MacOS Keynote Coverage

11223 writes: "MacJunkie has HTML coverage of the keynote." Cease and desist notes are being passed out like party favors ;) Actually they've officially announced the wacked out touchy mouse. The Cube is for real too: read more at Apple's Site

Comments

Re:Glad I missed this snoozer

[MonkeyBoy]

Problem is that objectivity and technical know-how seem to be pretty hard to come by.

In other words you have Mac magazines that tell part of the story (running a very limited set of Photoshop filters as benchmarks) but basically know how to setup the Mac so it performs well (and since there are few tweaks to be done on 9x/NT/2K the PC should be setup like 99% of the systems out there). So a limited but fair comparison is done, though a more complete comparison is justified.

And on the other hand you have PC magazines who know how to tweak the PC for performance, but don't know jack about the Mac (ie simply assigning more memory to Photoshop increases performance by about 200% on many filters). As a result those results can't be trusted, nor is it acceptable to think that the average Mac user doesn't know how to assign more memory to his applications.

As for a mouse? So, uh, what are you using to click on buttons anyway? I assume you didn't get excited about Microsoft's HP-technology-licensed-to-MS-and-proclaimed-by-the m-to-be-an-example-of-their-innovation new mice either, right?

Apple and Convergence? Ha.

[Erich]

So I must say that Apple did the right thing in getting a clue and going for an OS that finally has pre-emptive multitasking, real multiuser support, etc. And they finally figured out that they couldn't do it without going to a completely new codebase. I remember back about 7 years ago Apple talking about their new OS with features that should be in a modern OS, and we've only seen it now.

But Apple trying to converge with other OS's? That'll be the day. I think that Apple, as a corporation, is probably equally as evil as Microsoft, it's just that they haven't been in a position to do too much evil. Apple's not evil you say?

• Get other vendors to come up with clones, then refuse to license the OS after they finally get up and running.
• Support QuickTime under windows, but do it in such a way as to make the software as annoying as possible. Put your big logo up at the front every time it's launched. Make your own wierd control panel. Add yourself to the desktop. Claim to want to play everything, but not work on half the stuff. And the only reason they do it at all is because if they didn't support windows nobody would use QT at all.
• Don't support QT on anything but Windows
• Ship horrible mice and keyboards with your products, and then go with the line ``you can replace them with something else if you want!'' instead of shipping a reasonable product.

And, perhaps most importantly,

• All the FUD and lies they spread. Steve Jobs claiming that you can't buy a faster computer than a mac with the G4 -- besides the fact that you could get an UltraSparc or Alpha, many PII's at the time beat it out in most things. Telling people that MacOS was technologically superior to everything. Telling them that it was compatable and flexible. You can't even change the MTU without third-party software.

Don't get me wrong. MacOS is very easy-to-learn. They put some interesting stuff in their boxes. But I wouldn't trust the company. I especially wouldn't trust the company to converge with anything. I'll be watching Apple try to stay as much in ultra-proprietary-land as they can.

Re:Apple and Convergence? Ha.

[Erich]

And on the MTU issue, why do you care how big a network packet you send? How does this help 99.9% of users? I think you were just looking for some big sounding acronym to toss arround.

Not at all. This was a big problem for us... we have a firewall that talks to our DSL line... but the DSL line has a MTU of less than 1500, which is the standard for ethernet. Which meant that all the machines, including the Mac, stopped working when trying to go outside the firewall. The only tweaker program we could find that would change the setting cost $30. For a setting which should be (and is for every other OS we use) available in the OS's settings.

And that third party software you talk about simply adjusts a setting in OpenTransport, which is part of the OS, thus the tweeker prorgam is freeware....

Nope, not freeware. Had a free 30 day demo.

The MTU is probably my biggest example of why I hate Windows and hate Mac more. On all the unix boxes, you type ``ifconfig eth0 mtu 1400'' or you can set the MSS on the default route (either fix the problem as they both do about the same thing). Under windows, you have to make a registry entry to fix the problem. With MacOS, you have to hunt your way around extremely little documentation and finally after reading mailing lists you find some random guy selling his little shareware tweaker.

That just seems like the MacOS way. Tons of annoying shareware for things that should just work and be in the distribution.

