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news of 2005-01-11
What's there, what's not...
Here's the list of what we did see from our rumours:
- iPod Shuffle (our prices were both right, it seems)
- Mac mini (again, the pricing was right, too)
- iLife '05
- iWork '05
Now to what was wrong...
- Tiger (no release date, but we were right about Steve showing off Dashboard, although that really was an easy guess...) ;)
- PowerBook G5 (it'll come, just not right now)
- PowerMac G5 (it'll come, just not right now)
- Asteroid (now: will we see that one day?)
All in all, we'd say this was one good keynote. Sure, the Mac mini probably had all the spotlight, but it's got all the rights to that, too, we think. The Mac mini will sell a lot to switchers - but also as 'secondary Macs' or 'home entertainment Macs' to previous Mac owners. Here's to the hope that it won't be sold out the day it hits the market (22nd January in the US, 29th January for the rest of the world).
iWork looks nice, although without a spreadsheet application, it still can't replace AppleWorks or MS Office totally. But I guess we'll see 'Numbers' or something like that in about a year.
[ written by fryke™ on 2005-01-11 at 21:41 CET ]
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MacWorld San Francisco Keynote (Live)
Time to go...
- Stage still empty, store.apple.com still up. The international stores are also still up (they usually go down first).
- The usual nervosity before a Stevenote. It's time now, but we're still waiting...
- Are you nervous? Sorry, sorry, I know, I shouldn't add list-items if nothing new happens. ;) I'll only add bullets now if something's really new... Oh, yeah: U2's 'Vertigo' is playing. The usual up until now, it seems. :)
- Lights go out.
- Steve enters the stage.
- Talk about the retail stores. Numbers etc.
- Talking about iMac G5. We're in the 'wrapping up the year' mode now. Business as usual...
- Tiger. 10.4 is being demonstrated. Looks the same as newer builds reviewed on macnews.net.tc, one of our contact says.
- Sorry if we're slow updating the page here, but after all, it's still recap time. Nothing new about Tiger so far. A number, though: More than 200 new features according to Steve. Although those numbers usually count _everything_ worth mentioning...
- An error message on Tiger. This doesn't belong to the demo, we fear...
- Still spotlighting... Album art search. More...
- Talking about Mail.app 2.0's new features, new looks...
- Quicktime 6.x is renamed 7.0. Nothing new compared to the latest Tiger betas reviewed, though. H.264 etc.
- Dashboard. ;)
- Basically, Sherlock's search channels are moving to Dashboard, it seems from the demo.
- Translator module translates in real time - as you type. Nice. ;)
- Btw.: Online Store's down now. Guess we've missed that point in time as it was still online when the keynote started...
- iChat AV 2's new features. Just like we know them... (This ALL is basically still recap mode...)
- We've just confirmed this: QT7 is Tiger, will _not_ be released today according to what Steve said so far...
- Video time. Calls 2005 year of HD video...
- Final Cut Express HD introduced. (We'll put the really new stuff in bold now.
- iLife '05:
- iPhoto now has MPEG-4 capability, since many digicams offer to store videoclips. Also: Projects, subprojects (better organisation, basically, of photos...). RAW format support. Advanced slide shows. Transitions can vary between photos.
- More and cheaper books from iPhoto. Probably still only US customers, though? Would be a pity...
- iMovie HD. (Although HD cams are, well, quite expensive...)
- A long talk between Sony's president and Apple's just took place on stage. Talk about integration, about HD video... But nothing really newsworthy.
- iDVD. 15 new themes. 1-step DVD creation.
- GarageBand. John Mayer demoing. 8 track recording, realtime music notation, etc.
- Next... iWork. - Keynote 2 is first.
- Pages. Schiller's demoing it. "Does it all." 40 Apple designed templates (not that I'd care, but AppleWorks users are accustomed to them, I guess...). iWork is 79 USD, just like iLife (which is more expensive now...).
- Mac Mini ... Very 'little' Mac. Nice, quiet, FW/USB-2/analogue and digital video out. 499 USD for the 1.25 GHz model, 599 for the 1.4 GHz model. Available on January 22nd. -> image...
- iTMS. More than 250 mio songs sold.
- iPod. Nothing new besides iPod jacks in new Mercedes cars. Motorola phone now.
- The flash iPod: iPod Shuffle. One ounce weight. USB-2. 12 hours on battery (charged through USB connection). 512 MB for 99 USD. (We told you so. Well, the price point.) ;) 149 USD for the 1 GB version.
- Keynote seems to end now...
- www.apple.com is updated with the new goods.
- All said and done. Thanks for reading.
[ written by fryke™ on 2005-01-11 at 20:02 CET ]
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MWSF Roundup 3
- Flash-based iPod - It'll either cost 149 or 99 USD, depending on which of our sources is right.
Its name shall be "Shuffle", the rumour-mongers say, and it'll pack 1 GB, or 240 AAC encoded songs. Although if it really hasn't got a display, I wonder how 'Apple' exactly it can be, and whether people won't whine about the price here, since they can get memory stick MP3 players with 'more' interface for 'less'. We'll see...
- iPod mini 5GB - At 249 or 199 USD, again depending on which source is right.
- Asteroid - FireWire breakout box.
This rumour stirred the crowd, since it probably was the reason for the first rumour-suit (don't let your mind wander off...) in December 2004.
- Headless consumer Mac at 499 or 599 USD - One for me, one for you?
Has the time really come for Apple to take back some of the market? Will the device be 'good enough'? And further: Will Apple keep updating it over the next year, so that it stays attractive?
- iLife '05 - Let's see what's inside (no details so far).
- iWork '05 - According to rumours, this will contain both Keynote 2 and Pages.
Recently, 'Pages' was found trademarked by Apple, so this sounds like a good one, although ThinkSecret did a step back and mused whether there would be an iWork package or simply separate applications.
- PowerMac G5 - A new PowerMac G5 will appear at MWSF or shortly (about a month) thereafter.
- PowerBook G5 - Sources not so sure anymore that it's ready for primetime. An interim G4 upgrade is an option, too.
This would probably be the 'worst' thing about this MWSF, since it's been almost a year after the last PB G4. 1.67 GHz vs. 1.5? That's not really newsworthy and should have been a silent upgrade half a year ago...
- Tiger - We'll hear the release date.
And not only that, we'll also see Steve Jobs show off Dashboard quite a bit. Hopefully, we'll also see some important news about Tiger, but Dashboard seems to be the 'lickable' feature, whereas Spotlight is the technological feature. Since MWSF is very consumer-oriented, Steve'll probably talk more about how Dashboard might change your world. And he'll emphasise its Exposé relationship, in order not to stir more Konfabulator talk. Which'll still happen out there, won't it. ;)
We're going to go into 'text-mode' for the time of the keynote and will, of course, keep you informed.
[ written by fryke™ on 2005-01-11 at 11:00 CET ]
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