First off, kudos to Apple this week. Not only did they introduce some very cool new products and software this week, but the day after Steve Jobs announced these new products, Apple announced record-breaking quarterly financial results, far exceeding analysts expectations. Profits rose an amazing 368 percent (according to a report in the SF Chronicle today) on obviously stronger than expected Mac sales. While the iPOD is making major contributions to the bottom line at Apple, they still make most of their revenue on CPU sales. That means if these earnings reports are accurate, Apple is still doing an amazing job selling Macintosh computers!
It is believed that the iPOD is pulling consumers from the PC world to the Mac. The rumor mill has it that 13% of first time new Mac purchases are from PC users who bought an iPOD first, liked the Apple products and software (iTunes on the PC) and decided to make the switch. This same rumor mill also believes that many who wanted to switch in the past have not because they did not want to buy a new computer that included a monitor, the eMac or iMac, because they already have a good monitor on their PC. The additional cost drove them away. If the rumors prove true, then the miniMac should be a large lift to Mac sales in the future. Not only is it low cost, but now a PC user can easily disconnect all their cables from their PC, removeit, and drop the miniMac in its place. Connect your existing monitor and USB keyboard and mouse, plug in your Ethernet connection, and you are ready to rock on a Macintosh. I hope this turns out to be the case, and time will tell, but I believe this is a great product from Apple.
But I also expect a good number of these miniMacs sold to die hard Unix users as well. For $499, plop Linux or a true Unix on this computer, and you have on hell of a small system that can be a file server, web server, mail server, or small and powerful Unix workstation. It will be fun to see where these things end up.
Meanwhile, another day at MacWorld, and another day filled with even MORE iPOD accessories. I had no idea before the show just how many companies there were making things for iPODs. And to save you some time, if you can think of something to do with your iPOD, there is probably a product to help you do it. Cases galore, more ways to hold and protect your iPOD than ever before. Ear Buds were everywhere as well, many with sound isolation adapters to make it easier to hear your music, from inexpensive ones with plastic ear shields, to the top of the line Shure $499 ear buds.
Now I must admit, the idea of spending more money on my ear buds than I did on my iPOD seemed absolutely crazy, until these little guys where put into my ears. OMG! I have never heard such amazing sound.
And when you add Shure’s new little isolators (which comes in many types and sizes as you can see above) to the earpiece, the outside noise seems to disappear completely behind the amazing sound quality. I am not sure I am ready to buy these yet, and a later review by Nemo may change my mind, but my music does not sound this good on my rather expensive home stereo speakers! You have to listen to a set of these to appreciate them. Here is Nemo trying them on now:
Lastly from Shure was an amazingly inexpensive hands free ear piece for your cell phone which uses some of the same technology.
I put this on and connected it to my Treo to place a call. The show floor was so noisy that you had trouble hearing people 5 feet from you without shouting over the sounds and music filling the hall floor. However, after sticking this in my left ear and placing a call, not only could I hear the call effortlessly, but the noise canceling microphone (I guess Shure knows how to build mics) allowed the other person to hear me as effortlessly as well, with almost no background noise at all. I’m buying one of these tomorrow!
One of you asked in my last report about BlueTrip from Griffin, so I went and had a look. BlueTrip is a Blue Tooth technology that connects to the top of your iPOD and sends the music via BlueTooth wireless to a receiver that connects to your existing home stereo. Thanks for pointing this out, because it is truly a cool technology. A similar technology is coming from Belkin as well I understand, but they would not say much or let me take any pictures. Here are the pictures of BlueTrip you asked for:
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On the back are power and a switch, standard left/right RCA audio jacks out, and a SPDIF digital interface for stereo equipment with optical connections. I am not sure what the green wire was for!
Belkin’s unit was very similar in size and function, but lacked the digital audio out.
Also in Griffin’s booth was a NON-iPOD accessory (wow, I found one!) which I really liked, a USB/wireless remote for your Mac.
Using RF technology and small app on your Mac, you can control many different functions. Simply plug in the small receiver to a USB port, install the small app, and your ready to go. You can set it up to control iTunes and play and select songs from across the room, or switch it to control your Keynote or PowerPoint presentation.