And FUD = "Fear Uncertainty and Doubt". How is Apple spreading any of this? I watched the keynote, and Steve Jobs was very clear about the dual G4's being the fastest PERSONAL computers out there for using Photoshop

Which is different from what he was saying before. I've seen and heard Jobs spread lies about how superior the Mac was to anything. I've seen Apple tell everyone that they will be making their OS modern for years. I've seen them convince their customers that if they have to switch to Windows that they'll be dealing with IRQ conflicts and editing their config.sys all day long. How many times have you seen Mac people, even here on slashdot, use terms like ``plug-and-pray'' that they're convinced the Intel architecture is plagued with. I don't use windows much, but the last time I added a new video card to a Windows machine it worked just fine. And it's certainly been years since I dealt with an IRQ conflict. RedHat is amazing at figuring what hardware is added or removed from a system and configuring it.

Not to mention most of the non-apple-done benchmarks I've seen put the G4s at a significantly lower performance level than even middle-of-the-road x86 chips. Try here, can't find some of the better comparisons I've seen.

If what you really meant was "Don't support Linux" then you are correct, but there is no ecomomic reason for them to do so at this time.

Apple supports their own OS pretty well. Apple supports Windows in such a way as to make it annoying to use, as if they are penalizing them for choosing another OS. And while they say that many of the QT codecs are cross-platform, they really mean that they are available on Mac and Windows using the QuickTime Player from Apple Only. That's not a cross-platform standard in my opinion.

What about 64 bit PCI (standard, backward compatible to the regular 32 bit you find in most PC's), Gigabit Ethernet (backward compatable to 10/100), AGP, PC100 RAM (granted they use th 3-2-2 or better only), USB periferals, etc do you find propritary.

Well, let's see. Why does Apple have these things? Is it because they're working towards compatability, or because they were having trouble getting hardware vendors to make specialized NuBus, LCBus, etc. cards when it only affected 10% of the potential market? Meanwhile, how much have they really done to make Macs interoperate well with PCs? Has apple put a SMB client in their OS yet? No! How about an NFS client? No! The only thing it ships with is Appletalk.

http://www.macmedianetwork.com/mwny/index.shtml

[A moron]

Live Keynote Coverage from MWNY 2000

Ok, Steve is now on stage and introing the keynote. He's thanking the audience and saying that they have a ton of stuff to show. He's speaking that over 4 gigabits a second are going through akamai to quicktime viewers.

Ok, now Steve is talking about the mouse. Making a joke that "some people don't like it." So they are introducing a new mouse that looks shaped like a gel cap,"Making the worst mouse in the industry into the best." It is the highest precision optical mouse available. There is no obvious button on it. The whole continuous surface of the mouse is the button. It is designed to fit left or right hands of any size. Steve is saying they've been developing this for awhile. The new optical mouse will be standard across the whole desktop line. Steve is now showing the new keyboard to go to the new mouse. It has the same layout as the Apple Extended keyboard. It has volume keys and an eject disc button. This will also be standard across the whole desktop line. These upgrades will cost $50 each exclusively at the Apple Store and will ship in September. They are now going to show the TV commercials for the new mouse. The new mouse has Black Dog, the Zepplen song, in the background and shows the mouse zooming around on the typical Apple white set.

Jobs is now showing the product matrix and is starting with the PowerMac G4. He's spouting the usual spiel about the G4 and Velocity Engine and 3.5 gigaflops. In the amount of time it takes for the G4 to execute one instruction light has only moved 4 inches. "How does a 500 Mhz G4 stack up against a 1000 Mhz PIII?" Steve is inviting Phil Schiller on stage to find out. Phil is using a movie poster in photoshop to compare a Win2000 Ghz machine and 500 Mhz G4. Phil is saying how PS is optimized for the PIII and G4 so it makes for a good match up. The artist gave Apple the actions they used to make the poster and is running the list of actions on both machines. The G4 spanked the PIII severely. This set of actions is quite comprehensive and uses gradients, transforms, and several other different things. So the Mac finished ahead of the PIII by a considerable amount. "Ghz Pentium, ladies and gentlemen!" The PIII took 120 seconds, the G4 took 100 seconds. If you do the math, a 500 MHz G4 is as fast as a 1.2 Ghz Pentium. Steve is giving the usual "Mhz isn't the most important thing." Now Steve is talking about using 2 G4s at the same time. He's now showing a dual processor G4 compared to a 1 Ghz PIII running the previous movie poster test. The dual machine is running 2 500 Mhz G4s. The G4 is yet again soundly destroying the PIII. "Now we could wait for the Ghz Pentium or not, how about we move on." The dual processor machine took 61 seconds in this case. Doing the math, that is the equivalent of a 2 Ghz PIII. The dual processor machines will be available starting today, running at over 7 gigaflops. The 400 Mhz model will stay the same, the 450 model will now come with 2 450 Mhz G4s, and the high end model will come standard with dual 500 Mhz G4s. Every PowerMac model will now have gigabit ethernet on the motherboard. This is quite expensive and will save a lot of people a PCI slot. Phil is now going to demo this ethernet. This will save a lot of people a $1000 add-on. They're going to use video to demonstrate the speed, by showing the video over the network. Now Phil is editing video using FCP from one machine while the actual video is actually on the server. So Phil is playing this very large movie that takes 16MB/sec. The first model comes with 20 GB, the second 30, the third 40GB, and has space for more drives, this is quite a bit larger. The new models will fall into the same price as their predecessors. All of these models are available today. "We think this is going to be the best PowerMac ever."

