Some Mac news at last!
11 August 2007

"The iMac is a computer, for goodness sake, it's got a screen, a keyboard and a mouse and it runs programs. Short of painting it pink and having it make the coffee for you what could Apple have done, exactly, to make you go wobbly at the knees?"

So on Tuesday 7 August Apple unveiled the widely anticipated new iMac. It's got an aluminium case (or "aloominum" as Steve Jobs called it) and is thinner. The keyboard design leaked by Apple Insider is included. "You may have seen this on the web" joked Steve.

There has been much talk on the forums since Tuesday that this update isn't anything to shout about. Well what (I have to ask) were you expecting? The iMac is a computer, for goodness sake, it's got a screen, a keyboard and a mouse and it runs programs. Short of painting it pink and having it make the coffee for you what could Apple have done, exactly, to make you go wobbly at the knees? Have these people totally lost their grip on reality, or what? The alooooooominum and scratch-resistant glass enclosure is more environmentally friendly (no doubt Al Gore's influence) has a higher spec, new very nice casing and a lower price. I fail to see what else they could've done.

Thankfully, the moaners are in the minority perhaps expecting touch screen technology like that found in the iPhone. Pressed on this matter, however, Apple execs said that this is something that is very much inside their labs and may or may not find its way into a desktop computer. As the great Steve Wozniak commented recently, the keyboard and mouse really is the best way to communicate with a computer and is likely to stay that way for some time to come.

A good friend of mine has just placed an order for one of these shiney new machines and I'll no doubt report back on what he thinks of it soon. I've read that the keyboard (which is very MacBook like) is actually a joy to use. I'm pleasantly surprised by that and look forward to more news as it comes.

Also announced on Tuesday were new versions of iWork and iLife. As expected Apple have missed out '07 as the suffix and instead gone for '08. All the apps have seen updates but probably the most striking changes are the addition of a spreadsheet to iWork called Numbers and a totally new version of iMovie in iLife. The demo of Numbers at the keynote I've since watched on-line looked simply stunning. Spreadsheets done the way they were meant to be perhaps? User friendly to us mere mortals? No doubt purists will point out features in Excel that are missing from Numbers but as only corporate financial demi gods are ever likely to use such tools the rest of us won't be too bothered.

I placed my order for the new iLife suite on the day of release encouraged by the list of new features especially in iMovie and iPhoto (I don't use GarageBand or iWeb). I've only had the software for a few days now but I have to report that it's worth the £55 upgrade fee - for me anyway.

iMovie has been totally re-written from the ground up. In a move that will bring tears to your eyes the story goes that an Apple engineer came back from a diving vacation (I believe that's some kind of holiday) and wanted to create a quick movie to show his friends and family. He realised that the task would be possible in iMovie 06 but would take him a few hours to complete. If you believe the hype, he also tried using Final Cut but unsurprisingly this didn't allow him to make a quick film either. Apparently he decided to write a whole new application to allow him to make quick films. Apple execs were so impressed with it that they called it iMovie 08 and dumped the old version. I don't know about you, but I expect it's still quicker to spend 2 or 3 hours making a film in iMovie 06 than 6 months writing new software and then 10 minutes making the film. <grin> But at least his friends got to see the footage of his trip eventually.

Using iMovie 08 is so easy it's almost ridiculous. I thought the old version was good, but this is in a league of its own. And this is coming from someone who used to use semi-professional software (Media Studio Pro) before switching from Windows. I can hardly scratch the surface here so watch the iLife guided tour available at www.apple.com/uk/ilife/ and see for yourself.

The update to iPhoto is more subtle but still really good news for me. There's a new feature called "Events" that cleverly (and usefully) stores your pictures as a series of, er..., events! By simply dragging your mouse over a thumbnail of the event you can quickly see all the pictures in it. Genius! I'm also pleased to see the tools improved to include a proper date shifting facility (previously you couldn't apply the same offset to a bunch of pics) and also a bulk rename option with a number appended automatically. Very pleased about that as I like to name pictures in such a way so that they will come up in Spotlight searches not just in iPhoto searches.

The new Macs and updated software are great. Really good news for Mac owners and a promise of bright things to come. With reports that Apple sold more Macs between April and June this year than in any previous quarter in their history is fantastic. Long may it continue. Roll on October and Leopard I say!