Belle's post-keynote re-observation thread
In which Belle points out a couple of things she noticed that have probably been mentioned by several other people in a multitude of other threads that she hasn't read...
My two favorite bits -
The completely startlingly off-handed almost blasé introduction of the 14in iBook! I almost didn't notice Jobs had mentioned it.
The "I don't have Photoshop for X yet" comment, which was the best line of the whole show by a long, long way.
The worst bit -
George Lucas. What an ass.
Other than that, what a fantastic show. I understand many people are disappointed (Those who expected iWalk and 1.2GHz iMacs with GeForce 3 excepted - they can go stick their head in a pig where it belongs) but the specifications of the new iMac at those prices sound pretty great to me, and the new iBooks and prices are just outstanding.
G4, 15in LCD, and SuperDrive for $1799. It's what I wanted in the new iMac, and the design is simply gorgeous. I love the shiny new Apple logo.
I really thought the SuperDrive model would be more expensive.
The tilty-swivelly design makes the iMac ideal for sitting in the corner of a room and doubling up as a DVD player for those who need it, and it'll be interesting to see how the new speakers are at handling MP3 playback.
What I can't believe is that with the exception of a slightly low resolution, this machine is just as capable of running Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro as our very expensive towers, and I can get one for my sitting room for $1799!
A little worried about how quickly the white keyboard and mouse will get grubby, though...
My two favorite bits -
The completely startlingly off-handed almost blasé introduction of the 14in iBook! I almost didn't notice Jobs had mentioned it.
The "I don't have Photoshop for X yet" comment, which was the best line of the whole show by a long, long way.
The worst bit -
George Lucas. What an ass.
Other than that, what a fantastic show. I understand many people are disappointed (Those who expected iWalk and 1.2GHz iMacs with GeForce 3 excepted - they can go stick their head in a pig where it belongs) but the specifications of the new iMac at those prices sound pretty great to me, and the new iBooks and prices are just outstanding.
G4, 15in LCD, and SuperDrive for $1799. It's what I wanted in the new iMac, and the design is simply gorgeous. I love the shiny new Apple logo.
I really thought the SuperDrive model would be more expensive.The tilty-swivelly design makes the iMac ideal for sitting in the corner of a room and doubling up as a DVD player for those who need it, and it'll be interesting to see how the new speakers are at handling MP3 playback.
What I can't believe is that with the exception of a slightly low resolution, this machine is just as capable of running Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro as our very expensive towers, and I can get one for my sitting room for $1799!
A little worried about how quickly the white keyboard and mouse will get grubby, though...
Comments
Apple has an amazing consumer lineup now.
they just need to get the pro stuff in order. especially the towers which SUCK
<strong>I agree. very good keynote.
Apple has an amazing consumer lineup now.
they just need to get the pro stuff in order. especially the towers which SUCK</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed. Their consumer lineup ROCKS now. They will sell the shit out of iMac and iBook, as well as iPod. I also think the PB G4 still rocks....Now we MUST have, in order:
1) Tower Improvements...BIG improvements
2) PB and iBook speed bump.
600MHZ? What?
However as a guy expecting a much better tower this is totally a different story. Because of the Full Speed Ahead tag line, I was even more hypered. And I saw nothing related to that line. I find myself being fu*king fooled by Steve Jobs
The consumer line however...
A beautiful girl who likes beautiful computers. Any Mormon would gladly add you to his incestuous harem. Ever consider living in Utah?
That iMac is great. I'm not even so fond of the dome, but I still think it's great. As (i think) Buon Rotto is fond of repeating, "Good design creates it's own rationale."
That new iMac just makes so much sense. It'll evolve far more easily than the old one. You know that sony touch-screen easle PC, that's easily in the reach of Apple's new swivel design -- just needs software, a touch sensitive layer, and a pen. If Apple wants to increase the screen size in a year or two on the high end models? No problem, just stick a new panel on the arm. A small size increase up to 17 or 18 inches wouldn't cock-up the design in any way. It'd probably look even better.
How bout a rotating landscape to portrait type display? Just a question of drivers and a small addition to the arm. I think they should have done this right outta the box. A twisting swivel in the arm couldn't have been hard to engineer, but perhaps the drivers were a peskier issue -- I've heard that those old monitors never really worked bug free.
The point is that the new iMac design has a lot more room to mature than the old one, and yet it takes even less desk space than before.
Quite good.
And PS. Those are full cache G4s in there. See the heat sink Apple uses to cool those guys in the Pro Machines. That enclosure must be very good a dispersing heat. Apollo is on the way, and it is going to raise the speed of this machine quite a bit before years end.
<strong>George Lucas. What an ass.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed!
Though, he seems lethargic and disinterested in any interview. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
Very funny geek!
He seemed to get really good response from the crowd too.
<strong>Because of the Full Speed Ahead tag line, I was even more hypered. And I saw nothing related to that line. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, to be fair, that line does describe the effect the 800 MHz G4 & geForce2MX will have on the iMac's performance. We were just hoping it would apply immediately to the Pro line.
