I’ve posted some photos from yesterday’s Macworld keynote with Steve Jobs and some photos from the expo on Flickr. You can see the pictures here.

I attended the Macworld keynote for the first time yesterday and now that I’ve had a little time to mull over Steve’s announcements, here’s my take on the latest from Apple:

iPod and iTunes

Apple’s iPod sales were scary: 14 million sold this holiday season versus 4.5 million in the 2004 holiday season, surpassing analyst projections of about 10 million units. The iTunes Music Store has sold 850 million songs and is on pace to sell a billion songs per year. The addition of video content—ABC Sports, ESPN, and Saturday Night Live content is now available through iTunes—will only add to the growth of this segment.

The announcement of the $49 iPod remote control with integrated FM tuner is a footnote, a retrofit, a stopgap.

What Was Missing
No announcements about updated iPod shuffles (multiple colors, a smaller size, and/or screens were predicted) or beefier iPod nanos (increased capacity was rumored). But why mess with a good thing?

Predictions
It’s a pretty safe bet to assume that updated iPods are in the works. I’m betting new models will sport integrated FM tuners. Also, look for more media partnerships. It’s just a matter of time before you’ll be able to watch The Incredibles on your iPod, and I’d expect more Pixar/Apple co-marketing of some sort before long. I think we’ll see a redesigned iPod with an improved video experience before the end of the year.

Mac OS X 10.4.4

Installed without a hiccup on my machine. Not sure I get the need for a Google widget, but the other new widgets are nice (updated calendar and address book widgets, plus white pages, ski conditions, and ESPN sports scores widgets).

Predictions
Tiger is slowly getting long in the tooth, at least in cat years. Expect many more announcements about Leopard, Tiger’s successor, to steal some of the thunder of Window’s Vista, due sometime this year. And if you haven’t already seen it, watch this video. And this one.

iLife

Oh boy. Some good stuff here.

As I expected, iPhoto now sports some new refinements that are reminiscent of Apple’s Aperture program, such as full-screen editing. Photocasting, the ability to share photos over the Internet, looks promising. But it requires a .Mac account to publish (subscribers can add shared photos to iPhoto using RSS). Unless you buy into .Mac, I’d stick with Flikr.

iPhoto now supports up to 250,000 photos and Jobs claimed speed was also dramatically improved. It certainly looked peppy on the new iMac he used for his demo. The quality of iPhoto books is also supposed to be improved and you can now print greeting cards and calendars. New one-click effects look like fun.

iMovie now lets you open more than one project at a time and sports new themes, real-time effects and titling, and enhanced auto tools and effects. You can export video to your iPod or create videocasts. iDVD now supports third-party burners and “Magic DVD” lets you create a DVD by choosing a theme and dragging and dropping movies and photos. Incredible easy and the results were stunning.

Jobs clearly had the most fun with his demo of GarageBand, recording his podcast of Apple secrets. GarageBand is now an incredible tool for creating podcasts: a new Speech Enhancer improves audio, dynamic “ducking” automatically lowers music volume while you speak, GarageBand can record audio from iChat if you want to interview someone for your podcast (and captures a still image every time someone talks if you use video chat), and comes with more than 200 sound effects and 100 jingles.

The iLife family of apps gets a new sibling this year: iWeb. iWeb is like Pages for the Web. With plenty of built-in templates to use as a starting point, iWeb lets you create a website or a blog in minutes. I played with iWeb for a bit on the Expo floor. You can publish to .Mac or save to a folder for uploading to a server via FTP. CSS is embedded in the HTML, so if you want to make changes it should be easy enough.

iLife is still only $79. It’s an incredible value for the money and I don’t think there’s anything on the PC that can touch it.

Predictions
I think we’ll see more Aperture-like features trickle down into iPhoto. The challenge of managing large collections of pictures and making minor enhancements is not limited to professionals. Digital photography is taking off and I think the market for applications like iPhoto, Aperture, and Adobe’s new Lightroom is increasing. I think Lightroom will be priced below Aperture (and probably in some kind of bundle; Creative Suite 3?) and that the price of Aperture will come down before the year is out.

