Rendez-vous in April

Next April, Apple will celebrate 30 years in business since its creation by the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) in 1976. No particular event has been announced in Cupertino to celebrate its anniversary. However, it's been said that this date has been chosen to reveal more Macs furnished with the Intel processors, a Mac mini update and a new MacBook (formerly iBook).

Best of the show

Every year our fellow American MacWorld associates, organisers of the conference with the same name, choose the best new products from the show floor.

First, Apple for its MacBook Pro and iLife 06. Adobe for the beta version of Lightroom with Apple's Aperture. The iSee, a remarkable accessory that transforms all the old iPods into the video version and EyeTV2 from Elgato, the Tuners TV software.

Also the new font manager, Suitcase Fusion from Extensis. Google Earth for its satellite exploits, and Memory Miner – it allows you to explore the relationships between people and digital photos via an interactive tree-like structure.

Not to forget JBL's One Time speakers, Lightzone of LightCrafts, the professional solution for photo-editing, as well as project management software ProjectX from Mareware, and the essential Firewire Techtool Protégé.

Equally important is Browsbake from Smile on my Mac, that can be found on all of the web sites, and lfinally Docktopus from Startly technology – this utility improves the Dock of Max OS X. Using the Dock's Mail icon it notifies you of how many messages are in your box. With Docktopus, it's also possible to show how each application's performing with the use of icons.

One more thing...

The final announcement in Steve jobs' keynote speech was the fact that all Apple notebooks will also be powered by the Intel Core Duo processor, resulting in a 4 - 5x performance increase.

Watch the video below for the full announcement.

Click the image above to launch the video.

Video - first Mac with Intel processor

Steve Jobs received the typical rapturous applause upon announcing the first Mac to be powered by an Intel processor. Watch the video, courtesy of our sister publication, SVM Mac, to hear the full announcement.

Click the image above to launch the video.

Paul Otellini delivers his chips

The CEO of Intel, Paul Otellini, shows no shame by apearing on-stage at the Moscone Center disguised as a bunny rabbit, to deliver his chips to Steve Jobs - check out the video, below, from our sister publication in France, SVM Mac, for more.

Click the image above to launch the video.

iWork 2006 Announced

Another software update from Apple, with iWork being updated. Consisting of the Pages word processor and Keynote presentation tool, the new features include support for 3D charts, improved image editing, new themes and templates.

The price remains the same.

iLife 2006 Released

Subtitled "Music. Movies. Photos. Blogs", iLife '06 updates iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand and introduces a new application, iWeb, for web publishing.

More details on each of the individual applications below:

iPhoto 06

New maximum number of photos: 250,000. Redesigned interface, now very similar to iTunes 6. One-click effects: a new palette that allows special effects (black and white, sepia, etc.) Import cards, calendars, and books directly from iPhoto, the books appear with better printing quality. New features: photocasting and podcasting for photos. Photocasted albums are sent to the Mac and the web user can subscribe to the photocasts from iPhoto. As soon as a new photo's added to the album it's automatically downloaded.

iMovie 06

The iMovie themes (similar to iDVD menus) have been improved , with effects and transitions in real-time. Multiple projects can be opened simultaneously, video can be exported to an iPod and iMove now has integrated video podcasting capabilities.

iDVD 06

You can now create a DVD from videos and photos in a single click. New themes have also been included.

GarageBand

Now with integrating podcasting studio, and new sound effects. iChat software can be used to conduct emote interviews. There is now the option of adding images or illustrations to the time-line of GarageBand. A Share menu that allows you to send music to iTunes or to iWeb (See below) in order to make a podcast.

iWeb

This new application, for creatinbg websites, includes a whole raft of templates ready for use. Publish a blog on a Mac platform in a single click. iWeb is fully RSS and the podcast compatible.

Meet the new flash memory iPod

Apple had a little surprise in mind for the foreign media attending an event this evening. We didn't find the new flash based iPod that Jobs is rumoured to unveil tomorrow at his keynote on our table. But there was this "sock", 4 by 2 inch, with a little label with "iPod" on one side and the Apple logo on the other.

An Italian colleague told me that he saw workers put up a large banner on the side of the Moscone Convention Centre in San Francisco where MacWorld is taking place, displaying the new flash based iPod, only to cover it up  later.

The device will have 1 Gb memory. And based on the size of the iSock we received, it should be pretty thin and about 4 by 2 inches in size. If you don't believe it, just wait another 8 hours (from the time of this post) we'll know for sure when Jobs delivers his keynote.

Apple warms up the crowds for Jobs keynote

Apple has released details about some less significant products in the wake of tomorrow's Steve Jobs keynote at MacWorld in San Francisco. The company unveiled an upgrade to its Xserve G5 server, now running on 2.3 Ghz 64 bits processors. The announcement was accompanied by the unveiling of another product targeted at the enterprise market: the Xsan file server that allows users to build a storage system.

The pre-release ensures that the products get some attention that they never would have gotten between tomorrow's consumer focused unveilings. The Xserve has an insignificant market share in the server market, and there is no reason to believe that will change any time soon.

Media to Apple: is there anybody out there?

Media love Apple right? After all they write positive reviews about the iPod, love the design work Apple's Johathan Ive does and side with the company in its battle against the evil empire called Microsoft.

Wrong. Most high tech reporters hate Apple. They might not hate its products, but the PR department needs a dose of reality for sure. The Press Club of California last year November polled its members, asking them which companies had the worst PR. Apple finished first with a commanding lead over number 2.

Apple has come up with the weirdest of all PR policies by forcing foreign media in Silicon Valley (many of which live only miles away from Apple's head quarters) to contact the Apple PR department in their home countries if they have questions. There are more companies with PR policies that leave much to be desired, but Apple has taking non-PR to a new level.

Correspondents for major foreign media outlets have been kept out of official Apple events for no reason.

The problem isn't however limited to foreign correspondents, US media too are frustrated with the company. Try asking one of the 17 Apple PR reps in Cupertino a question and you can be certain to NEVER receive an answer.

One correspondent (he shall remain unnamed) recently suggested Apple the perfect solution: give him a written statement in which Apple declared that, regardless of his questions, Apple would have "no comment." It would save him the arduous task of calling, sending an email to remind Apple of the call, calling a gain, and then finally write in his story that Apple didn't respond to his request for comment. It was the only time that Apple actually DID respond to him.

Some correspondents now are saying enough is enough. This MacWorld they plan a revolution against the Apple PR machine that creates a buzz by letting the rumour mill spin out of control prior to the event (after all, I bet anyone that a 500 dollar Apple desktop computer is a pile of bull #@%$. If anything, it's going to be some kind of overpriced media adapter that works only with iTunes and other pieces of the proprietary Apple product line up).

Instead, expect some stories to pop up exposing Apple's dirty little PR secret (yes, you can consider this to be one of them). In an age where media are faced with an ever-increasing army of PR that tries to prevent the real story from getting in the way of the press release, correspondents are saying Apple has crossed the line.

Hopefully Apple CEO Steve Jobs will – for once – listen.

Full disclosure: Silicon Valley Sleuth uses Apple hardware and software, as has been disclosed in several previous posts to this blog. I am vendor agnostic. A computer just has to work, regardless of the brand of processor or the flavour of its operating system.
My home network (try looking for the one with the SSID buggeroff) contains hardware made by every vendor known to the universe and I in fact use a Microsoft keyboard and mouse with my iMac. Apparently an ergonomic keyboard and two button, scroll wheel mouse don't fit in with Apple's vision of aesthetic computer design.

And yes, this post was self-serving. I too like being treated like a human being by Apple PR.