Macworld Forums

We've had a bunch of rather pleasing announcements at the keynote.

It's hard to see anything much to complain about, but I'm sure that some will find a way.

Presumably we can expect a re-run of the "Why is that software only available on DVD ?" whinge when people discover that iWork needs a DVD for installation.

Interestingly it doesn't look as though iWork will be included free with the Mac mini and presumably not with other models either.

The graphics ability of Mac mini will be deemed unsuitable for playing cutting edge games.

It will doubtless be condemned for not including a monitor, keyboard or mouse and we can expect the usual complaints about BlueTooth being a factory only option which can't be retrofitted.

I can't see Apple losing any sleep over any of those issues. All the announcements were pretty good and I'd expect Apple to greatly increase it's sales over the next couple oy years.

As for Asteroid not appearing ( FireWire audio box ), they're probably saving that to announce next week at NAMM, the music show. The enhancements to GarageBand II include multi-channel audio recording, which will be needed for Asteroid.

All in all, it seems like a good set of announcements and most of them further develop concepts that are already well established for Apple.

AlanAudio,

Liek you I'm impressed with this lot. I will definietely buy iWork and might be tempted by a Mac mini. But I'm not sure the Flash iPod will catch on. The inability to navigate to a particular track or album might prove to be its un doing. But then what do I know? I remember thinking a big 'So what?" when the original iPod was announced.

All in all a good Keynote

All the best

Dylanesque,

the Shuffle has got three things going for it.

1) The $99 price is great.

2) The tiny size makes it a curiosity and everybody will want to see it.

3) It's an iPod.

I reckon that the third point is the one that will make it a massive success. How can anybody hope to sell rival MP3 players for a lower price than that and still make money ?

It should generate a great deal of business for iTMS too. That's where the money will be coming from in the future.

Dylanesque,
iWork looks like it may be useful for my business so will probably get that. I like the idea of the iPod Shuffle. I don't need to carry 10,000 songs with me
so 240 will be more than enough at any one time. As for not being able to navigate, I look at this as having your favourite radio station with you. You know you'll like what's playing but you won't know what's coming next.

AlanAudio,

Apple has stated they don't make much profit on ITMS at all.

The lack of screen on the Shuffle is a very risky strategy. Everyone I've shown it to, has asked "where's the screen" and "then how am I going to use it?"

As maczealous as I am, even I couldn't answer them.

AlanAudio,

I think that some people will be caught out by the standard Mac mini. These people won't be able to burn their own DVDs with iLife, but may be under the impression that they can.

I think that the iPod shuffle will sell extremely well. A playlist of 120 equals around 8 hours of playing before it starts to repeat.

It's going to be interesting to see what affect this will have on Apple's market share. Let's hope it makes a strong impact.

wandrews,

I agree with you about the iPod Shuffle selling by the bucketload.

You make a good point about the Mac Mini possibly misleading people. You or I might know that we won't be able to burn DVDs with it, but people new to Apple might well jump to, well, quite a reasonable conclusion when they see the software. Still, that shouldn't stop the Mac Mini from doing nice things to Apple's market share.

bugbear,

This footnote at the bottom of the minimac specs:
"Memory upgrade must be performed by an Apple Authorized Service provider." ouch!!

bugbear,

The mini Mac looks cool - and a fantastic price too. OK, the specs aren't cutting edge, but that's missing the point of this Mac. It's a cut-down, low-end offering, designed to pursade Windows user and iPod users to switch to Apple. And, that's a real option now at that price. My only concern is the lack of upgrade path - on Apple's website, it states that memory has to be fitted by Apple themselves - so it looks as though you should get now what you think you'll need later, as it can't be upgraded yourself. That also means paying Apple's inflated RAM prices too. And they've placed the bleedin power button round the back again - what is it with Apple and power buttons? - the iMac and emac are the same!!

Anyway, a minor gripe on what's otherwise an excellant addition to the Mac line-up. Makes you wonder if the eMac's days are numbered though, with only a difference of about £100 between high-end mini Mac and low-end eMac.

iWork - looks like a logical thing to group together a presentation tool and a word processor, but makes you wonder if Apple have shot themselves in the foot. Microsoft aren't going to be best pleased are they? What with Internet Explorer gone to that software graveyard in the sky, could Office go the same way? Hope not, as that's another good reason for Windows users to switch to Apple. To have no Office for Macs would be a bad thing, even if 'Pages' is a much better offering. Strange that the mini Mac comes with iLife 05 installed but still comes with Appleworks too - no iWork? Perhaps that's how they'll handle it - after all, Microsoft didn't see Appleworks as a threat to Office on the Mac. But there can't be room for two Apple word processing apps, can there?

wandrews,
The Mac mini does have the option to upgrade to the Superdrive. So they will be able to burn DVDs. I am tempted to buy this beaut. I will be amazed if Apple don't sell at least 500,000 of these little babies in 2005. Pretty amazing Expo if you think about the products announced. Maybe one or two more next week. 3Ghz may arrive by June as well as a G5 PowerBook. As for iPod shuffle. I can't get on to the UK Apple Store, but I am guessing it will about £79, for that little money you can't go wrong. And Apple too. Rollin, rollin, rollin, keep that money rollin. If this doesn't send Apple's share price through the roof…

barrowman,

There's already a fair few no-screen MP3 players out there that sell fairly well as low end devices, or as sports specific devices. Nike sell a pretty popular one iirc and so do either Bose or B&O, one of them

JP.

Apple Certified System Administrator

Hmm the MacMini reminds me of the Cube, only its been lopped in half (well even less than that,ore like the top third), very nifty. Something like this will be great for my grandmother - nice affordable price and no more virus worries. Smart move.

barrowman,

It's true that Apple have never claimed to make much money from iTMS. It will be fascinating to see if anything is specifically announced tomorrow during Apple's financial report.

The cost of setting up and hosting iTMS was quite considerable, but when that cost is divided by half a billion tracks per year ( according to SJ today ), the economics change enormously.

Apple were declaring a modest profit from it's previous, much lower, sales figures, the current situation is quite different and should be much more profitable ( expressed as an annual profit ).

t3design,

The Apple site says "Some of these options must be installed by Apple at the factory; the rest can be added in-store at an Apple Store or an Apple authorized reseller."

We can be fairly sure that BlueTooth is a factory-only option and I think it's quite likely that the SuperDrive would be too. Hard drive changing could be either, but just like the G4 iMac, I reckon that dealers and many users will be able to add AirPort and at least some RAM.

My friend and I thought the same thing - it's a semiCube. And I'm ebaying my Cube this week... there go half my bids!

iPhoto has had some great updates.

The feauture I've most wanted is there now - the ability to straighten pictures shot on the tilt.

Slideshows are much flashier and you can use a playlist as the audio track and therefore get a selection of tunes - including the ability to automatically make the slideshow duration fit the music duration.

You also get the ability to totally distract your audience with rotating cube effects and selective zooming in … yes the Ken Burns effect has come over from iMovie to iPhoto.

New photo book formats look excellent and appear to be at very attractive prices too.

If you print your own, there are more templates and options, including one for you to make customised greetings cards, a bit like iCards, but you print them on paper.

There's also a histogram display with sliders that offers much of the functionality of Photoshop's levels control.

Finally, those with superior cameras can import in RAW format for the highest possible quality.