I think we’ll see publishing via FTP in a future version of iWeb. The .Mac limitation feels a bit greedy to me, even if iWeb is meant to be Web publishing for Dummies (I think of RapidWeaver, iWeb and Sandvox as Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest—but I mean that in a nice way).

iWork

Keynote and Pages get a few tweaks and some added features. I bought iWork last year, fired it up a few times, but have never used it. Keynote is slick, but I can’t use it because it’s too much of a hassle to import PowerPoint presentations that I have to share with co-workers. Pages looks nice, but it can’t export a simple layout to HTML. Maybe this version is better, but I’m not going to bother to upgrade.

What Was Missing
Where was the much anticipated and rumored spreadsheet program? The answer came a bit later when Microsoft’s Roz Ho took the stage to pledge Microsoft’s commitment to continue developing Microsoft Office on the Mac for at least the next five years. I exchanged knowing glances with the people on either side of me.

Predictions
Sure looks to me like Apple and Microsoft have agreed to play nice. Apple can’t risk losing Microsoft Office on the Mac. Roz Ho’s comment about five years seems portentous to me. Five years may be an eon in technology, but it’s not an eternity. I wouldn’t expect “Numbers,” or whatever an iWork spreadsheet might be called, anytime soon. Ditto a database application. I hope I’m wrong, but I think iWork remains a duo at least until Apple completes the transition to Intel. Maybe by Macworld 2007.

Hardware: Duo Core iMac and MacBook Pro

Of course, the big announcement was the release of a new iMac with Intel Core Duo chip and the new MacBook Pro. Jobs showed a new TV ad, which was a big hit with the audience. The Duo Core iMac looks like a winner: everything stays the same, including the price, but Job’s claims it’s twice as fast. I saw some jaws drop when the MacBook Pro was announced, but it’s going to take some time to get used to the name. I wanted one immediately, and I’ve been waiting to upgrade my notebook from an old Sony VAIO, but I think I’ll wait for the hands on reviews to come in. Reactions have been mixed (see this, for example).

I’ll be interested to see if I can dual boot into Windows with my Core Duo MacBook Pro. I’d be happy to ditch Virtual PC. Also, if it really does drive my Cinema Display and performance is good, I’d be tempted to sell my G5. But the MacBook Pros are pricey.

What Was Missing
Hey, where was my Bluetooth Mighty Mouse?!

Predictions
I think (hope?!) we’ll see a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse by the end of the year. Also, I think the rumors are true—we’ll see plasma screens or some other home entertainment solution from Apple before the next keynote.

Conclusion

The market seems to like what it heard at the keynote. Apple opened at $76.25 on Tuesday; as I write this it’s topping $83. I bought some call options on Monday, as I did last year. That MacBook Pro sure is tempting!

Who knew your iPod was more versatile than a Swiss Army knife? Jason Kottke’s list of 50 Fun Things To Do With Your iPod only goes up to 44, but who’s counting? Some of these tips are obvious (”Listen to your mp3 collection in the car”), but some are pretty creative (”Disguise it as breath mints,” your iPod shuffle fits nicely in a case of Altoids).

Few things are as exhilarating as opening the packaging for a new Apple product. Just look at Genie Nilsson (shown above) opening her G5 in the Genie Apple G5 Setup Gallery). Compare the experience to opening a copy of Microsoft Office (make sure you have a sharp pair of wire cutters).

I love Macs because of the design, and at Apple great design begins with the Box. I still have a few Apple boxes sitting in my garage, and I kept the box from my iPod in the closet for a long time, too. I’m not really sure why I kept them (if something needs servicing, Apple sends you a box for shipping).

As Wired reports in Meet the Apple Pack Rats, some people collect Apple packaging. There’s even a flickr group devoted to the design and packaging of Apple’s products, called ApplePorn. And some people put the packaging to good use, like UberGeek Colin D. Devroe, who converted an iPod box into an iPod box dock.

The only thing I’ve purchased that offered a similarly satisfying out-of-box experience is my Tissot Touch Screen Smart Watch. The box was beautiful, the watch wrapped around a pillow, a Tissot catalog and a 278-page history of the company tucked away in a slip case in the bottom of the box.

As more companies follow Apple’s lead in taking design more seriously, let’s hope they start with the packaging. After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression and, as Apple knows, first impressions can be lasting ones.

