Wabash College Media Services Specialist Jeana Rogers is currently attending Macworld 2007 in San Francisco. She will share her experiences of the conference here.
Jeana Rogers — Today I attended the Keynote Speech by Steve Jobs. This is the second time I’ve seen a keynote by Jobs. The last one was the year Apple announced the first iMacs. You might remember the various colors they came in, lime, grape, etc.
As you may have heard the big announcement this year is the iPhone. It’s more than a phone….it’s an iPod (with video), and a PDA, with internet connectivity, that runs OS X! The cool thing is there is only ONE BUTTON on this device. Unlike the clunky mini keyboards on other devices like the Treo and Blackberry. It has a touch screen! See details at www.apple.com/iphone. The new iPhone will be available in June.
Next month you can buy the new Apple TV which was on display at MacWorld. This is a simple box that connects to your big screen TV and lets you play content from your Mac or PC. You can wirelessly stream photos and video to Apple TV and view it on the big screen. Connect up to 5 computers and stream video to the big screen. Apple TV includes a 40GB hard drive. More info at www.apple.com/appletv.
After the keynote and walking around the exhibit for a bit I sat in on a Feature Presentation by Kevin Smith, Writer and Film Director. He’s a very lively speaker. He shared his perspective on the film business and how he uses Macs in his work.
All the third party Mac vendors are here as well as the big guns too. From Adobe to XtremeMac there is a little bit of everything. iPod accessories are very popular and seem to be at every corner. I was not surprised to see how deserted the Microsoft booth was when I walked by. Microsoft has still not yet announced a release date for a Universal version of Office, a year after the Intel Processor Macs have been on the market.
One last note, Apple Computer, Inc. changed their name today. Now they are Apple, Inc. They dropped "Computer" from the name officially because the Computer is no longer the only product they focus on at Apple.
All in all it’s been a long day but very exciting for Mac users. I’ll be grabbing samples and checking out demo’s between classes and seminars the next two days! Let me know if you have specific questions or requests for info and I’ll do my best.
