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Apple Reveals Mac OS X 10.2, 17" iMac, Windows iPod
The Address Book is now system-wide, accessible from many applications, and even has Bluetooth integration. Jobs dialed his cell phone via Address Book, and then when someone called him back on that phone, the computer popped up with the caller's name in Address Book. He had the option to pick up the phone or reply with a short text message.
iSync is a new system for synching your contacts and calendars with GPRS cell phones, Palms, and iPods; so Palms and cell phones are now a part of the digital hub. The iSync program shows you connected devices, and allows configuration of what to sync, and when. The demo showed a complete sync of an address book on the computer to the cell phone, again over Bluetooth. iSync will also allow integration with .mac to update your contacts and calendars between multiple computers, and will be available as a free download in September.
The Mail app now has much better searching and spam filtering, and inline QuickTime (no, that won't be abused ...).
Rendezvous will allow such things as automatic accessing of other's playlists in iTunes, accessing USB printers on the network, and more, with "zero configuration" (I hope there is some configuration, so I can opt in or out of such things). Epson, HP, and Lexmark will have Rendezvous-compatible printers. Jobs didn't mention any way to share USB printers between Mac OS and Mac OS X.
iChat, the new instant messaging program, and iCal, the new shared calendar program, can work with the $100-per-year .mac subscription, or with the free AOL IM account and any web server. iChat will use Rendezvous for finding local users, and shared calendars can be sent via iChat or mail. iCal will ship in September, as a free download.
Sherlock 3 has been completely rewritten, using Internet services (SOAP? XML-RPC?) instead of trying to parse HTML. The demo showed movie listings with embedded trailers, eBay searches with intelligently organized information and pictures, Google image searching, and a Yellow Pages search that knows your ZIP code and sorts by distance, and shows directions and maps.
iTunes 3 is out today, with new features such as rating songs, keeping track of how often songs are played, playing back all songs at the same volume, integration with audible.com, and "Smart Playlists" with rulesets so they are automatically populated (e.g., "25 most played songs", or "500 MB of songs where playcount is 0", to play songs you've never listened to). It is only available for Mac OS X, and requires registration with an email address.
For the iPod, Apple lowered prices on the 5GB and 10GB models ($299, $399), and introduced a 20GB model ($499). The 10GB and 20GB have a solid state scroll wheel, a door to protect the FireWire port, a remote control, and a case. The playlist counts, Smart Playlists, and audible.com integration sync between the iPod and iTunes. Sound volume check has also been added to the iPod. The new 10GB model is 7.692 percent thinner than the previous version.
Also added to the iPod, in addition to the contacts, is calendars, synched with iCal, so it can really act as a PDA for most people. Jobs also announced Windows versions of iPod, synching with musicmatch and including a FireWire 6-to-4 pin cable.
The new iMac has a 17" widescreen display at 1440x900, with an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX, G4/800, and 80GB hard drive.
Jobs also noted that there are 2.5 million Mac OS X users, that 77 percent of owners of new Macs keep Mac OS X as the primary OS, and that they estimate there will be 5 million Mac OS X users by the end of the year, representing 20% of all Mac users using the new OS in the first 24 months.
Apple showed some new ads in the "Switch" campaign, including a student who lost her paper on Windows, a student whose CDs get messed up in his bag (although they didn't point out that he can use iPod under Windows now), and a comedian who ended his commercial with, "My name is Will Ferrell ... and I'm a porn actor."
The main reason they still included Mac OS 9 was simply that a lot of people buying macs also had a Mac in the past and those people want to be able to still run older programs, which haven't (yet) been ported to Mac OS X, on their new computer. Backward compatibility, you know.
Finally, yes, the current/previous versions of Mac OS X are/were quite a bit slower than Mac OS 9 (although not in all regards, e.g. disk performance is already a lot better than in 9; it's mainly the GUI responsiveness imho), but otoh Mac OS X keeps getting faster and faster (and I hope 10.2 will solve this, for me, final issue). I for one am glad they first worked on stability and only then on optimizations. The way they're doing it now, you can really use the computer under OS X (I've barely booted in Mac OS 9 anymore since even Mac OS X Public Beta); if they'd done it the other way round, you'd be bitching even more I think.
Jonas
Donate free food here
Hm...time to get KaZaa and download the iso :0.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I just bought my G4 Titanium PowerBook less then a week ago. I paid $5000 for it (Australian Dollars). And thats with the Student Discount, else it would have been close to $6000! Thats a SHITLOAD of money.
Now a week later, OSX 10.2 is announced (i have been waiting for this for ages), and they want me to pay another $129USD for it? (About $260AUD).
Highway robbery!
How about.... NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apple is becoming like M$. Charging for their Win98 to Win98SE 'bug fix'.
Time to find an OSX 10.2 ISO on IRC.... I just spent a shitload of money on apple, i'm not forking out anymore for some time. (Tho i DO want their airport base station. But again, at $699 AUD, i am not forking out till the price goes down)
D.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Doesn't a demonstration of such kickass tech (especially the database filing system stuff) realised today fro the consumer show just how many streets ahead Microsoft are?
