SAN FRANCISCO — The crowd at the opening of today’s Macworld Expo was
surprisingly light, low-key and in no hurry.
Or so it seemed till a reporter realized he was in the wrong part of the
Moscone convention complex and had stumbled into the Society for Critical
Care conference.
It was a different story at the main hall a block away, where hordes of
Mac enthusiasts and a crush of media waited to get inside to hear the latest
keynote from what seems to be the tech industry’s hands-down greatest showman.
While most tech conferences build interest with well-placed leaks and
previews of what will happen, Apple has become famous for building a
groundswell of anticipation by revealing nothing. And despite months of
speculation Apple Chairman Steve Jobs managed to pull a few unexpected
rabbits out of his hat.
The biggest announcement was of new Intel-based Macs. But there was plenty of other news.
First, the biggest software endorsement Apple could have hoped for came
from Microsoft, which briefly shared the stage to announce it had signed a
formal agreement committing to develop new versions of Office for at least
the next five years.
This is significant because Microsoft, one of the first
application companies to support the Mac over 20 years ago, hasn’t
always updated Office in a timely fashion and battled with Apple over patent
issues, including an unresolved dispute over Microsoft’s patent claims to
the user interface for the iPod.
Microsoft said it will offer new Mac
buyers a 50 percent discount off the retail price of Office.
Microsoft and all other Mac developers are transitioning to the
Intel-platform. Apple is ahead of the curve as Jobs said the latest
release of OS X operating system software and its iLife creativity suite run
natively on the Intel Core Duo processor.
Quark announced it has released a
beta of its Quark XPress publishing software for the new Macs.
“All our developers worldwide are in the process of making their apps
universal,” said Jobs. By universal, he means shipping applications on a
single CD that can run on either PowerPC or the newer Core Duo-based Macs.
Apple’s iTunes Web site is one of the most popular outlets for podcasts.
Now Apple says it’s made the creation of multimedia podcasts easier.
“It’s a very exciting announcement because what Apple has done with
Podcast Studio is make podcasts more accessible,” Tim Bajarin, president of
market research firm Creative Strategies, told internetnews.com.
Podcast Studio is part of an updated GarageBand 3 software in Apple’s new
$79 iLife ’06 creativity suite. Podcasters can use iChat AV for interviews,
record them into GarageBand and use tools akin to what an audio engineer
might use to enhance the sound. Included are more than 200 sound effects and over 100 jingles, all royalty free.
Jobs started off his talk with an update on Apple’s sales. Apple was not
the first computer maker to have its own retail store, but the concept was met with mixed results.
Gateway gave up after several years of floundering
sales. But Jobs said the network of Apple stores just reported its first
billion-dollar sales quarter with some 26 million visitors over that period.
Back on the Internet side, Jobs said a whopping 850 million songs had
been sold at Apple’s iTunes store, and the company was on a run rate to sell
over a billion a year.
“We have 83 percent market share. We’re very happy
with how iTunes is doing,” said Jobs.
There weren’t any major iPod announcements, though Jobs did fill a hole
in the market-leading player’s feature set. Apple now offers a $49 iPod
accessory that’s both a remote control and FM tuner.
Radio station listings
appear on the iPod screen and you can establish preset stations to jump to
much as you do on a car radio. Speaking of cars, Jobs said in 2006 more than
40 percent of new cars in the U.S. will offer optional iPod integration.
Apple is adding sports and old “Saturday Night Live” shows to its list of
video offerings for the iPod. Since its October announcement that it would
offer a few select TV shows at its iTunes store, Jobs said more than 8 million videos have been sold.
It all adds up to a pretty healthy picture for a company that once looked
in need of critical care.
