Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Top Stories
Owners And iPods: A Love Story With The Sweetest Sounds
Photos of more than 2000 proud owners and their tiny music players are featured on a special website.
Apple Intros iLife '04, Adds GarageBand
It features new versions of iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD, along with a brand new fifth application, GarageBand, that allows you to compose and record music on your Mac.
Apple Announces Final Cut Express 2
The new version is based on Final Cut Pro 4 technology, which means it offers RT Extreme for real-time effects, filters, compositing and color correction without time spent waiting for rendering. It can also handle five DV streams simultaneously and it features an enhanced user interface.
News
Apple Continues Modest Move Into Clusters
Though Apple doesn't fancy itself a high-performance computing giant, the company says it's making some headway in regard to both supercomputers and smaller-scale clusters.
Apple Quietly Lowers The Price Of DVD-R Media
It's Time Uncle Sam Taxed Techies
One of the many things I used to admire about the high-tech industry was its disinterest in seeking special favors from Washington, other than to be left alone to turn out truly amazing stuff. Now that's changed.
Deeper Into The Music
Expo finds Apple focused on compositions, not computers.
Apple, Garageband.com Agree To Share Name
According to the press release, Apple has paid Garageband.com a one-time fee in order to use the name for its new music creation software.
Bare Bones Software Ships Mailsmith 2.1
Bare Bones Software announced the release and immediate availability of Mailsmith 2.1, an update that now supports automatic attachment encoding based on file type, a new keyboard command that quickly moves messages between mailboxes, enhanced SMTP features, and new preferences and interface changes, including improved handling of random signatures.
Harman's JBL Creature, SoundSticks Sequels
The company announced a sequel on Tuesday: JBL Creature II, which incorporates the latest Odyssey transducer technology and a proprietary design. Like the original, JBL Creature II's satellite speakers glow from the bottom for an otherworldly appearance.
RealPlayer To Play iTunes Downloads; Real Store To Work With iPod
RealNetworks plans Wednesday to launch a new version of RealPlayer for Windows that will play songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store.
Aladdin Debuts The Big Mix Collection Of Audio Tools
Aladdin Systems today announced The Big Mix, a collection of nine title for Mac OS X 10.1 or later.
Analysts Skeptical Of iPod Mini Pricing, Overall Success
Industry watchers are somewhat skeptical that Apple's newly announced iPod Mini will be as successful at its first generation portable music players because its US$249 price tag is not low enough to compete with other players and is too close in price to its 15GB model to warrant the US$50 difference.
Apple Unveils Fashion iPods
On the show floor, potential customers said they were disappointed the iPod mini cost only $50 less than the 15-GB iPod, which has nearly four times the storage capacity. Nonetheless, they anticipated Apple will sell lots of them.
Hitachi Hard Drive At Heart Of New iPod
Apple Computer is using a small hard drive from Hitachi in its new iPod, as the market for mini drives heats up.
Apple: 40% Of Users Using Mac OS X, Nearly 10M
Apple Rolls Out Xserve G5, New Xserve RAID
Apple said the new Xserve G5 delivers over 30 gigaflops of processing power per system, about 60 percent more than the PowerPC G4-based Xserve.
Apple Previews Xgrid Technology
"Xgrid helps scientists and others working in compute intensive environments to fully utilize all IT resources, including desktops and servers, by creating a grid enabled 'virtual' IT environment that takes advantage of unused computing capacity to run batch and workload processing."
Apple Posts '1984' Ad With An iPod Twist
The new spot has been updated with the sledgehammer wielding runner wearing an iPod and headphones.
iPhoto, iMovie No Longer Free Downloads?
With the introduction of iLife '04 today, Apple has quietly removed the download pages for iPhoto and iMovie.
EyeTV 200, EyeHome Turns Mac Into Media Center
Elgato Systems on Tuesday introduced two new products to Mac users that will help strengthen their abilities to turn their systems into full-blown media centers.
NaviPlay Plays iPod Music Via Bluetooth
Say good-bye to headphone cords with naviPod maker TEN Technology's naviPlay, a wireless stereo adapter and remote control that uses Bluetooth with third generation iPods.
Opinion
Macworld's Mini Disappointment
Two decades after it introduced the Macintosh, Apple proved it's still as innovative as ever by unveiling a trio of new products, most notably a smaller iPod. The only problem? Price.
The Mac At 20: What's In Store For The Future?
Jobs is placing his bets that Apple can win the hearts and minds of digital media and Internet consumers. If he is serious about serving up enterprise-class solutions beyond digital media, he should consider finding partners who are willing to do the heavy lifting.
Keynote Thoughts
The iPod mini's felt like a marketing product launch. A product developed by looking at charts and graphs, not by the magicians thinking about the needs of real people.
Reporter's Notebook: Keynote Observations
If Bruce Springstein and Beyonce were giving a free joint concert, the line couldn't have been any longer.
$249 For Apple's New 'iPod Mini' Is Brilliant Pricing Strategy
GarageBand
I've been waiting 20 years for GarageBand.
Thoughts From The Macworld Keynote
Does anyone care about Xserve? Who would serve up sites or services when you can get so much more power at a lower cost with linux or FreeBSD boxes?
Macworld Expo — More (And Less) Of The Same
Jobs has an unfortunate habit of exaggerating, or telling outright untruths, in his keynotes.
Post-Keynote Thoughts
I think that Apple is going to sell tons of $299 15 Gb iPods that suddenly look like a great deal.
Jobs Caps Snnozathon With Cut-Down Emagic, iPod
If future keynotes are as short of announcements as this year's has proved, news editors will find it harder to justify their reporters expenses, and the according MWSF coverage will dwindle.
The Death Of Macworld
Sure, there was a lot of new and improved, but that is an everyday event at Apple.
A Big Garage
What's so cool about GarageBand is that it exemplifies the market that Apple is going after.
Review
A Report On Processing Performance
The combination of faster hardware and better software has brought about a significant performance jump for pro digital photographers using the Mac. And while the PC is still quicker overall, the Mac is at least back in the race.
Sidetrack
HOW ABOUT A DISCOUNT, APPLE? : Along the same arguments for .Mac users outside of U.S., shouldn't International users pay less for iLife '04, especially for folks like me that don't have access to iTunes Music Store, iPhoto prints, and iPhoto books?
OH, WOW, but this may well be the first Expo for a while that there isn't a product that makes me wish I am rich.
The only product that I may buy — and only that's because I have a $50 (about US$25) voucher for a local Apple reseller — is iLife '04, mainly for the new iPhoto. The performance of the current iPhoto sucks. But hey, I can live with it.
(Oh, and I am not really a music-everywhere-I-go kind-of person, so your mileage will differ.)
Wintel
Whatever Happened To The Windows Media Center?
More in-fighting at Redmond is blamed for the rethink. But just as Mira has lost out to the Tablet PC initiative, which despite insignificant sales remains a "strategic" priority, Windows XP Media Center will be folded into Microsoft's ever-changing Set Top Box strategy.
Microsoft Ad Campaign Digs At Linux
Microsoft has launched a marketing assault on Linux, in a sign that the open-source solution may be a mounting threat to the company's server system sales.