No matter what Apple releases, no one is ever satisfied.

[simX]

When looking over this site, the majority of comments I see about this keynote is the $100/year charge ($50/year for the first year if you are an existing iTools member) for .Mac .

NOT ONCE have I seen somebody mentioning iCal or iSync in a post, besides mine. This is sad. iCal ROCKS, from what I saw. I can't WAIT to get my hands on this application. No more goofing off with Palm Desktop and not actually wanting to organize myself. iCal will be a godsend. And did you see those web features? Sending calendar data, viewing multiple calendars on top of one another, one-click posting of calendars? That's so awesome! And all of that is free, as usual!

Come to think of it, I think I'll probably pay Apple the $100/year subscription just for providing me with 6 (read it, SIX -- iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iSync, iCal) free digital hub applications. Think of it as paying for these awesome applications, and getting free internet services to boot.

iSync is going to rock too. No more Palm Desktop at all anymore! I don't need that ho-hum application -- now I can sync my cell phone (which I will never, in my right mind, buy), PDAs, and even my iPod (which I currently have) with all calendar, address book, etc. data. All with Jaguar being released in late August and iSync being released in September. That's going to rule!

And while I knew a lot about all the features of OS X 10.2 already (I TOLD EVERYONE IT WAS GOING TO BE CALLED 10.2!!), I liked the demos of iChat, Mail (even though it didn't work ), and iTunes w/Rendezvous. The Rendezvous network printing demo was amazing, too. I can't wait for things like that to come out.

The last thing that I almost jumped for joy about: the iMac wide-screen edition. It has a 17" flat-panel with a wide-aspect ratio, AND it has a GeForce 4MX card to boot! (No processor speed upgrade, but that's OK.) All that for $1999, just a smidge under 2 grand before taxes. That's an awesome deal.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: 20 gig iPods at $499 with solid-state scroll wheel, remote, and better headphones. 10 gig iPods with solid-state wheel, remote, and better headphones for $399!! 5 gig iPods with better headphones (no remote or solid-state scroll wheel) for ___$299___. Wow!


Now, when I look at what I said above, all I can say is this:

All of you who are lamenting the fact that you won't be able to have a free mac.com e-mail address anymore: I feel your pain. But when you blow it out of proportion, it's just downright idiotic. Just once could you think about the incredible amounts of time put into developing iCal, iSync, and iTunes 3.. and you get that all for free? Now is a $100/year fee THAT MUCH for the added benefit you get with those digital hub applications? I think not.

As I said before, think of the annual fee as paying for the 6 awesome digital hub applications.

And get some perspective, too. .Mac is not grounds for switching platforms (and you'd be really moronic for thinking that .Net is going to be any better!).

Thank you.

By the way, I might add that I think Apple should, at the very least, continue to leave mac.com e-mail addresses free of charge. Maybe reduce the space to 3 MB or something. I'm not defending Apple in this decision, just putting it in perspective. If we Mac users shout, we WILL get our voice heard, and maybe Apple will relent on this. But if you expect Apple to keep hosting all your data on their servers for free, you really need to get a good look at the state of the technology market today. It's a wonder that Apple did this for so long.

[Izzy]

haha...I can see you needed to get that off your chest SimX ;-)

I agree with you for the most part, but I suspect that reason you don't hear rave reviews about some of the things you mentioned is that for people like me they aren't going to be much of a factor. I don't have a PDA...I don't do scheduling on my computer, and I still (prepare yourself) use a paper organizer *gasp* ;-)

I don't see myself ever using iCal or iSync...at least not in the near future. I would be more than happy to plunk down $100 (if I had it) in appreciation for the iApps (that do rock)...but I simply can't do that every year. I barely make it on the student loan money I get now, and I can't afford this on top of my ISP cost, cable TV, car payment, gas, electric, water, etc...

I am excited about Jaguar and can't wait to get my hands on it...but once again, if it's 130 bucks I don't see that happening any time soon (hopefully I'll get a cheaper upgrade price for students or something).

So don't get me wrong...I'm sure there are a lot of people here excited about the things announced at the expo...it's just that the monetary aspect might have dampened spirits a smidge.

[bubbajim]

If you look at it that way.. your right it's a sweet deal.

But if you think about it when they first came out with @mac.com and gave it to us for free. We all thought Apple was wonderful for providing us this great service. Once we got hooked on it, now they want to charge for it.

This is my gripe. If mac mail was a fee service from the beginning, I would have zero issues with this, but now I have to tell everyone that I am changing my email address (yet again). There is absolutely no way that I will pay $100 a year just so that I use a @mac.com email address. I will not now nor ever have a need for any of their other services. I just do need them.

I think this is where a lot of people are not happy with. Not everyone needs a bundled package of services. Not everyone uses every free program that Apple provides. Not everyone plucks free $100 dollar bills from a tree.


Apple is a wonderful company and I wish them no harm, but they are making a bad move by cutting off this basic service. If you have read the complaints you may notice that they all pertain to email... not that they are going to lose iDisk... not that they are going to lose their webspace...

Just voicing out my opinion and my feelings. SimX is still correct though and that Apple has done a lot in terms of free apps, but I wonder how that will look in a couple of years. iPhoto for $49, iCal for 49, etc... or maybe just a bundled suite called iApps for $199. Just remember, if they can do it now with iTools (once free now $100) what will stop Apple from doing it to all their free services and apps???

[LordOphidian]

iCal doesn't impress me, its nice to have a vendor neutral calendar app, but what details that are available now are pretty slim and it doesn't seem to have any reall advantage over Palm Desktop (save for the pretty colors) or Entourage. The way that the appointments overlap looks like it was done because it looks good, and not because it makes it any easier for the user to view them. When it comes out I willl definatly check it out, but for now, with the Entourage Hotsync update, Entourage will work fine with me.

One big question I have is wheter it will use a standard calendar format, so that I can set up a webdav server and publish my calendar to clients other than iCal.

Oh, and most of us rational thinkers knew it was going to be 10.2, you didn't have any big news for us there, but it is interesting that they have the lepard print on the box, and from I can see it looks like it still says Jaguar on the box.

One other thing, what the hell is a solid state scroll wheel? Does it no longer move and just senses your finger moving around the disk, or is it something else. How does this improve it from the one it had before?

[xaqintosh]

and it is pathetic that we (yes, WE) are treating Apple so poorly. After all they've done for us? come one!

btw, it would be more cost effective to get the 10 gig one than the five gig one, because a remote plus a case would probably be $100 on the spot, so pay for the 10 gig and get 100% more space along with accessories.

[Captain Code]

I agree. Most people blow everything way out of proportion.

I hope that Apple will still let us keep our mac.com email addresses though.

iCal is cool, but I don't really like how the orange/blue/red blobs look. Maybe they look better in person, but on the stream, I didn't like how it looked very much.

iSync is cool as well, but I don't have a BlueTooth cellphone, PDA, or similar device.
In fact, I haven't even seen a phone in stores around here that has BlueTooth.

Rendesvouz(whatever ) is awesome, and I can't wait till that comes out.
Can't you just imagine the university networks full of Macs, with students sharing all their music over the network.

All in all, this was a good keynote. I think that people have come too used to seeing new Apple hardward announced. Apple has never said that they will always announce new software at a Macworld keynote, so there's no real reason to be disappointed.

[dtmdoc]

at first i admit i wasnt all too happy re: .Mac and charging
100 / year. However, SimX... u are right. Considering
what we get for free does make up for it. And I'm looking
forward to iCal myself.

thanks for putting it all into a different perspective.

[xaqintosh]

macs are a Luxury, unlike Wintels.