Danny Gorog07 August 2007, 6:30 PM
Apple has unveiled super-thin new aluminium and glass iMacs, as well as a 10GB upgrade to .Mac. And it has nailed the Microsoft Office for Mac coffin shut once and for all.
At a press conference today in Cupertino, Apple unveiled new look iMacs, an upgraded iLife media suite called iLife '08 and an upgrade to its iWorks productivity suite, including the long-rumored new Excel competitor called Numbers.
The new iMacs will come in only two flavours, a 20" and a 24" model (both glossy screens) and feature Core 2 Extreme processors (up to 2.8GHz), up to 4GB of memory, ATI Radeon HD graphics card, up to 1TB of hard drive storage, 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.0 built-in.
The new iMac also borrow design elements from Apples pro-line of products including aluminium and glass. In a sign of how sensitive Apple CEO Steve Jobs has become to concerns over Apple's environmental practices, he said these materials were "highly recyclable".
Probably the most radical change on the new iMacs is the low-profile keyboard. With a height of less than 1cm the new keyboard features two USB ports and dedicated control keys for screen dimming, expose, media controls, volume controls and an eject key for the optical drive.
iLife '08 is an upgrade to the popular iLife suite (including iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, and Garageband) and features more than just a re-organised toolbar. Free on all new Macs or US$79 to upgrade, it's probably the best value Mac software on the market today.
Apple also took this opportunity to finally upgrade its dated Internet services package. .Mac still costs US$99 per year but now comes with 10GB of storage and tighter iLife integration.
iPhoto '08 adds an 'event' feature where iPhoto automatically groups photos taken in a similar time frame into events. According to Apple users take an average of 50 photos per event (birthday parties, weddings, etc.) and have around 5000-6000 photos in their libraries. Grouping photos into events means you only have to sort through 100 events rather than 5000 individual pics to find the one you are looking for.iPhoto '08 also lets you copy photo adjustments for a single photo and apply it to photos in your library - a potentially big time saver (if all your photos are slightly underexposed, for example). As expected, it includes new templates for making books and calendars (a feature that still isn't available in Australia.)
 iPhoto '08: better tools for sorting through your photos |
iPhoto '08 also makes it easier to share your photos with others using the new .Mac Web Gallery feature that gives users the ability to create rich Web 2.0 sites with a single button. Friends and family that you share your gallery with can also download print quality downloads, and can contribute photos from anywhere as well using a special email address they get from the web gallery.
Plus, Apple has added a 'Send to Web Gallery' button on the iPhone that lets you easily share photos while on the go.
iMovie '08 now features AVCHD support -- great news for people interested in buying a high-definition, hard-drive based video camera -- and lets you export videos in multiple resolutions and to multiple devices (as long as they start with an 'i') including a specific setting to send to YouTube. iMovie now groups videos in an 'iPhoto' style library for easier access. Something tells me I'm gonna need a bigger hard drive.
iWeb '08 now features the ability to use your own personal domain name, and adds support for adding Google Maps, Google AdSense and Live web widgets. Users will also finally be able to change themes mid build.
iDVD '08 now adds more themes and pro encoding, while Garageband '08 comes with a new feature called 'Magic Garageband' that lets users experiment with different instruments and styles on the fly. Garageband also features 24-bit recording and basic notation printing.
Pages and Keynote, the two packages that comprise iWork '08 feature modest upgrades that include new themes and design templates. Pages now features a 'word processing' only mode with features like 'track changes' that is MS Word compatible.
Numbers completes the iWork package and finally lets Mac users delete the cumbersome old Microsoft Office for good, now that iWork has presentations, word processing and spreadsheeting covered off.
Featuring iWork style interface elements, Numbers lets users make great looking spreadsheets quickly. Numbers isn't an Excel killer for power users - but it's the old 80:20 rule again. 80 percent of the users only need 20 percent of the features, and that's exactly what Numbers gives them. Plus Numbers imports and exports Excel documents for easy compatibility.