MacWorld



So another MacWorld has been and gone, and although I think the new PowerBooks (whoops I mean MacBookPro - whoever named that should be shot...) are good, they aren't for me. No FW800 (for my faster back-ups, but if it's not there now it's probably not going to be there next time), No PCMCIA card slot (not a biggy there is now some 'express' slot), not all 3rd prty apps are native, battery life isn't mentioned which makes me scared (I thought we were supposed to get faster and lower power with these Intel things??). The resolution is nice, the screen is supposed to be brighter (again), the new power cable looks nifty (but would mean buying more power adaptors to replace my back-ups). And, well, I hear these things are fast, but I am waiting to play with one in person first.

The new Intel iMacs have been given a good upgrade, but they're not my type of machine. I was hoping for a new Intel MacMini, but there is no rush on that.

iLife 06 looks like a worthy upgrade and I'll definitely order it. i am especially interested in the iWeb application, but I feel that it will be too limited and it's restricted to .Mac home pages, so I don't think it will be right for me. I am in the market for some easy web dev software and blogging software, I have been trying to play with SandVox, but I can't the download to work, Rapid Weaver is great but I don't want to use that as a daily blogging tool. I want to create my web pages and blog page design with one app, but use a dedicated fully functional app like Ecto to actually blog. We'll see. iWork 06 I'll probably get just for the Keynote upgrade, though there is not that many new features (and no spreadsheet or database).

I haven't watched the keynote yet (I'm on dial-up this week) so maybe the RDF will sink in better watching Jobs on screen and I will order everything straight away.

All in all I'll probably wait for Version 2 of the MacBookPro and wait to see how the 3rd party software development is coming along, unless of course I see one and need one immediately... I think the Intel version of the MacMini and the iBook can't be too far off and will be big hits with a lot of my friends.

On the other side of things, I've been promising myself a bigger screen and although the Apple Cinema Displays are beautiful, they don't have all the inputs I want (DVI, Analogue, S-Video & Composite) so I'm thinking about the 24 inch Dell (shudder) and at $1399 (down from $1799) they are a good price. We'll see.

Posted: Wed - January 11, 2006 at 11:09 AM        

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