Handpicked Software

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!