Apple Announces New Hardware & Software

Apple announced at MacWorld 2006 that for the holiday quarter they sold 14 million iPods - 3 times as many as they sold in the same period a year ago.

Apple announced a new iPod Radio Remote that enables you to recieve radio on your iPod. I still don't really understand why so many people want this (or think they want it). I personally use the iPod to get away from radio. The remote is powered by the iPod and has a wired remote that looks identical to the new Apple Remote and iPod Shuffle. The interface is very well done with a digital readout of station you have tuned-in as well as a simulated analog readout. You tune the stations in using the jog wheel and can save favorites. Very slick.

But the biggest announcement was new kick-ass iMacs and the new MacBook Pro computers based on the Intel Dual Core processor. 2-3 times faster than the PowerPC processor, these machines will run OS X AND Windows! The new MacBook Pro is the successor to the PowerBook line, sports a built-in iSight web cam, Dual Core Intel processor, Front Row software and the new Apple Remote. The iMac features remain the same, but have now sport a speedy Dual Core Intel processor as well. Once I accidentally run over my employer-issued IBM Stinkpad, it WILL be replaced by a MacBook Pro.

iLife gets a major upgrade with the addition of iWeb - a program to quickly create web pages, blogs, etc. iLife will also include easy single-click conversion of any video to an iPod. iPhoto will let you do "photocasting", and much much more. The Apple web site has been swamped so I haven't had a chance to learn all the details.