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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul



Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Major Apple product updates

It's weird witnessing this from such a far-off time zone (9:00 pm? Geesh), but here goes:

Apple Unveils New iMac
Apple today unveiled an all new all-in-one iMac line featuring gorgeous 20- and 24-inch widescreen displays encased in elegant and professional aluminum and glass enclosures. The entire new iMac line features the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors and a new, ultra-thin aluminum Apple Keyboard, built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing and iLife '08, making it the ultimate digital lifestyle desktop computer for both consumers and professionals. The 20-inch iMac now starts at just $1,199, $300 less than the previous 20-inch model, and the 24-inch iMac starts at just $1,799, $200 less than the previous 24-inch model.
The iMac looks solid, though the design is obviously an evolution over the previous version. I'm curious that Apple went with a Pro-style enclosure with the iMac. I wonder if they're trying to take it a bit more upscale. Certainly, the pricing appears to be excellent.

Apple Enhances .Mac
Apple today announced significant enhancements to its .Mac online service, highlighted by the debut of .Mac Web Gallery, a new feature for sharing photos and movies on the Internet. .Mac Web Gallery lets members easily share photos and movies directly from iLife '08 with anyone on a Mac, PC or iPhone(TM) in stunning quality. In addition, .Mac Web Gallery visitors can download high quality images for printing and even contribute photos using a standard web browser or email. Other new .Mac features include a tenfold increase in .Mac storage to 10GB, support for personal domains for iWeb websites and enhancements to .Mac Mail.
.Mac is still somewhat of a joke, though obviously this is a huge improvement. It won't matter. This is a non-starter.

Apple Introduces iLife '08
Apple today introduced iLife '08, the most significant upgrade ever to Apple's award- winning suite of digital lifestyle applications, featuring a major new version of iPhoto and a completely reinvented iMovie. iPhoto '08 automatically organizes photo libraries into Events that let users more easily manage their growing photo collections, and iMovie '08 introduces an entirely new way for users to quickly make movies and share them online. Both iPhoto and iMovie integrate seamlessly with the new .Mac Web Gallery, Apple's new service for .Mac members to instantly create and host stunning online websites for their photos and videos. iLife '08 also features iWeb '08, with live web widgets such as Google Maps that let users create even more dynamic websites, and GarageBand '08, with its new Magic GarageBand feature that makes it fun and easy for both musicians and non-musicians to create great sounding songs.
I'm looking forward to getting this, though I'll have to wait until the end of the month. iLife is always good stuff though, and as Steve Jobs notes in the press release, it's "years ahead of anything available for the PC." That's not hyperbole. It's just true.

Apple Introduces iWork '08
Apple today introduced iWork '08, a significant upgrade to Apple's productivity software suite featuring new versions of Pages and Keynote word processing and presentation applications, and introducing an innovative new spreadsheet application called "Numbers." Numbers introduces the concept of intelligent tables on a flexible canvas, a new approach that makes it easy to organize information, create calculations, analyze results and make spreadsheets look as great as they work. Pages '08 now features distinct modes for streamlined word processing and flexible page layout, a new contextual format bar and change tracking, and Keynote '08 now includes text effects, transitions and themes that help users easily compose spectacular presentations, and Smart Builds with easy-to-set-up A-to-B animations that make impressive animations easy for anyone to create.
I guess I appreciate Apple's desire to sever the one last remaining Microsoft requirement on the Mac platform (Office), but come on. Though there are Keynote advocates out there, the number of Pages users is likely in the teens. And, oh, good, yet another spreadsheet. This just seems like a waste of time to me.

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