A review of MacWorld 2006
Thanks to Steve and Johnnie and WGN for the media badge. Listen to our broadcast on Website Wednesday Night starting just after 11PM CST, broadcast across 38-states, old-school style radio on AM 720, or via the internet, new-school style. http://www.wgnradio.com
With a glance at my badge, the security guard dressed from Men in Black, directed me to a mob of journalists and other pretenders with media badges where we waited for 45 minutes prior to Steve Jobs’ keynote address. Listening to them speculate about Steve’s announcements, the mostly young and wrinkle-clothed crowd glanced excitedly around them, smiling nervously, some gathering around authoritative-sounding prognosticators, others quietly text-messaging or sitting on the floor typing into their laptops. http://www.moscone.com/
I think about Art, the GM of the San Francisco Apple Store just a couple blocks away from the Moscone Center here in San Francisco, busy preparing his store for what is likely to be a not just another very busy day. It’s likely he’ll have new products to sell, most of his team is just finding out about them, and receiving the training they’ll need to handle the questions from enthusiastic customers just a short hour after the beginning of the keynote, scheduled for 9AM PST. Art is likely to be on the floor of his store all-day, like most other GMs in the 134 other Apple Stores around the country and now the world. But what other GMs are as likely to get drop-in visits from Apple Computer, Inc. luminaries as Art, especially today, when so many are in town for this Mac World 2006? His team’s anxiety I can understand, but why are these other thousands of media, exhibitors and visitors so excited? http://www.apple.com/retail/sanfrancisco/
Two people in front of me are complaining about the lack of media center integration with the Mac, and speculating about an announcement there. What about EyeTV I ask. I don’t like it, says Lucas, a journalist from Oslo, I can’t use the content in combination with other programs. While it is like Tivo for my Mac, it’s not good in comparison to Windows Media Center. I ask if he is using the HD version. No. http://www.elgato.com
A six foot tall dark-haired white guy with a black, button-down shirt gets the crowd’s attention. Ok, we’re going to proceed to the auditorium, please don’t run! Fat chance. The leaders among the media crew, many who had just a few minutes before pushed their ways to the ropes, sprint like released gazelles for the yawning auditorium doors, the sound of their feet drowning out further feeble please walk!’s. http://www.cms.int/species/ss_antelopes/ss_antelopes_news.htm
Inside of the auditorium I find a seat as close to the center as possible, on an end-row, as ensconced as I’ve felt in Macdom since my last time on the Apple campus. Security in all black except white, collared, button-down shirts, help corral everyone into their sections. 20 video cameras from various networks are arrayed to the left of the stage, the still photographers in front of them, closer. Helpers in black pants, with pale blue Apple shirts and modest, white Apple logos next to the word staff circulate, answer questions and direct errant audience members. Everyone has their exhibition passes on display, worn around their necks, like musical chairs now, looking for a place to sit down. The music is playing clearly, above the noise of the crowd, Beck, RadioHead and Seal. The stage is empty except for a podium to the left of a floor to ceiling screen currently filled by an enormous white Apple logo, to the right and left surrounded by cobalt-blue curtains stretching what seems like to the walls on either side, lit dramatically by diagonal, white spot lights. Camera flashes strobe the room. A staff member stands in the open walk-way next to me, and raises her index finger, standing still as we enter the last minute before Steve takes the stage. An electric boom stretches above and across the audience from the right side of the auditorium, lifting itself high to the ceiling to deliver a shot of this standing-room-only event. http://www.last.fm/music/Radiohead/_/Packt+Like+Sardines+in+a+Cru
The lights dim and Steve Jobs walks onto the stage from the audience left, in his trademark casual attire, to general applause. Good morning and welcome to Mac World. He starts in almost immediately with his corporate darling, Retail, sharing that with 135 stores, and 26 million visitors this holiday quarter, Retail has had its first Billion dollar quarter. Not only Retail, but Apple as a whole has had a record quarter, and Steve announces financial results of $5.7 billion dollars gross sales for Apple’s fourth quarter, 2005. Let’s talk about Music, after music to investors ears. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/oct/11results.html
After quipping about speculation that Apple might sell 7, 8, or even 9 million, Steve reveals Apple sold more than 14M iPods last quarter, making 42M total sold, of which 32 million were sold in 2005 alone. iTunes retains a comfortable lead, with 83% of the market share. He seemed particularly surprised and delighted to report that 8M+ videos have been sold since October, and that the Rose Bowl is the #1 video download, among a number of sports titles recently added to the iTunes line up. Steve clearly enjoys telling us that classic Saturday Night Live will now be carried, including the best of John Belushi and Gilda Radner, and as illustrated by clips from Samurai Delicatessen, the Blues Brothers singing and dancing (shows my age, I smiled and got goose bumps, predictably why Steve is so enthused) and the Coneheads. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000A6T22G/104-1925488-1071160?v
For the iPod we’ve got a new remote control and FM Tuner, small and engaging, well-integrated into the fifth generation iPods (doesn’t look like support is available for the fourth and prior generations, sorry, many of us will have to fork out some more clams to benefit from this one). It actually displays the radio station on the iPod, BIG, so you can see it clearly even with aging eyes. Very clever! $49. I wonder if this was something on which my brother worked he’s like a cipher now that he’s working there. http://www.mae.cornell.edu/hgr/
Punctuating his talk about Music, Chrysler has announced major iPod integration on over 3M cars, leading Steve to crow now over 40% of cars sold in the US will offer iPod integration. Not surprisingly, no mention of the status of Apple Records’ lawsuit. http://www.legalzoom.com/articles/article_content/article11325.ht
