Picking up on the October doldrums, Steve Jobs led the audience of tech press at Apple's "Back to the Mac" event through some rather interesting new releases including fresh versions of the innovative MacBook Air and a sneak peek at the brand new operating system Apple will release next summer called "Lion" (Watch for full coverage and reviews of the new releases in MacTribe Magazine and here on MacTribe.com).
The main thrust of the event seemed to highlight the bringing together of Apple's flagship product, the Mac, with the newer Apple iOS found in products like the iPhone and iPad. This included the announcement of a new Mac App Store that will launch early next year, presumably to get Mac users hooked on using apps the way iPhone and iPad users are.
MacBook AirTwo new ultralight MacBook Air laptops, one with an 11.6 screen and the other at 13.3 inches will be available starting on October 20th. The laptops will feature faster--solid state flash storage that is up to twice as fast as a typical hard drive. When introducing the two new notebooks, Job's joked "We asked ourselves: What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?" Well it looks like the results will equal a new wave of much lighter and super stylish micro laptops.
Highlights from the Announcement:
- Faster--solid state flash storage is up to twice as fast as hard drive storage
- More reliable--hard drive crashes are eliminated
- Lighter and smaller--solid state flash storage is up to 90 percent smaller and lighter than hard drives
iLife '11iLife '11 is a long awaited upgrade that will give users even more ways to make and share videos, pictures and music. iLife '11 definitely offers an improvement on the previous version, for starters it has a different new look, with a compelling set of full screen modes for Faces, Places and Events. iMovie '11 will please the aspiring video directors out there with user friendly options to edit videos and even jazz them up with custom theatrical trailers. Already an excellent little vehicle for your creative musical ideas, GarageBand '11 debuts new ways to improve your chops and create great songs with Flex Time and Groove Matching. iLife '11 is free with every new Mac, and it is available as a $49 upgrade for existing users.
Apple's New OS: Lion
The buzz of late has been all about how Apple would integrate their current operating system on the Mac, Snow Leopard, with the emerging iOS that is the blood and guts that runs the iPad and iPhone. Stop and imagine for a moment the easy flow of those touch screen attributes from your iPad or iPhone on your laptop or desktop and it seems at first blush like a nice idea. On closer inspection, however, you might start to wonder if it would even be desireable to integrate the two. Apparently Steve Jobs had the same misgivings which is why he emphasized the multi-touch trackpad for the Mac at the press event. With the announcement and sneak peek of the new Mac OS X Lion, Apple's eighth major release of their operating system, they gave us some idea of how they would integrate the two worlds but not merge them to the point where one or the other would lose its basic identity. While Lion is clearly inspired by many of the iPad's software innovations, it appears to strike a balance between the two worlds. The integration of some of the iPad iOS that is in store with the advent of Lion, like the announcement of the Mac App Store, may really shake things up in a good way.
Lion's Features:
The Mac App Store, a new way to discover, install/automatically update desktop apps.
Launchpad, a new home for all of your Mac apps; system-wide support for full screen apps; and Mission Control, which unifies Expose, Dashboard, Spaces and full screen apps into an innovative new view of everything running on your Mac, and allows you to instantly navigate anywhere.
The Mac App Store will be available for Snow Leopard within 90 days and will be included in Lion when it ships next summer.
What do you think of the new Apple releases? Tell us on Twitter!
All Images courtesy of Apple Inc.
Daniel Robillard is Editor In-Chief of MacTribe Magazine. For comments email: editor(at)MacTribe.com
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Apple Market Report
Everyone's taking a tilt at Apple. If it's not a never-ending stream of iPhone clones, it's a wave of iPad look-a-likes. You'd have thought that would be enough to pull Apple's stock price down. Not a bit of it. Apple's stock has made a very strong move towards new highs after a nasty dip which would have shaken the resolve of even the bravest investor. Since late August the stock has shot up 15%. The overall market has done pretty well and the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which Apple is part of, has done even better. Yet even still Apple has flown up even further with little apparent resistance.
Apple is still leagues ahead of its competition and it could simply be that now the market has had a look at the me-too emulators they are re-assured of Apple supremacy for quite some time. However, Apple's valuation remains lofty and for now - at least - it is trading in the $240-$280 price channel it's been stuck in for six months. Can it break out and head into the $300-$400 range? The strength of its recent rally suggests yes, its medium-term channel of trading says no. The way I look at it is Apple has gone up 500% in the last five years; it's unlikely to go up 50% from here, ever. As such, a long-term investor doesn't really need to even look. Within 10 or 20%, this is the highest Apple is ever going to get. Do you have the answer? Tell us on Twitter!
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