Fabian Westerwelle
01/07/02
This years San Francisco keynote was one of the most anticipated, mostly due to Apple's own support and hype. All sites were filled with elaborate rumors, and huge speculations about the new products to be introduced. Everything from the obvious flat panel iMac, to the iWalk, and our world wide wireless internet connection speculation (it could still come true...) was talked about. Even though all this still seemed to small for some, due to Apple's overly rumor feeding front page.
Then the day had finally arrived and everyone was looking for last minute keynote information, and many found it. Where? At Time Canada. Time got a preview of the new LCD iMac, and iPhoto (more below) so they could write a special about the expo. I guess Apple thought this to be a good choice to get the news out to the people who are normally not interested in the subject. What happened? It was leaked and many mac news sites knew about it by Monday morning and of course passed it on. All of this didn't diminish the "WOW" factor for me though, my mouth is still dropped down on the floor.
The new iMac
The new iMac has a 20lb base that beautifully supports a 15" LCD Active Matrix flat screen display. The flat screen is easily adjustable to height or angle with just a touch. It has a resolution of up to 1024 by 768 and supposedly offers approximately the same viewing area as a 17-inch CRT display. With the new 15" LCD Apple now formally frees itself of all CRT's. "The new iMac ushers in the age of flat-screen computing for everyone. The CRT display is now officially dead," said Steve Jobs.
Now lets go on to the iMac itself. Surprisingly Apple decided to sell all new iMacs with G4 CPU's with either 700 MHz or 800 MHz. (Leads me to believe that a G5 is coming soon.) There are three models that are going to be available at different times, starting with the fastest at the end of January. One for $1,299 that includes a CD-RW drive, 700 MHz G4, 128 MB SDRAM, and a 40GB Hardrive. This model will ship in March.
The second model for $1,499 features a ComboDrive (CD-RW, DVD-ROM), also a 700 Mhz G4, 256MB SDRAM, a 40GB hardrive, Apple Pro Speakers, and will be shipping in February. And the last, but certainly not least, model includes the SuperDrive (CD-RW, DVD-R), 800MHz G4, 256MB SDRAM, 60GB hard drive, and Apple Pro Speakers. This model will be shipping in late January, and costs $1,799.
The iBook
The iBook line was also updated with a new 14" active matrix display model for $1,799 that also has a ComboDrive and a 6 hour battery life. This version has a 600MHz G3, 256MB SDRAM, and a 20GB hard drive. The line itself also got cheaper with the cheapest starting at $1,199 with a 12.1" active matrix display, and a normal CD drive. There also is a middle priced model at $1,499 that has a 12.1" inch screen as well, and includes a ComboDrive. The cheaper of the two 12.1" models features a 500MHz processor and the more expensive version features a 600MHz.
iPhoto
Steve announced a new i-application as well. iPhoto is for MacOS X only and it makes managing your pictures taken with a digital camera easy. iPhoto is designed for the 6 million digital cameras that were sold in US last year, and thus will support most every camera there is. It handles the uploading, organizing, and even slight editing in one easy to use application, just like all i-apps so far. You basically just plug your digital camera into your Mac via USB or FireWire, iPhoto recognizes it and uploads the pictures to iPhoto automatically. There you can edit them (by editing we mean cropping, changing contrast etc..all the basics), sort them into albums that are easily searchable by thumbnails, and display the pictures on screen.
"Simply drag the mouse, and iPhoto magically grows or shrinks photos right before your eyes. Users can view individual shots in greater detail for precise cropping, or see hundreds of photos on the screen at once and quickly scroll through thousands to find the one they're looking for."
You can also make your own slide shows accompanied with music in the background, and share your pictures with family and friends through e-mail or an automatically created thumbnail photo page on your iTools homepage. You can also export pictures to other applications, and print photos with "one-click".
All that was cool but here comes my favorite feature: You can order prints right through iPhoto, and even create your own hard bound book of photos. You can choose from 6 different book designs and place your pictures in them in any way you wish. The book will be send to your door with in a week for $29.99. And oh yeah.. did I tell you that it is available now for free?
Other minor and major details
One of the major details was Apple's deal with Maine to deliver 36,000 brand new iBooks to be used by each of Maine's 7th and 8th graders and their teachers. This was long due for Apple and will probably boost their popularity and market share, even though they might loose some money on the iBooks themselves. Hopefully what Steve said will be true: "One down 49 to to go."
A big thing to not is that starting today all Macs will boot up into OS X when they are bought. MacOS 9 will still be preinstalled but will not be the main operating system.
Also one of the old iMac models will apparently be available for $799, thus the low class of Macs are not lost.
What didn't make it
Well there were so many rumors and speculations about todays expo keynote that maybe some people ended up with disappointed looks on their faces (not just because they didn't get one of the Time Magazine issues :-) ). There was no PDA (I still see one coming though), no tablet mac, no world wide wireless connection to the internet, no 1 GHz jump, and no G5's. All of the above will come in my opinion, starting with the 1GHz jump, and ending with the wireless ineternet (just my predictions).
Come on guys! Look at that amazing LCD iMac, how does that not live up to your standards? Join me with the jaw dropping.
So, so long until the next "sleepless nights" expo keynote, and be sure to check back daily to find out the latest expo news.
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