apple juice

Today Apple introduced some new Powerbooks. The 15″ model now closely resembles the 17″ version, with it’s updated hinge design and aluminium packaging.

They also introduced a new wireless keyboard and mouse combo. They look pretty much exactly the same as the wired versions, sans wires. The wired versions with desktop computer, in my mind, aren’t that big of a deal, but with a powerbook, it’s an awesome feature. Set the powerbook down.Turn on the mouse. And you’re ready to go. Nothing could be easier.

So now the current computer I’m wishing after is the 15″ Powerbook with the Superdrive. Mmmm. It’s time to replace my PowerMac G3/400, don’t you think?

Quick review of the iTrip.

An excellent design that perfectly complements the iPod.

Draws its power right from the iPod.

Changing the station you transmit on is unfortunately a pain. You have to stop the song, go find the station mp3 file. Play it. Then return to your music. No switches to flick or anything.

On the other hand, you have access to any station on the FM dial.

On the other, other hand you’ll have to find a clear one. The transmission is no stronger or clearer than other FM transmitters. There is no drift or retuning once you get it though.

A cassette adapter still sounds better. But for those with no cassette adapter, this is a perfect choice. It also works great in a house. I can tune my two home stereos to it and it’ll play on both. Great for a party.

4 out of 5.

I’ve downloaded and given iTunes 4 a bit of a test. So far it looks pretty nice. The integration of the music store is pretty awesome, and the interface seems to be slightly refined. I haven’t had a chance to play with any of the sharing features yet, but we’ll give that a shot in a few days.

The Apple Music Store looks pretty good as well. The interface is dead easy. It will basically come down to whether or not people think $0.99 is the right price for a single. The downloads are fast, and they have a fairly vast catalog. It’s already been fun to browse around and listen to some samples.

I’ve been telling a few friends to hold off on their impending iPod purchase, and I’m glad they waited. The new revision looks very nice. I like the dock a lot, and i think the new user interface looks pretty nice as well.

Tomorrow I’m sure there will be tons of news and commentary on the whole situation, I’ll try and post a few interesting articles if I come across anything

Wow, wow, wow!

Mac users: New version of
Safari. Adds tabbed browsing, autofill, among other items. Check it out yo!

Since everyone and their dog has linked to this…

Apple understands digital media far better than the current record companies. People want fast, easy downloads for a reasonable price. (Let’s say 50 cents a track, or a flat fee per month) Apple has the people that can weave an interface right into iTunes that would make this all seemless.

At the right price, it becomes an issue where you wouldn’t ever bother downloading gigs and gigs of music to your computer. If there was a monthly fee, and any time you wanted a song, you could just download it in 15 seconds, why bother keeping 60 gigs of music on your computer when it’s all on the network?

There are some very intersting possibilities..

New switch commercials: “I’m Dr. Dre and I’m a hip-hop artist”

“Radio Stations” in iTunes showcasing the Universal catalog. Able to click-buy the track or CD right in iTunes.

An immediate “in” on the production side, Apple Hardware, Software in the recording studio.

An Apple Logo on every CD? That sure would build some mindshare.

250 free songs on every new Macintosh?

But who knows. I’m just pulling that stuff out of my butt. Does Apple really want to get into a completely different business?

I’m posting this using NetNewsWire…

This makes editing a post soooo much easier than doing it all through the web.