MW/SF ’04 Review

What is Macworld? Macworld is a major Mac event attended by users, buyers, developers, the media, etc., for its keynotes, exhibits, breakfasts, conferences, seminars, workshops, soirees, dinners, and parties that happens annually for 3-4 days in January in San Francisco (by ~85,000 people), in March in Tokyo (by ~180,000 people), in July in New York (by ~55,000 people), and in September in Paris (by ~60,000 people). 

Steve’s Keynote proceeded clockwise through professional hardware (Xserves), professional software (Final Cut Express), consumer software (iLife), and then to consumer hardware (iPods):

Clockwise Keynote	Hardware	Software
Professional	Xserves	Final Cut Express
Consumer	iPods	iLife

Xserves were bumped to single and dual G5 processors for $2999 and $3999 and will ship in Feb.

Final Cut Express 2.0 was bumped up w/ real-time effects for $299 or $99 upgrade and will ship today.

iLife was bumped up w/ a slew of features for $49 or $19.95 upgrade and will ship Friday, January 16th.

iTunes now features Billboard Charts and more classical music.

iPhoto now supports up to 25,000 photos, Smart Albums, Star Ratings, Rendezvous sharing, and improved slideshows.

iMovie now supports the iSight, trimming in the timeine, alignment guides, new titles, and easier sharing.

iDVD now supports a new navigation map, 20 new themes, new transitions, and two hours of video.

GarageBand now allows you to record or create music w/ 50 software instruments, 1,000 loops, 200 effects, 6 guitar amps, and easy export to iTunes.

Minimum requirements are a 600 MHz G3 and 256 MB of RAM, though some aspects require any G4 or better.

iPods were bumped from 10 GB to 15 GB w/ no price change, still $299. iPod mini’s were introduced, w/ 4 GB HDs (~1,000 songs) in anodized aluminum cases of silver, gold, pink, blue, or green the size of a business card and 1/2 inch thick for $249, and they’ll ship here in Feb and worldwide in April.