Sunny Side Up

Today Apple unveiled the beginnings of a new Macintosh era. An era when Macs no longer rely on PowerPC microprocessors. An era when it's not an IBM chip, not a Freescale chip, it's not even an Motorola chip that acts as the brain of every Apple Macintosh computer, but an x86 architecture chip from Intel, long seen as the adversary of Apple Macs and many Mac faithfuls for having partnered with Microsoft since the days of DOS.

Once ridiculed and vilified, Intel chips now embraced and put up on a pedestal replacing a long revered, fruitful yet deteriorating partnership with PowerPC. The Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance also known as the AIM alliance will soon come to a true dissolution after 15 years as Apple CEO Steve Jobs today proclaimed that all Macs will ship with Intel chips by the end of 2006.

Intel Macs
Apple announced new Intel-based consumer desktops and professional portables with dual core processors, which in layman's terms is basically two chips in one unit. The consumer desktop mac is still called the iMac. All specifications remain the same apart from using a dual core Intel chip where one core is up to 3 times faster than the single G5 it replaces. They're even priced the same.

The professional portables on the other hand, have a different name. Apple has always used the name PowerBook in its line up of notebooks since the Mac Portable was replaced back in 1991. This year will be the last. While Apple still make PowerBook G4's available, they will no longer be updated. Instead, the new notebooks will be called MacBook Pro. A descriptive name but not exactly one that you would expect from a company that came out with the iMac, iPod, GarageBand, Newton, QuickTime, QuickTake, Pages, Keynote. It lacks flair.

In any case, the new portables are reportedly up to five times faster than the PowerBook G4s they replace. When you talk performance, naming doesn't seem to be as important anymore. The nice thing about the new 'Books is that the power plug is now magnetized and does not plug in so far inside the notebook so that if ever you trip on the power cord, you'll no longer see your notebook flying across the room and landing with a painful thud. The cord will snap away from the notebook, leaving it safely on your desk or wherever you put it. This feature is being patented by Apple.

The MacBook also comes with a built in iSight camera on top of the display and a remote control for FrontRow and Keynote presentations. Shipping in February.

iPod
The iPod division has just one product announcement, the iPod Radio Remote. It's a US$49 iPod remote control with a built in FM tuner. Apple finally acknowledges the multitudes of requests that the iPod should be able to play radio broadcast and now it lets you with an add-on that is compatible with the iPod nano and the new iPod with video. There have been 3rd party offerings before but they don't integrate with the iPod's menu.

Software
On the software side, Apple announced Mac OS X 10.4.4 with the PowerPC version available for download from today. 10.4.4 for Intel comes with the new Intel Macs. iLife '06 with podcasting, photocasting, and videocasting technologies in GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, and iWeb, a new iDVD-like website design software for use with .Mac (sold separately) available for both Intel and PowerPC Macs from today for $79 as well as iWork '06 with Pages 2 and Keynote 3 for $79.

Just as a reminder, Apple turns 30 on April 1 2006.

Oh, one more thing…
Intel CEO Paul Ottelini appeared on stage at MacWorld SF '06 wearing the Intel space bunny suit.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 at 9:38 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.