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Portable News
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MWNY 2000 Keynote CoverageThe Javits keynote begins right at 9:15. There are only two think different posters flanking the stage, and quiet music to start, rather than modern music. They played the "Think Different" ad to start. The "the only thing you can't do is ignore them." one. And Steve takes the stage with a "good morning." He said there are already 14,000 streams and climbing. Steve puts up a ZDNet quote that says the puck mouse is the "worst mouse ever made." The new mouse has been introduced with a picture. It's optical, and will work without any mousepad. "Oh my God, Apple's gone from a one button mouse to a no-button mouse," Steve quips. He shows the no-button feature. It's a standard feature for every desktop Mac. Steve then showed the full size keyboard with volume and eject keys, as well as a number keypad, also standard across the desktop line. You can buy them today from the Apple Store for $59 apeice, delivered in September. Lastly in the peripheral demo, Steve showed the audience a pretty damn cool commercial. Without delay, Steve jumped into updating each product in the product matrix. Steve brings Phil Schiller, Apple VP of WorldWide marketing to show how a G4 chip compares to the PIII, even at 500 MHz Vs. 1 GHz. The Mac blew the Pentium out of the water, completing the Photoshop test 24 seconds faster, 100 vs 124. The "math" on that is that a 500 G4 is "as fast" as a 1.2 GHz Pentium III. Don't know if I believe that or not. Then Steve rolled out a dual-500 MHz PowerMac G4. They're going to run the same test vs. a 1 GHz Pentium III. Even though it's a carefully selected test, the dual G4 did the same test in 61 seconds. The dual G4 machines are available today, and they run at over 7+ gigaflops. Three models:
Each G4 has gigabit ethernet on the motherboard, which is actually kinda impressive. Then Phil went to go play with uncompressed video over AppleShare with Final Cut Pro. Then Steve unplugged the ethernet just to prove a point. All these models are available today. Steve switches gears a bit, talking about Mac OS Ten a bit. The public beta will be available in the "very early part of September." With a full release in "very early 2001." Steve did all the aqua demonstrations, then invited Bruce Chizen, President of Adobe to give a rah rah speech about Adobe's relationship with Apple. Then Steve went to talk about Microsoft Office 2001 for Mac. Kevin Brown, General Manager of the Mac Business Unit at MS came onstage to demonstrate. It'll be shipping in October. It's got a new segment, the first since 1991, called Entourage. You saw us take a picture of that yesterday in our gallery. Entourage takes OE, and adds a bunch of address book, task list, and other items. Word is spiffed up a bit, with over 400 "projects" in a "project gallery" to pick from. As much as some people don't like MS for their own reasons, the company makes some great Mac software. PowerPoint can export to QuickTime as well, and over 50 million people have QuickTime player. The last note MS left is a neat plastic case that Office will ship in. Steve mentions games, talking about Microsoft purchasing Bungie. He invited Ed Fries, VP of Games for MS to confirm that the new company formed as a subsidiary of MS will eventually port all their games to Mac, as late as 2002 though. Alex Seropian, CEO and co-founder of Bungie came on-stage to show why they're selling out to MS, though they'll still be bringing Halo out for the Mac. And Steve switches gears again back to hardware. As usual, he goes through the stats, Apple's sold over 3.7 million units, over 200 per hour, 1 every 18 seconds. 30% of all were first time buyers, and another 14% were WinTel converts, so 44% of 3.7 million users were new to the "Macintosh family," with 89% on the Internet. Four new iMacs:
All available today, with the $799 model coming in September. Steve briefly mentions that Circuit City is going to now sell iMacs, and will be moving their camcorders closer to the iMacs to demo iMovie. Steve shows a few commercials, with "Blue Suede Shoes" for the Indigo model, a "ruby" song for the Ruby model, and "it's not easy being green" by kermit for the Sage model, and "white room" for the Snow model.And Steve says "I think kermit takes the cake." Apple introduces iMovie 2, "even easier to use." Its got "enhanced audio editing and amazing new effects." Steve preaches a bit, saying he wants "Apple to stand at the intersection of art and technology." $49 web download, and included free with all new iMacs. Steve says "one more thing," and the audience gasps...and it's only an updated HomePage feature on Apple's website. Available free to every Mac user. And the final "one more thing" is the Power Mac G4 Cube. Up to 1.5 GB memory, up to 40 GB storage, modem, ethernet, USB, Firewire, and AirPort. 8 cube, with no fan. It's got a pop up handle on the bottom that lets you jack all the internals out easily. Harmon/Kardon has designed some awesome speakers to go with it.
Three new displays:
Steve rolls a video showing the cube and a ton of interviews. The last comment was from a guy saying "Steve likes taking the sheet off something and saying "tada." I went "holy shit, he's done it again."" Steve notes that all three desktops are all-new, and they constitute 75% of all unit volume shipped. (That means this quarter is going to be amazing). Steve finishes with his customary thanks to the entire Apple team, getting all employees to stand up. "This optical mouse is a symbol of all the new products today. Steve gave everyone in the audience a new optical mouse! |
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