Too much sugar, Tim?

Okay, let’s see. First, Apple gives us iPhoto for free, and now we have to buy it.

Now, Tim, that’s not quite accurate. In reality, Apple gave us iPhoto I for free; a killer app and worth every bit of $49. Then they gave us iPhoto 2 and forgot to charge the $49 upgrade fee! Then they did it again last year, adding iPhoto 3 with iLife, but neglecting to charge for the download! And now, they are nice enough to just let that mistake go and get things right for a change. I mean, I was afraid I’d get the bill for $150 for the 3 previous versions they forgot to charge me for!!

iMovie was free, but no longer. Now you have to buy it.

Again, not quite true. In the beginning, you could only have iMovie if you bought an iMac! Then Apple relented and allowed users to buy the program if they wanted. I think it was $99! Later they offered it free on all iMacs and eventually iBooks and PowerBooks and then PowerMacs. But for a year, it cost some bucks or new hardware! And you forgot to mention iDVD! It wasn’t free or available at any price, originally, short of buying hardware!

Why does the mini-iPod cost $249? Give me a break…

Okay, I’ll give you points for that one. I kind of felt that too, but not that it’s not worth it; just bad marketing. I mean never make the customer have to do math in order to justify a purchase. I was just anticipating Steve filling out that table with a number at the bottom lower than $199 and instead, $249? Woah, nellie! Now I’ve gotta THINK in order to figure out whether it’s a good deal or not! Bummer. The killer marketing angle is to list a bunch of better features, and THEN lower the boom with an even lower price. Thus, no brainer. Now…. I’ve got to think about it. I hate that! It could even be bad for Apple ….I might just decide to leave the money in my wallet a bit longer and think some more. Dang, I hate having to do math while shopping…

Sure, GarageBand looks cool, but did it REALLYdeserve to eat up that much of the keynote address?

Well, I personally needed to see all that in order to understand what they were showing me. How does it differ from normal looping software? Etc. I liked that part of the presentation. (Well, it was better than the MS Office show, that’s for sure!) Actually, you have a point. Say, remember the old Monty Python and the Holy Grail trailer? “You could do worse!” It was great …maybe that’s what this keynote needs: a Mony Python trailer.

Where is the new AppleWorks?

I really hate to break it to you, Tim, but AppleWorks is, like, pre-retro; out of it, man, like it’s just soooo yesterday. What would an update look like? How about iLife? Really, I have 8 Macs here, and they all came with AppleWorks, plus I own several licenses from purchases. 5 users here, plus a dozen more users in other locations; I’m the only one that uses the thing. Really! And I do it more out of pity for the product. I mean, I hate for it to feel neglected and all. Besides, anything with the word ‘work’ in it really isn’t going to be a FUN topic at a MacWorld!! Face it!

Half the households in America have an active musician? Who the hell told Apple that?

So, you an expert? Where have you been? Everyone we know is juggling between soccer and music lessons for their kids. That’s the “American Dream” I guess. Music is HUGE and more and more kids are getting into the DJ thing as well as creating their own stuff. Anyway, I figured everyone already knew this. It’s old news now. Apple’s finally getting it.

Wow, a NEW version of Microsoft Office!

Actually, it almost looked interesting from a ‘student/teacher’ standpoint, and I thought it has the best chance at finally replacing AppleWor…. (can’t say that word!) as it ever did.

Or you could spend twice as much and buy a real Windows XP system, with CPU, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse’¦

I’m trying not to laugh, really! Okay, seriously, I do have 6 PCs here now. All running PRO versions, not HOME. It ain’t that cheap, but still, they work fine. But …it’s still Windows. Hey, wanna have some fun? Set up a new PC with NO custom firewall and turn it on with broadband and let it sit for, oh, say, 45 minutes running, then run some monitoring software to see what you caught! Oh my, it’s amazing, really! Then you get to wipe the drive and start over, only THIS time, install a hardware firewall because XP boots up with the built-in firewall disabled during the boot process, just long enough for the friendly virii to infect you before you are fully logged on! Supposedly, SP2 will fix that little annoyance!

Well, Tim, sure, it wasn’t the most exciting Keynote ever, but hey, you can’t have 2 cups of sugar with every keynote and not start to get, you know, desensitized.