Well, it's been a while. I am now living in my new house, and am still spending most of my spare time sorting through junk, putting stuff away, decorating, making shelves or buying additional stuff to put all my crap in.
Anyway, today seemed like a good day to try and kick-start the blog again, since Apple announced some really cool stuff last night (streaming video of the keynote is here). I can't be bothered to type up a big analysis, but some quick thoughts:
1 - New iMac. Same as old iMac, but featuring dual-core Intel CPU. Much faster at floating-point and integer, but we'll wait for the hardcore analysts to provide some independent results. The thing that I'm wondering about though is why did they put an Intel Core Duo CPU in it? - my understanding is that this is the Yonah - a mobile CPU, so it's designed for power-conservation as well as performance. This thing replaces a G5 in a desktop machine, so why not use a big hairy ole' Pentium D desktop dual-core in there? Screw the power consumption - give us the performance. If you need a differentiator for the Power Macs later, there's still dual-core Xeon and 64-bit above Pentium D in the Intel roadmap and due this year.
2 - New Macbook Pro. A 15" powerbook with a dual-core Intel Duo CPU. This is where the Intel Duo CPU belongs, as we need the low power consumption in a notebook. Looks much the same as the old Powerbook G4 15", but also features a funky new power adapter connector (why didn't I think of that?), built in iSight and FrontRow with Apple Remote. Very nice. Might have to get one when funds allow, as the G4 550MHz is looking a bit sluggish now......
3 - New iLife. Great. Definitely on the "to buy" list - new iPhoto handles more photos and has more features and iWeb offers a much needed update to the .Mac homepage offering with stacks of new features. Family pack is a bargain.
4 - New iWork. Still don't use it that much really, so personally I'm not too excited, but I'm still hoping they'll expand this to become a drop-in relacement for MS Office.
5 - Not really mentioned, but the online .Mac interface has been given a facelift, and it looks nice.
Basically, I'm still kinda gutted that Mac users are going to lose the differentiator of running on PowerPC instead of Intel. That said, if the 3-5x speed bumps are real, it's worth it.
I still love Apple :)