<strong>Ill put it plainly: With a PowerPC the Powermacs will never ever be utterly fantastic. It just wont happen.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Its not clear to me why you say this. The PowerPC isn't the cause of the MHz gap, Motorola's problems are. I would argue that if AIM wasn't using the PPC architecture, they would have fallen much farther behind. The 601, 604e, and 750 were leading desktop processors at their time of introduction. The G4 would have been if Moto had been able to deliver as they had promised, but since that fateful September they've been stumbling about painfully. This is due to keeping the pipelines short (partly because of the embedded processor focus), and problems with Moto's fab processes, neither of which is inherently due to it being a PowerPC.
Mr Adobe, Mr Palm, sad dorks
<strong>The mathmatica guy was so funny. And I laughed when in iPhoto, they took the redeye out of the Monsters Inc character. And Steve. I can set this thing to launch Photoshop...If I had it for X
Mr Adobe, Mr Palm, sad dorks</strong><hr></blockquote>
Mr Adobe is cool! I talked to him affter the show. I asked the ship date of PhotoShop X he said in the next couple months.
Mr Palm thogh. O GOD! That is whyh that had to exten the keynote to 2:30 hours. that guy could not have talked any slower!
Also note me yelling in the key note.
I yelled "FREE!!" for the price of iPhoto and "SuperDrive" when steve said what could we do to make the iBook better.
Steve's crack about Photoshop, the Mathematica guy, the red-eye Monsters Inc thing, and a few points in the iMac video (the dancing iMac, especially the "got me .. down" part (at appx 24 seconds from beginning)) were hilarious.
I wonder how clean the white keyboard and mouse will stay.
But that is a great consumer line-up!
After letting the session pass my mind again I think the elaborate iApp part and prolonged X part hardly match the short and essential other contributions. I suspect, that there was some filler stuff presented to compensate for taken out material. Maybe originally another announcement had been planned for, which had been taken out short before start?
For me the most shocking statement was that X would be the default system on all new Macs. This is premature IMHO.
I know they must push it, but e.g. all the fine new iPhoto and iTools thingies under X are even slower than under 9, access to those services from the X Finder is at least sickening slow and unresponsive. And that is on a direct internet connection, via my modem this gets insane.
The new iMacs are interesting looking, stylish machines nicely equipped, but very expensive.
Apple is going more and more away from "consumer" products. A consumer product in the field of personal computers is a below $1000 product, certainly not a below $2000 product.
It is bold to release a successor to the iMac that has middle class performance for an upper class price. It was always a bit more expensive to follow a refined personal taste, e.g. use a Mac, where the style, elegance and user experience must compensate for the mid class hardware. Hopefully Apple stretches this policy not beyond limits.
Especially as I suspect the new PowerMacs will be again starting at $2000 or even more. A Mac is becoming a serious luxury these days and the purchase beyond private budgets is hard to defend when talking cost. And the number of households able to afford one is even more limited these days than ever.
The new 14" iBook seems a good product, but I fear this will cut in the market for PowerBooks. I think until the basic iMacs and 14" iBooks get shipped we'll see changes to the PowerMacs and PowerBooks, maybe soon. Otherwise the product matrix doesn't make sense.
Well, we saw that Apple sometimes thinks different about what exactly makes sense though, so they went into the Cube adventure, thinking there were a market. So maybe Apple miscalculated the market again? I think we'll see soon.
> computers is a below $1000 product,
> certainly not a below $2000 product.
1300 is a good start then, is it?
> It is bold to release a successor to the iMac
> that has middle class performance for an
> upper class price.
Did you ever work with a 733 mhz G4? If 800 mhz is faster, than that's not all that middle class..
> A Mac is becoming a serious luxury these
> days
yep, quality = luxury
> The new 14" iBook seems a good product,
> but I fear this will cut in the market for
> PowerBooks.
I don't think it will, there are many points where the iBook and PowerBook differ - basically what defines a consumer product and a pro one. Better screen, cpu and form factor.
> Well, we saw that Apple sometimes thinks
> different about what exactly makes sense
> though
Yeah, that's why Apple is Apple and Dell is Dell.
<strong>
1300 is a good start then, is it? </strong><hr></blockquote>
1300<1000 ?
[quote]Originally posted by xype:
<strong>
Did you ever work with a 733 mhz G4? If 800 mhz is faster, than that's not all that middle class.. </strong><hr></blockquote>
We have a 867 MHz here with a Cinema display, yes. And 800 MHz and a small cache will not make it upper class IMHO.
[quote]Originally posted by xype:
<strong>
> Well, we saw that Apple sometimes thinks
> different about what exactly makes sense
> though
Yeah, that's why Apple is Apple and Dell is Dell.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Dell can afford more risk than Apple. Apple depends a lot, lot more on its small market niche. All I hope they survive. I need a new PM this or next year.
<strong>
My two favorite bits -
The completely startlingly off-handed almost blasé introduction of the 14in iBook! I almost didn't notice Jobs had mentioned it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The new 14in iBook is seriously kickass. I want one.
[quote]<strong>... they can go stick their head in a pig where it belongs...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Feeling a bit feisty today, eh?
<strong>You all seem to have had more luck than me, as I had no video feed for most of the time.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I didn't see any of it either. I just got back from Savannah the other day and I was still catching up on stuff. Oh well.
I enjoyed every facet of his Mathematica presentation.
The greatest thing is the fact that Apple and the iMac are the cover story of his week's TIME. That is greater publicity than I can remember in recent years.