Apple Briefs

Apple announced new Macs across the entire desktop line yesterday (Mac Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini). I’ve been in the market for a new iMac, so these updates are very welcome (although with the economy being the way it is, the rush to buy one has subsided just a little).

Still, there’s lots to like about the updates. I am most impressed with the changes to the Mac Mini. The Mini has long lagged the iMac in four key performance-related areas: processor, memory, memory speed, and hard drive speed. Now it looks like we’re down to three. The Mac Mini and the iMac both sport a 1066MHz front side bus. Prior to Tuesday’s updates, the iMacs raced along at 800MHz while the Minis were saddled with a 667MHz FSB. Unfortunately, the Minis are still limited to 5400rpm hard drives. That may have made sense at one time, but now 7200rpm hard drives are even available on Macbook Pros. It’s time to let the Mini catch up.

The iMacs saw a nice boost too. The big shock for me was the switch from two 20″ models and two 24″ models to a single 20″ model and three 24″ models. For me, the 24″ model never made sense before. For the price of the cheapest 24″ iMac, you could almost buy a 20″ iMac and a 20″ Apple Cinema Display (this model has since been discontinued but it was still available when I purchased my current iMac). If you’re willing to step outside the Apple Store and buy a non-Apple display, you could definitely have made that purchase. I would much rather have two 20″ displays side-by-side than a single 24″ display. The reason for this seemingly crazy pricing situation is that Apple bundled better processor and graphics into the cheapest 24″ iMac. If you don’t need that extra horsepower, the larger monitor becomes a very pricey upgrade.

Now things are entirely different. The cheapest 24″ iMac comes in at $1499 with a larger hard disk and more memory. But I can see lots of people wanting to upgrade to 4GB of RAM (a must in my opinion!) and 640GB hard drive (320GB is becoming “small”). Upgrading the 20″ iMac to comparable RAM and hard drive brings the price to $1374. In my opinion, $125 is a small price to pay for the larger screen real estate.

I don’t have much to say about the Mac Pros. My last true desktop was an 867MHz Mirror Drive Doors PowerMac. I can get so much done on a laptop or iMac that I would be wasting my money to buy a Mac Pro. Still, I enjoy pricing one out occasionally to see what kind of ridiculous specs and prices are available. A dual 2.93GHz, 32GB RAM, 1TB HD model currently rings up at just over 12 grand. At least there is free shipping.

Ever since I have owned a Mac, I have always considered Macworld to be like a second Christmas. I can’t wait to find out what goodies Apple has for us under the tree. Even though we knew we wouldn’t get to see the showmanship of Steve this year, expectations were still pretty high. 17″ MacBook Pro? Mac Mini? Time capsule turned into some kind of home server? There were more misses than hits in the predictions, but we made out pretty well. This is what caught my attention:

• iWork 2009. I use Pages for quite a bit, and have been looking at Keynote and Numbers more and more. Even incremental updates are much appreciated. Status: Ordered and already shipped!
• iLife 2009. iView Media Pro (now Microsoft Expression Media) was one of the first programs I bought for Mac OS X when switching. Back then iPhoto seemed little more than a toy. It’s been making progress now, though. And, while it still doesn’t seem to be a “serious” photo database, it’s starting to have enough toys that I am getting interested. On top of that, my pile of miniDV tapes is growing, so iMovie has some appeal also. Status: Still thinking.
• FileMaker Pro 10. Okay, this one slipped out a little before Macworld, but it’s close enough to count. I am excited about this update. Script triggers. SMTP mail. Themes! (a 21st century interface – if you’re a close reader of this site you’ll know how much that means to me) Status: Ordered, but hasn’t shipped yet.

Hopefully we’ll see the Mac Mini updates in a few days. Historically Apple hasn’t announced minor updates like that at big events like Macworld. So we still may see a Mini bump soon. Has anyone come across third party announcements at Macworld that excited them?

Daring Fireball clued me in to a new section of Apple’s website dedicated to accessibility. The site has a lot of information, including features on Mac OS X, iPhone, and iPod. Some of the tips explain regular Mac OS X features that also have application to making the system more accessible, so it’s worth a look even if you don’t need the accessibility features.

This week’s big launch hasn’t gone so well for Apple. MobileMe – scheduled to launch late Wednesday night – was down well into Thursday. MobileMe webmail still doesn’t work for me (although I had a few glimpses of it yesterday).

The iPhone 2.0 launch hasn’t gone so well either. I was elated to finally see the message from iTunes that I had an update to download (after repeatedly being told that no update was available). That excitement was short-lived as the update failed rendering my iPhone currently useless. Clicking on my iPhone in iTunes gives me one of several error messages. The reports coming in seem to indicate that 3G iPhone activation is running into trouble too.

It hasn’t been a good couple of days for Apple. Hopefully I’ll get it working and be able to visit the App Store by tonight. Then I can go shopping and post some screenshots.

… but only if you stay up late. The .Mac homepage has the following service announcement from Apple:

MobileMe Launch 7/9/2008, 6pm-12am PT

As part of the MobileMe launch, www.mac.com will be taken offline at 6pm PT on Wednesday, July 9th.

Members will be unable to access www.mac.com or any .Mac services during this time with the exception of .Mac Mail accessed via a desktop application, iPhone, or iPod touch.

MobileMe will be available as soon as possible during this maintenance window.

So, if you’re prone to staying up until the wee hours of the morning (Pacific Time, which pretty much rules it out here at Apple Briefs), you might get to see it on July 9th ¹. The rest of us can expect to see it the morning of the 10th. The MobileMe iPhone features should be activated the following day (July 11th) with the release of the iPhone 2.0 software update. I’ll try to find some time in between games of Super Monkey Ball to test out the MobileMe push email features.

¹ Yes, technically after midnight it becomes the 10th. But I have always maintained that the day doesn’t change until you’ve decided to pull an all-nighter (n/a on holidays).