Macworld 2006 :: Day 2 | Keynote

No doubt that Steve Jobs is an excellent speaker who can make people excited about something even if they don’t even want it. I have very little interest in having an ipod, but was completely captivated by the ipod video demo. Of course watching the video on a very magnified ipod on a giant screen looks much more impressive than if had been on an actual ipod. It just kept getting better after that…

First, the new iApps. They are all improved – faster, new features, prettier templates – and impressive as usual. A sixth app has been added – iWeb. I think I am out of business. Not really, but it was cool. Lots of .mac integration in all the iApps. It was hard to to tell at times which features are .mac only.

Notable new features in iPhoto were:

  • Photocasting – People can subscribe to your iphoto/.mac albums. When you change your album, it is automatically (or manually) updated on the subscribers computer. Subscribers do not need a mac or a .mac account.
  • Full screen editing and photo compare (before/after) – nice
  • One-click effects – a handful of the basics – B&W, sepia, feather, etc.

New widgets – google, new address book and calendar, white pages

Random quote by Steve Jobs: “You take away the machinery, it’s just like magic.”
Random Apple fact of the day: April 1, 2006 is 30 year anniversary of Apple.

And then… the announcement we’ve all been waiting for. The Intel macs are here early! Not iBooks and minis as I expected. iMacs and powerbooks (now called MacBook Pro), as I had wished for. It is hard not to order a 20″ iMac online right now.

– Intel DuoCore processors
– 17″ 1.83G iMacs
– 20″ 2.0G iMacs – 2-3x faster than 2.1G G5
– 2MB L2 cache
– 667MB system bus
– 512MB of PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 2GB
– same prices

MacBooks are available in 2 configurations, both with 15.4″ viewable area widescreen LCD, included iSight, IR sensor and remote to work with Front Row software. Also included are a sudden motion sensor, backlit keyboard, and DVI video out. My favorite new feature was the Magsafe power adapter connection. It is magnetic! If someone trips on your cord, it will likely not be the disaster that it usually can be. The cord just pops off.

iMacs are 3-4X faster than current G5s. MacBooks are 4-5X faster than current powerbook G4s! Steve Jobs used the new iMac for all the demos. It was crazy fast, especially Safari. Photoshop ran like normal because it is not yet ‘universal’ (universal binary) and was running through Rosetta, the powerPC emulator that is included in the intel macs.

OS X 10.4.4 released today

It is all vey exciting! The expo started today too, but I have not had a chance to go because part 2 of the dreamweaver power tools conference is today.

This morning was all about templates. I had no idea at how extensive the dw templating capabilities were. I can’t imagine creating anything like that by hand. This afternoon is about dynamic site development. PHP and MySQL. This is the main reason I am here. I am very excited.

It is lunch time now. 15 minutes left. I have already configured and saved my new iMac on the apple site 😉 Will I actually get it? I don’t know, but I think my credit card is emitting high levels of radiation from inside my wallet.

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