Now Jobs is going to talk about Mac OS X (!!!!!!!!!). "It has great new plumbing." Mac OS X supports SMP (symmetric multi-processing. Jobs said that they are on track to release the public beta of OS X in early September and the final in early 2001. He says they don't have time for a full blown demo so he is just going to show Aqua for a bit. This is pretty standard stuff, saving windows and stuff. He's demonstarting the save dialog. He's talking about exposing the power of the interface when you want it, but keeping a simple. He is saying there have been some misconception of the finder and that it is still very Mac-like. He's demonstrating navigating the hard drive and viewing files. He's showing the browser mode of finding files and how you can preview mp3s, video, and just about anything else in the finder. Now he's showing the dock, talking about using it to hold miniaturized windows, applications, and documents. He's demonstrating his love for the dock by showing the slow motion movement of the window to the dock. He's just going to show one last thing, showing the MI:2 trailer in QT on Mac OS X. Actually, now he's going to show the bomb.app, an application that works its hardest to crash Mac OS X, he's also showing it while playing the movie trailer. The bomb applications just simply was quitted when it crashed, but the trailer kept going. Now he's talking about his great relationship with Adobe and invited the president up. "We have hundreds of engineers working on getting our applications over to Mac OS X." He is talking about making sure that the key apps are on Mac OS X. "Now we have the ultimate system," the president is saying, in reference to the MP G4 machines,"I can't wait to get my hands on one." Jobs said mock seriously,"Get him one." Now Jobs is talking about their improving relationship with Microsoft and working with them on the new version of Office. He invited the Mac business unit manager up. "It is the most Mac-like product we've released in a long time." It is supposed to increase compatibility with Windows and other Apple applications. The new application in the suite, Entourage (?) seems to be a calendar, adress book, etc. It seems a lot of these features are only available on the Mac, but the audience doesn't seem very pleased and didn't say "Only on the Mac", along with the MS rep even though he asked them too. Now they're looking at Excel. My stream briefly died, but all I seemed to miss were more Office demos, I'm sure every site will cover the new features a ton. You can now save PowerPoint as QuickTimes. Now they're showing an ad for Office 2001. Jobs said,"Best version of Office: on the Mac." Now Jobs is talking about Bungie and invited the VP of games for MS to come out and speak. Apple, Bungie, and Microsoft are getting together to form a games company, it sounds like every game made by Bungie and MS will also come out for Mac OS, but I'm not totally sure of that. So it seems Halo will still come out for Windows and Mac OS, which pleases me greatly.

Now he's talking about the iMacs, and their second birthday. In 2 years 7 million iMacs have been sold. Over 200 an hour are sold. Now he's giving the usual stats about new buyers, converts from Wintel, and how many use the internet, and how many edit movies. 89% are online. There are now 4 models, with the same award winning design. He's talking about all the current features, Harmon Kardon sound, fan-less. The first model is the entry level one, 350 Mhz G3, 7.5 gigabytes, comes in Indigo, and with 64MB of RAM. It of course comes with the new keyboard and mouse, and only costs $799(!!!!!). Model number 2 is the iMac DV. He's talking about FireWire and iMovie allowing people to make movies. 30% of iMac DV makers have made an iMovie. The second model comes in the colro Ruby, which is a deep red, as expected. The iMac DV is $999. The iMac DVSE is 500 Mhz G3, 128MB of RAM, 30GB HD, and DVD. You can also now get the DVSE in Snow, a white color, it appears, and costs $1499. So the new colors are Graphite, Snow, Indigo, Ruby, and Sage, no yellow or tangerine, it appears. The $799 model is the only one not available immediately, it will show up in September. I missed some of the iMac specs/prices, so check out the details later. Jobs is also talking about having Circuit City sell iMacs. Jobs is showing the new iMac ads, one has Elvis music, I don't know the second song, but it has Ruby in the lyrics. The third ad is for the green Sage iMacs, which is a very hip color. "It is not easy being green."

