Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller on Tuesday morning took the keynote leg of Apple Expo in Paris , where more than 7,000 citizenry are serve the prominent annual gathering of Macintosh users in Europe . He opened the event to warm up cheerfulness , telling the crowd that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is doing well follow recent surgery to remove a rare but recoverable grade of pancreatic malignant neoplastic disease . job will generate to the helm of Apple in September , as he originally announced travel along his hospitalization .
Music to Apple ’s ears
The iPod — now in its fourth generation and featuring a “ Click Wheel ” interface like to what ’s found on the iPod miniskirt , continues securities industry dominance in the United States , according to Schiller . The iPod savor a 58 pct contribution of the digital euphony player market , as of June .
Schiller say that Apple is the first party to sell 100 million songs online , through its populariTunes Music Store — first put online in April 2003 , and available for both the Mac and PC since October of 2003 . Apple has also bring the iTunes Music Store to the United Kingdom , France and Germany , where it has sell 5 million songs in its first eight calendar week of mathematical process .
More than 12,000 group O ten applications
There are more than 12,000 Mac OS ten - aboriginal practical software now on the market , according to Schiller . He yielded the show floor to administrator from biz Lord THQ Inc. and Luxology . THQ show off their work in onward motion , a 3D action brawlerbased on Pixar ’s forthcoming animated photographic film “ The Incredibles , ” featuring a kin of superheroes . The gamewas first announcedas coming to the Mac at E3 Expo in Los Angeles , Calif. this retiring May . The Mac OS disco biscuit version will make its entry simultaneously with PC and console table versions later this year , nearer to “ The Incredibles ' ” theatrical release . Luxology testify off its polygonal and subdivision airfoil three-D modeling toolModoin natural process on Mac OS X.
Schiller also showed offMotion , Apple ’s latterly put out real - sentence question art intent software package aim at creative professionals in the film , video and videodisk markets . Motion is being offered as a standalone Cartesian product for US$ 299 , and is bundled as part of Apple ’s new Production Suite aggregation along with Final Cut Pro HD and DVD Studio Pro for US$ 1,299 .
Tiger , tiger , burn smart …
Mac OS X v10.4 , “ Tiger,”was first introducedto Mac developers at Apple ’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco , Calif. this preceding June . Schiller covered some former ground , talking about Tiger ’s more than 150 novel feature , support for the G5 ’s 64 - bit computer architecture and other new potentiality , including Tiger ’s vaunted “ Spotlight ” search technology ; Safari 2.0 , an upcoming translation of Apple ’s Web browser app now with support for RDF Site Summary / Rich Site Summary ( RSS ) feeds ; Dashboard , an interface for specialised applications call “ Widgets , ” and Automator , which enable users to benefit from Mac OS X ’s AppleScript sustenance without have to learn how to write scripts .
For Apple , the timing of Apple Expo could n’t be good . Tiger is anticipated for a release in the first one-half of 2005 , while Microsoft ’s rival “ Longhorn ” update to Windows is n’t expected until 2006 . Microsoft just lately announced plans to pick feature from Longhorn in decree to ship on time , including support for WinFS , a newfangled file system that would have supply search capableness to rival Tiger . Microsoft ’s delay intelligence served as plentiful fodder for some ribbing by Schiller .
Anothercarryover from WWDCwas a manifestation of H.264 , or Advanced Video Codec ( AVC ) , a video technology that will be coming to Apple ’s QuickTime fabric in Panther . H.264 is an diligence monetary standard that Apple has beenpublicly promotingsince the National Association of Broadcasters ( NAB ) 2004 trade wind show this past April . It ’s a scalable video codec that can be used in everything from 3 G “ Smartphones ” to high definition television and video .
And last , the new iMac
As had been wide speculated take into the beginning of Apple Expo , Apple used the issue to take the wrap off its long - awaited iMac G5 . Contrary to Apple ’s common secrecy , the company announced plans to grow an iMac G5 during a quarterly conference call with fiscal analyst . The news came two workweek after Apple announced that it had discontinued flat control board iMacs in favor of an “ all - new ” descent that would bow in September . Schiller finish his Apple Expo keynote with an introduction of the newfangled system , to rapturous clapping from those attending .
Schiller talked concisely about Apple ’s past success with the iMac , which was first introduced in 1998 . The system sold 7.5 million building block in six years — 2.38 iMacs per minute . When the iMac first debuted , it was in an all - in - one CRT - based excogitation ; the iMac was then upgraded to a flat - panel LCD - based design in 2002 .
The new G5 iMac shares a similar industrial figure to Apple ’s recently refreshed Cinema Displays — Apple bills the new system as the world ’s thinnest background computing gadget , measuring less than 2 inch thick ( the 17 - column inch models evaluate 1.99 inches thick , while the 20 - inch model measure 2.2 in thick ) . The ripe hand side of the iMac features a expansion slot - loading optical parkway , while the back of the equipment features a perpendicular arrangement of peripheral connectors , admit three USB 2.0 ports , two FireWire 400 connector , mini - VGA , modem , 10/100baseT Ethernet , sound recording in and audio out — including both analog and digital connector , standardized to the audio out jack on Apple ’s AirPort Express hub .
The new iMac features 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz G5 processors . With IBM ’s East Fishkill , NY chip manufacturing plant continuing to skin with chip yields , this may excuse why some Power Mac G5 users have had a tough time getting backordered equipment in a well-timed manner — Apple may have been diverting CPUs to the manufacture of new imacs instead . The arrangement also boast a 600MHz frontside omnibus — markedly slower than the Power Mac , but still well quicker than former generations of iMacs . The iMac G5 takes up to 2 GB of 400MHz DDR RAM , features Serial ATA ( SATA ) internal repositing , and an 8x AGP computer graphic architecture supporting Nvidia ’s GeForce 5200 Ultra nontextual matter processor .
The new iMac will be available in two 17 - in ( 1,440 x 900 pixel ) configurations and one 20 - column inch ( 1,680 x 1,050 pixel ) configuration . Prices start at $ 1,299 , with a 1.6GHz processor , 256 MB tup , a DVD - ROM / compact disk - RW “ Combo ” driveway , 80 GB hard drive , 64 MB VRAM . A 1.8GHz system with a 17 - inch cover will cost $ 1,499 , while the 20 - in system , bumped up to a 160 GB operose parkway and “ SuperDrive ” ocular crusade , will cost $ 1,899 . The iMac G5 will ship in mid - September .
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