OK, my no-frills update after Steve Jobs' keynote at MacWorld San Francisco
iPod Mini- Debutted at MacWorld SF 2004.
The smaller, thinner iPods come in 5 colors -- silver, gold (YES!), blue, pink, and green -- and has a smaller form factor, and offers 4GB for $249. Said to be stain and scratch resistant. The units come bundled with a belt clip and armband.
Plans to ship by February within the U.S. and internationally by April.
(The low end 10GB iPod replaced with a 15GB size for the same price.)
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iLife '04 = "Like Microsoft Office for the rest of your life." Apple provides major improvements in their suite of iLife applications.
iPhoto 4- Much needed (and overdo) improvements. Includes a number of iTunes-like features, including smart albums, photo rating, network sharing and improved slideshows.
iMovie 4- Improved editing, and the no-brainer: iSight support. Greater sharing and networking supported.
iDVD 4- Now offers up to two hours of encoding on a standard DVD using an improved encoder from Final Cut Pro. 20 new themes and overview modes are also offered.
GarageBand: Introduced today, offers a powerful tool for musicians of all levels "...turns your Mac into an anytime, anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measure." Apple will also offer a Jam Pack for GarageBand that adds more instruments and loops for $99, and Apple will be selling a MIDI keyboard
Steve Jobs, "The entire iLife suite will come with all new Macs." Ships January 16th.
Unfortunately, iPhoto and iDVD are no longer offered free to Mac users. Last years rumors caused a slight uproar when this move was suggested. I hated iPhoto and my iMac doesn't have a DVD burner. And the new program, GarageBand, will only be available either with the purchase of iLife '04, or new desktop, laptop purchases. Since I intend to buy a new system later this year, it doesn't bother/effect me that much. Of course, I can understand recent buyers feeling P.O.'ed about this move. Maybe if enough Macheads bitch and moan, there will be reduced pricing for recent buyers (possibly within a short time preceding MWSF 2004).
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Some other updates/news that are less interesting to me:
Xserve G5s- updated to 2.0GHz G5 models. The new models are either single or duel 2.0GHz G5s with Dual Gigabit Ethernet, up to 8GB of DDR SDRAM with ECC. Again, I don't really know what this means and don't care enough to learn more. Call me ignorant.
Xserve- 1U server with new venting design. 3 models, 2GHz SP, 2GHz DP, 2GHz DP Compute Node.
Final Cut Express 2.0- $99 upgrade, includes real-time rendering, filters, and transitions.
Microsoft Office 2004- Some time in the Spring. :-(
Posted by ronn at January 6, 2004 09:48 PM