Well, the suspense is over. Apple today announced the new iTunes phone, the Motorola ROKR E1. The phone, offered exclusively by Cingular, is $249.99 (with a 2 year contract). The ROKR will hold up to 100 songs on the included 512 MB flash card. I didn’t see anything about being able to buy tunes through your phone; looks like you’ll need the new iTunes 5.

A fun site to promote the phone, at makemedance.com, let’s you demo the phone by making one of eleven characters (including your own image) dance to one of seven song clips. The ads are pretty imaginative, too, with dancing shadows following people as they walk.

Oh, and Apple also introduced the iPod nano, available in 2GB or 4GB models ($199 or $249). The 1.6-inch by 3.5-inch by .27-inch nano weighs a mere 1.5 ounces and lasts 14 hours, yet boasts a 1.5-inch color display. The “nano” moniker seems a bit ambitious; it’s probably just a matter of time before we have iPods the size of postage stamps (the iPod subatomic particle?).

The phone looks tempting, but I think I’ll wait on the nano (I’ve got an iPod and an iPod shuffle already). If I pull the trigger, I’ll let you know what I think.

At the risk of offending the fanatical or merely faithful, now that Apple has released the Mighty Mouse, it seems pretty silly that so many of us suffered for so long with a one-button mouse. If you have any hesitation about buying the Mighty Mouse, give it up. Now that I’ve had it for a couple of days, I can comfortably say that there’s no going back. But if you’re stuck on a one-button mouse, consider the Mus mouse, designed by Art. Lebedev Studio “for Macintosh users who know that one-button mice do a perfect job of moving the cursor on the screen.” Even the designer of this modest mouse notes that they may “make Mus more sophisticated by adding another button and a wheel.”

The Mighty Mouse must be catching on. When I ordered it, the day it was released, it was shipping the same day. By the next day, wait times were 2 to 3 days. Now, as I write this, Apple is reporting an estimated shipping time of 7 to 10 business days.

Why not just save the day by ordering it from Amazon, and save a $3 off Apple’s $49 list price at the same time?

Oh, and when you check out the Mus, be sure to read Mandership, Aretmy Lebedev’s blog. Lots of good stuff about design. I particularly enjoyed “Laws of design.”

By now the web is littered with out-of-the box reviews of Apple’s new Mighty Mouse. I won’t repeat the video blow by blow found here, or the packaging description found here (though, I’ll confess I viewed them both with anticipation). You’ll also find more photos here, so I won’t bother offering you any pictures. What follows are my first impressions about usability. Was this mouse worth the wait (and wait, and wait, and wait)?

In a word, yes.

But I think it’s going to take some getting used to. I’m moving from an Apple Wireless Mouse. I got used to the extra weight that 2 AA batteries added to the mouse; it might have been extra work pushing it around, but it had a solid feel, like a good German automobile. The Mighty Mouse is considerably lighter, so I’m a little heavy handed with it. The cursor zips around the screen (of course, the tracking speed is adjustable, but I don’t think it will take long for me to readjust).

The second issue is the cord. Aside from burning through batteries, I loved having a wireless mouse. A corded mouse has a way of crimping just enough to require a little shaking out every now and then. And I tend to pile stuff in front of my computer (unpaid bills, reading glasses, Post-It notepads, flags, pens, Moleskines, a loupe, a Virgin Airlines rubber ducky, etc.), making it something of an obstacle course. I’ve had to move this paraphernalia out of the way to make room for the cord (let’s see how long I can go before entropy sets in again). But I think it is probably only a matter of time before we see a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse.

The smooth surface of the Mighty Mouse is interrupted only by the pea-sized Scroll Ball and two thumb-sized buttons on either side. All of the buttons are easily configured via a System Preference pane, which must be installed from the installation disc. Pop-up menus let you quickly choose between Primary and Secondary buttons, Exposé actions, Dashboard, Application Switcher, or Spotlight. You can also choose Other and assign another application (Mail or Safari, for example) to a button.

In practice, the Mighty Mouse has no problem detecting left and right mouse clicks, in spite of the apparent lack of discrete buttons. Pushing down on the Scroll Ball also acts as a button, as do the side buttons, which must be pressed simultaneously. You barely need to press on the Scroll Ball to activate it as a button, but the side buttons require a fair amount of pressure. I think this is a good thing. These same buttons are part of the design of the Apple Wireless Mouse, even though they served no apparent purpose, and I often found myself resting my fingers there. If they were easier to activate on the Mighty Mouse, I might find myself inadvertently showing the Desktop with Exposé, which is the action I’ve assigned to them.

