Yeah, ok, so I missed Macworld. I mean, I didn’t go, but then again, I never go. So when I say I missed it, I mean something else, like “huh, what happened, did I miss it?”
I know, there are new things, sure. A smaller iPod. Smaller in size, in every way, except price comparatively. Ok, I bought an old Rio 500 a few months back for around $60 bucks, and if they had come out with an iPod around $100, or even $150 I could have considered chucking it into the nearest junk drawer, but $249? Um, ok yeah, sure. Perhaps Apple will lower the price on it and everyone can say “Wow, Apple r00lz!” or something, but I sort of doubt it.
GarageBand actually looks very freaking cool, and this from someone who used to play and record music and even owned a 4-track recorder years ago. I’ve used various music/sound apps on the Mac over the past 10 years or so, but just looking at what GarageBand does, and the price for it (basically $49 plus some other junk along with it) GarageBand kicks the asses of previous efforts in the price range. My music-making friend(s) might be excited.
As for the iLife thingy, ok, I’m pretty much willing to spend $49 to make iPhoto go faster. Really. It’s a very nice application, but man oh man does it crawl. It feels like my G4 is running iPhoto for Windows via Virtual PC it’s so slow… Free would be better but really, from what I hear Apple does have to make some money, and I can trick myself into saying that I’m supporting open-source by buying it since Apple is a good open-source citizen…
Ok, for real now, if you want good coverage of what happened, look elsewhere, perhaps Ars Technica’s A Jade keynote: Macworld Expo 2004:
Twenty years after bringing desktop publishing to the masses, giving everyone the power to create really bad brochures and church bulletins, Apple has done it again. Garage Band makes it possible for even the most computer illiterate and tone deaf individual to make horrible music through drag and drop simplicity and brightly colored icons…
Oh, and one last thing…
The “one last thing” was the guy in front of me farting and then it was over.
Ok, one more last thing. Apple still makes an operating system and hardware that sucks less than anything else out there. How’s that for a compliment?