Apple Reveals Mac OS X 10.2, 17" iMac, Windows iPod 1073
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."
Slashdot look/feel (Score:2, Funny)
M@
So what? (Score:3, Funny)
Bah, I can get Windows XP for only $99 and get thousands of bugs^H^H^H^Hfeatures for my money!
Is there a plan for these version numbers? (Score:2, Funny)
8^P
iAi, iai, iai (Score:4, Funny)
Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:2, Funny)
Now only if (Score:0, Funny)
No matter how good it gets, it's still a Mac.
iSync sounds nice, but... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:No. (Score:5, Funny)
PowerBook G4
Everything Configured correctly.
Still have the beachball.
Quietly, I weep.
Re:New iMac Designed With Ancient Mathematical Sec (Score:5, Funny)
MacWorld 2002 New York Report (Score:1, Funny)
2.5 million users today. Most new Mac users don't know fuck-all about the difference between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS 10, nor do they understand the concept of "dual-booting" or the Startup Disk control panel. Apple has suckered many a Mac user into their "2.5 million" demographic tally.
Jobs fails to mention that most of them are supplied by Apple itself in one of the various "i" apps.
Does anyone care? I don't. It should be called RealSpammer since it dumps so much shit that has nothing to do with media playback on your hard disk.
Announced today, available August 24. Phil Schiller takes the stage to demonstrate cycling desktop pictures. Hold the show, can I pre-order it now? Jesus. Oh, yeah, ugliest packaging ever for an OS.
Released Monday, more than 1 million users already exposed to the new and imporved QuickTime 6 nag-box before using the neat new MPEG4 features. Congrats, Apple.
Even uglier interface than Sherlock 2, "totally rewritten" (i.e. bought from another company and rebranded). I never use Sherlock, don't care about a this new "revision." *snore*
"No one owns it." Great. Apple implements a new technology first again. Let's walk around and see who we can connect to. Watch for Apple iDate, a blind dating package, based on this technology. I called it here first.
New version demonstrated, included in Mac OS X Jaguar. Uh, no shit. Not only have we known about this for months, but is it all that prophetic to think the mail client would be updated in the nex major OS revision?
Same as above. Filler at best. Jobs likes to hear himself talk.
The newsest (un)productivity app from Apple. Now Mac users can chat with their friends all day at work from an OS-integrated app. IT departments and managers beware. Apple is trying to destroy your profits!
Bait and switch! Goodbye iTools, our free free, and say hello to the much more expensive .mac. "These are trying economic times." No wonder Apple is excited about the evolution of the PC. They get to charge for shit formerly supplied for free. Damn the economy, eh, Steve?
Calendars for .mac, iPod, and Palm users. Hmm. Good idea. Available for the new .mac in September (re: fork over the dollars for it).
Hey hey hey! Awright! Finally some good shit from Apple. New features like consistent volume playback (so I won't be jolted awake when it finishes playing piano sonatas and goes into Nine Inch Nails), playlist sharing support (via Rendezvous and Audible.com), and iPod r3 support. New icon too! Can't wait til the servers aren't chundering forbidden messages at me so I can download it.
Uses XML to back up your Mac, iPod, iCal date, or Palm via the .mac service. Sounds neat, wonder where the spec for this SyncML markup is, costs lots of dough. Yet another piece due at MacWorld NY 2002 II (September).
17" screens, baby. Everyone scooped this one, even MOSR (thanks to pilfering from SpyMac and ThinkSecret). The first 17" iMac ever, unless you count that abberational eMac thing.
HDTV Tip: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:so I have to pay? (Score:5, Funny)
you make some very good points.
Re:umm (Score:2, Funny)
Then XP was released and I realized Win2k was just temporary insanity on Microsoft's part.
I'm now a happy OS X (and occasional Win2k) user.
Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:2, Funny)
iSpeak (Score:3, Funny)
Gee, the 'i' is gnothing like kde or gnome or gnu (Score:4, Funny)
everything is drawn out in the pc world
if it isn't one thing it is another
17" iMacs (Score:1, Funny)
Re:The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent (Score:3, Funny)
Let me get this straight...you got a free email address, switched all your friends and family and mailing lists over to that address, and now you're upset that it's going away? Why did you switch them all over to that address in the first place? If you aren't willing to pay for and use an email account, then that's the risk you take. As Jobs said in the keynote, things are a lot different now than they were a year ago. The free email addresses now cost money, and no one can just afford to give them away. As I see it, you built your life on this house of cards, and now you're upset that you have to pay someone so it won't fall down. I'm sorry, but Apple can't be expected to just give things away indefinitely.
Then I started using it, and got fully hooked by the bundled apps. When I bought it, it was all "self-contained". I didn't need to go out and buy *anything*, which is the only reason I could justify spending CAN$2500 on the "budget" notebook.
Guess what? Your iBook is still self-contained! You don't need to buy anything to keep using it! The mac.com email address is something external to the iBook, not part of the iBook. And no one is forcing you to upgrade to 10.2 if you don't want to. But if you do, you will get a whole bunch of new features that will make your life easier. In fact, you know this already, because you talked about how great the features were when you bought your new iBook! So, in short, you're complaining because a company has proven to you that they are very good at making applications that you use and enjoy, and now they are making more applications that you will probably use and enjoy, and they would like to charge you a nominal fee for the work they put into those applications. Pardon me if I'm not welling up with tears of sympathy.
It is a great operating system, on very cool hardware, but to me it just isn't worth what they want me to pay for it. The reason I'm bitter is that they've made me discover that after I started paying for it.
When you bought the computer, you didn't realize that companies charge for substantial operating system updates? Maybe you should stick with simpler devices that don't force you into such dilemmas. For example, you could just buy a car...wait, just as a warning: You do realize that you will have to pay for gas and oil and service for the car, don't you? Don't want to you get caught unawares and get all upset.
Re:$129 upgrade, no coupons, but taking comments (Score:2, Funny)
My letter to apple:
------------------
Hey, there, Apple Folks! I've got some great ideas for ways you can gouge your best customers:
1. Take all the early adopters who bought donuts and stood in line for Mac OS X. Twice. You know, the ones out there recruiting switchers. The people trying to get everyone else at the office to upgrade already. The ones who bought new computers last year just so they could rock it in OS X. Take these people, and charge them $120 per computer for a (cough) minor upgrade only a year after they bought in! It's brilliant! They'll certainly tell all their friends about you. I personally am really looking forward to plopping down another $250 for computers purchased in the last 12 months. Thanks, Uncle Steve!
2. Hey, while you're at it, why don't you again screw over your early adopters? You know, the people who told their friends how easy it was to set up mac.com email in OS X? I mean, taking away imap would have been reasonable, heck, even webmail-only with advertising might have been a way to ease out of those nasty bandwidth obligations. Certainly making iDisk a fee service would make a lot of sense.
But nah, I really think the best course of action is to force a zillion people to either find a new email account or pay up. When you have an opportunity to launch a great new service that can grow new revenue streams for your company, I think you should instead squander all that goodwill and urinate on the heads of those who bought in early. Thanks again! You guys really have picked up a trick or two from Bill and that other Steve.
3. Sometime around Christmas, maybe after MWSF, you should really start charging for iChat, iPhoto, iTunes, and iMovie. Another idea -- lock down an obscure binary format for the Address Book, and then start charging for that a year after people start using it. $30 for each spoke of the digital hub, you know? Maybe it would be as successful as AppleWorks. That would be awesome. You could get all the little Apple-crackheads out there just shelling out dough like mad. First one's always free, right, dopeman?
Smooth move, ex-lax. I am really peeved at you today. Look up my records and see how much money I have spent at your stupid Apple online store and your stupid Apple mall store in the last year. I am really mad at you.
Boo. Hiss. This stinks to high heaven. Any positive feelings I had about iTunes 3 and the new iPods are washed out now.
Every time I think you're getting the hang of things, something stupid like this goes down. And I don't even want to talk about the
As a great musical artist once said, "Don't believe the hype."
If you're going to reply to me, you'd better be quick! My email account is rumored to be due to expire -- although I haven't been officially notified, so heck, maybe not.
Oh, and did I mention I'm a "Windows LAN administrator who bought a Mac"?
One hot potato,
Phillip Morelock
Director of IT
Nameless Company.