The Scroll Ball itself is smooth, but it feels a little… flimsy. It makes a whisper of a clicking sound, like a tiny zipper, as you scroll. It feels a little delicate and requires a very light touch (press too hard and you’ll trigger the button action assigned to it). Other than assigning the side buttons to display the Desktop with Exposé, this was the one adjustment I made to the settings: I cranked the scrolling speed slider to the max. Scrolling vertically is very smooth, while scrolling horizontally is a little less natural. But that’s a function of anatomy, not a fault of the Mighty Mouse (if you’ve got a Mighty Mouse, try horizontal scrolling here or here). A simulation of diagonal scrolling is possible, but it’s not very smooth. Think Etch A Sketch.

The biggest problem I’m experiencing is that I keep hitting the damn Control key when I go to click the right mouse button. But in a couple of days, the only thing that will make me part with this Mighty Mouse is a mightier Apple Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse.

I’ve pined for an Apple two-button mouse for some time, and Apple has finally delivered (well, I ordered it today, but it will take a few days to get here). I’m reluctant to part with my Apple Bluetooth mouse, but when I read the announcement that Apple was releasing the Mighty Mouse, I didn’t hesitate to order it. I’ll let you know what I think when it arrives. I wouldn’t miss changing the batteries in my Bluetooth mouse (which I have to do about every two weeks), and the new Mighty Mouse may do for the mouse what the iPod did for MP3 players: make them elegant and simple.

Apple is touting the Mighty Mouse as “a mouse as easy to use as your Mac.” Instead of a scroll wheel, Mighty Mouse offers a Scroll Ball with 360-degree scrolling. Mighty Mouse appears to have only one button, but it actually has two buttons, along with side buttons that let you activate OS X Tiger Dashboard, Exposé, or other programmable features.

The Mighty Mouse is powered by the USB cable, tracking is optical, and it’s PC compatible. So, if you’re a Windows user and you’ve got an iPod and a Mighty Mouse, how easy will it be for you to switch to a Mac when Intel is inside?

More information here, including pictures and a QTVR.

There are still a few days left on the calendar for July and I’m already reading my September issue of Macworld, which is brimming with reviews, overflowing with 50 Mac Gems handpicked by Dan Frakes, and chock full of secrets, including two pieces by Yours Truly (”Solve Printer Problems” and “Tiger’s Secret Tools”). No, I’m not privy to forthcoming issues because I’m a contributor to Macworld. I get to glimpse the future because I have a digital subscription to Macworld through Zinio.com.

Okay, this is an ad. I’ll make some parking meter change if you click through these links and subscribe, but why wouldn’t you? With Zinio, I get my Macworld well before the issues hit the stands, which is always well before my copies arrive in the mail. Best of all, I can keep them archived on my hard drive where they’re searchable, instead of piled up on the floor of my office where they gather dust. And searching through a stack of old magazines is like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Just in case you’re not a Mac user, here are a few other magazines that might interest you that are available through Zinio:

The Zinio Reader makes reading onscreen tolerable (I prefer it to Adobe Acrobat Reader), and you can add notes and highlighting to your magazines, print spreads, even share an issue with a friend for free. And Zinio can be a good deal, too. Digital Camera World, one of my favorite photography rags, is $15.99 at the newsstand and about $140 for a subscription. But it’s only $30 bucks for a digital subscription through Zinio!

I’m not ready to give up my printed copies completely (sometimes I like to read in the… bathtub), but why wait to line up at the post office or Borders for the latest issue of your favorite magazines. Get ’em while their fresh, like I do, at Zinio.com.

Total Tiger, a special issue of Macworld magazine, isn’t supposed to be on newsstands until tomorrow, but I’ve already spotted copies at my local Borders. The issue includes a 24-page guide to Tiger’s 200 new features, along with tips, tricks, and special features designed to help you get the most from Apple’s latest cool cat. A bonus DVD includes over 400 Tiger programs, more than 200 Dashboard widgets, and more.

