Apple has gradually been turning its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) into a platform for new product announcements. This year, however, Steve Jobs's parade of gear was mildly underwhelming.Every Jobs presentation must, it seems, feature at least one device to ooh and ahh over. This year, the WWDC keynote showcased an aluminum-encased, ultraflat, 30-inch Apple Cinema HD display. The digital display is part of a new family of restyled displays, which includes a 20-inch and a 23-inch model. The marquee 30-inch model will debut in August with a shocking AU$5,999 price tag, 2,560x1,600 resolution, and built-in FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 hubs. Now for the drawbacks (in case the AU$5,999 didn't punch your gut). The display requires a "dual-link" DVI interface found only on the AU$1,049 Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL video card, raising the price of the whole setup to about AU$7,000. The display also requires a Power Mac G5, which starts at around AU$3,600.
In the slightly less stratospheric department, the 20-inch (1,680x1,050) and 23-inch (1,920x1,200) displays are due next month and will set you back AU$2,299 and AU$3,499, respectively. They also feature FireWire and USB ports and use a standard DVI interface.
But the gigantic display looks Lilliputian next to WWDC's biggest news: a preview of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (and the accompanying Tiger Server). The operating system update won't be available until the first half of 2005, according to Jobs, but like its predecessor Panther, it boasts "150 new features." (Note to Apple: We'll be counting.) Those features include, most notably, a systemwide search tool called Spotlight, which mimics the way iTunes searches your music library. Jobs says you'll be able to quickly find any file -- including e-mail, hidden files, or even application data -- anywhere on your Mac.
Tiger's preview also ignited a little controversy in the Dashboard department. A third-party developer accused Apple of borrowing heavily from a program called Konfabulator to build the new Dashboard tool, which Jobs says will give you quick and easy access to little widgets, from sticky notes to a remote control for iTunes. Apple denies the similarity, however, so look for the feature to remain in the final release -- which, by the way, will cost yet another AU$229.
While Tiger won't premiere for quite a few months, Steve Jobs crowed that it'll come out nearly a year before the next Windows revision, Longhorn, due out in 2006, saying the competition was following Apple's "tail lights." Ironically, he predicted that Microsoft would be the one doing the copying -- of Tiger's bag of tricks.
3%
5%
