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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."
Twice. You buy X.0. Then you got X.1 for free and all the updates with it. You then buy X.2. Of course, if you buy a computer sometime in the last 2 years, you will only buy OSX once. Either once with having to upgrade to X.2 or once having to get X.2 for the first time.
As a Mac user for nearly 18 years, I'm quite happy that Apple is now charging some modest fees for their value-added services.
.mac, they've got to fight similar interests at Microsoft.
This is something that Microsoft's hedgemony WON'T let other PC manufacturers do - at least not to the extent that Apple has shown here. If Gateway (Dell, whoever) wants to create a value-added portal like
Apple has no such conflict - they own the whole ball of wax, so the hardware and OS sides of the company can work together to produce a best-in-class (and don't pretend they aren't class-leading or at least very innovative and polished) set of services for Mac users - for free in many cases (iTunes, iPhoto) and for a modest yearly charge in other cases.
My ISP charges $20.00 a month for a 5MB mailox and 50MB of FTP space. Apple is providing more than that for $100.00 a year. That's half off for me - for more space.
Owning a mac has never looked better. Apple is again taking positive steps to increase revenue growth and reduce it's dependence on volatile hardware sales. Reasonable prices for services that generate recurring revenue...new product refreshes on a regular basis to win the fence sitters and an advertising program that _is_ winning over some converts (right here in my office) - rather unfunny Penny Arcade cartoons notwithstanding.
Good job, Apple.
If you don't want the new features, don't buy them. Stay with MacOS X 10.1.5 ...
The "paying for features I don't want" excuse is getting old. If what you have is working well for you, then you have no need to upgrade. I for one still have several Red Hat 6.2 boxes running here because Red Hat 7.2 has features I don't need. It's a free upgrade if I want it, but I don't.
Mac OS X is a great OS. Apple put a lot into those new features you don't want. $129 isn't bad for what you're getting. Hell, look at Windows. It doesn't include half the functionalty and it costs $200-$300 depending on your persuasion (Home/Pro).
The people that have already bought and paid for OS X are Apple's staunchest supporters. If anyone deserves to finally have a fast OS, it's them. Yet they are being asked to pay full tilt ($129) for the speed that should have been there in the very first release.
OS X as it currently sits can be slow even on fast Mac hardware, and annoyingly laggy on slower Macs. This is simply not acceptable. Mac OS X users deserve these fixes for free, and I suspect that most people will take them without paying if they have the opportunity.
No! No damn it no! I'm trying to think of the best way to formulate this response, but I can't so I'll just have to stick with this cheesy opening. Companies have been showing off useless junk like this since 1998. Why on god's earth would I want my computer to tell me whose calling me on my cell phone. I've got caller ID for that. But you say, "Sullust, that might not be usefull, but surely they can think of some really cool use for it." That's the problem though, they can't.
Bluetooth has been around for about 3 years now and nobody uses it. Why you may ask? Because it has no practical use. I recall a demo Bill Gates did many years ago just before Win2K was coming out where he selected a bunch of songs from Windows Media Player and it sent them to his car via 802.11 and then somebody got in the car, turned it on, and be damned if they weren't playing those songs. Wasn't that neat! Funny though, 2+ years latter and me using Windows XP, yet I still can't do that. Why? Because it's easier to just burn my mp3's onto a music cd, or (if i want lots of tunes) get a car mp3 player. You can buy these now, I know of no products that I can beam songs too and play (other than installing a PC in my car... no thanks).
Scott McNealy (or however you spell his name) from Sun does this kind of stuff all the time too, a mythical refrigerator with a computer in it and a barcode scanner (which I can't buy) will scan all the stuff in my fridge and put what I need on the shopping list of my Palm. WOW! That is so freakin' cool! But a year and a half later, I can do no such thing. Again, why? Because it's butt-loads cheaper and easier to... wait for it... open the damn door and look! How many bar code readers is it going to take to read ALL the UPC's in my fridge, or worse yet, am I going to have to point all the UPCs at one or five readers... thanks anyway, I'll just open the door.
The point of this now rantish response is to say that 0.1% of these gee whiz tech demos are going to turn into products. Just because Steve Jobs is on stage doesn't mean it isn't vapor ware. The point is to make you think "just how many streets ahead Apple are" and make you also think "This is all stuff that should exist under Windows, but doesn't." Guess what, it doesn't exist on a Mac either. Senior Jobs just got one of his engineers to make a BlueTooth cellphone that could talk with his address book thingy. I doubt Nokia is going to.
Until Jobs, Gates, or Nealy can get on stage and say "This is the Nokia 3425, Ford Tunester, and Kenmore Neat-n-Shit and you can go to the store and buy them right now." These demo's are just Marketing/PR to make all the geeks love them.
It works too...