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Apple Updates iMac, iLife, .Mac

Posted by kdawson on from the more-goodies dept.

Apple just announced new iMacs. They are aluminum and come in 20" (two models) and 24". There's a new view called "Events" in iPhoto that should make it easier to deal with large photo libraries. Apple's .Mac service is enhanced with .Mac Web Gallery, which integrates with the new iTunes and also the iPhone. It's a Web 2.0 app now. And iMovie is being replaced by a completely new app of the same name. Steve Jobs claimed that with it you can put together a 5-minute movie in 30 minutes, and he demo'ed that from the stage. iWeb, iDVD, and GarageBand get new features too. And .Mac subscribers get 10 GB of storage. Here is Engadget's blow-by-blow coverage, and Wired's.

10 of 528 comments (clear)

  1. I, for one, welcome our... by Will+the+Chill · · Score: -1, Troll

    over-branded fanboy-pleasing crapintosh overlords!

    -WtC

    *please insert sig*

    --
    Creator of RPerl, Scouter, Juggler, Mormon, Perl Monger, Serial Entrepreneur, Aspiring Astrophysicist, Community Organiz
  2. Down with the Apple monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I will never understand how FOSSies can think it's evil to charge for Windows (and software in general)... but they spooge all over their 15 year old Lunix machine when they discuss Apple stuff.

    Apple is a far more brutal monopoly than Microsoft could ever dream of being. Apple destroyed the Apple-compatible market, they destroyed the Apple reseller market, and they shut down any store which dared to sell Apple stuff. Now if you want anything more than an iPod, you need to buy directly from Apple. And oh wow... iTunes doesn't sync with any MP3 player besides an iPod.

    That's a pretty brutal monopoly in my book. And everything they sell is at least 50% more expensive than it's PC-based counterpart.

    1. Re:Down with the Apple monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Its funny noticing the parent poster's message being cowardly modded down as overrated.

      The post, which is very true, as if MS did the things that Apple does, the SEC would be knocking on Redmond's doors in a heartbeat.

      Fine examples of this are, OS X cannot be (legally) virtualized, nor can it run on any hardware other than Apple's PC hardware, whose only two differences between it and a generic white box PC are a logo, and a certificate in a TPM chip (Well, Apple's hardware if it were compared as a generic PC would be marked as woefully inadequate except for the hyper expensive Mac Pro). Or, Apple buying companies out that sell both Mac and Windows products, then dropping the Windows versions as an underhanded way to boost Mac sales.

      If Microsoft forced their users to jump platforms and have all their older apps unable to run like Apple did with OS 9 and earlier apps on x86 Macs, people would be driving to Washington with pitchforks and torches.

      Apple doesn't innovate much either. They find 1-2 cool things, then hype the hell out of them. For example, if it wasn't for Apple buying out NeXT, MacOS will still be crashing every 1-2 hours, because the machine would be dependent on every app passing a WaitNextEvent() call or else the machine would lock up.

      MS is no angel, but at least they innovate and put stuff on the market, not just talk hype left and right.

    2. Re:Down with the Apple monopoly by Divebus · · Score: 0, Troll

      wow... iTunes doesn't sync with any MP3 player besides an iPod.

      Damn! You mean iTunes only works on 80% of the music players out there? How limiting!

      Where are you getting your assertions from? They're very far off the mark about brutal monopolies but fair enough... I've seen this in people too young to remember the last 15 years of computerdom. For everyone else, it's a given. Find some of the DOJ testimonials of what Microsoft did to countless other companies. These weren't Microsoft resellers doing a shitty job that got killed, these were either business "partners" or competitors with something Microsoft wanted. They wanted it so bad they went on a lawbreaking spree for years. There are also fairly large Apple resellers out there of a serious nature, just no Walmart types.

      --

      Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
    3. Re:Down with the Apple monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      "The XBox is the first Microsoft product I have bought .. well, ever."

      You might want to get rid of that thing. I've heard the failure rate is 50% roughly. They run really hot. They're designed poorly. I saw a page where some Japanese design engineers analyzed it. They said it run 20degC over ambient room temp while most consumer electronics will be like 10degC. and IIRC they said if your ambient temp is 35degC about 95degF, that some parts of it can reach 100degC (212degF), add dust and enclosed spaces and undersized heatsinks and you end up with yet another crappy MS product that fails frequently. If you've been keeping up to date on PS3 news, things are looking really sweet over there. I wish I had a link to the article my friend showed me yesterday.

