Are Apple's new products too little, too late?
Published: 30 Jun 2003 16:02 BST
If life were fair, or perhaps if this were 1984, Apple's fortunes would get a big boost based on chief executive Steve Jobs's performance at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference.
In a bold, broad stroke, Jobs introduced the new G5 processor, three machines built around it (one of them touted as the world's fastest PC, a claim that later came under some fire), and the next release of OS X (code-named Panther). He also unveiled a multimedia chat program, some new developer tools, a Web cam, and the formal release of the Safari browser, and offered a sneak peek at the server version of Panther.
For Apple, it was a tour de force, demonstrating to existing customers that the company is ready to compete on performance and, increasingly, on price for their business.
BUt, of course, life isn't fair, and this isn't 1984. Though Panther looks great and the new G5 tower machines are the sexiest hardware I've seen since, well, 1984, when the Mac was introduced, Apple's unlikely to get the boost it deserves from this bravura performance. While a few creative types who are using Windows might reconsider that choice, the announcements aren't going to rewrite history.
Panther will be the fourth major release of OS X in two years. One of its key features is a new Finder that significantly improves the user interface. Jobs described the old Finder a being computer-centric and the new one as user-centric. I think he's right.
This new Finder, for example, puts the user's favourite folders, hard drive, network servers, and online Internet iDisk storage all in one location for easy, one-click access. It also provides user-selectable colour labels for document and project organisation, as well as dynamic network browsing for Window, Unix, and Mac file servers.
Another nice new UI feature: Expose, which visually unshuffles and resizes windows so that they are all simultaneously visible on-screen. It's likely to be a big hit with people who leave lots of windows open and then have trouble finding the one they're looking for. It also looks really cool when the windows unstack themselves and move toward the corners of the screen -- it's the sort of feature that Apple loves and Microsoft seems to consider beneath itself.
Steve also introduced iChat AV, an instant-messaging client featuring audio and video, and a Web cam called iSight, which features the regulation Apple cool industrial design, autofocusing (why don't all Web cams have this?), and a built-in noise cancelling microphone. The $149 camera uses FireWire and produces great images.
In testing iChat AV with colleagues at the ZDNet offices, we found it impossible to make a connection, probably because of firewall issues. I did, however, successfully conduct a videoconference with product managers at Apple headquarters and the software and camera worked just fine. One glitch: my PowerBook didn't recognise the microphone built into the camera, so I had to use the mic built into the computer, which doesn't work as well. This is, after all, beta software.
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