Now Jobs is talking about iMovie and how close it is to Apple. He's talking about how amazingly easy it is and how great the technology is. Now they're announcing iMovie 2. He said iMovie is the most popular video editing tool in the world. It has a new interface and a host of other new features and improvements. It has an Aqua instead of brushed steel interface. It has enhanced audio editing and new effects. The video is rather funny and is a video letter from Mr.Jobs to his parents apologizing for his absence. So, he's just demoing more features of iMovie, such as audio mixing.

Re:Trackball touchpad

[Golias]

No.

If you had read the article, or any of several out on the web today, you would know that 1) It does not work like a touchpad. 2) It does not use a trackball for movement. 3) The picture at Insider is not what it looks like.

Re:Bleah. Yuk flavoured imacs

[Golias]

I also have some HK gear. Pretty good, for the money.

In answer to your question, the entire sound system was designed and built at HK's lab. The speakers, the amp, and the optional iSub USB subwoofer, are all Apple-branded components made by Harmon Kardon.

The Cube is Real! The Cube is Real!

[frankie]

Oh my fucking God, that's just nuts.

It's only 8 inches on a side, and the entire internal pops out of the plastic case.

My notes from the Webcast

[Valdrax]

Here are my notes from the webcast, for those who weren't able to attend the expo and who missed it:

New Input Devices

New optical mouse. Still one-button only, but the entire surface is the button. Will be standard on all Macs. This is not the touchy, squeezing, twiddling mouse that everyone has rumors about, and it looks radically different from previously posted pictures.

New 108 key keyboard based on the old Mac Extended Keyboard design. Includes volume and eject keys along with the standard arrow. Both keyboard and mouse will be sold on the Apple Store as seperate components for $59 each.

Pentium vs. G4 Showdown

Used a 500 MHz G4 vs. a 1 GHz Pentium III with Altivec and SSE enhanced filters, respectively. Did the standard Photoshop test, this time rendering the "Inspector Gadget" movie poster. G4 = 100 sec, P3 = 124 sec.

They did the same showdown again with a dual-G4 machine vs. a single P3 machine. Note that Photoshop is one of the few Mac apps designed to take advantage of Apple's asymmetric multiprocessing API. Until Mac OS X, not all apps will be able to take advantage of this boost. This is a bit of a stacked comparison, but not bad for an OS without SMP. 61 seconds on dual G4.

New machines

Yes, they are formally announcing dual-G4 machines today. The 400 MHz model is going to still be single processor machines, but the 450 MHz and 500 MHz models will only be able to be bought with dual-G4s.

They are also including Gigabit Ethernet as a standard option on the motherboard for all G4 machines. To show off Gigabit Ethernet, they played a Final Cut Pro movie with the uncompressed video source being streamed from the server. They also showed scrubbing through it from the server. The showed smooth playback at over 16 Mb/sec, and showed good recovery after the cable was pulled mid-playback and replugged.

New machines will include 20 GB, 30 GB, and 40 GB drives respectively. All of these new features will be sold at the same price as the old machines.

Mac OS X

Public Beta is on track for September. Also on track to release in 2001. No time for a full-blown demo, but do show off a the new UI. They showed off the following:

• Live dragging and resizing
  
• Showed off attached dialogs. Demonstrated intelligent behavior when the window is smaller than the dialog or a little off-screen.
  
• New save dialogs include a pop-up window with options to save to favorites, the desktop, and recent folder. Also includes a mini-browser (like the Finder browser view) to pick a different place.
  
• Finder
  
  • Showed that you can now drag a volume to the desktop and use it like you do on the Mac today.
    
  • Showed the controls to switch between iconic, list, and browser view.
    
  • Showed that the browser view includes a preview pane that can preview all kinds of QT media.
    
