MacWorld Expo news and thoughts

[Magnus]

Here's some notes following Steve Jobs' speech at the MacWorld Expo. I'm sure there are mistakes made, but everything will be discussed and revealed in the coming days. This is what I could gather from following the live coverage from the event via several web sites and IRC broadcasts, and a quick look at Apple's site.

Statistics

• 4.5 million songs through the iTunes Music Store the holiday seasons 2004. During holiday season 2005, 14 million
  
• Over 100 songs sold every minute throughout the latest quarter
  
• 42 total million iPods sold since the it was first released. 32 million in 2005
  
• 850 million songs sold. 3 million songs a day are being sold. Over 1 billion songs per year rate
  
• 83% market share
  
• Apple has sold 8 million TV shows sold since the service was introduced on 12/10/2005
  
• Apple's retail stores had their first $1bn quarter this past quarter
  
• Apple now has 135 retail shops around the world with a total of 26 million visitors during holiday quarter
  
• The stores' total revenue add up to $5.7bn

iPod

Apple announced an external FM radio tuner for the iPod. You see the stations on the iPod's screen and control it from the iPod. It will sell for $49. This was a bit of a bummer since many had hoped for more. But I guess they've been pretty busy with iPod stuff lately so perhaps we can go easy on them.

iLife 06

iLife 06 is still $79 and contains the same apps plus a new one.

• iPhoto: Big news in iPhoto is increased performance with up to 250000 photos in a library, full screen editing of photos, creating calendars and cards, and photocasting. Photocasting gives you the ability to publish your photos to users via RSS feeds (much the same as podcasting with audio). You have to do it via Apple's DotMac service but on the subscriber's side there is no requirement for Apple stuff.
  
• iMovie: iMovie sports an improved look and performance. You can now work with several projects open at the same time. There are realtime effects, realtime titles, export to iPod, and functions for creating video podcasts.
  
• iDVD: The big news here is probably that iDVD now supports 3rd party DVD burners, which should make many users happy. Among the new features are improved slideshows, themes, buttons, etc.
  
• Garageband: This all revolves around producing audio podcasts. It's now a podcast studio and you can record interviews over iChat, add artwork, work with over 200 free jingles and effects, etc.
  
• iWeb: iWeb ties all the iLife apps together and makes it easier to publish iLife content to the web via DotMac. What's great is that Apple makes the receiving end browser/platform netural since they use AJAX technology, but of course you have to have Mac on the production end. iWeb gives you one-click-publishing of your iLife content via DotMac.

iWork 06

A bit of a disappointment I think. iWork is still (only) Pages and KeyNote. There are a lot of new features like 3D charts, advanced image editing, themes, masking, calculations in tables, etc, but nothing like what many hope for, a spreadsheet app or even a database. It's the same price, $79.

Intel iMac

They start selling an iMac 17" and 20" with Intel Core Duo which is 2-3 times faster than current iMac G5. iLife 06 and iWork 06 now universal binaries so they run natively on the new iMac. Mac OS X 10.4.4 announced together with the new iMac is entirely native on new CPU and all included apps are native. The iMac has the same design as the G5 iMac and the same price. This sounds very nice and at the same price it's great.

Intel Powerbook

It's now called Macbook Pro and it has a Intel Duo Core chip in it which makes it 4-5x faster, the fastest notebook ever. It is 5.6lbs, has a 15.4" screen, brighter screen, built in iSight camera, and it's a hair thinner than the 17". Comes with FrontRow and Apple Remote. It has a new Power Adapter that is held in place magnetically. If it is pulled, it comes right off. Shipping in February: $1999 1.67 Core Duo; $2499 1.83GHz.

Miscellaneous

Pro apps (Final Cut Pro, Aperture, SoundTrack etc.) will be universal binaries in March. For $49 you get the universal binary DVDs if you have the latest version. Quark announced a universal binaries beta version. Microsoft Business unit announces they are "on track" for shipping universal binaries of Office, but adds Office runs great on Rosetta. They will soon ship additional support for Apple technologies, including sync services with handheld devices and Entourage. The commit to ship Office for Mac for at least five years.

So what's the verdict?

It's funny, but I feel like was that all it was, when I know I should think it's great stuff, which it really is. I guess the arrival of the Intel Macs was as much of a sure thing as it could be expected, and I wanted more of other stuff. I think they lost out on a great opportunity to really grab a hold of online video and home entertainment. The iPods need a serious refresher soon, I think, to be able to stay ahead as they have. The Intel Macs they announced seem like great machines, and I'm sure they'll sell really well, but I'm still looking for minis and iBooks. iLife 06 was a healthy upgrade, although nothing too revolutionary. I was certainly hoping that some Aperture features would find their way to iPhoto which doesn't seem to have happened. iWeb seem like a cool and useful application and I'm sure I'll spend the money on iLife 06 as soon as I can. iWork 06 however seems like a bad letdown. They need a spreadsheet and a database in there to make it complete. I can understand they don't want to offend Microsoft (which promised to keep making Office for Mac) but come on Steve, give iWork a fair shake, please. You have two really good applications in Pages and KeyNote but they make up an incomplete suite. I doubt I will pay up for iWork, which I would have if there at least was a spreadsheet in there. So a bit of an anti-climax, I guess. And I'm not sure that's because of increased expectations due to all the rumors before the event. That's probably part of the reason, but I can't help but feeling that Apple really missed on something significant this time. The Intel Macs are important, sure, but there are bigger things going on that could make or break them (video, for example), and I would have expected more about that. But perhaps that's coming...