Expo reaction
First impressions on the new announcements by Steve Jobs at the Macworld Expo :
iPod Burton Jacket - It’s all very clever and will no doubt gain a lot of media exposure for it’s innovation, but I’m not sure how many of these they’ll sell at $499 each.
iLife - Dodgy name, but the way all the iApps now work together seems quite impressive (e.g. working in iDVD, you can view and import files from iTunes and iMovie to create your DVD). Points deducted for demoing all the extra-cheesy skins and templates they’ve produced.
Safari - Probably the most interesting announcement. It looks promising - I’ll need to test out the beta to see if how it compares to Chimera. Still not convinced about the platinum-effect interface though.
Keynote - A welcome alternative to Powerpoint. Jobs claims he’s been using it for the last 12 months to present his keynote speeches. It certainly looked as user-friendly and attractive as the other iApps. It’ll be interesting to see if it can work with Powerpoint files...
Powerbooks - New 12" and 17" models announced. The poor old iBook took a back seat as the Powerbook line got two new models. I can’t make sense of the 12" model just now - surely it intrudes on the iBook’s market? The 17" model just looks incredible, though it may be overkill, since we already have the excellent 15" model. I would have liked to seen something along the lines of the rumoured iTablet.
So, no amazing color-sensitive iMac, video iPod, PDA or even processor hikes, but the ever-enthusiastic Steve still managed to give us enough good feeling that Apple is innovating and still producing the stuff that we enjoy using so much.
On a more sobering note, a few hours before Jobs took the stage, Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich released a report claiming that "...although Apple makes great products, in our view the new product pipeline looks skimpy and we expect continued market share losses..."
Posted 7 years, 8 months ago
i particularly like the backlit keyboard on the new powerbook, a very cool idea; but i see they have stopped using titanium in favour of mere alumin(i)um alloy, for shame. I was hoping for a scandium powerbook. but that is just me.
rik · www · 7 years, 8 months ago
Yeah that does that look pretty cool (and useful!).
Incidentally, Mark Pilgrim has already tested out Safari and published <a href="http://diveintomark.org/safari/">Safari information for web designers</a>.
Another incomplete web browser to design for :-(
Phil · www · 7 years, 8 months ago
Yes, Safari’s slightly dodgy CSS support is troubling. I’m puzzled as to why Apple decided to base Safari on Konqueror and not Gecko.
Matt · www · 7 years, 8 months ago
It looks like they’re using Aluminium Alloy casing due to the problems in the Titanium casing chipping. AlBook anyone?...
John · 7 years, 8 months ago