  
  
• The Dock
  
  • Showed addition and removal of apps and docs to the dock.
    
  • Showed window minizing, even had a slow-mo demo. Showed the nifty way it handles having half the window off the bottom of the screen befor being minimized. They also showed off a slow-mo demo of a quicktime window being minimized while the window still plays.
    
  • Showed the "Bomb" app while playing the movie. The app attempts to crash the system by doing everything a Mac app shouldn't do, including writing to low global memory. The app crashed itself, but didn't disturb the system.
    
  • Did not address dock overloading, organizational, or Fitt's Law problems with Dock design. It seems nothing has been done to address these issues.
    
  
  

3rd Parties

Bruce Chizen from Adobe came and raved about the PowerMac G4 SMP. Nothing of consequence was said, though.

Kevin Browne of MS comes to talk about the new Office 2001 for Mac. Added a new application to Office called Entourage, which is apparently an Outlook replacement.

• Mac Only Features
  
  • Entourage includes a new preview pane.
    
  • There is a new categories feature that synchronizes with categories on a PalmPilot.
    
  • There is a new Project Gallery that help do finished formatting.
    
  • New set of formatting wizards for Word.
    
  • There are also some new formatting palettes that help avoid going through dialog boxes.
    
  • New picture tools for doing limited photo editing.
    
  • There is a new List Manager in Excel to help people create lists in Excel and format them well.
    
  
  
• BIG ONE: Powerpoint can now save presentations as Quicktime Movies. They did not say whether or not this is a Mac-only feature.
  
• Note that they also made mention improved inter-operability with Windows versions right before showing off all these Mac-specific features.
  

Brought up MS's VP of Games to talk about Bungie. MS and Apple are teaming up with Bungie to being bringing their entire line to the Mac, including older MS games. They transitioned to talking about the X-Box and brought up the CEO of Bungie. He mentioned their origins as a Mac company and confirmed that, yes, Halo WILL still be coming out for the Mac. Wow, this game is going to be sweet. Very cinematic.

iMac

Talked a little about the 2 year history of the iMac. 3.7 million iMacs sold in 2 years. That's about 5000+ per day, 200+ per hour, or 1 every 18 seconds. Did the demographic breakdown.

• 30% 1st timers
  
• 14% Wintel converts
  
• 89% of iMacs are on-line
  

4 New iMac models:

• All models: G3 procs, slot-loading drives, USB, Ethernet, no fans, etc. All come with new mouse and keyboard.
  
• Entry-level iMac: 350 MHz G3, 64 MB mem, 7.5 GB drive, slot-loading CD-ROM. All new color, Indigo. Price: $799. Hyped it as the best internat appliance on the market.
  
• iMac DV: Includes Firewire and iMovie. 400 MHz G3, 64 MB mem, 10 GB disk, CD-ROM, AirPort ready. Comes in Indigo and another new color, Ruby. Price: $999. Hyped iMovie for everybody.
  
• iMac DV+: 450 MHz, 64 MB mem, 20 GB disk, DVD-ROM, AirPort, Firewire, and iMovie. Indigo, Ruby, and another new color, Sage, which is a darker green. Price: $1299
  
• iMac DV SE: 500 MHz, 128 MB, 30 GB disk, DVD-ROM, AirPort, Firewire, and iMovie. Price: $1499. Comes in an improved Graphite color and a new color called Snow, which is a solid white case.
  

Yesterday, it was announced that Circuit City will be selling iMacs. Furthermore, the digital cameras and iMacs will be sold side-by-side now. Showed off the new commercials for the new iMacs. (I love the choice of "It's Not Easy Being Green" for the Sage machines. "White Room" was also pretty funny for Snow.)

iMovie 2

New user interface, intended to be easier to use. Enhanced audio editing and special effects. They adopted some Aqua GUI elements. (Why, oh why, can't they use their own Appearance Manager?) They showed the drag and drop functionality in iMac's timeline and clip manager panel. They also showed off some new audio functionality. Unfortunately, after Jobs actually got started working, the audio for the webcast got cut, so I can't really tell all of what he was doing. They did show off how you could now have clips transition into sepia tones.

iMovie 2 is free with all desktop Macs -- but what about the entry-leve iMac? For people who aren't buying a new machine, there will be a $49 download available in August.

iTools

Talked some about iDisk and using iMovie to create movies and uploading them to iDisk along with pictures. You can use Apple's homepage templates to create personal photo and movie galleries. Did a demo of doing this.

