Didn't happen.

The Beatles on iTunes: Remember how excited we all got last year at the prospect of getting the Beatles catalog on iTunes? All those rumors, hints, and coy asides from Sir Steve? Well, there weren't any rumors this time around, it didn't happen, and apparently, nobody cared.

"One More Thing...": I'm a sucker for Steve Jobs' keynotes, and like Pavlov's dog, my heart always skips a beat the Apple CEO says these three magical words: One More Thing (and last year, that One More Thing was the iPhone). This year? Just as the keynote began winding down and we braced ourselves for that final, mind-bending surprise, instead we got...Randy Newman.

Anything else you wanted at Macworld and didn't get?