Archive: June 23, 2003

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The Steve Jobs Show (Panther + iChat + G5)

Monday,  06/23/03  11:11 PM

Well, it happened just like I thought...

"The Steve Jobs show...  he is demoing Panther, the new version of OSX, and at the last minute he turns to the audience and says "oh yeah, one more thing" and everyone starts buzzing and the curtain lifts and there it is the PowerMac G5 and Steve says "this is the fastest computer on Earth" and everyone believes him for just that minute and he shows Photoshop on a G5 killing a Pentium in a head-to-head test."

I guess it wasn't hard to predict :)  But it happened, and it was cool.  Steve Jobs remains the ultimate technical showman.  And today he had a lot to show!  If you're at all interested, please watch the movie


Introducing Mac OSX 10.4 aka "Panther"


Steve iChats with Al Gore


The patented "One more thing..."


All new G5 system architecture


PowerMac G5


The Photoshop face off: G5 vs. Xeon

Here's my summary:

Updates:

  • Apple Stores - 48 opened, 15M visitors
  • iPods - 1M sold (!)
  • Apple Music Store - 5M songs in 8 weeks

New Mac OSX 10.4 aka "Panther"

  • Now #1 Unix worldwide
  • Safari 1.0 released
  • New Finder!  (Nice looking GUI)
  • iDisk syncs automatically to .mac
  • New Mail!
  • Pixlet - new "studio quality" QT codec
  • Fast user switching
  • FontBook - app for managing fonts
  • developer release available now
  • $129 - by year-end

iChat audio / video conferencing

  • "Video conferencing for the rest of us"
  • integrates with AIM, .mac, and Rendezvous
  • iSight camera / microphone - $149

Xcode - new development environment

  • 5X faster
  • GCC 3.3 compiler
  • distributed builds
  • incremental links, precompiler, "fix and continue"
  • new GUI - looks Visual-Studio-like

PowerMac G5!

  • 64-bit CPU from IBM
  • up to 2 x 2GHz (SMP)
  • 1GHz frontside bus
  • Apple custom ASIC for bus management
  • up to 8GB of 400MHz 128-bit DDR RAM
  • AGP 8X graphics
  • up to 500GB serial ATA disk drives
  • firewire 400 / 800
  • USB 2.0
  • GB ethernet
  • airport 802.11g
  • bluetooth
  • optical digital audio
  • available in August

There were two highlights in my opinion.  First and foremost, Apple is no longer dependent upon Motorola to remain competitive with Intel; they now have IBM in their camp.  Second, the new development environment is going to make it easier for people to port stuff from Windows.  Developers are the key to a successful platform, and Apple seems to be realizing this.  It is no coincidence that these announcements were made at their developer's conference, not MacWorld.

Overall it was a very impressive performance, with some great new products.  A new OS, a new development environment, a new hardware platform, and a cool video conferencing app thrown in for good measure.

 

Monday,  06/23/03  11:51 PM

L.T.Smash has a great summary of current events: It's not over yet.

A good sign: the Baghdad Bulletin begins publishing.  "The Baghdad Bulletin is Iraq's only English-language newsmagazine and one of the country's only independent publications."  [ via Jeff Jarvis, who is contributing an article about how to start a weblog... ]

The Supreme Court rules on the University of Michigan case: Narrow use of affirmative action preserved in college admissions.  Sigh.  This is absolutely racist - how can discrimination based on race be defended?

From the majority opinion:  "The Constitution does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

In other words, you may be racist as long as your intentions are good?

[ Later: Philip Greenspun agrees.  And he claims affirmative action teaches people to be prejudiced.  So - may you be racist with good intentions if it doesn't work? ]

Razib discusses prejudice.  "Different forms of prejudice are held to different levels of disrepute.  Race is the most heinous one.  Sexism is the most acceptable.  And others like religious bigotry fall somewhere in the middle."  Interesting that so many people confuse race, a genetic characteristic, with religion, a belief system (e.g. "Jewish").

The WP notes Love for the Bug Runs Out.  "The iconic Volkswagen Beetle, the most popular car ever made, will cease production this summer, 69 years and more than 21 million sales after Adolf Hitler's Third Reich first commissioned the durable, dome-shaped little 'People's Car.'"  So long, Herbie!  [ via Tim Blair ]

This is too cool - lawmakers in Bellevue, Washington, are considering auctioning stickers which enable single drivers to use diamond lanes.  What a great use of markets.

I'm still recovering from watching the Apple WWDC conferenceI'm scheming to get a G5.  Surely Aperio needs to port our image processing tools!

The Polynesian Island of Niue, owner of the .nu TLD, has completed an island-wide WiFi network.  They are the first nation with full WiFi coverage.  I am not making this up - and I want to go there!

 
 

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