Great Job Steve (Apple)
Another year, another Macworld Expo!
Once again, Steve Jobs introduced Apple's new toys at Macworld San Francisco. I've always enjoyed watching the Keynote, it's like having another Christmas in January.
Bill's Ironic Misfortune
The presentation went smoothly except for a slick recovery by Steve when he was demonstrating the new iLife '05 suites, swaying the crowd with the added features in iPhoto, when suddenly the application froze. He quickly switched to another system and said "that's why we have backups!"
Obviously Steve is better prepared than Bill, who crashed when the "blue screen of death" interrupted his presentation at the CES show on January 5 2005.
iWork '05
Mark and I where very impressed with the potential of Apple's new software iWork '05. We promptly ordered a copy for ourselves. The new suite includes two software; Keynote 2, cinema-quality presentations for everyone and Pages, the word processor with incredible sense of style. Sadly no spreadsheet application, perhaps in development for iWork '06?
Steve’s Blog Exposed
I was happy to stubble upon Steve Jobs' blog: JustOneMoreThing.com while looking for comments on the keynotes. He's got some hints of things to come in previously published posts, sadly his RSS feed wasn't working for me... But, I will make sure to come back regularly and looking forward to his next hint on OS X Tiger due in the first half of 2005.
Another mini in the Apple family
I am still in ah with the introduction of the Mac mini. A stripped down G4 with all the basics and as Steve introduced it it's BYOMKM. I mean this is the perfect multimedia solution for the average house, with a great OS and a software package that includes iLife '05. And if that wasn't enough 2 models are available price at $629 and $749 CDN.
Last, a new iPod?
Apple managed to acquire around 65% of the music player market in 2004, an amazing increase from 2003 with record sales of 4.5 million iPod. This year they decided to go after rest of the market: the flash music player. So Steve introduced the new members of the iPod family; the iPod Shuffle, "24o songs a million different ways" catchy Marketing line!
Final word
With a great line up of new products, Apple is clearly targeting entry level users and people looking for an affordable options on portable music players and desktop computers introducing the iPod Shuffle and Mac mini will push Apple one step further.
They are well position for a bright future and I'm glade to see that they managed to create an option for all those out there looking to switch from PC's, Microsoft and Windows.