This is stuff that should exist on the Mac, but doesn't. While Apple focused on gee-whiz features in an attempt to get more upgrades, Microsoft has retained their lead in producing leading edge tools and pushed forward computing - they can only produce better and better products.
Yay.
Care to take a look at the new iMac, retard? It's a 17" LCD. Widescreen! Sheesh.
-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
I have a nearly two year old PowerMac that runs MacOS X only about a third slower than the current top-end model. That's not bad at all.
In reality, it's Windows XP that has to jump through this hoop - our IT guy just quit, and his 1ghz Athelon XP system is distinctly sluggish. XP's published specifications include system requirements that exclude any system more than a year and a half old at the time.
D
Doesn't a demonstration of such slow processors (especially the 100mhz fsb G4 stuff) realised today for the consumer show just how many streets behind Apple are?
Faster processors should exist on Macs, but doen't. Apple has, after so many years, arrived at the point of One and a half years behind everything else in the market - they can only produce better and better products because they are at the bottom now.
Boo.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Yeah, but if any of this stuff was built into Windows wouldn't the same people on this thread be whining about how Microsoft is abusing its monopoly power to shove software no one wants down peoples throats and to drive competitors out of business ?
/. just paints you as an astroturfing suck-up.
That's bullshit and you know it.
Being able to synch your iPaq to Windows via Bluetooth is cool. Having to pay Microsoft on a per-byte basis when you do it, while it sends personal data to the mothership, and your crypto key to the NSA, and notices of detected copyright infringement to the RIAA and MPAA is not.
I'm not saying that that's how your iPaq synch is implemented - but this *is* the spirit and intent of Hailstorm, and pretty much Microsoft's whole internet strategy. People are RIGHT to question this, and resist having it implemented as a sole solution. Your observation that we're all a bunch of microsoft-slamming whiners here on
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Er. no.
If we're comparing Apples to Microsofts, then the correct analogy would be that I'm sticking with Windows3.11 AFTER purchasing Windows95 and finding it un-useable because it a.) crashed b.) wouldn't run any of my programs without me spending multiple-hundreds of dollars to re-buy, crossgrade, or upgrade. and c.) had a non-functional GUI that irritated me to death.
Windows3.11-Windows95 was worth it, Windows95-2k was worth it, and Windows2k-XP was worth it. OS 9-OS X WILL be worth it once it's a functional OS and makes up for its shortcomings.
OS10.1-OS10.2 IS NOT worth the $130 they are asking for it. It is NOT a new version of an OS, even if it might be the first complete version of the 'beta' releases they've been trying to sell off as 'real'.
I think the numbers speak for themselves--only 20 percent of Mac users have upgraded.. No.. wait. That's their PROJECTED CONVERSION RATE for 24 months of release. Something like 77% of users who bought a computer *with the OS installed* left it installed.
-Sara
Whoever gave this jerk a 5 is a crappy moderator. It's obvious MAc fanatic BS. For instance, I can get a Windows compatible MP3 player for a lot cheaper than an iPod. Wireless networking has been available on Windows for some time. Under Windows, IM clients are available for free from a number of sources. AntiSpam software is also available. Wireless networking has been available for Windows for some time now. etc. When will Mac fanatics realize the concept of the Turing machine and stop buying overpriced hardware?
Vote for Pedro
"Good job, Apple."
This is why people like me consider people like you, Mac Nuts.
You realize you are congratulating Apple for charging more? If Microsoft ups their prices, people say "damn", if Red Hat ups their prices (and you don't have a CD burner), people say "damn". But when Apple does pretty much absolutely anything, people say "Good job Apple, that'll show em."
First, I want to say how crazy that is.
Second, it reminds me of something. It was a speech Malcom X made he refered to what he considered black house slaves. The slaves that lived in the house with the owner were very obediant. They said "Yes sir!" with enthusiasm. Malcom X despised these people because they were so used to being slaves, that in some sense they didn't want to be free. And they loved their owner.
And that is what Mac Nuts remind me of. Mac users are very dependent on Apple for their computing needs. They visit "rumor" sites to find out what Apple is going to do next--because they know with all likelyhood whatever changes Apple makes is going to end up on their desktop. Their choice is two-fold, to upgrade or not to upgrade.
And the parent post is the kind of post that reminds me that Apple users have a natural regard to how well business is for Apple. This natural, because of their dependence of this company. If business is good for Apple, they will get better stuff. Apple users learn not to byte the hand that feeds them.
I know I am generalizing here and I'm sorry about this. Perhaps I am only responding to a vocal minorty.
But this form of loyalty to a company, to a brand, can not be good. No matter how good their stuff is.
And you're a Mac user for 18 years? Can anyone say addict?
You forget that I don't actually give a fuck what the people in this thread have to say. Microsoft can make their OS more competitive in any way they like, I don't care.
:)
(I'll just pirate the next Windows, anyway
I don't own a Mac, idiot.
That's bullshit and you know it.
Odd how that statement applies more to your post than the parents.