Macworld 2006

His Steveness has released new Apple products--rejoice! Here are some reactions:

The current apple.com site is cluttered with more animated rubbish than it ever has been filled with before. Please, Apple, make everything stop.

Software goodies:
They've added a new application, iWeb which adds desktop integration to web publishing. Other companies have taken a swing at this in the past -- maybe Apple has cracked it. Given how much more dynamic web pages can be now, I'm not sure how useful this is. Blogger, for example, is much better than it used to be thanks to clever use of Ajax and other new, web technologies.

Hardware goodies:
Intel on Mac is go. The new iMac g5 now runs on intel's Core Duo chip and supposedly it is more powerful than the old iMac. Right now I feel bad I bought one a year or so ago, but we'll see what happens to second hand prices since there will be certain software incompatibilities going forward. If resale value falls through the floor, then the new iMac's are very good.

The PowerBook has been retired and replaced by the MacBook Pro which also runs on intel. I have no idea why Apple renamed the laptop -- it looks the same as the old PowerBook.

Some people thought that the iBook would be the first portable to get the updated intel processor. This seemed reasonable to me at the time, but now I'm not sure why. The old powerbook g4 was by far the weakest processor in Apple's family, making (IMHO) the powerbook the least desirable computer in the lineup. Updating the excellent iBook (which ran on a "G4" that was actually an updated G3--a far superior chip) would simply give you even less reason to buy the PowerBook. I should have realized this at the time. Oh well.

My guess is that the Power Mac was not updated because the pro-apps they use still don't run on the new intel chips. Folks with iMacs don't run pro-apps, so it matters less for them.