Macworld SF 2004
Ahhh…. Another Macworld, and another keynote. I love me some Steve Jobs keynote. I took the day off for todays events, and I'm not even in San Fransisco! That just goes to show how interactive the Internet is. The keynote went great and Steve was as usual intriguing. Check out the replay of the keynote presentation here.
2004 brings us an update to the incredible iLife suite of applications. Along for the ride comes GarageBand, a new music production tool for the consumer. iPhoto was updated to a usable application with speed boosts (THANK GOD). It also recieved Rendezvous sharing and Smart Albums. iMovie received modest updates including speed boosts along with being able to edit video clips' length in the timeline. iDvd got a bunch of new dvd menu themes. It also got some better slideshow functionality along with Pro video encoding. iDvd also received a MUCH needed and MUCH wanted feature of being able to use external/after-market dvd burners. iPhoto was granted a jump to version 4 skipping 3 completely. I assume it was to bring it in line with the rest of the other applications' version number of 4, along with being iLife '04 the 4 can stand for 2004. I'm sure for the next couple of years we can expect updates of the whole suite of applications to version 5 in 2005, and so on. If you have been contemplating getting a Mac, this video should seal the deal for you, if not make you drool. This is what Apple is best at, this is why I use this computer now. And if you haven't seen what Apple has been up to in a couple of years, check out the video, its great, great, great stuff.
GarageBand was hinted at before the keynote, but I dont think anyone thought it would be as impressive as it turned out to be. Its obviously a child of Apple's purchase of eMagic and is a welcome addition to the iLife suite. But I think thats what caught everyone offguard. Steve included it into the iLife suite. While its a music producing tool for “the rest of us” it was still very impressive and nothing would have tore me away from the $99 price point I had floating in my head. Then he announced that it was part of iLife and that $99 price was instantly cast upon iLife which previously cost $49. When Jobs announced that iLife was still at $49 I thought I was going to lose it. What an amazing value. Good job Apple!
The Xserve was finally updated to contain G5's. Its about time. The big surprise here was that they actually got the dual 2ghz G5 into a 1U enclosure. This is due the 90nm PPC970 they are using. The G5's in the PowerMac are currently using a 130nm process. This will change within weeks I'm sure. All in all an incredible machine. I'm sure we will see more supercomputers like the one in Virginia Tech now that they are in a 1U enclosure and can be placed on racks. Speaking of the Terascale cluster, Apple whipped up a nice video showing the #3 supercomputer in the world thats located in my great state of Virginia and at a school most of my friends graduated from. And yes, I'm damn proud of that. Check out the video, its really interesting.
Ok, here it is. The “Baby iPod” that all the rumors were speaking of. While its a great and small little device, I am just dissapointed. I wasn't worried about small. I wanted cheap. I wanted something so cheap users couldn't help but impulse buy them. Then maybe upgrade to larger sizes later. I wanted something so cheap I could get it for my girlfriend at the drop of a hat and not worry about how much she used it. A price point of $99 would have been so great, but I guess just wasn't going to happen. Well too bad. I got a 15 gig and love it to death.