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| Greg Lefevre: Apple's Steve Jobs admits 'late to the party'
CNN's San Francisco Bureau Chief Greg Lefevre is covering the Macworld Expo where Apple's CEO Steve Jobs introduced a number of new innovations and products Tuesday. Q. What is at stake for Apple right now? LEFEVRE: Nearly everything. PC sales in the U.S. are slowing down and Apple is suffering perhaps more than other PC makers. In his keynote address, Steve Jobs admitted, "We are late to the party, but we are here to make a leapfrog." Q. Are there any new significant Apple products? LEFEVRE: Yes, a new 500-MHz ultralight, ultrabright Powerbook. At one-inch thick with a DVD slot drive and five-hour battery, Apple considers it a breakthrough product. Apple's current PowerBook line is almost two years old -- an eternity in the PC world.
Q. Industry critics believe that the era of the PC is gone and the era of the handheld has begun. LEFEVRE: Jobs is looking for reasons for people to buy new Mac computers and in his keynote address he introduced several large, incremental improvements. First, significantly faster G4 desktop computers, one of which will write DVDs. He also unveiled new music software called iTunes that combines a number of steps into only a few for people who want to make their own music CDs. And to the cheers of some 4,000 attendees, Jobs also introduced a DVD program that allows users to collect videos and still photos onto a DVD disc by means of a very simple drag-and-drop method. Q. Why are these advances? LEFEVRE: Typical of Mac software, the items Jobs discusses make the process simpler. He repeatedly emphasized Apple's ease-of-use philosophy. For example, the software that assembles music and writes it onto a CD combines what used to be 10 to 15 steps into just three or four. Q. What about OS X? LEFEVRE: The long-delayed new operating system has been given a release date of March 24. Apple has modified and remodified this program many times. The most notable change is the speed and reliability of the new operating system. However, the appearance -- commonly referred to as the "look and feel" -- of OS X was so different from OS 9, the current release, that some Mac users objected. Apple responded by combining some of the older look as an option to the newer version. Jobs said this combines the familiar look of the current operating system with the speed and reliability of the new one. Q. Any new desktop computers? LEFEVRE: Jobs announced upgrades of current G4 computers with a speed range of 466 MHz to 733 MHz. All will have CD read-write capabilities. All will have advanced graphics capabilities. All will have Apple's iMovie video editing software. And the top model, the 733-MHz one, will also have a Pioneer "Superdrive" capable of writing DVDs that will play in any home consumer DVD player. Q. Is this enough to save Apple computers? LEFEVRE: Jobs believes so, saying he believes the Macintosh computer can be used in the home to link a variety of home digital devices. For example, linking DVD players, MP3 portable music players, handheld PDAs like Palm and Handspring, digital cameras and home video cameras. The Mac, he says, serves to link these devices feeding to and from them, enhancing what he calls the "age of the digital lifestyle." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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