apple juice

I’d be forsaking my identity as an Apple -fanatic if I didn’t give my dedicated readers a quick update on the new products from Apple…

Mac mini – It has been shot down by the budget department for the near term, but I hope to someday get one of these to add to my home theater setup. I imagine hooking it up to the yet-unpurchased HDTV, and running iTunes, iPhoto, games, etc. on the big screen. For me, it makes a perfect little media server. For my sucker PC using friends, it offers a cheap way to get over to the Mac. Get a KVM and see what I’ve been crowing about for all these years!

iPod shuffle – There are two camps on this one, “what no screen!” and “freakin’ awesome!” Basically, a 512MB or 1GB iPod. Also doubles as a little thumb drive to store files on and shuffle (ha ha) files around. If you can’t figure out why there is no screen, think of this device more as extension of iTunes. You can get a random selection of your favorite songs from a playlist or genre you’ve set up. I especially liked the article I came across where the CEO of Creative Labs basically called iPod shuffle stupid. Where’s the screen, FM tuner, umpteen other features we have? He doesn’t care about elegant design, usability, interface… only adding more and more features.

“Actually, to me it’s a big let-down: we’re expecting a good fight but they’re coming out with something that’s five generations older. It’s our first generation MuVo One product feature, without display, just have a (shuffle feature). We had that — that’s a four-year-old product.”

“So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people — it’s worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. They don’t have this kind of thing, and they expect to come out with a fight; I think it’s a non-starter to begin with.”

Can you tell that he is about to feel the cold slap of marketing genius? I think Apple will sell a lot of these.

There were various other announcements from Apple and other third party companies. I’m very excited about iPhoto 5, and also the upcoming Mac OS X 10.4, aka Tiger.

Forget the U2 iPod Special Edition.

I need the iPod Photo.

Well, Apple today introduced blazing fast new PowerMacs, including a liquid-cooled Dual 2.5Ghz G5.

I don’t have any MIPS MFLOPS SpecInts or anything like that for you, but I do know they are pretty dang fast.

A year or so ago there was the indication that Apple would be getting away from big product announcements at trade shows, developer shows and the like. It looks as though this has come to fruition. Even though WWDC is less than a month away, they’ve had two big product announcements in the past week.

It takes some of the excitement away from MacWorlds (if they continue, even) but it also helps Apple out quite a bit in terms of expectations. As in, “all the rumor sites said there would be new iMacs! But there are no new iMacs!”

Well, I’m looking forward to playing with one of these badboys. I wish I could find a job in which I would have the pleasure of working on one of these machines…

Wow Wow Wow! AirPort Express

People ask, “A.J., why do you use Apple, PCs are just as good.”

This is why.

Sure other companies make stuff like this. No other company makes products like Apple does with an unreal sense of design, integration, and style.

I wonder how this device will compare to the iTrip, for which I wrote a quick review. It’s called the PodFreq from Sonnet.

It appears to have a few things going for it that iTrip and other FM transmitters don’t have.

• An external antenna.
• External Controls for the frequency

I don’t actually have a 3rd Generation iPod, so I will have to convince one of my friends to purchase a PodFreq so I can check it out. Unless of course someone wants to buy me a new iPod?

Alpine Launches World’s First Car Audio Head Units to Allow True Integration with iPod

“Alpine’s iPod Ready in-dash receivers will allow iPod users seamless control of up to 10,000 songs easily in their car,” said Stan Ng, Apple’s Director of iPod Product Marketing. “Being able to display song information and browse the iPod’s entire music library right from the Alpine head unit makes this a superior way to enjoy non-stop music in the car.”

I’ve been waiting and wondering when someone would develop something like this… too bad I have a first generation iPod. Oh well, I’ll add it to the list of gadgets.

This is one of the more disturbing things I’ve seen. It’s Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a clip titled, (not by me) Dance Monkey Boy

Enjoy.