Best of all, the Total Tiger special issue includes a tutorial I wrote on creating a screen saver with Quartz Composer. Of course, readers of Futurosity have already been treated to a Quartz Composer tutorial, as well as an introduction to Core Image Fun House.

If you can’t find Total Tiger on your newsstand, order it directly from Macworld here.

Business Week has published the Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEAs) winners for 2005. “In a sea of look-alike products and services, design creates the ‘Wow!’ factor,” they write. “Design is fast becoming a must-have competency for corporations.”

Let’s hope it’s true. Mac lovers already know the value of good product design; it’s the reason many of us buy Macs and iPods. In fact, it’s interesting to note that Apple is ranked second only to Samsung for design wins for the past five years, with a total of 17 (Samsung has 19). Microsoft is ranked 11th, with 8 wins. This year, Apple won awards for the Mac Mini, iPod Shuffle, and Airport Express.

Award winners run the gamut, from DaimlerChrysler’s Jeep Hurricane to empower shoes (designed by San Jose State University student, Angie Kim), which can be put on and taken off without having to bend over (getting them off has always been easy, but getting them on…). But my favorite is HP’s DJammer (pictured above), a musical instrument that lets you manipulate digital music files with hand movements, so you can scratch and mix while prancing around onstage or wandering into the audience.

You can view the design winners by company or design firm here.

Via rootburn.

Read the transcript here, or go straight to the podcast.

CodeWeavers is a corporate backer of Wine. To quote MacCentral: “By installing CrossOver Office on Intel-based Macs, many Windows-only applications, including Windows-based games, utilities and business applications, will operate seamlessly and reliably,” said the company in a statement. No Windows required.

You can read the CodeWeavers press release here.

Seibold mentions a rumor that Apple went with NeXT instead of BeOS because Microsoft refused to develop a version of Office for Apple that would run on BeOS. I don’t know anything about that, but I have a suspicion that Apple had an agreement with Microsoft not to develop a competing office suite if Microsoft would support Apple during the vulnerable transition to OS X. How else to explain the absence of an AppleWorks replacement almost four years after OS X’s release (iWork hardly qualifies; lacking, as it does, spreadsheet, database, and graphics programs)? Microsoft would not have been enthusiastic about sharing the stage at Macworld keynotes with an Apple office suite.

We shouldn’t underestimate Microsoft’s commitment to Apple. As far as I know, Microsoft still has a significant financial stake in Apple. Microsoft, as you may recall, invested $150 million in Apple (the announcement by Steve Jobs was met with the same hand-wringing by Mac loyalists that greeted the Apple-Intel announcement). That $150 million investment is now easily worth over $1 billion. Sure, that doesn’t mean very much to a company with a market cap of some $270 billion, give or take. But a billion here, a billion there…

I don’t think Microsoft is in any hurry to abandon the Mac. And I don’t think most office users are in any hurry to abandon Microsoft Office. They may not have any love for it, but for those that are less than fond of it, Microsoft Office is a necessary evil. I know, because I have to contend with it almost every day. I have iWork, but I never use it. As a management consultant, I use PowerPoint regularly. I’m not going to hassle with trying to translate from PowerPoint to Keynote all of the presentations I have to share with colleagues (I’ve tried, and it’s not that easy; besides, I still use an old Sony VAIO when I’m on the road). When I’m writing for Macworld, I have to use Word so I can track changes, something that Pages isn’t likely to be able to do any time soon.

iWork is not a likely replacement for professional users. A more plausible alternative would be something like OpenOffice or NeoOffice/J. But who wants to run OpenOffice under X11, or an office suite that uses Java (I’ve tried NeoOffice/J; it sucks less than I thought it would, but it’s slow)? These are great alternatives if you don’t want to spend any money (both are free). But I have to think there’s a productivity cost that makes the investment in Microsoft Office worth the price.

So, I think Microsoft Office is here on the Mac to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. But that’s doesn’t mean Apple won’t aggressively go after Microsoft Office’s market. I think iWork will evolve into a Microsoft Office contender for all but corporate and professional users (i.e., those that have to work with corporate types). There are plenty of people who don’t need everything that Microsoft Office offers who have been inclined to buy it because their was no good alternative on the Mac.

