Yes, there was another consumer electronics show last week – MacWorld 2003 in San Francisco. Now, some of you are asking “What’s the big deal about an Apple trade show? I mean, come on, 5% market share? It’s not like it’s COMDEX” The truth is, what’s new and innovative at MacWorld today will be touted as new and innovative at COMDEX next year (or even the next). Apple’s position as the computer industry innovator is solidified at every MacWorld show, and this one was no exception. Over 90,000 Mac faithful gathered to see the latest and greatest hardware and software from Apple and third-party developers, and they weren’t disappointed. The event kicked off with a keynote address delivered by Apple CEO Steve Jobs..

Jobs opened with his customary “state of the Mac” review, highlighting the recent “Switcher” advertising campaign, noting that 50% of the computers sold at the fifty-one Apple Retail Stores are to Windows switchers. Then came the parade of new Apple software. Here the emphasis was on updating Apple’s “Digital Lifestyle” applications: iTunes for managing music, iPhoto for digital photography, iMovie for video editing, and iDVD for creating DVDs. With the exception of iTunes, each application got a major overhaul, with added features too numerous to list here. Some highlights: iMovie’s Ken Burns Effect, named for the acclaimed documentary filmmaker, with which you can easily pan across and zoom into still images; and 24 new iDVD themes, which are gorgeous and rival professional productions. Plus, the applications are now more tightly integrated. For example, iTunes music playlists and iPhoto pictures can be easily accessed in iMovie and iDVD to become soundtracks and slideshows. The application bundle is now called iLife. All but iDVD will be available for free download at www.apple.com on January 25th. Because of it’s size, iDVD, with the other applications bundled with it, will be $49 by mail or at retail outlets.

Jobs then debuted Safari, a new web browser for OSX, touted as the fastest browser on the Mac. A public beta of Safari is downloadable from the Apple website. It has integrated Google search features, great bookmark management, and is based on KHTML open source code. Other software introduced included Keynote, a $99 “PowerPoint killer” presentation application that even imports and exports files in PowerPoint format, and Final Cut Express, a $299 trimmed down version of the $999 industry-leading Final Cut Pro video editing suite.

Jobs then surprised the crowd with two new laptops – a 6.8 pound, one inch thick Powerbook G4 with a 17-inch screen (the largest laptop screen available anywhere) and a keyboard that lights up when the lights go down; and a 4.8 pound, one inch thick Powerbook G4 with a 12-inch screen for road warriors. More significant than the laptops themselves were two leading-edge technologies that debuted along with them.

The first was FireWire 800. FireWire 800 is, you guessed it, twice as fast as FireWire 400 (and, therefore, twice as fast as USB 2.0). FireWire is that data transfer cable used to connect DV cameras and hard drives to computers.

The second new technology debuted was Airport Extreme, an update to Apple’s wireless network system that is five times faster than the original but still fully compatible with the original (as well as just about every wireless “hot spot” in the world).

After the keynote, the crowd descended onto the show floor, where third-party vendors waited to demonstrate their wares. All-in-all, not a bad start for 2003 for Apple, the little computer company that can.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski