Apple Computer came out swinging at this week's Macworld Expo with a battery of new products aimed at boosting performance at the high end of the company's desktop and notebook Mac lines.
In his opening keynote speech at the annual Mac trade show, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a new assortment of Power Mac G4 desktop systems topping off at 733 MHz with CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) capabilities, introduced a professional PowerBook notebook based on Motorola's PowerPC G4 processor and announced a delivery date of March 24 for Mac OS X, the company's next-generation operating system.
Jobs also announced two new consumer software packages aimed at audio editing and DVD authoring.
"We decided to start 2001 with a bang," Jobs told the crowd.
The four Power Mac G4 single-processor systems will weigh in at 733 MHz, 667 MHz, 533 MHz and 466 MHz, with all to include a new audio subsystem, Gigabit Ethernet, four PCI slots plus an AGP slot, and a 133-MHz system bus.
The entry-level model will include 128MB of RAM and a RAGE 128 graphics chip; the others will have 256MB of RAM and a GeForce 2MX chip.
The 533- and 466-MHz models are available now, with the 733- and 667-MHz machines coming in February, Jobs said.
In another first, the 733-MHz system will come bundled with a Pioneer "superdrive" that can read and write CDs and DVDs. Jobs said the company would also offer a dual-533-MHz system through a channel partner.
