Weekend Wrap-Up: Apple Refreshes the MacBook Air; Snapchat Adds Text and Video Chat
Happy Sunday, folks. It’s time once again for the Weekend Wrap-Up, where we distill the past week’s biggest tech stories into video and text summaries.
We had some very interesting developments this past week, so let’s dive in.
Apple Refreshes the MacBook Air and Drops its Price
It was rumored that a MacBook Air refresh was coming, and sure enough, it happened. Apple bumped the processor speed slightly from 1.3 GHz to 1.4 GHz and, in a stunning move, dropped the price by $100. That means that the cheapest MacBook Air — the 11-inch 128 GB model — now comes in at $899. More computer for less money isn’t something a lot of consumers will argue with; still, it’s slightly disappointing that we don’t have a Retina-capable Air model yet.
Snapchat Adds Text and Video Chat in Update
If there’s one thing we know about social networking apps, it’s that they’ll copy each other shamelessly if they believe another app is having success with a certain feature. Snapchat was born as a way to share disappearing photos (and later videos), but the company is now getting into two new areas: text chat, and video chat. Snapchat’s text chat uses the same “disappearing” trick; when you leave the chat conversation, it’s gone forever. When you’re in a chat, you can press a button and engage another user in a FaceTime-like video chat. We’ll have to wait and see how users respond to these new features.
Sprint Will Reportedly Try to Acquire T-Mobile This Summer
The number of major wireless carriers in the United States could shrink from four to three; that is, if Sprint can indeed acquire T-Mobile. Sprint reportedly plans to attempt an acquisition of the reborn T-Mobile sometime this summer, and is currently in talks with banks to secure the loans needed to make it happen. While this isn’t great news for competition — more is always better, as far as that goes — there is talk that T-Mobile CEO John Legere would be the favorite to lead the newly-combined company. Current Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been a steady hand ever since taking the helm in 2007, but under his leadership, the company hasn’t really done anything truly groundbreaking; nothing like the Uncarrier initiative, anyway. We’ll keep an eye on this story and update if anything changes.’
Microsoft Launches Xbox Originals; TV Shows for Xbox
Look out, Netflix; Microsoft plans on creating some original content of its own. The company is recycling an already-used term (Xbox Originals, which once meant downloadable first-gen Xbox games) to roll out its own line of original programming for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles. The company already has an impressive-sounding roster of programs in development, including Halo-based projects from Steven Speilberg and Ridley Scott. What remains to be seen is how this programming will be made available to those on Xbox consoles; will they require Xbox Live at $60 per year, or will they simply be free to view for anyone who owns an Xbox system? It’s something to watch.