MW/SF ’05 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 July in Boston (by ~55,000 people), and in September in Paris (by ~60,000 people). 

This Review will cover Steve’s Keynote, the Exhibits Floor, “Party for the People,” and 1st Quarter Earnings.

Steve’s Keynote.  On Tuesday, January 11th, 9am, Steve Jobs kicked off w/ a Note and a couple of Updates, wound through OS X and Other Software, and ended w/ A Li’l Hardware and some music.

High Def Keynote.  Steve’s note was that this Keynote was the first to use High Definition (16:9 ratio) projection, and then he moved onto a couple of Updates.

Apple Retail opened its first store 3 1/2 years ago, and now Apple has 101 stores worldwide.  Each store hosts an average of 1 million visitors per week, and the newest store, in London, is also the largest.  And,

iMac G5 has received excellent reviews and has become Apple’s best selling Mac.  So what’s next?

Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger will be Apple’s 5th release and will include 200 features, including Safari RSS, Spotlight, yet another revision of Mail (includes slideshow), QuickTime 7 (includes h.264), Dashboard, even better iChat AV (audio w/ 10 people, video w/ 4), and will ship the 1st half of 2005, long before Longhorn.  So what’s next?

High Definition.  2005 will be the year of HD.  Final Cut Pro already supports it, and now Final Cut Express does, too.  It’ll be available in February for $299 or $99 upgrade.

iLife was refreshed for the new year and will be available on Sat., Jan. 22nd, for $79.

iPhoto now supports a Calendar View, movies and RAW images, straightening (for crooked horizons), improved slideshows, new books, and lower prices (down from 29¢ per print to 19¢).

iMovie now supports HD, and Magic iMovie.  Steve then said that Apple competes w/ Sony in some areas, but also cooperates w/ Sony in other areas, and for HD, Apple is definitely cooperating.  He then introduced the President of Sony, Kunitake Ando.

iDVD now supports 15 new themes, live drop zones, and OneStep DVD.

GarageBand now supports up to 8 tracks, real-time music notation, and Vocal Transformer. And

iTunes was already recently updated to support printing CD inserts w/ album art, lossless encoding, and AirPort Express.

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

iWork is the successor to AppleWorks and will be available on Sat., Jan. 22nd, for $79. 

Keynote 2 now supports 20 new themes, a presenter display, and text animations. 
 
Pages is “a word processor w/ an incredible sense of style” and was written from the ground up to take full advantage of Mac OS X and iLife, w/ 40 templates. 
 
(Minimum requirements are a 500 MHz G3, 128 MB of RAM and 1 GB of HD space.)  So what’s next? 

“Why doesn’t Apple offer a stripped-down Mac that is more affordable?” 

Mac Mini is BYODKM (bring your own display, keyboard and mouse), and comes in two configurations:  1.25 GHz G4, 256 MB RAM and a 40 GB HD for $499;  and 1.42 GHz G4, 256 MB RAM and an 80 GB HD for $599.  Lastly, let’s talk about 

iTunes has sold over 230 million songs, has 70% marketshare, and serves 15 countries which is 70% of the global market.  And Apple has also sold 1 million prepaid cards. 

iPod is so popular that over 10 million of them have been sold, and 3 out of the Top 5 Amazon consumer electronics products have been iPods and Prepaid cards.  So what’s next? 

Cars from BMW, Mercedes Benz, Nissan, Volvo, Scion, Alfa Romero, and Ferrari will offer iPod integration. 
 
Cell Phones from Motorola will be coming out later this year whose interface looks just like the iPod’s.  Oh, but there is just 
 
One more thing...  In January 2004, iPod had a 31% market-share, w/ 62% going to flash players, and 7% to other HD players.  So Apple introduced the iPod mini to go after the high-end flash players.  How did Apple do?
 
In January 2005, iPod has a 65% marketshare, w/ 29% going to flash players, and 6% to other HD players.  So today, Apple is introducing a new iPod to go after the rest of the flash players. 
 
iPod shuffle comes w/ either 512MB (~120 songs) for $99, or 1 GB (~240 songs) for $149, .8 oz weight, 12-hr battery, and is available today, w/ accessories like an armband, sports case, dock, and battery pack, all $29 each.

The Exhibits Floor filled the South Hall to capacity.  Each attendee will have their own highlights to share, so we’ll take a moment to hear those.  Likewise, 
 
“Party for the People” at Parc 55 was a great place to meet people and catch up, and those who attended may have some highlights to share.