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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.
Looks strange to me. Is this really the KDE HTML rendering engine or is it Gecko? It certainly identifies itself as Netscape 5...
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Check out this clip from their new (Konq-based) web browser... they're using Slashdot as an example website!l
http://www.apple.com/safari/theater/bookmarks.htm
good, but no tabbed browsing.
Microsoft is going to have to work harder now to keep up. Apple needs to put the PPC970 from IBM and integrate USB2 pronto. Other than that, this was a marvelous keynote.
Why KHTML rather than Gecko, I wonder?
.5 yet? Whoowee! 6mb download and faster than IE in every way in Win2000)
Of course if they were both perfectly compliant, it wouldn't matter, but neither one is.
Gecko has a larger install base with existing Netscape, Moz, Chameleon, Galeon, and Phoenix installs, and is more likely, with AOL converts, to have a larger market share and have more 'feature-rich' pages designed to render properly in it. Both are cross-platform.
(BTW, have you used Phoenix
The only thing I can figure out here is that Steve really likes KDE or he really doesn't like the MPL. Maybe he's paranoid about helping Steve Case any more than need be by speeding Moz/Netscape acceptance.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Oh, my spalling does suck, but nevermind about that :)
The keyboard design is brilliant (there's a pun there, I think). The only thing missing is a little camera somewhere to enable Video Conferencing (which I use a lot with all my friends and some of my clients). But no complaints.
I probrably don't have anything smart to say right now... too busy drooling after having watched the entire live stream of the keynote. But if anyone wants to throw links to great places new Mac ownsers can go to (such as http://fink.sourceforge.net/ ) I'd LOVE to see your thoughts, links, suggestions, etc.
"Jobs also introduced Safari, a new Mac OS X browser based on the KHTML rendering engine from KDE "
I can't believe they would not adopt Chimera, especially with David Hyatt now working at Apple. No offense to KDE which I hold oh so dear over any other WM system, but Gecko is just a better engine. Its truly cross platform, has a huge amount of momentum behind it, and AOL would essentially be doing R&D for free for Apple. Not to even mention the fact the Netscape/Moz has much much better industry suport,a ton of addons and a much larger user base. If this is true I'd just call the move foolish.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Actually, it bridges the gap between the iBook quite nicely. I've talked to a couple people about this before, that would really like the features of the powerbook, but couldn't spend $2400+ on one, but the iBook didn't have enough horsepower for their liking... sometimes size is a considerations as well. all and all, the market for it may not be huge, but it definitely helps the people caught in between the old iBook/Powerbook lineups
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
They've needed this -- a small G4 based notebook.. They couldn't do it with iBook because they want to keep the iBook at that price point.
-JD-
Well, there's still a 550 $CDN difference between equivalently spec'ed iBooks and TiBook 12". Personnally, the 550$ for a CPU, GPU VRAM and Airport port is worth it, but i don't necessarily think many people will agree with me. I personnally see them as responding to two different markets: iBook want basic laptop (e.g. students, non-computer users) where as the TiBook is for Powerusers who want portability and don't like the sticker price of it's big brothers.
I for one will be picking up a TiBook 12" RSN...
The form factor of the iBooks appealed to me, but the lack of power put me off.
the TiBook is exactly what i was looking for.
Acknowledgments
Portions of this Apple Software may utilize the following copyrighted material, the use of which is hereby acknowledged.
Lars Knoll, et al. ( khtml ) [snip]
Lucent Technologies ( dtoa.cpp ) [snip]
Netscape Communications Corporation ( arena files ) [snip]
Harri Porten, et al. ( kjs - JavaScriptCore based on kjs ) [snip]
University of Cambridge ( PCRE ) [snip]
(Copy of my post to Macslash.org, where I post as MadMac)
This was one of the most entertaining keynotes I've seen in a long time out of Apple. This is also the first one (for me anyway) which wasn't clogged to death when you tried to watch it via live QT stream.
Like the new Notebook, though its pricy. But it also doubles as a surfboard in a pinch!