I think iWork will add Numbers, or something like it, and will evolve into an office suite. It will happen sooner, rather than later (say, by next January’s Macworld keynote). It will come pre-installed on your new Mactel computer. It will give home users, small businesses, and freelancers another reason to switch from Windows to the Mac. Hardcore Office users will have the option of running Microsoft Office under Windows on their Mactel computer. They won’t need Virtual PC (with any luck, that is one product that will be a casualty of the move to Mactel). Instead, Windows applications will run under OS X without any Windows installation at all using Wine, or something like it, or something from Transitive (the same company responsible for Rosetta, which allows you to run your current OS X applications on Mactel).

Oh, and somewhere in the not too distant future, I think all of this becomes moot and everything moves to XML. When file compatibility is no longer an issue, it becomes a wide open playing field. And then there will be no reason to have anything with a Microsoft logo on your Mac.

You can read the transcript here.

[24.01.06: Stanford now offers a video of this speech. Visit Stanford on iTunes.]

Jobs argued yesterday that Apple had successfully made two key transitions in its history, first from the 680×0 to PowerPC and second, from Classic to OS X. Seibold argues that with each transition (he also counts the transition from Apple II to the Mac), Apple lost market share, and that this transition to Intel chips will have a similar impact. “[A]fter all,” he argues, “is it a reasonable expectation to think that people will invest in a PowerPC based Mac with the foreknowledge that Intel Macs are on the horizon?” I posed the same question yesterday, since I’m still waiting to splurge on a new PowerBook.

After calling into question Steve Job’s navigational abilities (”Steve obviously has trouble reading roadmaps, how often has Steve said the roadmap looked great from Motorola or IBM? Too many times for anyone to have any faith left in his abilities at prognosticating the future of chips.”), Seibold takes a quantum leap from a high cliff:

With the change in architecture the difference between Macs and Wintel boxes is, more or less from a consumer’s point of view, purely aesthetic. While people will opt for aesthetics all things being equal they tend not to buy computers purely for the looks (witness the cube debacle). The end of Apple as a manufacturer doesn’t necessarily mean the end of Apple as a company.

Now we’re in familiar territory. This Apple-Intel bombshell will get the pundits going again, speculating for the umpteenth time whether it spells the death knell for Apple. But after my initial shock yesterday, during which I sold my Apple call options after the market gave a slumped yawn to the announcement, I’m on the lookout for the right time to buy back in again. I’ll give my reasons for why I think this is ultimately good for Apple, but why don’t you play devil’s advocate?

Won’t this transition mean another dip in market share for Apple?
I’m not convinced that Apple’s dwindling market share has been the result of the transitions noted above. There are numerous other reasons that can account for Apple’s dwindling share of the market: the WinTel platform has always had a larger eco-system and an enthusiastic do-it-yourself sub-culture. It’s always been, or seemed to be, cheaper. Apple never convincingly made the case that Macs were faster. There has always been the software issue—more apps have always been available on the PC (sure, there are lots of apps for the Mac, but if you need that one thing that only runs on a PC, and you use it everyday, you’re not going to run it in Virtual PC). Apple has never done a very good job of marketing itself. There’s a term for this, the “something-effect” (somebody help me out me out here), but let’s just say that the rich get richer and the poor…

Won’t this hurt Apple, at least in the short term, as everyone waits until 2006 to buy a new Mac?
My reservations about shelling out for a new PowerBook notwithstanding, I don’t think anyone who wants or needs a computer is going to hesitate to buy a G5 right now. Buying a computer is a lot like buying options—both have a “time value” and both are “wasting assets.” If you need a computer, you’re going to buy one, and you still have the same choice to make today that you had yesterday: a machine running Windows (hey, if you want to work at a computer that makes you feel like you’re standing in line at the DMV all day , that’s your choice) or OS X (which lets me get the job done and makes me feel good at the same time). Your G5 isn’t going to become obsolete anytime soon.

Yeah, but can we trust Steve Jobs to read the roadmap?
I’ll be the first to confess that I don’t much know, or care, about chips. I just want the fastest computer I can get for about $3,000. It wouldn’t surprise me if the lead in chip making changed from one manufacturer to another from time to time. I’d say Intel has a pretty good track record. Besides, this isn’t just about speed. It’s about heat, as Jobs pointed out in his keynote yesterday. Also, it’s probably about some things we don’t know about yet, like digital rights management. And, while I’m not a big fan of copy protection, if it opens up markets for Apple, I’m all for it. If ever I can go online and buy a movie and download it to my computer, I’d want to watch it on an Apple instead of a Windows XP Media Center PC.

