A lot of us in the Mac media thought something was missing from the
Stevenote yesterday. Faster computers and a faster, more feature laden
OS X are good things, but Jobs seemed to be selling the steak, not
the sizzle.
The information on the Apple retail stores was excellent - each
store opening is like a mini-expo. Because of the loyalty of Mac users,
each one is guaranteed huge first-day crowds. The success of the stores
may have been the best part of the keynote.
That's a shame, because an address should build to a climax, not
start at the top. From there, you can only go down.
OS X 10.1
A faster Mac OS X with more features is almost ho-hum,
especially to the 90% of Mac users who aren't using it yet. Maybe
that's why Jobs let others promote the software that will run under
OS X - so the non-geeks could be wowed with the beauty of Aquified
applications. OS X promises to be a stunning OS, but it's the
applications that will make or break it.
Apple continues to address complaints about OS X, mostly how
sluggish and incomplete 10.0.x was. Version 10.1 seems to address all
the important issues. Nice, but for most of us OS X remains in the
future - we won't switch until the right software is available,
sticking with the familiar classic Mac OS while others blaze the Ten
Trail.
Hardware
I think Jobs let a crucial bit of information drop when he explained
that Apple had sold 182,000 iBooks in May and June - and was unable to
meet retail demand. If you can't meet demand for a hot item for that,
you don't want to siphon off components for the flat panel iMac. We'll
see that someday, but Apple doesn't want to destroy the iBook's
momentum.
Without a flat panel, the iMac got a speed and
feature boost. Even the entry level model now has CD-RW, 128 MB of RAM,
and 20 GB of hard drive space. Unfortunately, it also got a $100 boost
in price. It's a nice enough machine at the $999 price - but as of
September 2000 Apple had a $799 iMac available. (Update: Steve Wood
notes that Apple has retained the 400 MHz iMac and 533 MHz Power Mac
for the education market.)
I wish Apple had kept a lower cost iMac in the line for those who
don't need CD-RW, especially the education market. On the other hand,
the market for used, refurbished, and discontinued iMacs should be
excellent - we'll update our "Best iMac Buys of the Week" report on
Friday.
Quicksilver is
Apple's project name for the new silvery Power Mac G4. The big
difference is the case, which finally 
has two
externally accessible 5.25" drive bays. The speaker has no grille, but
the rest of the case is the same brilliant design Apple has been using
and tweaking since the blue & white G3 of 1998.
Apple is putting faster processors on the G4 motherboard - but not
nearly as fast as we'd like in the era of gigahertz Windows computers.
Sure, the G4 is more efficient, but the masses buy the MHz Myth. (I'm
working on an article about that. I hope to have it up later this
morning.)
Still, an 867 MHz G4 only runs 18% faster than a 733 MHz one. On the
other hand, the G4/867 isn't being marketed as the top end machine at
$3,499. No, this is the midrange model at $2,499, and that includes a
SuperDrive for burning DVDs. And that's the model Apple pitted against
a Pentium 4/1.7 GHz machine.
At the top is the new dual processor G4/800. Thanks to OS X
supporting multiple processors from the core, it should offer roughly
twice the performance of today's entry level G4/733. Best of all, it
has the same price tag as the old G4/733.
Still, that's a high end video production machine. It won't impact
most of us in the least. We'd hoped for a flat panel iMac or 1 GHz G4.
Not yet.
iDVD 2.0
Even the "one last thing," usually the high point of the keynote,
was disappointing. iDVD 2 will probably be everything Jobs claims it to
be, but like OS X 10.01, the speed bumped iMacs, and the
Quicksilver Power Macs, it seemed strictly evolutionary.
You have to commend Apple for finding a new niche market they can
own. After all, there are 28 million DVD players in the U.S. alone.
However, the question is, "How many digital video camcorders are in
use?" That defines the maximum size of the iDVD market, not the number
of DVD players.
With the two most popular video editing programs in the world and
the best consumer DVD creation program, Apple may own the market, but
it's a small market.
However, niche marketing is the right approach. Apple used to own
the education market; they remain a dominant player against a multitude
of Windows brands. They once owned the desktop publishing market and
probably still do. But what other market do they dominate?
This is where the solutions focus is important. AppleWorks, free
with every iMac and iBook, provides all the writing, database, drawing,
and spreadsheet power most users will ever need. iTunes, free with
every Mac, makes creating an MP3 library and burning your own custom
CDs easier than anything else on the market. iDVD does the same for
burning DVDs that anyone with a DVD player can watch.
But I think Apple needs to expand the iDVD market tenfold, which
requires two things:
- While Apple is pushing the digital hub idea, there are a heck of a
lot of analog video cameras out there that can't simply plug into a
FireWire port. Apple should seriously consider marketing a PCI card
and/or external video-to-FireWire adapter to attract those millions who
have non-digital video cameras.
- Apple also needs to make iDVD available in a consumer computer.
Since iDVD requires a G4 processor, that means a G4 iMac with a
SuperDrive.
The iMac DVD could run a 700-750 MHz G4, contain a SuperDrive, and
either have built-in analog video ports or an external
video-to-FireWire converter as an extra cost option. This would be a
premium price computer, probably selling for at least $1,999 and
possibly as high as $2,499.
This might also be the ideal model for Apple to introduce a flat
panel to the iMac, helping to justify the higher cost. After all, if
we're looking at $2,499, that's the same price as the G4/867 with no
display - and just $100 less than the PowerBook G4/400, which has no
SuperDrive option.
Then, instead of waiting for millions of users to replace their old
analog camcorders with digital and then seeing the benefits of a Mac
that runs iDVD, they could buy new Apple hardware now, edit their
existing videos in iMovie, and then burn DVDs or export to VHS (please
- there are a lot more VHS machines than DVD players).
That could increase the iDVD market tenfold. Is Apple prepared to
support the older analog technology that most camcorder users already
have? If so, Apple could solidify its hold on the iMovie/iDVD market
before the Windows world gets a strong foothold.
And that's something that would have made a fitting climax to the
Stevenote: iDVD 2.0 plus an Apple-marketed video-to-FireWire converter
so the masses could use iDVD.
