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June 1st through 7th Archives

Tuesday, June 3rd 2003 12:44 CDT

Booq Begins PBZone Sponsorship

Booq has signed on as a PBZone advertiser. You may have seen our review last week of their FoleeMessenger17 bag for the PowerBook G4 17". They also have a backpack style bag and a FoleeMessenger designed for PowerBooks smaller than the monster 17" model. Check out their website here.

PowerBook Prices Dropped

Yesterday's big news was price drops on the 12 and 15" PowerBook models. The 12" Combo drive model costs $1,599, a $200 drop. The 12" SuperDrive model price was shaved $200 to $1,799. The 15" Combo model is $1,999, a $300 cut, and the SuperDrive 15" is now $2,599, a $200 cut.

You can read whatever you want into this. First, Apple is likely just passing some savings on to its customers. As with any technology product, component costs decrease exponentially over time, and each of these models of PowerBook has been around for some time now. As the price remains constant and the component costs decrease, Apple's profit margin increases. They may have simply decided to make these machines more attractive by letting the customer benefit from lower prices.

On the other hand, Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference is later this month and the 15" PowerBook is in need of an update to match the features and styling of its 12 and 17" counterparts. Is this an attempt by Apple to clear the channel of current inventory and make room for new products? We'll keep a close eye on any further clues and report them here over the next two weeks.

Apple Announces QT 6.3 and iSync 1.1

Apple released major upgrades to both QuickTime and iSync today. iSync's newest features are detailed in Apple's press release here, including broader support for more cell phones and Safari bookmark syncing.

QuickTime 6.3 supports "3GPP," or 3rd Generation Partnership Project, which is a standard "to deliver a foundation for the creation, delivery, and playback of rich multimedia content over wireless networks," according to the press release.