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| July 29 - Aug 5 |
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 by Alessandro CancianProbably the real news was the lack of any news. Steve Jobs keynote speech at the latest MacWorld in New York closed with several long faces from people mumbling and the image of Apples co-founder coping with a non-collaborative digital camera. It was a keynote speech much longer than usual, characterized by some pretty boring moments, with presentations already seen in the past, especially by the faithful followers of Apple. The event had the potential for shooting fireworks, beginning with the great relevance attributed to it by the Cupertino-based company, the expectations of financial markets, and the rumours circulated in the last few weeks on websites dedicated to the Apple world. Maybe these rumours were what sparked the expectations of a possible total redesign of the most famous computer: the iMac. But this rumoured-about iMac, with an LCD monitor replacing the three-year-old CRT model, nobody has seen any trace. On the other hand, some ray of light shone with a parade of big software makers, such as Adobe, Microsoft, Quark, etc. reconfirming and demonstrating how their applications are optimized for the new operating system. Jobs, in fact, devoted most of his keynote speech to Mac OS X, released in late March, demonstrating the next update, code-name "Pum," that should noticeably improve performance, adding features such as DVD playback and better integration with Windows and Unix networks. Personally, I would have loved a chance to grab that upgrade which is able to launch programs faster than a click of the mouse, but this will have to wait until September. Exactly when is still undisclosed. Macworld NY has always been an important stage for new Apple hardware; just think of the launch of the iMac, and last year the unlucky (and now defunct) Cube. This time, Apple fans had to content themselves with small cosmetic retouches and some upgrade in clock speed to keep up with the times. Apple in fact made minor updates to its ageing iMac product line, abandoning the controversial "Dalmation" and "Flower Power" in favour of more usual colours. Two new iMac configurations are now available: a $999 iMac with a 500 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 128M bytes of RAM, and a 20G-byte hard drive; and a $1,299 iMac with a 600MHz processor, 256M bytes of RAM, and a 40G-byte hard drive. A 700 MHz model with 256M bytes of RAM and a 60G-byte hard drive, priced at $1,499, is slated for August availability. Each of the new models includes a CD-RW drive. Although the idea of a new iMac with an LCD screen is fascinating, the costs entailed by such a decision remain to be seen. It should be noted that the cheapest model in the new range, regardless of additions, is about $200 more expensive than last years equivalent model. Someone please explain why a company betting heavily on the future of video-editing and DVD production does not sell machines able to playback DVDs? Jobs also introduced three new Power Macs with processor speeds running at up to 867MHz. The new computers are housed in silver-coloured "quicksilver" cases. Priced at $3,499 and scheduled to ship in August, Apples new high-end model will be a Power Mac G4 featuring duel 800MHz processors, 256M bytes of RAM, a 80G-byte hard drive, and a SuperDrive, a CD-RW/DVD-R combination. Two new Power Mac G4s are currently available. Apples $2,499 machine has an 867MHz processor, 128M bytes of RAM, a 60G-byte hard drive, and a SuperDrive. For $1,699, the company is offering a Power Mac with a 733MHz processor, 128M bytes of RAM, a 40G-byte hard drive, and a CD-RW drive. For advanced graphics, NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics cards are now standard on all models, with the new NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with TwinView card for dual monitor support standard in the dual 800MHz model. The audience at the keynote speech, and especially those who attended the event via QuickTime, felt regret for the non-adoption of DDR RAM and ATA/100 HD. The re-styling of the line, although nothing new, is surely pleasant, even if many still feel the psychological barrier of the magic Gigahertz. Despite the fact that processor architectures cannot be compared from this standpoint, the G4s inability to pass the famous 1000 MHz threshold lies heavily upon its production line. For the thousandth time, Jobs repeated a head-to-head showdown between an 867MHz G4 processor and Intel Corp.s 1.7GHz Pentium 4, handling a variety of multimedia-heavy rendering and encoding tasks. The results were not unlike previous editions, with the G4 easily beating the Pentium. Rumours about LCD iMac, Apple PDA and more aside, in my opinion a most interesting move could have been the introduction of high-end servers (multiprocessor), a must-have for the company especially now that the capabilities of the new operation system allow them. For sure, someone in Cupertino has already been programming an entry with style in the world of corporate servers; only the date remains undetermined. The general feeling was that something was missing, something that was to have been the star of the show, or in Jobs words "&oh, and one more thing." Some people swore that they saw Jobs, impatient, pacing back and forth as if he was waiting for FedEx to bring him something really hot. Be it true or false, this is another story that will become a legend for future biographies. Meanwhile, expectations for the missing announcements are on the rise, and we cannot but keep burning the same old music. |
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