Now the big big big thing was Steve Jobs standing behind the huge words "Open Source is Good" or something like that. That Apple is releasing the browser code improvements (a years effort) back into the open source community and announcing that Open Source is good is just amazing! It is such a wonderful difference from Microsoft's constant "Open source is the tool of the devil" rants. I think this will help attract more geeks to Apple as well as make open source developers more open to writing software for the Macintosh.
Another thing that was neat was that Keynote uses open standards and that Jobs even verbally invited 3rd party developers to take advantage of that. In a way, I actually wonder if Apple is developing a radical corporate strategy which involves a sense of responsibility to the computer industry as a whole. By releaseing open source changes back into the world as well as using open standards in their document formats, Apple opens the door for other companies to create new tools and new markets alongside Apple. In this way, Apple is *helping* the economy and the computer industry as a whole by creating both new products as well as opportunities for others to share in the wealth of the market those new products exist in. It will be very interesting to see if Apple works on spreadsheets or word processing next. A beefed up Appleworks or Claris works would be nice!
Gripes:
Having to pay $49 to get iDVD3 (even though other iApps come along they are also freely available) is rediculous.
Keynote is expensive, nice, but still expensive and on par with Microsoft's rediculous prices for their own office apps.
Apple should have offered the iApps along with Keynote for like $79 or the iApps by themselves for $29. That would have made it worth the money to get the iApps. Jobs even said the only reason they don't offer iDVD for free is that it is so huge in size. Given that admission, I will feel no guilt at all when I download it from elsewhere or get it from a friend's new Mac.
But that is the only real gripe I had, so over all a very favorable keynote!
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
In the software section of the website detailing the new, tiny Powerbook, IE is off of OS X's Dock and Safari is on. Keynote is a PowerPoint replacement made by Apple.
What you should be wondering is not just whether Apple is trying to compete with Microsoft (and to end its dependence on MS for such a key piece of its OS as the browser) but if Microsoft has started warning Apple that it's going to leave. IE is still listed on the same software page, which doesn't mention Safari by name. There's some posturing going on here, and I'm not real sure what the motives are.
Fwiw, been testing Safari. Super-fast with a clean interface, but doesn't do nearly as good/mature a job displaying hard core dhtml as Mozilla, and therefore Chimera. Good freshman effort, but Apple better not stop at version 1.0.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Has it occured to anyone else that the new 12" Powerbook is, for all practical purposes, a G4 iBook? What does this say about the future of the iBook? Will Apple continue having two different laptop form factors in the future? While it certainly helps Apple to have a entry-level $999 iBook, especially for the education market, I wouldn't be suprised if by next year there's only one Apple laptop "style", with all price ranges contained within it.
After poking around in the preferences, I noticed you can turn Rendzevous bookmarks on -- meaning you'll automatically discover web services running on your LAN. And bookmark 'em. Cool enough by itself.
I then clicked on the "About Rendezvous" button underneath, and found the page has been updated with a tantalizing little treat (in addition to pledges of support from game and printer developers):
Yep. You'll be able to serve your iTunes collection to your TiVo. I'm assuming with playlists and all.
Happy speculating...
Quite some while ago, I remember a little amusement about the idea of Apple registering a trademark for the word "Keynote". Interesting to see how that played out. The (I thought) highly credible vPod rumors turned out to be bogus, and the Powerbook line got one of the most surprising revampings imaginable. Not one but two new models, and no displacement of the current line. And not a desktop enhancement to be found. Could this be a transition point for Apple to move into a more portable-based business model in years to come?
What really struck me as interesting, particularly with the quiet reaction to it, is that Apple seems to have declared war on Microsoft. They praised MS Office with one breath, then bitchslapped Gates and his cronies with a double whammy of a new browser and a competitor to Powerpoint. I'm predicting now, a monster update to AppleWorks within the next two Macworlds.
The one thing that really dissappoints me is the incompatibility of Airport Extreme with the current 15" Powerbooks. I hadn't expected they'd deliver a blow like this to Powerbook owners so soon after a revision (867/1Ghz models), and was hopeful for an 802.11g transition that I could replace my standard Airport card with.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Not mentioned above, but the most exciting announcement for me is built-in bluetooth. No more dongles!
