Macworld Expo Tokyo keynote: new iMacs and G4 Cube; iTunes 1.1 released; iMovie 2.0.3 is out
Macworld Expo Tokyo keynote: new iMacs and G4 Cube; iTunes 1.1 released; iMovie 2.0.3 is out
Here are the key announcements from Steve Jobs' keynote address at Macworld Expo Tokyo. [Soon, you will be able to see a rebroadcast of the address at this web page.]:
New iMacs From a press release: Apple introduced a new line of iMacs with CD-RW drives and iTunes. With fast new PowerPC G3 processors running at up to 600 MHz, up to 40 GB hard drives, FireWire ports and iMovie software on all systems, the new iMac family comes in two new patterns, Blue Dalmatian and Flower Power, as well as the two most popular iMac colors, Indigo and Graphite. There are no more options, even BTO, to get a DVD-ROM drive; playing movies on an iMac is gone - barring getting an external drive.
New G4 Cube; Cinema display price drop From a press release: Apple introduced a new Power Mac G4 Cube with a slot-loading CD-RW drive and iTunes. The suggested retail price for the 450MHz model with a CD-RW drive is $1,599. If you select to get a DVD-ROM drive instead, the new low price is $1299. The 500MHz model goes for $2,199 and includes the NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics card, rather than the RAGE 128 Pro card found in the other models. Apple also dropped the price of its Apple Cinema Display to $2,999.
iTunes 1.1 is out. Its major new feature is that adds support for over 25 external CD-RW drives (see this page for a list of supported drives and links to related TIL articles). The update also "fixes conflicts with some USB peripherals and improves overall stability. Additional options and keyboard controls for the built-in visual effects generator are now available. For a list of the keyboard commands, turn on visual effects, then press the ? key. You can also choose to always display track information with the visual effect. Turn on visuals, then click the Options button."
iMovie 2.0.3 is out.
GeForce 3 coming Finally, as decribed more in this MacCentral article: "Nvidia's GeForce 3 chip is coming to the Mac first and will be available as a BTO (build to order) option from Apple soon." It promises to be ""most advanced graphic chip ever." Also see this Apple page.
We speculated that something might be announced regarding iTools, which is currently listed as down for "scheduled maintenance." But nothing was said about this at the keynote. [iTools is still down as of this morning; the iReview tab is also missing from the navigation bar on most pages of the site.]
A reader notes: "iTools will now feature multilingual support (including Japanese characters). This is probably why the web site is still down for maintenance."
Update: iTools is back, in English and Japanese. But iReview is MIA.