OK, I was half right this week. Or, half wrong, depending on how you look at it. I prefer to look at it as half right. Anyway, there were no new iMacs introduced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference this week. I still believe that there will be new, probably G5-based, iMacs by the end of this year.

However, Apple did roll out the rumored new Cinema Displays. Three models: 20-inch, 23-inch and 30-inch diagonal size. They’re slimmer than previous Cinema Displays, enclosed in the same anodized aluminum skin as the PowerMac G5. They have two USB ports and two FireWire ports built-in. The mid-range 23” and the high-end 30” model are “High Definition”, ready for the coming boom in HD content. They’re pricey – the three models retail for $1299, $1999, and $3299 respectively. Check them out at www.apple.com.

Now for Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger. Tiger adds over 150 new features to the Mac operating system. I’ll touch on just a couple. There’s no rush, as Tiger will not be available until “the first half of 2005”.

Tiger is designed to more fully exploit the capabilities of the powerful 64-bit PowerPC G5 processors now used only in Apple’s high-end PowerMac line. At the same time, however, it will be backwards-compatible with the G4 processors now used in the rest of the Mac lineup.

Tiger’s new system-wide search feature, called “Spotlight”, uses metadata embedded in every file on your computer (including your internet bookmarks, email and addresses) to speed up and organize the search process. Metadata is similar to the detailed information attached to every photo coming out of your digital camera. Tiger will use this metadata to do things like provide “Smart Folders” – the contents of which are automatically updated by criteria that you establish.

The powerful graphics engine that enables cool features like Mac OS 10.3’s “Expose”, will be beefed up, and will include a new version of the QuickTime media layer that is going to be the foundation of the high-definition DVDs that are on the horizon.

Also using the new graphics engine is “Dashboard”, a semi-transparent layer of “widgets” that give you easy access to tools you use frequently, like an iTunes controller or mini-browsers with timely internet information.

For more information, point your web browser at: http://www.apple.com/macosx/.

© 2004 Peter F. Zimowski