Things have been pretty busy at Apple this week. In order to spur sales (and clear the inventory channels for new models, some believe), Apple dropped the prices on the 12” and 15” Powerbook G4 by as much as $300. The 12” Powerbook now starts at $1599, with the 15” starting at $1999.

Cupertino software developers have been burning the midnight oil as well. Keynote, Apple’s cinema-quality presentation tool, received improved PowerPoint import and export capability, enhanced performance of QuickTime video, and reduced file sizes, among other improvements.
iSync, a utility to sync contact lists and calendars on the Mac with cell phones, Palm OS devices, and iPods, was revved to support more Bluetooth-enabled phones. Bluetooth is a short-range wireless connectivity standard that can connect phones, PDAs, mice, keyboards, and computers. Also added was the ability to sync your Mac via a USB cable with several more Motorola phones, as well as the sharing of Safari bookmarks between Macs through your .Mac account.

iMovie received a major speed and stability increase, as well as a more refined “Ken Burns Effect” package (a feature to pan and zoom across and into a still image, giving a sense of motion to an other wise static frame). Improvements in audio sync come with a major upgrade to Apple’s audio and video media tool, QuickTime.

The QuickTime upgrade also introduces 3GPP capabilities. What in the world is 3GPP? Well, it stands for 3rd Generation Partnership Group, and is the emerging standard for the creation, delivery and playback of multimedia over high-speed broadband mobile networks, to the newest-fangled (technical term for cutting edge) mobile devices (phones and PDAs). Here’s the idea in a nutshell. You take a picture (or soon shoot video) with the camera built into your phone or PDA, and then send that image to another phone or PDA, or back to your computer for storage. Or, you use your phone to listen to streamed music or view streaming video. 3GPP’s underlying architecture is based on QuickTime’s MPEG-4 video and AAC audio components, so it makes sense that Apple would become the leader in content creation tools for 3GPP. As usual, if you want to see what Microsloth will copy next year, look at what Apple is announcing today

Oh, wait. Microsloth did demo a watch that would set its own time this year. Ooh. Aah.

Keep those emails coming to petez@macmaineiac.com, and, as always, Semper Mac! Take care.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski