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 Steve Jobs presented the keynote speech as usual this year at the MacWorld expo, presenting a wide variety of new things available for the Mac system and even a few for Windows users. The most significant announcements were about a music creation application called Garage Band, included in iLife suite, and the announcement of the Mini iPod. For those who missed the webcast, read the full highlights below...
Apple introduced an upgrade to their video editing software Final Cut Express. The new software allows multiple real-time stream editing and real-time effects. It looks amazing. It'll cost $300, or $100 upgrade.
Microsoft was given a prominant position in the keynote, and they used it to introduce Microsoft Office 2004 with some Mac-first features. First, in Word MS has added a notebook view, which allows users to better organize and take notes, including a WYSIWYG graphic interface, and audio note-taking features. Minor improvements to Excel were touted as earth-changing. Also part of Office 2004 is the new Project Center for project planning, work or personal. It integrates with the Mac PIM and projects can be shared over network or iDisk.
iTunes music store is doing quite well, which is a good sign for music downloads in general. Jobs reported that 30 million itunes songs have been sold -- sales of 100 million songs per year are expected. Top user has spent almost $30,000! 500,000 songs are available for download. Pepsi is going to give away 100,000,000 (not a typo) songs in the next year. 1 in 3 Pepsi bottle caps will get an iTunes song. Zoinks!
Collections of downloads are going to be available in the form of Billboard Charts. Billboard charts are going to be available from 1947 to present. The "hot 100" are going to be available by both year and by genre.
iLife '04 includes improvements to all the other applications as well:
iPhoto supports up to 25,000 photos with no load times, and better organization, with photo rating, time-based albums, better photo editing, slideshow with iTunes soundtracks, and P2P photo sharing. Demo'd with Dire Straits (nice touch).
iMovie, Apple's more basic movie editing feature offers simpler editing and better title effects. Apple also added web-publishing features that automatically format the video for the web thorugh iDisk.
iDVD is improved as well, allowing better formatting of iMovie films directly to DVD. Better encoding and faster writing.
And most importantly, a fifth app has been added to iLife: Garage Band, which "turns your mac into a musical instrument and recording studio." Allows users to record music using digital instruments to record directly into the Mac, i.e. using a simple USB or MIDI keyboard to record the same sound as a $50,000 professional quality Yamaha keyboard with hundreds of instruments.
Big news on the iPod front. first, Apple has sold more than 200,000,000, with about 750,000 sold last quarter. The most basic iPod gets an upgrade to 15 gigs for $299, and new in-ear headphones are availanble for $40. Top end units of 20 and 40 gigs remain unchanged.
The big news is the introduction of the iPod Mini, which holds 4GB of songs, is about the size of a business card and just .5" thick. It costs just $250, and has an almost-identical appearance to the current iPod aside from the size. It has the same interface, the same iPod connector on the bottom (for cradles and other accessories), will charge from USB or firewire, and both cables come with the unit. It comes in a variety of colors, incuding gold, silver, blue, pink and green and anodized aluminum. Available in April.
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| MacWorld Highlights: Garage Band, iPod Mini | Login/Create an account | 12 Comments |
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Re: MacWorld Highlights: Garage Band, iPod Mini
(Score: 1)
by Jordan (jordan@streettech.com)
on Jan 06, 2004 - 04:17 PM
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http://www.swirlee.org/
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Ugh. Apple completely missed the boat with the MiniPod. Or my boat, at least. If I had $250 to spare, I'd have saved just a little bit more and bought a 15GB iPod a long time ago. Instead of creating a new product at an appealing price point, they just created a smaller version of their other product at nearly the same price point. Even if I had the cash, saving 50 bucks and getting something a little cuter wouldn't enough to make me settle for 25% the storage capacity.
C'mon, Apple, you can do $150. And does anybody else think that the MiniPods are really ugly? It looks like a cheap iPod knock-off. What happened to the nice rounded corners? And those colors!
Okay, I'm done. For now.
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Re: MacWorld Highlights: Garage Band, iPod Mini
(Score: 1)
by mrklaw on Jan 07, 2004 - 02:05 PM
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Do you have to buy iLife to get those new iLife apps? Will they be a free download like iTunes and iMovie? I'm excited about GarageBand.
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