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By Bob LeVitus
I’m back from Macworld Expo San Francisco and I
have to tell you folks, it was a good one this time. I
give this year's keynote a 93—it had a great beat
and you could dance to it.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked
things off by telling us he had enough new products to
fill two keynotes.
And he did. Bigger PowerBooks, smaller PowerBooks, better
wireless reception, faster wireless protocols (much faster),
faster FireWire connections, a faster Web browser and a
powerful presentation graphics program (think PowerPoint,
but easy to use and pretty), chapters in the DVDs you burn
(YEA!), an inexpensive version of Final Cut Pro (no, it’s
not called “Final Cut Semi Pro”), and X11 for
OS X.
Oh, there was one other thing… the world’s
first and only wearable electronic jacket with integrated
iPod controls, created by Apple and Burton Snowboards.
But I digress. The jacket is way cool but face it—there
just aren’t many good places to snowboard here in
Texas. So let’s take a closer look at some of the
just-announced products you’re more likely to lust
for.
At the top of my personal lust list, you’ll find
the new 17-inch PowerBook. It’s
gorgeous in its sleek aluminum alloy enclosure, it’s
got the same killer 17-inch display as the iMac, and best
of all, it’s
got all the hot new technologies power users lust for:
802.11g Wireless Networking (a.k.a. AirPort Extreme; more
on that in a moment), new twice-as-fast FireWire
800, built-in
Bluetooth, and ambient lighting sensors that automatically
adjust your display and innovative backlit keyboard as
lighting conditions change.
It’s not particularly
dainty at 6.8 pounds; it’s
not at all cheap, with prices starting at $3,299. But it’s
a heck of a Mac and I want one so badly I can almost taste
it.
At the other end of the spectrum, Apple also introduced
the smallest and most affordable PowerBook
yet, a 4.6 pounder
with a 12-inch display and all of the expected PowerBook
accoutrements, encased in a new lightweight aluminum alloy-enclosure
and priced from just $1,799.
And yes, they finally fixed the AirPort reception issue
in these new PowerBooks—Apple claims that both models
have the exact same AirPort reception as the iBook, which
is the standard by which AirPort reception is judged.
Speaking
of AirPort, it’s also new and improved for
2003. Dubbed AirPort Extreme, it runs the new ultra-fast
802.11g standard offering speeds up to 54Mbps, five times
the data rate of last-generation 802.11b-based products
including AirPort. But it is backward compatible, so old
and new can co-exist peacefully.
But that’s not all—in
addition to being much faster, the new AirPort Extreme
base stations include wireless bridging and USB printer
sharing. This is huge. To expand your wireless network,
just add more base stations (up to 4) and extend the reach
of your wireless network without running additional cables
or adding more Macs. That’s so sweet. And USB printer
sharing means you can plug one printer into your base station
and have it available to up to 50 users! Yowza! Plus, the
new base station has a software placement utility to help
you find an optimal location for the unit, a software power
control to limit the station’s range, and an antenna
port for adding optional omni-directional or directional
antennas.
I can’t remember a Macworld Expo where
Apple introduced more new products, but I’m running
out of space. So I’ll have to tell you about Apple’s
new software offerings—Keynote, Safari, iLife, and
Final Cut Express—next
week. Meanwhile, check out the specs and prices on all
the new hardware devices at www.apple.com.
Bob LeVitus is a leading authority on
Mac OS and the author of 41 books, including Dr.
Mac: The OS X Files, (or, “How to Become a Mac OS
X Power User”) and
Mac OS X for Dummies, 2nd Edition. E-mail comments to
doctormac@boblevitus.com.
Copyright © 2004 Bob LeVitus
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