14 DAY TRIAL // There's no doubt about it, Steve Jobs definitely knows how to entertain and all those who weren't aware of this by now had a great performance to watch last week, when Jobs hosted MacWorld. Those who attended the event or streamed it online watched 90 minutes of entertainment delivered by Apple's very own Steve Jobs. Thing is, the only reason most of the show wasn't a total bore is that Jobs really knows how to woo the crowd into eating his every word, even when presenting financial results, running through software demos and only towards the end referring to the actual hardware that usually draws attention. Had it been any other IT leader (we're not mentioning any names since there's no need to), the show would have been pretty lifeless.
If we were to sort out the main subjects presented at MacWorld, most of you would just get bored instantly and you'd probably start looking for a more interesting topic. I mean, who really needs to learn financial statistics that you'll forget about in the following five minutes, or watch half an hour of software demos that are really so detailed that no one can help but yawn. Then, some Microsoft woman appeared on stage, didn't really find her place there and managed to point out that... well... something... and immediately after there's the "One more thing" phrase coming up. Hold it! Usually, when that happens, some pretty impressive piece of Apple machinery makes it to the stage and the entire IT industry is missing a heart beat or two. It doesn't even matter that much if it's another MP3 player, a notebook or any other piece of Apple hardware, it still means trouble for everybody else. This time, "One more thing" introduced the new Apple notebooks, which are very good candidates for the "notebook of the year" award.
Usually, financial details have the tendency to bore anybody and are avoided or disregarded, but when Apple announced the impressive results recorded over the past holiday season, a few jaws fell down to the floor. Steve Jobs got to announce the audience that during the holidays Apple sold $5.7 worth and the revenues recorded over this period are well over one billion dollars. Needless to say, the main culprit for these outrageous numbers is the iPod MP3 player, which is slowly gaining up on the world itself. Steve burst with pride as he announced that only during the holiday season in 2005 the iPod sold 14 million copies. That's really an incredible achievement, especially compared to last year's results, when Apple sold "only" 4.5 million players. Anyone who argues that the iPod rules the world... or at least the MP3 player world, just be aware that the iPod sold 100 units a minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and this throughout the holiday season. Actually, 2005 really was the time that the Apple player really took off and sold 32 out of the total 42 million players shipped all over the world.
The bragging didn't end there and Steve Jobs went on and praised the iTunes music service, which is now selling like mad over 3 million songs a day. Shortly, iTunes will have sold over one billion songs, which clearly means it is the undisputed leader of this online music industry. Just in case you were wondering, iTunes hold 83% market share.
Back to Macworld though, where Jobs unfortunately went on and presented to the finest detail every new feature of the iLife suite and demonstrated live every aspect of the Aperture application, which is Apple's alternative for the Adobe Photoshop solution. Just to make things a lot more convincing, Jobs resorted to short statements from professional digital photographers, who did their best to convince the audience about the advantages Aperture has over the competition. Jobs didn't overlook the ever so popular podcast segment and invested an important amount of time to publish a podcast he created on the spot. The entire demonstration took however too long even if the whole point of it all was to prove just how easy making and publishing a podcast really is, still, in my humble opinion, it took too much time.
That wasn't what the audience was waiting and hoping for, passed statistics, software demos and statements from professionals, no matter how interesting those might be. Everybody was expecting Apple to give the news about the Intel partnership it had announced in June 2005 and maybe even see a prototype. According to the agreement signed by the two companies last year, the following series of Apple systems were to include Intel processors. And that... they do now! Anyway, even without the new and more powerful technology, the iMac sold more and more and things started to look better early 2005, when Apple sold one million iMacs, only to have 1.25 million in the last quarter of last year. The fact that it was widely known Intel was going to power the next generation of iMacs didn't keep Apple enthusiasts from purchasing iMacs and didn't wait for Intel to make it to the stage.
Speaking of stages, an interesting appearance for he MacWorld 2006 was Paul Otellini's, who showed up dressed in a head-to-toe "bunny suit (the protective suits that workers wear in chip making facilities) to report to Steve Jobs that "Intel is ready"; for delivering the new chips to Apple. Basically, Intel not only met the deadline announced last June, but made it about 6 months earlier than scheduled. The old iMac is left without the PowerPC processor and the only addition to the new one is the Intel Core Duo chip. Still, according to Steve Jobs, this little detail will offer two to three times better performances than the old iMac G5. Considering each core of the Intel processor is more powerful than the PowerPc one, it's easy to see where this entire performance boost comes from. The 2 MB caches level 2 doesn't hurt either. For such an important shift of direction, Apple just had to come up with a smashing ad campaign, and that it did. The new iMac ad which was premiered during Macworld was very appreciated as it pointed out that it was time to free the Intel processor from the little, dull and dusty PCs into the wonderful world of the iMac, where the possibilities are endless.
Still, the headshot given to the G5 processor came only when Jobs announced completely switching from the old PowerBook name to a new brand, a new concept and a new processor. That's how the world got to meet the MacBook Pro, replacing the old series of Apple notebooks and housing the Intel Core Duo, just like the iMacs. This isn't just a performance boost given to the MacBook Pro, but also a performance per watt boost. Without going into too much technical details, Jobs pointed out that the Intel Core Duo offer 4 times better performance per watt ratios than the G4 processors and 4,5 times better than the G5.
The rest of the specifications deserves just as much attention as the processor itself and the overall minimalist concept of the one inch thick notebook, which still offers a 15.4 inch screen. The thing is, the screen now offers the same brightness the Apple Cinema Displays do, which is pretty impressive. The included webcam isn't a bad idea in itself, but why did it have such a great welcome from the audience (standing ovations and the like) I will never know. Other notebook manufacturers - take Asus for instance - offer the same included webcam, what's so hot about it? The enthusiasm was there throughout the presentation, even for the dullest parts of the show, so the webcam reaction shouldn't be looked at as the greatest discovery of the century, notebook speaking. What really is a great idea for a notebook is the MagSafe technology, which prevents the notebook from flying around the room every time someone trips over the power cord. Everybody who owns a notebook knows exactly how frustrating and dangerous that is, so having a magnetic socket that attaches to the notebook and releases easily when pulled by accident is just brilliant. Such a small detail for such a huge difference!
The MacBook Pro will be available in two versions, one running a 1.67 GHz and the other a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. The first system will use 512 MB (single SODIMM) PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2, while the more powerful one will include 1GB (single SODIMM). The video card included in these notebooks is the Radeon Mobility X1600 with 256 MB of dedicated memory. Prices go from 1.999 USD for the 1.67 GHz version to 2.499 USD for the 1.83 GHz one. Shipping will start in February, but orders can be placed starting last week.
There's no doubt about it, Apple will grow a great deal in 2006 and the iMac-Intels and MacBook Pro systems are already under the magnifying glass of the media and the general public. This is definitely a new beginning for Apple and could mean having a much higher market share at the end of 2006. What exactly will the financial results say in the end remains to be seen, but something tells me Steve Jobs will have plenty of reasons to be smiling at the next MacWorld and that many jaws will fall to the floor... again.
