Apple detailing new iMacs and iLife 08 today
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Early reports from various websites attending the Apple Special Event confirm that new iMacs are being launched. They will have 20-inch or 24-inch displays, aluminium enclosures and glossy GLASS displays. They look very thin, black on the back, with a full compliment of ports. More news as we have it.
Update 1: Models will have up to a 2.4GHz Core 2 Extreme processor, up to 4GB of memory. ATI Radeon HD graphics card, and up to 1TB of hard drive storage. 802.11n wifi and Bluetooth 2.0 built-in. The keyboard will also be wireless, nice thin design (0.33-inches thin), like the one we reported on last week. All models available starting today (not sure of the lead time until the AppleStore is back online).
Early opinion: The new iMacs look pretty darn cool. It seems like Apple has not re-invented the iMac, rather it has evolved it. The materials used look like they are really top quality, aluminium, glass and superb finish plastics. This looks very exciting.
Update 2: iLife '08 also being detailed. One of the apps in the suite is being replaced.
iPhoto gets new 'Events' organising, so photos taken on particular days or shoots (like a Birthday party) are put into these 'Events' so they can easily be retrieved. Improved editing also allows you to copy changes you made on one photo onto other photos. Another new feature allows you to hide photos, which is pretty cool.
Update 3: Looks like .Mac is getting the rumored upgrade. With .Mac Web Gallery you can do one button publishing of galleries from iPhoto, or… from your iPhone. You can then download print quality images from this new 'Web 2.0' application. At last, there is a way to get photos out of your iPhone without syncing, so the iPhone talks to .Mac all in time for the UK launch, yippee. Photos sent to your .Mac from the iPhone can then sync with iPhoto. Other users that you authorise can also send photos to your .Mac Web Gallery.
Update 4: iMovie is next, with a new way to edit your movies. Works with AVCHD hi-def camcorder. One click encoding for iPod, iPhone, Web Gallery, Apple TV, YouTube etc. With the YouTube option, you can also upload direct from within iMovie.
Update 5: iWeb now has Live Web Widgets, you can grab content from the likes of YouTube, Google Maps, AdSense etc and drag it right into iWeb. The Media Index page allows you to drag photos and videos onto the page and it'll build itself.
Update 6: iDVD gets ten new animated themes and professional grade encoding.
Update 7: Magic GarageBand, sort of seems like a modern day Bontempi organ. You pick your genre, piece of music, change instruments. It is all simplified and you play around until you have something you like for the project you are working on.
Pricing: iLife 08 for $79 available today, and starting today it ships with all new Macs.
Update 7: Big one this, well in size at least. The .Mac storage has been bumped to a massive 10GB, up from 1GB. No doubt this is to allow for all those photos from your iPhone and HD video content. This makes me happy.
Update 8: iWork 08. Wow, Steve, you are giving us the whole caboodle today :-) Starting off with Keynote with new transitions and text effects.
Update 9: Pages, now with two new modes, a word processing and separate page layout mode. 140 new templates and compatible with Microsoft Word documents (no word on if this includes 2008 versions, but I expect it will). Plus they added change tracking.
Update 10: New application time ladies and gentlemen. Numbers is Apple's new spreadsheet application. (Sidenote, probably too much info, but I am nearly wetting my pants with all these announcements). Numbers can import from Excel and has customisable templates and works in the same fashion as Pages and Keynote.
Pricing: iWork '08 available today for $79.
Update 11: Q&A session, Steve invites Tim Cook (Apple COO) and Phil Schiller (EVP Product Marketing) up on stage. Various questions to follow;
Q: How thin are the iMacs?
A: They're really thin. You can measure it in the next room in just a few minutes. But they're appreciably thinner.
How is the Mac Mini doing? And are you updating it? A: We are refreshing the Mac Mini and making it even faster. It's already in the online store.
Comment: What the ?@£! does this mean when the store comes back online we will have a new Mac Mini? Come on store, go live again!
Q: What's the relationship between Apple and Google/YouTube?
A: We like their products. It's a good relationship. We like working with them.
Questions an answers from Gizmodo.com (so don't expect too many, I don't want to steal their limelight).
Q: Will the iPhone use both EDGE and wifi to upload pictures?
A: Yes, both.
Why not support HD uploads to .Mac?
A: The camcorders right now don't capture in HD, just slightly less than HD. That's the resolution we support.
Q: Apple is known for premium priced products, and has a notion of being for the elite. Is it your goal to overtake the PC in marketshare?
A: I'll tell you what our goal is. Our goal is to make the best personal computer in the world and to make products we are proud to sell and recommend to our family and friends. There are some stuff in the industry that we wouldn't be proud to ship and recommend. THere are thresholds we can't cross because of who we are, so there is a very significant slice of the industry that wants that too. Our products are usually not premium priced, you add the features you have to add to make them useful, and in some cases they are more expensive than our products. THe difference is we don't offer stripped down, lousy products. If you move those aside and compare us to our competitors, we compare favorably.
Looks like that's it. Check back soon for Geekanoids thoughts on what Apple has announced today.
Labels: Apple Hardware, Apple News
0 Comments:
The Authors
Dave
Dave has been in the graphic design industry for 14 years. Long time reviewer of technology related products, he is Owner/Editor of Geekanoids.
Guest Contributors
We will occasionally feature guest articles and reviews. If you have interesting content, please feel free to email us.
About This Website
This site covers all the latest Macintosh, technology & gadget related news. We also bring our readers thorough, unbiased reviews of computer software, hardware & peripherals, with some alternative products thrown into the mix.
Contact Us
You can email us with news, tips, or comments to geekanoids@gmail.com. This blog is published and maintained by Wiki Design.
Subscribe to podcast
