Speed and delay were the twin watchwords, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off the Macworld Expo New York with his traditional keynote address. A lack of new machines, and a delay in the release of a major update of OSX, put Jobs in an unusual situation for his normal avid Mac audience -- few oohs, hardly any ahs, and a virtual absence of sustained applause.

Missing were rumored reports of a new flat display iMac and enhancements for the TiBook, including a CD burner. What Apple delivered were another revamp of the iMac line, with faster processors and a recycled set of colors, and a speed-bumped line of G4 machines with a redesigned silvery case. Jobs also announced that OS 10.1 with quicker performance, a re-locatable dock, and fixes like the ability to burn DVD’s, would be available in September, and updating iDVD to version 2.0 adds movies in icons, movement in themes, and snappier performance.

The tweak in the G4 line leaves Apple with 3 desktop machines. The new entry level machine is a 733, until the start of the Expo Apple’s fastest computer. The $1699 G4 offers a major price break for the speed, but does not include the Superdrive DVD burner. That drive is now included in two machines, a new, 867 mHz G4 with 60 GB of storage and 256 MB of RAM, and the new top of the line offering, a dual processor 800 mhz powerhouse offering a 2MB cache and 80 GB of hard disk space. Jobs told the keynote audience that the dual processor G4 is so powerful, that when combined with iDVD 2 the speed for creating a DVD has been cut in half.

The 867 mhz G4 will list for $2499, and like the entry level 733, is available now. The dual processor 800 mHz will be available in August, and will list for $3499, until this week, the price for the old 733 mHz superdrive G4.

The speedbump came with a facelift, as the graphite look for Apple’s beefiest computers was retired. The new look is Silver, in a case with two oblong contrasting doors for the CD/DVD and zip drive.

Jobs also announced speed increases for the iMac line, which now tops out at 700 Mhz. Three computers ranging from 500 to 700 mHz will all offer CD-RW drives, in an agresive price move. The 500 mHz iMac will now list for $999 with a CD RW, FireWire, and the speediest processor Apple has ever offered for less than $1000. The revamp also retires the Sixties flash-back color scheme for iMacs, bring back the milky Snow, and keeping the popular Graphite. All but the fastest configuration are immediately available.

Despite the speed bumps and price cuts, the hardware announcements, lackluster in comparison to past Macworld shows, drew a decidedly lukewarm reaction from the nearly 5000 people in attendance.

Reaction was even less favorable to Jobs’ announcement that a new version of OSX was being readied to address issues of speed and non-working fundamental features, but that users would not be able to get it until September. What turned the room chilly was his announcement that the upgrade would be free, subject to a $20 shipping and handling charge. No mention was made of a free download alternative, and that brought some angry post-keynote reaction from people angry that they would have to pay to get a upgrade widely viewed as a fix for major OSX issues.

It was clear Jobs was trying to rally the faithful around the OSX banner, at a Macworld Expo whish is missing major developers like Adobe because they do not have OS versions of the program to show. Jobs insisted that Apple and developers are on the timetable they predicted, and in an effort to back that up, he allotted an hour of the Keynote to ten different developers, ranging from Adobe and Microsoft to small game manufacturers, so they could show off their OSX efforts.

Microsoft gave an early impressive work at Office for OSX, saying this version of Office was completely re-written for OSX, and would be available only on the new system. The quick preview showed an Excel spreadsheet with amazing graphic capabilities, and formatting features in Word far beyond current offerings. Adobe showed a preview version of Photoshop, without mentioning when it might be available. Adobe does not yet have an OSX application ready to release, one of the reasons the company chose not to have a booth at this show for the first time in Mac Expo history.

Other companies made the same decision, and a first reconnoiter of the show floor Wednesday found a lot of empty booth spaces hastily set up as space for chairs. A number of companies listed as appearing in the show program apparently canceled at the last moment. Even show, the Expo’s opening day was extremely busy, though there didn’t seem to be a tremendous number of new applications. The absence of OSX native applications was apparent everywhere.

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July 2001