What about aesthetics? People won’t buy a Mac just for looks, if the guts are no different from a PC.
You’re right. People don’t buy things for looks. Just drive around town and you’ll see what I mean. Most buildings are not beautiful, they’re cheap. That’s why people shop at Wal-Mart. But, all things being equal (i.e., price), many people will buy for aesthetics, and Apple has always had the lead in that area. People buy what’s cool (how else to explain the iPod’s huge market share?). And, while there’s some debate, I think chances are good that a Mac with Intel inside will be price competitive with a WinTel machine. The Cube failed, not because of aesthetics, but because it wasn’t expandable.

But isn’t this move joining the enemy? And doesn’t Apple lose a key differentiator if it has the same chip inside?
Intel is not the enemy, not as far as I can tell. I’ve never bought a Mac because it had a chip from Motorola or IBM inside. I bought it for the OS. If there’s an enemy, it’s those who are opposed to innovation and beauty, at least in my opinion. That’s why I’ve avoided Windows. Besides, comparing performance between a Mac and a PC will become easier, and a lot of people buy a computer for performance.

There are differences, and there are differentiators. There are some differences I could do without (hey, Steve, when do I get to have an Apple two-button mouse?!). As far as I know, OS X isn’t going to run on your Dell machine. The differentiator is the OS and the way things work. It’s about style and soul, man, and as Jobs said yesterday, “the soul of the Mac is its operating system.”

The market shrugged off the news, with Apple slipping .32 cents during the trading day, and another .08 after hours. But after watching the keynote address, I’m cautiously hopeful about the move. First, if I read the crowd correctly, developers hardly reacted with shock to the announcement and seemed fairly enthusiastic about it. Theo Gray, cofounder of Wolfram Research, creator of Mathematica, gave a humorous demo, and the usual big guns—Microsoft and Adobe—were there to lend their endorsement. According to Gray, it took about two hours to get Mathematica for OS X running on an Intel-based Mac. More importantly, Jobs announced a new technology called Rosetta that lets existing OS X applications run unmodified on Intel-based hardware. Rosetta is a “dynamic binary translator,” translating apps on the fly. It doesn’t require launching an OS in emulation, like Classic. Performance looked fine in the demo.

So, now that last week’s question (”Is it true or not?”) has been answered, the real question, to be debated for the foreseeable future, is: “Is this good or not?” The post-market analyst reaction has been mixed.

And if you’re wondering why Apple is making the switch, here’re two answers: First, there’s the answer Steve gave, which is that Intel processors run cooler (it’s all about the PowerBook, see?). The second answer is speculation, but makes a lot of sense. Leander Kahney writes in “Hollywood Orders: Apple Wed Intel,” that it’s a shotgun wedding. Apple needs the hardware copy protection scheme included in Intel’s new Pentium D chips. If that’s true, expect a lot of exciting rumors over the next year (iMovies Movie Store? Video iPod?).

Another question is “how will this impact sales of current Macs?” I’ve been waiting since last year to buy a PowerBook, holding out for a never-to-be G5 model. Will I wait another year for a PowerBook with Intel inside? I don’t have an urgent need for one, so I’ll wait as long as I can, but yesterday I would have ordered a new G5 PowerBook without hesitation.

Yet another question: “How long will it be before OS X runs on any Intel-based PC?” Someone will figure out a better solution than PearPC. Transitive?

But what I really want to know is this: “Is my liquid cooled dual 2.5 Ghz PowerPC G5 going to become a collector’s item in 2006?”

We’ll all know soon. For live coverage, try MacRumorsLive.com.

Some of the most interesting observations come from The Unofficial Apple Weblog, O’Reilly Radar, and Daring Fireball. TUAW notes that Johnathan Schwartz, President of Sun, has posted an invitation to Apple on his blog, inviting Apple “to adopt Solaris 10 as the underpinning of the next generation Mac.” Both companies respect innovation, he notes, while ribbing Apple for Dashboard’s rotating window effect, which was implemented in Sun’s Project Looking Glass (which, next to Tiger, is one of the most innovative GUIs I’ve seen; you can view a demo here).