The Cube

They are expanding their product line to create a new area between consumer and pro. The new 8" cube Mac is for real. The PowerMac G4 Cube has:

• G4 proc
  
• expandable up to 1.5 GB mem
  
• up to 40 GB disk
  
• modem, ethernet, usb, firewire, airport net
  
• no fan, again
  

I'll be damned. The Apple Insider picture is pretty close to what it looks like. It's almost identical to the picture with the two dark screws. The slot-loading DVD drive is in the top, and the connectors are on the bottom. To open, you turn it upside down, push on a pop-up handle, and slide it all out by the handle. The handle locks it in place (and comes with a Kensington lock). Access was a key issue. (Side note: It seems to have an internal grill, so it seems that pencils aren't a case, but don't you dare put a coffee cup on it.) Comes with two little spherical Harmann speakers.

• 450, 64, 20, dvd, iMovie -- $1799
  
• 500, 128, 30, dvd, iMovie -- $2299
  
• available in august
  

Apparently, the new 17" monitor was also dead on. The front screen is flat, and the graphite enclosing is clear. It has 2 USB ports, costs $499, and has a single cable carrying power, video, and USB. Also, they debuted new Studio Display models - 15" & 22", both with 1 cable for all needs. They say that it is compatible with the older models and not just the cube.

The wrapped up the keynote with a commercial filled with interviews about the new cube. Steve then gave free optical mice to all the keynote attendees! Sweet!

Re:My notes from the Webcast

[11223]

Anything here remind you of NeXT?

Letssee... a cube based computer with a monitor cable that carrys multiple connections? (NeXT monitor connections carried audio too).

Don't stack the Cube

[ptbrown]

The cube doesn't have a fan, so even if there weren't the little matter with the "toaster"-loading DVD, it would be a Very Bad Thing(tm) to stack them.

About that DVD... Has anyone ever seen a vertically-mounted disc drive that didn't suck? I thought that was an issue with the 20th Century Mac that the drive couldn't be faster than 4x because of stability.

And then there's the whole matter of slot-loading drives to begin with. They suck, they're stupid, and they don't work. Has Apple never heard of card-discs? Anything other than standard 5" completely circular discs are useless on these things. I wonder if DVD-RAM is available on the Cube? Last I checked, the DVD-RAM drive Apple offered was tray-loading. Otherwise I'd be apt to cut into the faceplate just to get a "real" drive installed. And put a fan in for good measure.

Damn, everyone there got one of those new mice. Why am I not attending these conferences?

macjunkie eat your shorts. cube announced

[A moron]

more from: http://www.macmedianetwork.com/mwny/index.shtml

Now Jobs is talking about iTools and how easy it is to make a homepage. The new iTools has more templates and features. He whipped out a website in iTools real quick to show how easy it is. He's demoing the photo album in iTools. It now allows drag and drop reordering of pictures. Now he is making a page to show an iMovie. He's talking about being able to build a very extensive website after dinner in just a few minutes.

He's gone back to the product matrix and is reviewing what they've gone over. "But there's even one more thing..." He's talking about their product strategy and how successul they've been for the past 2.5 years, but now they are expanding their product strategy with a new desktop. The new desktop will be a G4, up to 1.5 gigs of RAM, up to 40 gigs of storage inside the machine, ethernet, USB, firewire, Airport. This machine is much smaller than a G4, being an 8" cube, 1/4 the size of a G4. It doesn't have a fan. It looks totally chic and would look most excellent to an Apple LCD. It has slot-loading DVD on top, toaster style, apparently they've gotten around the 8x barrier that vertical CD players used to have. It is very easy to access the insides for upgrades, so those who worried about that, don't. It has ball speakers, which are very hip. It costs a cool $1800, so not really very cheap. The models are available in early August.

Now he is showing the new displays. The new 17" CRT display with Diamondtron and is totally flat. It has a brilliant clear enclosure. It has 2 USB ports built into it. The display is powered by the computer, just one cable carries video, USB, and power. One cable replaces 3. It costs $499. The next display is the 15" LCD. 2 USB ports again, and powered from the computer just like the CRT, and only costs $999. The last is the new Cinema Display, which uses the video/USB/power over one cable. Now they are talking to Apple employees about how great the new stuff is.