I really hope there are some happy Mac users out right now. This MacWorld has been a really awesome one and I hope the trend continues with the third party developers going buck wild with some new OSX apps.
Safari is a neat browser and of the stuff released today was one thing that really suprised me. I didn't figure Apple would want to enter the browser "war" so I sort of wrote off them ever making a browser. It made no sense to go after that essentially profitless market when there are so many alternatives already entrenched. After using Safari a bit I realized Apple didn't enter the browser war, they just built a system on the fallout ridden wastes of the browser war. The gadgetry MS has been trying to add to IE in the form of auction watches and whatnot are handled by Sherlock 3, Safari doesn't need them. It also doesn't need some entirely new plugin architecture because Quicktime supports a huge swath of file formats and media types that are readily found on the web. All Apple really had to do was build an interface for a third party's HTML renderer which I think they've done pretty well. As an added bonus it also lets Apple ship consumer systems with entirely first party software and still have it be functional for the typical Mac neophyte. It's also really sweet seeing the GPL is a product like Safari.
I've been waiting for Apple to move to 802.11g for a while now, I figured they would have done so way earlier than now. Had they done this they might have ended up screwed over by a standards committee had anything changed in the spec between when they released it and the still pending ratification date. Keeping that in mind waiting until the spec's finality was imminent makes a lot of sense. It might take me a while to move up to Airport Extreme (as I just bought 802.11.b equipment) but when I end up with a new Powerbook it will be awesome that it is there.
The Powerbooks facinated me, I'm really glad I've held off buying a new laptop. I had figured the Powerbooks would be the next candidates for an upgrade but never did I think the upgrades would look like they do. I think the 12" Powerbook is an excellent idea and I hope to have one ASAP. While the iBook is a nice system it falls short for anyone wanting a good dose of processing power (read gaming performance) in a portable system. Adding Radeons to the iBooks helped a bit but a "scorching" 49fps in Quake 3 is a yawner (though Apple needs to learn if you want better frame rates you can down the resolution or drop the color depth for some pretty decent playability). I think for most things the 12" Powerbook is going to end up making x86 laptops look pretty crappy, especially subnotebooks. Most of the smaller systems you can find run on hobbled Celerons or Crusoes and cost as much if not more as the new PB. Maybe Apple will get more of a leg up in the portable market.
Between an iCal release that works, a new browser, and an official X11 system that works with Quartz, I have a lot to do on my Powerbook. Maybe one of the first things will be to order a new one.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The message bar for the bottom of the window is off by default, but easily added from the View window.
A few things could be added, though. There's no spell checker, like OmniWeb and Mail use, and it doesn't remember passwords like Chimera and Mozilla do. But it's fast, and it's a Beta. I did have to change back to OmniWeb to post this, as Safari kept timing out when I clicked on anything here, though to be fair, Slashdot seems to be pretty Slashdotted right now, and it took OmniWeb about three minutes to open this window.
I'll play with Safari some more, but I'll stick with OmniWeb for everyday use.
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
Hell, I would have bought a 12" PowerBook 6 months ago, and still might. I got my wife a laptop for use with school. It is faster than the pc she was using, and once it showed up she decided that she liked the OS better. The only real requirment she put on me when purchasing her laptop was that it had to be small. When I showed her the small sony's they were out because of the lack of a cdrom drive. This left the iBooks. She loves her iBook, and the only thing I don't like about it is the speed.
;)
I'd pay the differance in price just for the faster processor, and the advantages of the G4 over the G3. The SuperDrive option is also really cool, and I'm sure if we get her the powerbook we'll get that too.
This may not sell a huge amount, but it will certainly be a nice upgrade for those that like the iBooks small size, but want a little more punch.
Or maybe it's just me
The 802.11g base station was mentioned as a bit of an afterthought, but there's two really cool features in it:
It's a print server for a USB printer. It's got a USB port - plug something in, and it shows up on your network.
It's a PPP server. You can apparently set your modem to answer calls. This will give you access not only to your local network (printing, file sharing), but if the airport is routing a DSL/Cable connection, you get full dial up internet access.
