And here’s where I will be live-blogging Macworld as I watch it over Quicktime in real-time.
- There’s apparently a video stream of the keynote stream going into the Vatican.
- 68% of people going to Apple’s Switch Pages are using Windows.
- 51 Apple Stores across the US.
- Revenues: $148 million from stores, with 50% of these sales going to Windows users.
- News about iSync and iCal updates.
- In Japan iPod has 42% market share. Burton.com have built the iPod controls into the sleeve of the jacket. Trivial, but entertaining…
- There are 5 million currently active users of Mac OSX.
- “If you’ve got Windows apps that you’ve got to run (for some reason)…” Virtual PC has been released. Pro Tools stuff has been released. Or whatever that might be…
- Final Cut Pro, number one Pro editing package in the world. Apple now releasing Final Cut Pro in a cut-down version as Final Cut Express.
- No new products will boot into OSX. Steve made a dumbass slip and said we’re focusing all our efforts on 9. Ha! Loser.
- Digital Hub – they’ve launched all their iApps, and now they’re getting them to work together better. Putting music on Movies, putting music on iPhoto, putting photos into Movies. They’ve completely integrated these applications now.
- iTunes: “There are hidden features in iTunes 3 springing to life today!”
- iPhoto: New version – iPhoto 2 launches – integrated with iTunes, One-click Enhance, Archive to CD-Rs and DVDs, Retouch brush…
- iMovie: New interface, more precise audio editing, soundtracks from iTunes, “Ken Burns Effect” for inserting still images into movies, added some sound effects from Skywalker sound, Chapters, etc.
- iDVD – now on version three. All integrated and stuff. Weird professional ‘filtery’ things… You can age your movie to make it look like old film.
- You can still download iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie for free, but iDVD is really expensive to send through the net, so you can only get it with al the other apps on a CD for $49. Calling it iLife.
- New Application! Safari – turbo browser for OSX! Tested against all the other browsers including Chimera, and it’s apparently faster than all of them – three-times faster than IE on a Mac for downloading stuff and showing pages. Launch times, 40% faster the IE, and much faster to do Javascript.
- “They wanted to innovate”, Google integration, a whole new way of doing bookmarks and ease of use. Looks really good. Looking forward to seeing this one, even though it’s got the brushed metal appearance. The bookmarks feature operates just like iTunes’ libraries and playlists. You can send them rendering bugs on the fly as you surf the web as well.
- Safari is based on Open Source KHTML stuff and they’re excited by Open Source and are planning to release all their improvements on the web today. Beta release. Free download starting today!
- Keynote – presentation application “for when your presentation really needs to work”. And it was built for Steve… Alignment guides. Could this be a cheap or free PowerPoint killer? Full Alpha-channel transparent graphics based on PDF. Exports into PDF and Quicktime and Powerboat. But it also can open and edit PowerPoint files. How much? $99. Available now.
- 17″ Powerbook. And still only 1′ thick. And it’s got the industry first of underlit keys so that people can read the keyboard. Ambient light sensors to tell when they need to come on as well! 6.8 lbs. And it’s not Titanium any more – Aircraft-grade Aluminium that’s ‘hard anodized and not painted’. 1Ghz G4, 1Mb L3 Cache, Superdrive, geForce4 64 mb of memory with Firewire 800. Wireless equipped with built-in Bluetooth. Lithium Prismatic battery tech – 4.5 hours of life even with 17″ screen. $3299.
- Airport news: 2 million 11 Mbps speed – now Airport Extreme takes things up to 54 Mbps (802.11g) – fully compatible with all current hotspots. New Base-station has up to 50 users. Wireless Bridging. USB printing. Selling for $199.
- One more thing: 12″ inch Powerbook. 1.2 inches thick. 4.6 lbs. Smallest Powerbook ever. Full-sized keyboard. Smaller than the iBook. 867Mhz G4. geForce4 420 Go. 32 Mb of Graphics. Slot-load Combo. Wireless built in. Bluetooth build in. Airport Extreme ready (extra $99). 5 hours battery life. Cost: $1799. Looks pretty amazing.
All in all, it’s been a pretty astonishing MacWorld – with some seriously good kit up for sale. I don’t regret getting the iBook though – the only comparable product that I’d be interested in is the miniature Powerbook, and i don’t think I’d have been able to afford it anyway. Next time. Next time.
I hope everyone’s had a good MacWorld! And I’ll post again when I’ve had a bit of rest!