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All-New PowerBooks, Web Browser Featured at Macworld
The 17" model is 1440x900 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio, G4/1GHz, SuperDrive, GeForce4 440 Go/64MB, and all the same ports, with the addition of line in and FireWire 800 (in addition to FireWire 400). It is less than 1" thin, and 6.8 lbs., and has fiber-optic lightning for the keyboard activated by ambient light sensors. It will be available next month for $3,300.
The 12" version is 4.6 lbs., and is smaller than the iBook in every dimension. It's 1024x768, G4/867, GeForce4 420 Go/32MB, and is AirPort-ready ($99 extra). It is $1,800 for a combo drive model, $2,000 for a SuperDrive model, and will be available in two weeks.
Both models sport the new AirPort Extreme (802.11g), which is 54Mbps, up from the 11Mbps of AirPort (802.11b). The base stations and clients are fully compatible with the old AirPort, handle 50 users, and support both wireless bridging (to extend the range by adding more stations) and can act as a USB printer server.
Jobs also introduced Safari, a new Mac OS X browser based on the KHTML rendering engine from KDE (and Apple will publish changes they've made to it). There's nothing especially great about it -- it's a web browser -- except that, unlike most other browsers, it is expected to be fast and work properly, as well as be fully integrated into Mac OS X. The web is a killer app, but pretty much all web browsers suck; Apple hopes to give us something that doesn't suck in Safari. It is a free download for the beta, starting today. This story was posted using Safari. W00p.
iPhoto 2 has been revamped, with iTunes integration (access to playlists, tracks, even searching) for slide shows; one-click enhance of photos; a retouch brush; archiving to CD/DVD; and more. iMovie 3 has added chapters, the "Ken Burns Effect" (panning through still images), and precise audio editing. iDVD 3 has added a ton of quite cool themes, which will look great the first few times you see them.
They are -- along with iTunes -- bundled with all new Macs beginning January 25 as "iLife". All but iDVD will be freely available online, contrary to previously published reports. The entire bundle of four apps will be available for retail purchase for $50.
For sale today at $99 is another new app, Keynote, which is the presentation software Jobs has been using for over a year for his own presentations. It includes all sorts of flashy features like textures and Quartz-powered 3D transitions, and can import and export PowerPoint, as well as export to PDF and QuickTime. It has an open file format (using XML).
Jobs also introduced Final Cut Express, a stripped-down version of Final Cut Pro, for $300, and noted other prominent third-party software recently released for Mac OS X: QuickBooks, Director, and DigiDesign Pro Tools (later this month). He noted that the number of native apps for Mac OS X jumped from 2,000 to 5,000 in 2002.
Meanwhile, the number of users of the OS went from 1.2 million to 5 million last year, and he expects the number to jump to 9 or 10 million in 2003.
Update: 01/07 19:37 GMT by Jamie (also posted with Safari): And thanks to the several Slashdot readers who pointed out a great but unannounced product: X11 (aka the X Windows System) for Mac OS X. It's in Public Beta right now. Great to see this, an Apple-supported X is greatly needed. I don't know why Jobs didn't at least mention this, it would have gotten quite the round of applause I'm sure.
My favorite part of the keynote:
Gigantic screen behind Steve Job reads:
"Open Source
We think it's great"
-Spyky
Uhh... by my count, there were only 3 Macworld keynotes in 2002.
And here I thought only Microsoft tested their products three times before they shipped.
It took me 5 clicks to actually get to this page. /. finally got a taste of it's own medicine after the macworld kenote. Anyone want to repost the story in the comments please...
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
Wow, fiber optic lightning?
1.21 giggawatts!!
How many mice does it take to make 12 pounds of mouse nuts? And why are people eating them?
It is a trick to get slashdot to slashdot itself!!!
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I wonder when AT&T will sue for infringement on their mLife?
Maybe it's sufficiently different that it be only 4 letters away. That opens the opportunity for:
aLife, for the sci-fi crowd
eLife, for the net-addicted
qLife, for that omnipotent feeling (while waiting in line)
uLife, for the sheep
yLife, for the suicidal
I do seem to recall the end of 2002
Really? Then you didn't drink enough.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Designers will have no choice but to stick to open standards instead of writing to one specific browser.
Yeah, whatever. Designers have clients. Clients make demands. You see:
Client: I think our front page should have flashing news scroller, a slide show, and dancing girls that follow the mouse!
Me: Trust me, you really don't want that. It will make your page slow to load, and incompatible with numerous browsers. I could do it in Flash, but that would cost a lot.
Client: But the dancing girls are so cute! We'd sell more widgets! Don't use flash; I hate downloading plugins.
Me: I feel a great need to pop a clue in your a**, but I really need the money.
Client: Don't forget to make it play "Achy Breaky Heart"!
Me: Grr!
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
But it's like Gecko, according to the User-Agent it sends:
"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/48 (like Gecko) Safari/48"
=)
David Hyatt was working at Netscape before and was one of their best developers. He actually had the most bugs assigned in Bugzilla.
:)
Maybe that explains why they didn't use Gecko
<sarcasm> ... Mmmm k?
Hey sounds good. So, I'll set up this 'ONE' layout engine and everyone can just code to that, ok? I am kinda busy right now, but I'll post here when it is up. I'm thinking sourceforge for the hosting and I'll be sure to check in KHTML as soon as it is registered. You can let the Gecko folks know that we've all agreed to focus on KHTML from now on and I'll notify the KDE/Apple developers
</sarcasm>