The following is a long post reporting the action at it happened at Steve Jobs' keynote at the Annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
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- New pricing on other towers but Apple Store online is closed right now.
- iSight Cameras available in the stores this week.
- New Entry Level G4 1.25 Ghz only $1,299 (great price)
New For Pros That Purchase At the Apple Store
- Available in the store will be a ProCard
- Free trial for 30 days
- Free data transfer
- Free software installation forever.
- 10% off all software shopping day
- Guaranteed next day appointment with a Mac Genius or Specialist
BTW, crowd of over 60 people watching the new G5 in the theater at the Apple Store in Fashion Island, Newport Beach, California.
G5 Performance Demonstrations.
- Real World Tests G5 vs. Fastest PC money can buy:
- Photoshop runs 2.1 times faster
- Luxology 2.3x
- Worlfram Research 2.3x faster
- Logic runs infinitely faster than Cubase (what about ProTools guys?)
- co-founder of Emagic (an Apple company) takes the stage to discuss how Logic performs under the G5. How many notes are possible to play at the same time (voices) he explains that 1,000 voices can be played at the same time. All 24-bit and stereo voices. If you have a huge project that needs 100 8-band stereo EQs: The G5 does it using only 25% of its processing power. He's going to demo Logic on a Mac and will compare it to Cubase running on a PC. They are showing a piece that was created for the movie The Matrix. First shows it on the PC. It chunks a little bit about 15 seconds into it. Then chunks a few seconds later. Runs smooth for about 15 seconds then it just stalls and just stops playing. Then they show it on the Mac running Logic. Which just looks and sounds beautiful.
- Mathamatica Executive says the competition for the G5 is not PCs – it's higher end Unix workstations that cost twice as much — and still aren't as fast as the new G5.
- VP of new 3D company Luxology takes the stage. He's talking about the G5 and the 64-bit processor. Explains that it took 15 minutes to re-compile their application for the G5. 13 of those minutes is what it took to transfer the file from the server and only 3 minutes to compile. They are now showing a 3D animation that uses motion capture data which just means that there are a lot of calculations going on. And the Mac just smokes the Dual Xeon.
- Phil Schiller, Marketing VP at Apple takes the stage. He's going to show Adobe PhotoShop that has the artists actions so you can see exactly what the computer is and program are doing. They are going to show how the artists created the “Finding Nemo Poster”. The G5 is going through the actions. The PC hasn't even started. The Mac completes the entire poster before the XEon dual processor machine even starts showing any of the actions. This is amazing. The Mac is 2.1 times faster than the PC in this task.
- Adobe Engineering VP takes the stage and explains how their most skeptical
engineer got excited. The G5 is the fastest personal computer money can buy.
Pricing
- 1.6Ghz $1,999
- 1.8GHz $2,399
- Dual 2Ghz $2,999
- all come with 4X SuperDrive
- Steve shows a Dell comparable that doesn't even have a superdrive that costs $4,000 – no longer can anyone tell you that Apple products cost more than similarly configured PCs. Game over
- Steve is showing spec tests comparing the fastest Pentium 4, Xeon and G5. Shows single processor tests (independent test company):
- Integer G5 is faster on floating point but just 10% slower on integer – this is on a single processor machine.
- Dual Processor System (you can't dual P4 chips). Apple is faster on both integer and floating point 41% faster on floating point on dual G5 (compared to dual Xeon machine)
- Steve shows the new G5 enclosure – it rises from the stage. It's all aluminum with high tech perforated aluminum. It has a slanted stop. Still has handles but all aluminum. Lots of ventilation. 9 fans but twice as quiet as the current G4
- G5 has two independent buses
- Double data rate (400 MHz 128-bit DDR Memory over two faster than G4
- AGP 8X Pro Graphics – 2X bandwidth of G4
- I/O 1333 PCI-X slots 2 GBs bandwidth
- Serial ATA – 1.5Gbps of bandwidth, independent interface to each drive, using hyertransport, designed by apple
- Firewire 800/400
- USB 2.0
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Bluetooth
- Optical and analog audio/video I/O
- Up to 8GB of memory – unbelievable – G5 is a “monster of bandwidth” with more memory you can leave stuff in memory and not have to swap it off disk – 40x faster
- Transfer the contents of an entire DVD in seconds.
