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Friday, January 13, 2006

Mac's Faith-Based Initiative

Thousands gathered for the frenetic glitzfest of Macworld -- but this year's show had a serious note: Apple finally wants to take on the PC.

By Kate Greene
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At the Macworld Expo this past week in San Francisco, thousands of Mac-happy people ploughed through Moscone Center's exhibition halls, drinking in Apple's annual festival of tech.

[Click here to view images from the MacWorld Expo.] 

As Apple closes in on its 30-year anniversary, the company is marshalling the semiconductor and entertainment industries to create a powerful suite of hardware and software products that can rival the dominance of the PC.

The tone of this year's expo was set on Tuesday, January 10, when CEO and founder Steve Jobs presented this season's Apple computers, iPod accessories, and software to a crowd of hundreds attending his keynote presentation. His big announcement was the release of two new computers: the iMac for desktops and MacBook Pro for laptops -- with Intel's Core Duo chip inside (see "Macintel"). The chip makes these new computers around two to four times faster than Macs with the old IBM and Freescale Semiconductors PowerPC chip, Jobs said.

Understandably, the introduction of the new computers excited enthusiasts; but for Apple to succeed, it will need to rely on its most popular franchise: the iPod. Its computers have not driven the financial success of Apple lately, which hovers around a modest four percent of the overall personal computer market. During his keynote, Jobs said the company's big breadwinner, the iPod (in all its incarnations), sold 4.5 million units during the 2004 holiday quarter and 14 million during the 2005 holiday quarter. Or, as he put it, "100 iPods being sold every minute, 24/7, throughout the quarter."

While the iPod dominates portable entertainment, there is still no clear leader in the world of PC-based home entertainment, although Microsoft has made a pass at it with the Windows Media Center computer. Apple, offering a more elegant option, introduced Front Row last year. This simple software lets people view photos and play DVDs and music using a minimalist remote control. Now Apple, with the powerful Intel hardware, has the opportunity to leap ahead with a superior home entertainment network.

And while high-powered hardware is crucial, equally high-powered software is as well. Jobs also announced the company's upgraded software bundles for its do-it-yourself movie/music studio, iLife, and Apple's counterpart to Microsoft Office, iWork. The presentation itself was created using Keynote software in iWork, and Jobs displayed three-dimensional pie charts in this new version.

For the most part, though, Jobs focused on iLife, spending more than a quarter of his presentation time demonstrating new features, such as "photocasting," a trick that allows friends and family to automatically receive updates of certain photos as soon as they're filed in iPhoto. Another addition is the podcasting studio within the application Garage Band, and iWeb, an application that easily publishes blogs, photos, videos, and podcasts to the Internet.

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Comments

  • Year of the Mac
    Guest (tom barta) on 01/13/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    Well, Apple's computer marketshare has been edging up since the iPod and retail stores shored up brand awareness. Anecdotally, the iPod is creating "switchers". Since the new Macs are Intel based, cost competitive, and hip; and since they can dual-boot Windows at native speed for those few legacy apps still unavailable on the Mac, this promises to be a break-out year. Indeed, why would one buy a machine that CAN'T run Apple's "iLife" suite (eg a Dell) at this point? Add to this that I see nothing compelling or groundbreaking in MSFT's upcoming "Vista"
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Hands Down, No-Brainer
      Guest (Shawn Bahe) on 01/13/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      As an amatuer recording musician in love with GarageBand and my current PowerBook by night, and a working network/systems admin by day; I'm ultra-enthused about the MacBook Pro announcement.

      I can have my cake and eat it too!  Windows when I need it, and everything else the way I want it.

      Sign me up for a new MacBook Pro!

      S-
      Rate this comment: 12345
      • it's only fair
        Guest (Mac will rise again) on 01/13/2006 at 12:00 AM
        Posts:
        1
        It's a lot harder to invent than to copy.  Apple has done virtually all the inventing, MS virtually all the copying.
        Rate this comment: 12345
  • Stop smoking hippie lettuce
    Guest (John Obeto) on 01/13/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    What a bunch of crap!
    1) There is no clear leader: Windows MCE sold 6.5 million copies or more
    2) 'more-elegant' Front Row?
    Shake yourself! If you cannot be objective, be bland. And stick to the facts>
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • understand the facts
      Guest (mel Gross) on 01/14/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      It's been shown that few who have an MCE based machine actually use it as such. Buying one means little.

      Yeah, even the PC magazines say FR is more elegant.

      You should be objective as well. Or at least know what you are talking about.
      Rate this comment: 12345
      • Faith-based?
        Guest (Heron Bure) on 01/14/2006 at 12:00 AM
        Posts:
        1
        More like confidence-based for me. Confidence that my computer will work for me and not the other way around. But that may be just me. FR still has a ways to go before it claims the living room but it's getting close.
        Rate this comment: 12345
      • Stop smoking hippie lettuce
        Guest (John Obeto) on 01/16/2006 at 12:00 AM
        Posts:
        1
        What facts?
        Have you used both programs? I have. And where is it 'shown' that an MCE deveice is not being used? And which PC magazines?
        I KNOW what I'm talking about, I have FR on two machines and several MCE systems.
        And I'm objective, not a fanboy!
        Rate this comment: 12345
    • Not sure
      Guest (Daniel Velázquez) on 01/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      Apple hardware it's really good looking but I'm not really sure if it is helpful for the masses, me as an electronics engeneer is useless, MS is the common, but I'm now using GNU/Linux and there's nothing missing in life and it can RUN on a Mac PPC and under anyt x86.Millions of dollars of sold products shouldn't be the base to rate which one's the best. Linux is the best and is costless.
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • Stupid Stupid Stupid Kate
    Guest (Ben Dick) on 01/14/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    You regurgitate every piece of disinformation you've swallowed, but even so you can't form whole sentences much less get facts straight. This article is simply a piece of garbage, a complete waste of bandwidth. Kate can't even read several day old news and copy facts right, nor repeat ancient FUD with any accuracy. My God do they pay this 'woman' money for writing this garbage? Does this web site have some intense desire to be known to be as the worthless tech site of the decade. Screwing with intelligent informed people in the Mac world isn't like shovelling the usual bull s##t to the ignorant Windows drones. In Apple land you f##k up and your site is excoriated. It would be hard to f##k up more than you have here!
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Why not AMD?
      Guest (Paul) on 01/14/2006 at 12:00 AM
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      1
        I am curious why Apple didn't go with AMD processors.  These processors consistently get superior results over Intel processors and would allow Apple to offer their products at a more competitive price to the PC.   That's why Dell is starting to look at offering products based on AMD.
          Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated.
      Rate this comment: 12345
      • Threefold
        Guest (Jeremy Hammer) on 01/15/2006 at 12:00 AM
        Posts:
        1
        The lure of the power and heat benefits of the Pentium Mobile architecture, the security of finally being offered the volume availability of the biggest chip manufacturer rather than a smaller vendor, and the built in id technology that allows OSX86 to only run on Apple branded hardware (without hacks). Can't say I necessarily agree with those reasons, and there may be many more less obvious ones, but that's how I understand it.
        Rate this comment: 12345
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