Another thing I now want to talk about…is Aperture. He wants to make Aperture as material to photographers as Final Cut Pro has become to the work of videographers. Steve spends a lot of time demonstrating features of Aperture, on clips of photographers at work, using Aperture successfully, talking about how it revolutionizes their work flows. Steve is clearly committed to Aperture, even given its rough seeming start. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?produ
Widgets, we don’t need no stinking widgets. Well, we’ve got more than 1500 apparently, and with the announced Tiger OS X 10.4.4 update, we’re getting some new ones from Apple, including and not limited to Google, Snow Conditions, and Sports & News widgets. http://www2.konfabulator.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12077
Let’s dive into iLife ‘06, ’cause it’s there. Here. Zowie! This is one of the products I’m going to walk out of the convention center and buy from Art today. I’m looking forward to setting up my mom’s computer to share photos using new photocasting. iMovies can now be exported directly to your video iPod. iDVD supports third party DVD burners (finally), wide-screen menus and a curiosity-inducing “Magic DVD” feature. At $79, the updates to many of the key applications, including iPhoto, GarageBand and iMovie look promising enough (more on these in a moment), but also we get a new application: iWeb. Yep. Apple has taken the plunge into web-creation software, tying it neatly into .Mac service ($99/year, now more than 1 million subscribers), and positioning it carefully versus other competitors as the most Beautiful and Easiest to Use out there. I will use it soon, hopefully to post a revision of this blog, and will give you the skinny on its actual use soon thereafter. For the moment, in addition to RSS compliance, iWeb’s tight integration with the rest of iLife is compelling. http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
And the rest of iLife ‘06 is compelling by itself. GarageBand has become recast as a podcasting work shop, with all the tools in one place, organized to make getting your graphically enhanced pod-casts to the web with ease and quality. iPhoto has jumped an order of magnitude in its ability to store photos, from 25K to 250K, and it now scrolls like butter, yes, that’s a quote from Steve. Even he paused to consider that metaphor. I was very impressed with the new calendar, card and book creation features, and based on the demonstration, will probably stop recommending Print Shop, after confirming practical experience. Sorry, MacKiev. http://www.mackiev.com/
The new podcast studio in GarageBand is going to tip Steve finally to making the Mac-plunge, I predict, once demonstrated to him. Steve says, it’s going to be the best way in the world to create pod casts, and, with its auto Ducking effect (no ducks were killed in the making of GarageBand ‘06, it’s a feature that automatically lowers the volume of other tracks while your primary, speaking track is playing), iChat integration to bring in remote interviewees, and various vocal enhancement filters, it seems a winner. We briefly cover some new features of iWork, such as 3D charts, before we move into the Mac part of Mac World. http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/05/engadget-podcast-001-10-05-200
Apple shipped more than 1 million Macs every quarter last calendar year. By June they promised they’d ship Macs with the Intel ship, and guess what? Dressed in an all-white, clean-room suit complete with helmet per the Intel commercials, Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel steps from behind the curtain to the right of the screen in a cloud of rushing smoke. He’s got a round, dull-gold-colored chip platter with him. He’s here to tell us Apple and Intel have met the expectations they’d set. In fact, they’re early in shipping Macs with the Intel chips. We see the commercial that’s going to be released, and it’s a doozie, world-class, funny and inspirational. The iMac is now available with the Intel core duo, and it tests at 2 to 3 times as fast as the iMac you could buy from Apple only yesterday. In 10.4.4, all of the Apple applications that are included with Macs, and the operating system are entirely native, what’s called “Universal”, and other applications from third parties, such as Microsoft Office (Microsoft took the stage to announce an official commitment to the Mac platform, and guaranteeing support and upgrades for Microsoft Office for the Mac for at least the next 5 years “it felt like a royal wave, like you may continue about your business”), will run in an emulation-mode called Rosetta. The pro applications will be available from Apple via what’s being titled a Crossgrade for $49 each in March of this year, 2006. http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html
You can check out the new product line up online, at Apple. Suffice it to say my favorite feature is the Magsafe. After working at Apple Retail, I know how frustrated people can get who’ve yanked their powerbooks off their desks by tripping over their power cables. Magsafe seems likely to materially reduce or eliminate this panic-inducing event, and who knows how many years of life this may spare us? It works by using a small magnet instead of friction to connect your MacBook Pro to the wall and did I mention the new Apple laptop? Shipping in February, the MacBook will be the thinnest Apple laptop ever (not the lightest at 5.6 lbs loaded), and 4 to 5 times faster than the current line up of G4s. That means a safe 10 times faster than the now doggishly slow-seeming Tibook (titanium powerbook) that I’m using. I’ve got my order in already, and I’ll be sure to quietly mention its arrival and my experience with it some time in February, given it ships as expected. Steve promises the entire Mac line-up will be using the Intel chips by the end of the year, and not Intel’s “old” technology (so yesterday, man), but the new Intel Core Duo chips. It may be of interest to some of you that the new Apple laptops will have the industry-standard express card slot. This type of compatibility is what my company has been hoping for from Apple, will better enable solution building. More on this sometime soon!
In the press room I warn a journalist plugging in next to me, my computer is not MagSafe, so be careful. I give him the eye, and he smiles. I don’t smile at all. The real coffee is out in seconds, there are media people fighting over decaf. Over decaf! Some people just have to fight over something. My new MacBook is ordered, and until it’s an actuality, hopefully some time in February, without MagSafe and a Sudden Motion Sensor, suddenly I’ve become anxious about my data. It feels drafty in here, like I just realized I forgot to wear my pants. You know you’re a geek when you not only have anxiety dreams about data loss, but also anthropomorphize your data. http://www.mopie.com/0104/08.html