- IBM VP Kingpin John Kelley III takes the stage to talk about the G5
- He's self-admitted a geek. Talking about the length of the Gates. (he's talking gate arrays here)
- IBM spends $5 billion year (the fab facility for G5 costs $3 billion
- Says they have a product road map that “will knock your socks off”
The fastest personal computer in the world
The G5
- IBM partnership (130 nanometer, silicon on insulator, 8 layer copper interconnects, 58 million transistors (steve doesn't know how they count them) Built in NY – Built in the USA
- 64-bit Processor – the first on a desktop computer
- 2Ghz – the fastest 64-bit processor ever
- 1 Ghz frontside Bus (i'm knocked out now) the fastest ever.
- It is built for SMP (full symmetric processing) great for dual processor systems
- 2 double processing units
- He's talking all tech stuff. Here – I won't bore you. He even alludes to something call massive branch processing or something – then says I don't know – does a lot of branches. Very funny.
Premature Specification: He says it was a mistake and it's true. But it doesn't begin to tell the story. He's talking and showing the specs that were leaked onto the internet on the Apple Website last week. He's very funny.
Running on reserve power. Shit. Mac Genius at the store plugs me into the power at the Genius Bar. Blogging will continue!!
- XCode (this is geeky developer stuff – hang with me until the good stuff comes)
- GCC 3.3 compiler
- Not quite as fast as CodeWarrior
- Distributed builds – automatically uses idle resources. Which means that it will use processing power from other computers on the network. This will make compiling even paster
- Turnaround loop – Zero Link (only link objects needed to launch)
- Predictive Compile – starts compiling while you're still editing.
- Fix and Continue – make changes to applications while they're still running.
- Single Fix Turnaround is 3 times faster than CodeWarrior and 9 times faster or more from the previous Jaguar developer tools.
- Employee #8 Chris Espinosa shows developer tools XCode
- Shows that you can search for Code elements like you can in the new finder.
- Inspector now included.
- Now has smart groups for executables, resource files and symbols
- New Apple Camera iSight
- Companion product to iChat A/V
- Full motion video 30fps
- 640 x 480 24 bit color
- auto focus
- auto exposure
- Firewire connection
- Dual element microphone built-in
- Lens shutter so you have “no peeping toms”
- Cost $149 – best video camera
All developers get a free iSight Camera that are in attendance at WWDC. Very cool. Very generous.
Sits on top of the computer using a new mounting system that connects to desktops, portables etc. The camera is amazingly small and good quality. (three
Steve compares
Panther
Availability: Panther will be available for the public before the end of the year.
Steve shows how you can receive a call. And the “iChat” rings and who's on the other line? Al Gore!
iChat A/V – now you can do video conferencing. Steve calls it “Video conferencing for the rest of us. Video conferencing is the ultimate instant massaging. And it's instantly accessed from the Buddy List. Audio and Video and Text. Simply just plug in the camera and go. Zero set up or configuration. No phone numbers or IP addresses. It's just accessed through the Instant Messaging user name. This is great. Steve shows this working. It gives him a preview of what he looks like and then connects backstage to Phil Schiller, Apple's Exec. Marketing VP. Steve is now showing the audio iChat. He calls France via audio, and while connecting he says that it sometimes takes longer to negotiate which France. They have a conversation and then asks the Frenchman to plug in a digital camcorder. Steve disconnects the audio connection. Frenchman plugs in a video camera, and immediately the Buddy List window shows that he now is a video conference enabled. Then they reconnect and there's the Frenchman withe the Eiffel Tower behind him. Very cool.
side note: I just noticed that online the Apple Store has a note saying “We'll Be Back Soon” – exciting new things coming still.
- Preview – Now the fastest PDF viewer/reader in the world It – three times faster than Acrobat Reader running on the fastest PC money can buy. A 978 pages scrolls amazing ly fast. OOOOPpppps he's in a loop scrolling 978 pages at lightening rendering . One the fly postscript to pdf rendering (great news to inkjet printer users)
- Fast User Switching – here is one feature Steve admits that Windows XP had ahead of OS X — but promises in Panther it will be much easier and more functional. A drop down menu lets you choose a new user then in a Keynote like transition it does a three-D rotate of the desktop changes the user — password protected or not.