Kinda kills the answering machine, but what the hell !
JT
______ This mind intentionally left blank.
I just submitted that "bug." Maybe if enough people do they will add it for the final release.
While I'm posting, let me just say that besides the missing tabs, it is a great web browser. Before today, I was a Chimera user. I used CHimera because it was fast, lightweight, and looked good in OS X, but it had a few stability problems, mostly dealing with downloads and plugins, so I had to keep Mozilla and IE on stand by for each of those respective problems. Now I can finally use one web browser. It's about time.
Also, it's good to hear about the iApps price.
You seem to hold Apple's developers in very high regard, if you feel that they've whipped this up in the past week or so.
Safari has been in development for around a year. This is notably longer than Chimera has existed.
There are several other links in this discussion to Apple's stated reasoning for choosing khtml. Those reasons pretty much all come to simplicity: it's about a tenth the code of even just gecko.
That smaller code size tends to make the finished product a bit zippier, but even more important is that it greatly increases the speed and flexibility with which they can improve upon it.
And standards compliance will only become _better_ with more commonly-used renderers. The harder it is for designers to write only for their favorite browser, instead of for the standard, the better.
> Popup killer: Mozilla. Instant bookmark categorizing: Phoenix. Google toolbar: Phoenix. Dragging bookmarks around: IE.
Uhm, if you think Mozilla invented the Popup killer, Phoenix invented instant bookmark categorizing, or that Phoenix invented the google toolbar, you're sadly mistaken.
are you kidding me?!?!
... for a cool 2.1K you can sweeten the deal w/ a superdrive. take it home and hook it up to my bad ass 17" CRT Apple Studio Display for serious design work; its small enough to fit under the monitor. add my Pro keyboard and Graphire, and i've got something worlds better than what i have now with built in bluetooth and a 54Mbps AirPort card. and its so freaking small and light that it isn't something i have to decide whether or not i take it with me.
i want one i want one i want one i want one
it just comes with me.
now i'm sorry i bought that palm! this would pretty much replace it. i have no need for a slim-down under-powered pocket pc when i can have something like this so gosh-darned small.
Steve, where are the software trade-in incentives?
I was informed a while ago, though I'm not sure if it's still true, that Adobe will gladly exchange your Windows license for Photoshop 7 for an OS X license for Photoshop 7, straight trade. I would suggest calling Adobe to find out if this is the case, as I would with Macromedia. It doesn't cost them anything, and it promotes good customer relations, so I don't see why not.
--Dan
It's absolutely not the least of the announcements today.
As a person weaned in the service bureaus of the late-80s/early-90s, I can say that every decent presentation app produced in the last 10 years has been EOLed because of Powerpoint's ubiquity.
Aldus/Adobe Persuasion, anyone? That was one hell of an app. And -- get this -- you could have real, multiple master pages in the same presentation. Harvard Graphics had that feature as well.
"What," you say "presentations can have more than one master... in the same file???"
I'm not talking having a slide master, a title master, etc. I'm talking as many different title templates as you'd like in the same file.
Persuasion supported alpha channels too (through Mac PICT format), and a million other things that were never developed into powerpoint because they haven't needed to, and apparently, no one's complained. Yeah, PPT has transparency. Through freakin' GIFs. Hardly a substitute.
Powerpoint is so bad in its handling of master slides and typography, not to mention its abhorrent handling (mangling) of graphic formats other than WMF and BMP that I chose to personally design every presentation I've made since Persuasion was dropped in Macromedia Director. That's a pretty big hammer to solve that particular problem.
The point to this diatribe is, that I damned near cried when I saw Keynote unveiled.
- NICE looking templates
- Uncluttered, friendly interface
- Eye candy galore
- PPT, SWF and Photoshop compatibility out of the box, layers included
I challenge you to find *ANYONE* who enjoys working in Powerpoint. Most users outright loathe it, but there's nothing else on the market now that approaches its (limited) functionality and is compatible with newer PPT file formats.
Powerpoint is a hell of a chink in MS's armor.
This is more than a shot across the bow.