New Macbook Pros from apple

With WWDC Less than a week away apple has Just announced an update to their Macbook pro line which has proven to be a very exciting update.
Although there is still no Blu-ray drives on these computers an update to the DVD player software could quickly make the 17 inch Macbook pro a decent option to go along with an external drive.

Along with a new Geforce graphics chip, Display upgrades including LED backlighting for 15 inch models the Macbook pro also sees a small boost in processor speed and a 4 GB memory limit up from 3 GB.

The 2.4 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:


15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440-by-900 LCD display;
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;
160GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
built-in iSight video camera;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;
Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
the infrared Apple Remote; and
85 Watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.
The 2.4 GHz, 17-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:


17-inch widescreen 1680-by-1050 LCD display;
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;
160GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
built-in iSight video camera;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;
Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
the infrared Apple Remote; and
85 Watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.

introducing itunes plus... from apple

itunes plus is apple's new DRM free high quality music format, The lack of DRM on the files will essentially allow users to do what ever they please with the music.
Even if they want to put it on their new Zune or PSP for example, granted they may have to convert the format a little.

This announcement comes about with the release of itunes 7.2 which is available for Mac and Windows on apple.com as usual.
Currently only EMI is bringing out DRM free music this way however high sales may prompt other record labels to follow suit.
We may still see DRM in our lives for years to come but this could potentially be the beginning of the end of DRM.

Lets hope the Movie industry does the same these Dinosaurs are going to make themselves go under if their not careful.

Final Cut Studio 2 is here, And it's Amazing

If anyone was wondering why apple was taking so long with it's latest update to the Final Cut series they need not think any longer because this latest update is proof that it was worth the wait.
Not only have we gotten updates of our same old favorites we one again have a new entry to the bundle "Color".
Color is a high end Color correction tool which naturally is seamlessly mixes in with the previous final cut pro work flow and as to be expected 32 bit float rendering.

Apple has also announced Final Cut Server, A media management app which has clients on both Mac and PC which may finally give those stubborn Avid users a reason to give Final Cut a look.

Along with this AJA Kona is set to bring out an HD IO box which is portable enough to bring it with you in the field and has native support for apples new ProRes HD 4:2:2 codec allowing you to pretty much take your 4k footage onto a macbook pro and start editing it whilst still on location.
If you prefer however Final cut pro will cut the REDCODE codec natively for those of you who don't want to lose the benefits of the 4:4:4 compression.

Although there doesn't seem to be any support for authoring Blu-ray disk in DVD studio pro perhaps it could be added in a future update or something.
If I am somehow able to get the money together I may be using this for my 48 hours movie this year but I don't mind if I don't as I still want to get some projects edited out of this version to make the purchase worth while.

Development of the iphone has Delayed the OS 10.5 release

"iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned.

We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.

While Leopard's features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait.

Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones. "

Although I am disappointed by this announcement I hope it means that the iPhone will be a highly polished product worth the $600 their going to charge for it.

This will probably be $900 NZD in my case, I should also have a lot more time to save up for a macbook pro or something.

100 million ipods sold

As of today Apple inc. Has sold it's 100 millionth ipod, Thus making the ipod the fastest selling music player in History.
Released in 2001 the ipod has had 10 different generations and 5 different models.

“It’s hard to remember what I did before the iPod,” said Mary J. Blige, GRAMMY Award-winning singer. “iPod is more than just a music player, it’s an extension of your personality and a great way to take your favorite music with you everywhere you go.”

I myself own a 30 GB ipod and I can say with out a doubt that the ipod is the best portable music device that money can buy.

Every ipod features seamless integration with the itunes 7 software available on both Mac OS and Windows.
The itunes music store which is built into the device gives you access to the world’s largest catalog with over five million songs, 350 television shows and over 400 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over 2.5 billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store.

Apple also plans to enter the gigantic mobile phone market with the launch of it's revolutionary iphone which is slated for release some time in june.