Media Event, iMac, iPod Details and Notes

[pjmurphy77]

If you watched Job's presentation you will note toward the end he says :

"Wait till you see the rest of the stuff we have for the holiday season"

Most folks have overlooked this little statement.

Not to be a wet blanket.. but.. at 1:01:11 in the presentation, Steve is talking about "What all this means.. we have new ipods, itunes 6, tv shows.. One thing it means is we are going to have some great products this Christmas.."

So.. he was simply saying Apple has a strong product lineup for the holidays, not there are some great products coming...

sorry.. I wanted to hear that there was more to follow too!!!

 

[Pyrix]

Has anyone else noticed that the new imac specs in the presentation list the hard drives as 160 and 250 MEGABYTE S-ATA hard drives?

Take a look... 00:19:56

 

[Mr Maui]

Has anyone else noticed that the new imac specs in the presentation list the hard drives as 160 and 250 MEGABYTE S-ATA hard drives?

Take a look... 00:19:56

Verbal blunder. Someone noted that yesterday. It's a lot of pressure to stand up there and remember everything you're gonna say. I don't think Steve uses a teleprompter yet.

Edit: Or perhaps it's the special new 1000:1 compression software built in that he forgot to mention at the presentation.

 

[Pyrix]

It's not what he says - it's on the keynote presentation behind him!

 

[awrc]

No idea if this has already been noted...

Yesterday the 2.0 and 2.3GHz PowerMacs were "Ships within 24hrs" and the 2.7GHz was "Ships in 2-4 days" (which is as low as it ever gets).

Today all three are "Ships within 3-5 business days".

Conclusions, if any, are left to the reader.

Al

 

[Mr Maui]

It's not what he says - it's on the keynote presentation behind him!

Typo then ... didn't see the presentation. Guess that guy/gal will be working for Microsoft next week. They like people like that over there.

 

[Mr Maui]

Yesterday the 2.0 and 2.3GHz PowerMacs were "Ships within 24hrs" and the 2.7GHz was "Ships in 2-4 days" (which is as low as it ever gets).

Today all three are "Ships within 3-5 business days".

Conclusions, if any, are left to the reader.

Perhaps so many people were disgusted with no new PM updates that they just broke down and bought what Apple has on sale now. The overwhelming demand for these items yesterday has caused the wait times to go up since there are so few available (with the real updates coming next Tuesday).

 

[manu chao]

The tease is very professionally seasoned.. DDR2 and PCIe coyly slipped
into in imacs without alot of fanfare..

(I mean compared to the glare of the ViPod)

A less optimistic interpretation that Steve either personally is not interested in technical details anymore (like DDR2 and PCIe) and prefers to talk about the end-user (read average consumer) experience.
Or he simply thinks that feeding the media with great end-user experiences is much more important and effective than showing them how technically great Macs are, since Apple has become in the eyes of the public, the media and the investors an electronic consumer goods company and much less a computer company.

 

[Butts M Biggilo]

PMacs DDR2 and dual (SLI) PCIExpress cards?

How can these upgrades make it into a non Pro machine before the high end gets them...

I wonder if the PCIexpress for Powermacs will be dual for gaming... and intense surfing of the web hehe.

Maybe I can use my thought control to make Steve release the new PowerMacs and Powerbooks today....

Let me try! Thinking hard...Veins popping in forehead... oops I think I sharted, sorry, no luck, will try next Tuesday.
Butts

 

[drewyboy]

Has anyone else had the thought that Stevey didn't announce the PM and PB updates so that the ppl waiting would give in and use up their left over stock of them?? Then there would be less older models and can roll our the new ones without that big of a hit financially having to deal with the old ones.

 

[strummert]

ibook

Today I went to fnac and surcouf to buy a new ibook. They told me that in the whole France they run out of ibooks. "IBOOKS OUT OF STOCK".
"Impossible to get one. Wait 2-3 months." !!???

 

[Peace]

Not to be a wet blanket.. but.. at 1:01:11 in the presentation, Steve is talking about "What all this means.. we have new ipods, itunes 6, tv shows.. One thing it means is we are going to have some great products this Christmas.."

So.. he was simply saying Apple has a strong product lineup for the holidays, not there are some great products coming...

sorry.. I wanted to hear that there was more to follow too!!!

Going back and watching it again I have to say you're correct!..

nevermind.....

