Macworld Expo brings new software and technology to the market.
Apple Computer has a strategy to dig out of its small niche in the computer industry: the digital hub. According to Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, Macintosh computers are better than anything else to extend and enhance digital devices like CD burners, digital camcorders and cameras, DVD and MP3 players, Palms and cell phones.
On Jan. 7, Jobs announced a new software package to make Macs work better with those devices. ILife includes iTunes 3 for ripping and burning CDs and using MP3 players, a free download available now. The rest of iLife won't be available until Jan. 25.
iMovie 3 allows consumers to edit video from a digital camcorder. iDVD 3 lets them turn those movies into DVDs. iPhoto 2 lets users load images off digital cameras, edit them, and produce prints, slideshows, or books. iMovie and iPhoto will be available for free download. To get iDVD, though, consumers will have to buy a new Mac or the $49 iLife package.
Integration is the most important feature of these updated programs. Other features were added to each as well, but the focus of iLife is on making these creative applications work together. For example, a playlist from iTunes can now become a soundtrack for a home video in iMovie, and pictures from iPhoto can be burned on a DVD using iDVD.
Jobs also announced three completely new applications on Jan. 7: Safari, Final Cut Express and Keynote. Safari is a web browser available for free download in a unfinished "beta" form. Final Cut Express is a "light" version of Apple's Emmy award-winning professional video editor available at a student discount for $249. Keynote is a program for creating presentations with advanced graphics meant to rival Microsoft's PowerPoint, and costs $79 for students.
Thirty-five percent of the computers Apple sells are laptops, a higher percentage than anyone else in the industry. Apple aims to increase that number to 50 percent and beyond, and they started that effort last week.
Jobs introduced the first laptop ever to use a 17 inch screen. This new one-inch-thick PowerBook G4 is made of aircraft-grade aluminum. For $3149, students get a 1 GHz G4 processor, 512 MB of RAM, a 60 GB hard drive and a SuperDrive for reading and burning CDs and DVDs. The keyboard glows in dark rooms. The new PowerBook handles wireless communications with built-in Bluetooth to connect to cell phones and AirPort Extreme.
AirPort Extreme, which allows computers to access the Internet and each other wirelessly, is based on IEEE 802.11g. It is similar to the technology used to provide wireless Internet access at Ball State, but 5 times faster. It can also be used with the slower 802.11b technology on campus, but it will run at that network's speed.
After announcing the largest screen ever on a laptop, Jobs introduced the smallest laptop Apple has ever made. This new PowerBook G4 weighs 4.6 lbs. It comes with a 867 MHz G4 processor, 256 MB of RAM, a 40 GB hard drive, and a combo drive for playing CDs and DVDs and burning CDs. It includes Bluetooth, just like its bigger sibling, and AirPort Extreme is optional. It is available to students for $1699.
Jobs' keynote address took place before a live audience at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, but 500,000 more people in 130 countries watched it over the Internet, setting a record for streaming video.
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