All of this speculation will become moot very shortly, since an announcement is rumored to come during Jobs’ keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference, kicking off Monday at 10 a.m..

There are a lot of reasons for Apple to consider switching to Intel chips, among them: lower manufacturing costs, the ability to boost PowerBook performance (a G5 PowerBook continues to be an elusive dream), and the end of chip supply problems (inventory shortages led to numerous delays during the rollout of G5 models).

But I don’t think Apple will switch to Intel, at least not in all of its models, or not unless Intel begins making PowerPC chips (John Gruber is betting a dollar that this will be the real story). I may find out very shortly that I’ve got egg on my face, but here are a few reasons why, if I had to bet on it, I’d bet the rumors are wrong.

1. Switching to Intel would be counter cultural and counter brand. Remember Apple’s 1984 commercial and Think Different campaign?
2. Any move to Intel would involve some switching costs for both developers and end users, and Apple is still in the midsts of a profound platform change (it’s call OS X).
3. Switching to Intel processors may actually cost Apple more, not less.
4. There are other options for boosting the PowerBook line, such as dual-core processors from Freescale Semiconductor.

If Apple switches to Intel, I’ll be as stunned as everyone else. I’d never bet against Apple having a few surprises in store for the pundits and rumormongers, but this one seems like a long shot. It’s going to be an interesting Monday morning…

Would somebody please tell me what’s so great about Firefox and Gmail?!

Don’t get me wrong. I love Tiger. It’s the most beautiful OS I’ve ever seen, and I’m not just talking about the RSS Visualizer screen saver. I find myself using Spotlight and Dashboard every day. Core Image Fun House and Quartz Composer are real gems. I haven’t spent much time with it yet, but I think Automator will be a time-saver once I’ve delved into it.

But Tiger also has its flaws. Here are a few of the things that annoy me the most:

1. Safari makes you okay downloads for applications, or you have to manually unstuff downloads.
2. Can’t move icons to the toolbar in System Preferences anymore.
3. My “Always Open With…” preferences aren’t remembered for some files.
4. The iCal icon has a nasty way of reverting back to Jul 17.
5. Several applications now quit unexpectedly when I close them.
6. The interface is more polished, but the proliferation of window styles is becoming annoying. I don’t even know what to call them—there’s Mail’s new look, the transparent palettes in iPhoto, the Platinum look, the Aqua look… Apple used to have consistent UI design. Now, it’s a hodgepodge.

Anyway, like many of you, I await the next update. In the meantime, I’m happy that Tiger seems to run noticeably faster on my machine. And Speech commands actually work (I use it to launch applications; it’s faster than Spotlight). I call my computer Mona (it was Leonardo, but I prefer the Vicki system voice to the others).

“Mona! Mail to Steve Jobs!”

Since loading up Tiger, I find myself having more fun with Dashboard than almost any other new feature. The problem now is that my Dashboard is beginning to get cluttered, and I continue to discover new widgets almost daily. But just for fun, here’s a snapsnot of my current Dashboard (you can click on the image above to see a larger image).

So, what’s on your Dashboard?

Post a comment with a link to your Dashboard, and let us know what great widgets you’ve discovered (please include a link).

An infographics designer, Paul Nixon, has posted a fascinating graphic on his blog, NiXLOG. Apple’s introduction of the iPod Shuffle and the Mac mini, he speculates, could be the tipping point that finally drives a real shift from Windows boxes to Macs.

The term “tipping point” comes from Maclom Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, which describes how ideas that may have humble beginnings reach a critical mass that triggers a “social epidemic.”

Nixon points to several factors to support his claim that Apple may be approaching a tipping point, including The Sweet Spot (prices for the iPod Shuffle and Mac mini fall under the “Mass Market Psychological Price Barriers” of $100 for MP3 players and $500 for personal computers) and the “Too Cool To Resist” Effect (the combination of low price and outstanding design makes Apple products even more attractive to the Mac faithful and potential Switchers).

Even if you disagree with the theory and the prognostication (Nixon suggests Apple’s move into the Mass Market could lead to double digit market share within a year or two; I happen to agree), the graphic is an impressive example of information design.