Ending out the long list of iPOD accessories was my favorite, but slight out of my price range:
Mercedes was showing off this SLK. Inside a small compartment behind the center consol is a small cable to which you attach your iPOD. Once attached, the dash board of the car displays information, one line at a time, about the iPOD, including song name, track number, artists, etc, and the iPOD is completely controllable from the small buttons embedded into the steering wheel. At around $56,000, this is definitely the most expensive iPOD accessory at the show.
As many of you may recall, I continue my search for the perfect bag to carry my 17†PowerBook. It was back to Timbuk2, a company that truly loves what they are creating to see an amazing line of new and improved bags of all kinds, including, believe it or not, a woman’s purse bag! We will have more coverage on this company later, but I loved the new, smaller messenger bag which now has a pouch inside to carry a 12 or 15†PowerBook, SIGH, my 17†will have to wait, but I hear they have something with wheels coming up, and you know I will be trying that out soon.
Oh yes, one more look at That Bag’s Drag Bag. I tired putting my 17†PB inside, and it is not so perfect any more, but still damn great. A sleeve from Timbuk2 inside this bag, and it should be perfect. I’ll let you know.
Andy Hertzfeld was spotted at the O’Reilly booth talking about his new book “Revolution in the Valley, How the Mac was Made.†If you love the tiny technical details, this was the talk for you, and there was a rather large crowd hanging about listening to him speak. If what he spoke about is in his book, it should be an interesting read for anyone who wants to know it all.
Do you have a Macintosh you leave on all the time? Do you have a small business with several phone lines, no receptionist, and a bunch of employees who never answer the phone? Here is the product for you: Parliant’s Phone Valet uses a small piece of hardware and your Macintosh to create a full service voice mail system for all your lines, including incoming and outgoing phone call logging, including who was called, and them time and length of the call. Incoming callers are greeted by a voice mail system that allows them to pick the proper mail box to leave personal messages for the right person. This system can even email you the voice mail after it records it so you get the message right away. And one Mac can control up to 11 incoming phone lines. Not ground breaking, but a great use of the Mac.
Now for a trip down all the small booths occupying the far back corner of the hall. For those who cannot afford a full size booth, which I bet is quite pricy at this show, there are the small one or two man “booths†to show off your wares. Amazingly enough, some of the more innovative products seem to appear here first, so I always take the time to see what’s new. Here is a quick peek at two of the ones I liked…
Bare Bones Software was giving away a “light†version of its BBEdit program, called TextWrangler. Basically, this is to BBEdit as Adobe’s Acrobat Reader is to Acrobat. This is a simple text editor which can display BBEdit files, but lacks all the advanced editing features and code help that BBEdit contains. Free copies can be downloaded from the Bare Bones’s website at http://www.barebones.com.
Not too far down the isle was a small company called Portents with a product called The Rip Monkey. Now some of you will recall I admitted to being a media junkie in a recent article on DRM. I seem to save all sorts of movies, TV, and music files, and managing them is always a chore. Well, here in Portents’ booth was a device that holds 200 CDs or DVDs, contains 2 DVD drives inside, and is completely controllable by the Mac. WOW, imagine what I could do with a few of these and all my CDs and DVDs. But what I want to do is not what Portenrts though of. Rather than use these drives to hold and play media, these devices will allow the user to load up to 200 CDs and rip them automatically and directly into iTunes all by it self, two disks at a time! I decided at $4000 a drive (buy a drive and get the software for free) I better move on quickly before I was tempted to buy one. But this does get the best abuse of technology award. If I had the cash, I would buy a drive!
And lastly, before I say good night, just a few more pictures worth showing. One of our mymac.com writers called the city where I was born and work, San Francisco, a dump. In fact, there were comments from others that the area around the convention hall was seedy, leading to the conclusion that San Francisco was now a dump. I’ll let you be the judge, here are a few pictures taken within a 1 block radius of the convention center. If this is a dump, I guess I need to see the nice parts of town!
Oh yes, and there was plenty of iCandy at this show as usual…
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