- Font Book – Does pro font management. When you click on a font you can a panel previews the look of the font. Push a button on this panel and the font is installed instantly. Now instant searching of fonts. Forget Suitcase. Forget FontReserve. You can activate and deactivate fonts now, too.
- Mail – Wow. Steve is now showing new Mail:
- Everything is faster
- Safari HTML rendering – This works and looks great as he's showing Wall Street Journal etc.
- Addresses are “objects”
- Viewing mail in threads. This is huge. You can move an arrow/carrot and see all mile in threaded view. This will make managing email so much easier.
- FileValult – New service in OS X Encrypts and decrypts your Home folder on the fly. It's security on your entire home directory with one click activation. Security.
- IPSec – new industry standard VPN will now ship in Panther.
- FAX – Steve says there's still people that fax. I find this hard to believe. But oh well. Every print dialog box will include a “FAX Button”
- Pixlet – Breakthrough QuickTime codec – delivers studio-grade quality audio and video. Apparently Pixar wanted to be able to compress film grade images and send them around the studio and still be able to edit and work with these without artifacting. The name derives from Pixar.
- film Resolution (high def) quality
- 48 bits/pixel source data
- no noticeable visual artifacts
- no inter-frame compression.
- You can decode this on a 1Ghz G4 mac
- Brand new Finder – Steve says this will be user centric. All storage, folders will now appear in the left column of the three panel finder view. It looks like the finder is an iTunes library and playlists.
- Now Panther adds fast searching.
- New “Action Button” this shows you what you can do with a folder, file etc.
- New Active Browsing.
- New Open and Save Panels.
- The new fast save is amazing. I I always wondered why google could find things faster than “find” could find files on my hard disk. This is no longer the case in Panther.
- iDisk now is a local folder that automatically syncs when connected to the internet. Steve shows how nice this works with multiple (especially portable computers) so all files are on your hard disk and when not connected you still have access to iDisk. But when you connect your files are automatically synchronized. This is excellent solution to version control.
- Expose – New feature. He's showing how windows can get so friggin' cluttered. He's opening what seems like 20 or 30 windows, palates, from different applications. Wow In one move all windows on the desktop reduce and move into a tiled view – not unlike a clean mondrain look to the desktop. Roll over and it tells info on document. Click it once and that one window jumps to full screen view. Wow. Steve explains this is done through Quartz Extreme. There is an application that you can set and customize the way this works.
Now onto OS X
- Steve states Jaguar is over. Following is Panther. Then Puma and Cheetah.
- UNIX is going to be big
- SMB support for heterogenous existence with Windows environments — huge interoperability.
- 7,000,000 million OS X users. There are 6,000 native OS X applications available today.
- Safari 1.0 the final release after 6 months of beta will be released today. A software developer kit will be available for developers to integrate Safari calls into apps – and more.
- Available for free download Steve is showing a Jay Leno parody of the very cool and funny iTunes Music Store Ad Campaign. Bin Laden singing “he likes big butts” holding an iPod.
- Wow. iTunes Music Store has sold 5 million songs to date. This is great news.
- Steve says that today they will ship the 1 millionth iPod.
Steve is talking retail stores. I'm blogging from Newport Beach Fashion Island Store. He says three new stores coming soon. Chicago, (the photo looks totally cool), San Francisco and Tokyo. Steve shows renderings and wishes that it was as easy to build the stores.
Airport Extreme was ratified by the IEEE last week – 802.11 (g)
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Steve jobs just took the stage at Moscone Center. Says 3,800 developers are in attendance at WWDC — this represents about 1% of the of the total registered apple developers which sits at a number over 300,000.
Today Steve Jobs will address attendees of the 2003 Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. Several of the Apple retail stores will be showing live coverage via satellite on the large screens in the store theaters. I plan on viewing his keynote from the Apple Store in Newport Beach's Fashion Island shopping complex. I will blog highlights of his keynote live. So hit the refresh button (or simply reload this page) often if you want to follow from 10am -12 noon Monday 6/23/03.