      And regarding the rest of your Apple comments: I agree. I got the 24" iMac in January. It's very nice. I hate iTunes (thank you Cog!). IMHO Mac ain't perfect, but it blows the competition out of the water. I have Ubuntu running in a VMware session and that is pretty sweet too though! With USB Overdrive I'm able to use my Logitech MX-518 and have all the buttons assignable to useful functions. Yeah I find myself interested in supporting more shareware on the Mac, it is kind of weird like that. You don't feel like you're being held down by some thugs and raped by Steve Balmer while Bill Gates goes through your pockets looking for money/valuables. I think feeling more at ease has made me more incline to pay for apps that make my life easier.

  3. Re:Mac mini refreshed today too by Winckle · · Score: 0, Troll

    Don't forget to order iLife 08 as well for $9.99, since it isn't preloaded, but you have bought a new mac.

  4. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You are talking about mac heads here. They know no alternatives and will pay whatever steve asks for, whether that be an overpriced computer, overpriced digital media player, overpriced cellphone, or overpriced web service.

  5. iPhoto Events - Brilliant... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: -1, Troll

    iPhoto Events - Brilliant...

    This is almost as elegant or easy as Photo Gallery in Vista.

    Although the stacks, searching, and import tagging is easier in Vista and also works better for document management scans for business too since you can search for words in a scanned document. Even meeting sound recordings can be text searched, but give Apple a few years. Of course TabletPC users or OneNote users are already use to this type of technology from back in 2002/2003 so this isn't that new to them when using Vista.

    But good job Steve, and maybe Apple will address these features to catch up to Vista in OS XI.

    Of course I'm being a smart ass before anyone assumes otherwise. Here is my main point:

    How come we get these great press releases on SlashDot for every little 'tiny' thing Apple does, yet when MS is releasing technology changing the industry it gets NO mention whatsoever.

    The irony is the average SlashDot user becomes more and more ignorant of 'technology' on a whole because of the dismissal or non-reporting of anything MS.

    It DOESN'T hurt the SlashDot world to PAY ATTENTION to what MS is doing if they want to remain 'informed' or competitive. And it certainly wouldn't hurt for SlashDot readers to offset the 'we love Apple' with facts or information that shines some light on the 'Jobs distortion field', as when he talks 'revolutionary technology' it is often stuff that is OLD NEWS and already been done by the #1 OS running on almost 1 billion desktops, yet the Apple and *nix crowd doesn't even realize this.

    You just should remove the 'news for nerds' and replace it with 'SlashDot users, proud of their ignorance and determined to keep it.'

    1. Re:iPhoto Events - Brilliant... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: -1, Troll

      However, Microsoft's "revolutionary technology" is normally 'old news' as well. It's rare for a big company to come out with tons of new features that weren't already implemented (maybe even partially) in some way elsewhere.


      I don't disagree, it is all based on 0s and 1s anyhow. But when a company like MS shifts over 50% of their company operations and development stategies and tools, it causes large ripples in the IT world, and yet 90% of SlashDot readers wouldn't have a clue about any of this if it bit them.

      And this is actually kind of scary. (Notice the post above yours, an Apple fan running to defend OS X's search abilities, touting a feature that has been in Windows since at least 1995, and yet they think it is 'new' technology because Apple markets it as a 'new technology/feature'.)

      I understand that SlashDot is a place to get away from non-OSS, but filtering information and knowledge out of the general news does nothing but breed ignorance, I don't care if the most evil person in the world is doing it. (Hoover didn't like Tesla, but he at least kept a freaking eye on what Tesla was doing, just in case.)

      Also I truly don't get how Apple is the darling of OSS, when Apple exploits OSS, uses DRM more than MS and has not only has a more 'closed' OS but even 'closed' hardware to do along with it. The OSS people use to be the smart ones 'bucking' the trend and now they are OS X fanbois, WTH happened?

  6. Re:Shut up astroturfer by TheNetAvenger · · Score: -1, Troll

    Do you work for Microsoft or are you just an unfunny troll? I've read some of your post history and it's almost constantly about praising Microsoft for this and that. And now you're saying we don't talk about Microsoft often enough. Sigh... why am I even bothering... any retard can see that you have an agenda going here.


    I only use my EVIL MS login when correcting stupid crap that an average nine year old understands about Windows, yet the knowledge escapes 90% of the 'brilliant' SlashDot users.

    (You realize you are trolling a troll?)