 

[ddrueckhammer]

"Apple should seriously consider building a wireless implementation of FrontRow as a set-top box and allowing DVD ripping in iTunes (MS plans to add ripping with DRM in Windows Vista)."

it seems like the Mini would be nearly ideal for this. if they could find enough room for hardware decoding (ie Tivo) as well as tv tuning, then it would be a coup IMO. even without wireless streaming of content (802.11g too slow for this), as I would be happy with the ext firewire HDD for extra storage of content.

802.11n (wich will probably be adopted in about a year to 18 months) is fast enough to stream content but even if streaming is not possbile if you could hook it up to an APX at least and download content back and forth from your main computer it would be sweet!

 

[gugy]

I wonder if the next set of Cinema Displays will have the built-in Isight. That would be a nice addition.

 

[unsunder]

it looks like the eminem commercial has been pulled from the site.

 

[Mac_Freak]

it looks like the eminem commercial has been pulled from the site.

I wonder why. Perhaps it is for later and somebody has posted it to early. I liked it a lot, to bad I didn't saved it.

 

[Uragon]

How can these upgrades make it into a non Pro machine before the high end gets them...

I wonder if the PCIexpress for Powermacs will be dual for gaming... and intense surfing of the web hehe.

Maybe I can use my thought control to make Steve release the new PowerMacs and Powerbooks today....

Let me try! Thinking hard...Veins popping in forehead... oops I think I sharted, sorry, no luck, will try next Tuesday.
Butts

try a little harder, and I believe it will come t(h)rue by tuesday with PCI express and DDR2....perhaps will join you too...

 

[MrTrois]

I got a copy of the eminem ipod video H.264, 640 x 480, i quickly downloaded it to have a source movie for a ipod video compression test
So if somebody whats to post this on his/her site, leave a message and ill send it. Please, only ONE person i am almost at the top my ISPs upload restrictions.

 

[celavato]

Questions that Remain Unanswered

1. Will the new iPod play regular QT H.264 movies created in iMovie, Final Cut Pro, etc.? Many clever amateur videos exist out there on the Web that would be fun to carry around -- not to mention your own videos.

2. Can Front Row stream music through Airport Express or only through speakers connected to the iMac?

 

[manu chao]

and no battery!

But an AC-Converter, the battery could take the place of that. (But still it would be one of those desktop-replacement, better-don't-move-if-you-care-about-your-back thingies.

 

[manu chao]

Yep. But I think the iPod should handle videos the way it does photos...convert the videos to the proper size before it gets transfered onto the iPod.

Yes, but as others said, decoding a 640x480 (or whatever) stream and re-encoding it at 320x240 on G4 probably takes about as long as the stream is itself. For dual G5s this might be a realistic option.

 

[manu chao]

I thought the same thing, but someone said that that kind of conversion takes a long time even for a fast computer. So that means you'd have to download both sizes to begin with--and THAT means a download 5 x the size that videos currently are, taking 5 x as long and occupying 5 x as much space on your computer and iPod. I can see Apple's catch-22 here. Technology will catch up, though. For one thing, a single chip might be able to scale (some) video formats to 1/4 on-the-fly right on the iPod. After all, it's not the scaling that's tough (a Mac can scale video up or down instantly--try Exposé!), it's the re-compressing and saving the new version. Skip that step and you no longer need two versions at all.

You are right that compressing takes more time than de-compressing (and much more than scaling), but de-compressing a stream with four times as many pixels probably still takes four times as many processor cycles.

 

[cocozz]

No more waiting for me, Ill buy my cute Powerbook 12" Monday, I have 1 week for test it and give it back in the FNAC . So If they update them next week I'll can give it back and get the new one

Greets !

 

[greenstork]

Front Row=TiVo's death. Finally sold TiVo stock and added to my AAPL stock. This is gonna be HUGE!

Not with that cheesy ass remote Apple produced. TiVo still has the best remote in the industry and that is essential because when I'm watching TV and movies, like most people in this world, I'm on my couch.

 

[area51]

A Primer on H.264

Here's a very good primer on H.264 and how the quality compares to TV. Skim through to get to the good parts.

http://www.shapeofdays.com/h264/

-Area51

Does anyone know how the quality compares to say a TV episode being made available on the torrents. The reason I ask is I am wondering if offering TVs online will reduce TV piracy some - but I need to know how the quality compares.