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January 9, 1999
News
- As a result of MacWorld Expo and the many surprising and
genuinely exciting announcements from Apple and its partners, this past week was a great
one for Macintosh fans. The Expo itself was apparently well attended, the mood was very
upbeat and there were lots of interesting things to see—or at least read about. At
the top of the list, of course, was the surprising introduction of the new color iMacs. In
case you haven’t seen them yet—it was hard not to, to be honest—the company
is now offering a slightly souped-up version of its immensely popular iMac in one five
different colors (or flavors, as the company calls them): blueberry, grape, lime,
tangerine and strawberry. That’s blue, purple, green, orange and red for the rest of
us. Even better, the new iMacs, which feature a 266 MHz G3 and 6 GB hard drive (up from
233 MHz and a 4 GB drive), have been reduced in price to $1,199. In addition, the original
Bondi Blue-color iMac—which is slightly different in color from the new blueberry
blue—with the slightly slower processor and smaller hard drive has been cut to
$1,049. On the one hand, the new colors are nothing more than a gimmick, but I have to
admit that they’re really cool. Leave it to Apple to come up with a slick new way to
bring attention to the Macintosh.
- For serious Mac users, the big news was the introduction of
the new line of Power Macintosh G3s, which also feature a translucent plastic, space-age
look (though you’re limited to the now comparatively boring-looking Bondi Blue
color). Inside the new G3s are processors that range from 300 to 400 MHz, a new 100 MHz
system bus, room for up to 1 GB of RAM, and the first implementation of the 400 Mbit
Firewire, or IEEE 1394, on a Macintosh. The new G3s also feature the speedy ATI Rage 128
2-D and 3-D graphics accelerator equipped with 16 MB of RAM on a special 66 MHz PCI slot,
three standard 33 MHz PCI slots, two USB ports and an ADB port, but you won’t find
the old Mac serial or SCSI connectors, nor will you find a floppy drive. Prices for the
systems range from $1,599 for a 300 MHz processor, 512 K of L2 cache running at half the
speed of the processor, 64 MB of RAM, 24x CD-ROM, 6 GB hard drive up to $2,999 for a
system with a 400 MHz processor, 1 MB of L2 cache, 128 MB of RAM, 24x CD-ROM and a 9 GB
Ultra2 SCSI drive that spins at 10,000 RPMs. Probably the best feature of these new Macs,
however, isn’t the least bit technical: they include a door-like hinge on the side of
the case that gives you incredibly easy access to the computer’s innards if you want
to add memory, a plug-in card, new hard drive, or what have you. What I want to know is,
why doesn’t everyone else already have this?
- In addition to Apple’s new products, there several very
interesting third-party products announced at MacWorld. Probably the most interesting was
the Connectix Virtual Game Station, which for $49 turns any G3-based Power
Mac—including the iMac—into the equivalent of a Sony Playstation video game
machine. While the emulation won’t necessarily work with all Playstation titles, it
does work with quite a few. Even more importantly, this Mac-only program all of a sudden
turns the Mac into a much more powerful gaming computer. Look out PC gamers.
- In addition, Microsoft made some relatively important Mac
announcements at the show, introducing version 4.5 of Internet Explorer and Outlook
Express, both of which are only available on the Macintosh. IE 4.5 for the Mac
incorporates several useful enhancements including Page Holder, which lets you keep a site
full of links in a separate browser pane and then visit those links in the main window;
Form AutoFill and AutoComplete for easing the repetitious process of filling out forms
online; and numerous printing enhancements that making printing out web pages more
effective and more accurate. The new version can also automatically fix itself, a la
Office 98, and supports MacOS 8.5’s Sherlock searching technology. Similarly, Outlook
Express 4.5 has new Inbox icons to signify whether not messages have been read or not,
automatic cleanup of text from e-mail messages full of indentations or other strange
layout problems, multiple send functions, one-step install and automatic repair of IE 4.5
and Office 98 and lots more. In conjunction with the show, Microsoft also debuted a
special Mac-only web site called Mactopia at www.microsoft.com/mac.
- Intel was also in the news this week as the company
introduced faster versions of its low-cost Celeron processors and its high-end Xeon
processor. As expected, the company debuted 366 and 400 MHz Celerons and immediately most
of the major vendors introduced systems based on the new chips. According to some reviews
I read, the new chips don’t quite perform up to their Pentium II speed equivalents,
but they’re pretty darn close (and at a better price).
- The other big Intel chip news is that the official name for
the Katmai processor that the company will be debuting on March 1 is the Pentium III. The
Pentium III is virtually identical to the Pentium II, but adds support for a new set of 70
floating-point instructions that applications can take advantage of. The chip will debut
with 450 and 500 MHz models and 650 MHz versions are expected later this year.
- HP introduced five new PCs this week, all of which offer easy
Internet access features and include special links with the Yahoo web site. Starting at
$799, the HP Pavillion 4440 features a 333 MHz K6-2 processor, 64 MB of RAM, 4.3 GB hard
drive, 32x CD-ROM and two open PCI slots, all in a tiny, compact tower package. For $1,199
you get a 400 MHz Celeron with 128K of built-in L2 cache, 96 GB of RAM, a 9.6 GB drive,
and a 32x CD-ROM in the Pavillion 6460. At the high end, the 8480Z features a 450 MHz
Pentium II, 96 MB of RAM, 12.7 GB hard drive, 32x CD-ROM and built-in Zip drive for
$1,799.
- In other HP news, the company this week announced the
formation of a new division called Apollo that will focus on developing sub-$100 printers
for the low-cost PC market. Expected to debut around April of this year, the Apollo
printers will apparently use HP’s color inkjet technologies in a low-cost, stylized
package.
- Compaq also introduced several new home-oriented machines
this week, several of which are bundled with built-in home networking support. The
Presario 5600i, which starts around $1600, comes bundled with Home Phoneline Networking
Association-compatible PCI card that uses existing phone lines to build a small home
network at rates up to 1 Mbps. Additional cards are available for $49. In addition, the
5600i comes standard with an Ethernet port, two IEEE 1394 connectors, four USB ports and
DFP connector for connecting certain digital flat-panel monitors. Other Compaq models come
bundled G.Lite-compatible DSL modems that offer up 1.5 Mbit/second connection rates, but
you have to be in an area where DSL is available to use it. Here in the Bay Area there are
companies offering DSL, but the rates are very high—usually well over $100/ month for
the fastest G.lite 1.5 Mbit speeds. Compaq also introduced a $699 Presario 2286 system
that’s based on a 300 MHz PR Cyrix MII processor, and a series of new notebooks,
including the $1,499 Presario 1255, which features an 333 MHz K6-2 processor, 12.1"
passive matrix display, 32 MB of RAM, 4 GB hard drive, 24x CD-ROM and a 56K modem.
- Speaking of home networking, Deerfield software recently
debuted several new versions of their WinGate 3.0 internet proxy server software, which
lets you share a single modem of any speed and a single Internet account among several
home-networked PCs. At the low-end of the spectrum the company’s $39 WinGate 3.0 Home
lets you network 3-6 PCs over an analog, cable modem or DSL modem connection and let all
the PCs simultaneously but independently access the Internet.
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