Jobs also announced that OSX will be released in final form March 24th, with a pricetag of $129 dollars. OSX will be bundled on all Apple machines starting in July 2001.
Gold Coast Mac was in the audience for the Keynote, which was standing room only. People lined up for three hours in advance for a chance to hear Jobs set the future course for Apple, and they were not disappointed.
Titanium
The announcement of new laptop computers had been suspected ever since Apple offered rebates and reduced prices on its current line of powerbooks, and Jobs did not disappoint. The new Titanium, named for the metal which is used in the one-inch thick case, comes in two configurations, a 400 or 500 mhz G4, with USB, Firewire, 100bt Ethernet, DVD, and weighs in at 5.3 pounds. The computer features a superwide 15.2 inch screen, and will list for $2599 for the 400 mhz, and $3499 for the 500mhz. The more expensive machine also has increased RAM and hard disk space. Production is beginning now, and Apple expects to ship the first units by the end of the month.
G4 Desktop
Apple has again raised the bar on speed, finally breaking the 500 mhz limit for its desktop line of G4's. The new line offers 4 configurations, with the slowest at 466 mhz, and the fastest at 733 mhz. All machines now come with the capability of mastering optical media, with slower machines offering CD-RW internal drives for the first time, and the high end machine offering a brand new "Superdrive," developed for Apple by Pioneer, which not only reads and writes CD's but DVD's as well, not just for data, but for the first time on a consumer computer, for video playback on consumer DVD players. That capability comes with a price tag of $3499, and machines will be available in limited quantities at the end of the month.
Jobs admitted Apple has been slow to recognize the popularity of internal rewritable media on every computer, but he promised that is changing. He demonstrated capabilities in OSX which will allow CD's to be written directly from the desktop, without using a seperate application as is now required.
DVD Software
To take advantage of its new hardware capability, Apple announced the release of a new product to create DVD's. iDVD revolutionizes the DVD mastering process, allowing for DVD's to be created without requiring hardware, and without requiring massive amounts of time. The new software based authoring engine allows DVD's to be burned in 2 X realtime, instead of the 24 X realtime required by previous software.
