Macworld Expo--The Show Floor #1

Where to start? I spent all day Thursday visiting booths, meeting PR people and picking up scoop from people like the ice cream lady. I'm not going to just give you one liners on the zillion things that were there but cover fewer substantial things in a bit more depth. Still, there's more than I can possibly write for today's edition so my show floor report will be updated later today and it will probably spill over into the weekend edition as well. I also took a bunch of digital photos and I plan to post them using the automatic photo gallery feature of Apple's iTools HomePage. First, I'll mention a treat that I learned from the ice cream lady along with something related that Andrew Shalat who writes for MacWEEK told me:

Apple Hardware Update--"Secret" Power Spots: The new Apple keyboard has no power key, Andrew told me as he was sitting next to me in the press room trying to post his story--his Earthlink account wasn't cooperating over the phone line and all the iMacs with ethernet were occupied. I wondered out loud how one turns on and off the new Macs and then it came to me. I was on line getting email and promised not to scoop him and the story should be up by now [Here it is.--Bill]. As he left to find another way to connect to the internet, I shared with him what the ice cream lady told me when I asked her if she had seen and liked the new G4 Cubes: "There's a secret spot on the top of the new G4 Cubes that causes it to go off." She said. "I did it accidentally while I was feeling the heat coming from the vents and I thought I had broken it." I had filed this information away to check out later, not really believing it. It was getting to be late for my train but I raced upstairs from the press room to the Apple "booth", a huge area front left as you come in. Sure enough, there is no power key on the new keyboard and the top of the G4 Cube was inscribed with a small icon of a power key but there is no button. I touched the icon, it began to glow green and the G4 Cube went to sleep with the area around the icon slowly pulsating green--really cool! I touched a key and the G4 Cube awakened.

The Apple person staffing the area pointed out that the same icon is etched on the lower right front of the new monitors, no button. Touch the icon and the same thing happens, the G4 Cube sleeps. Apparently, the only way to shut them off entirely is to select "Shutdown" in the "Special" menu. According to the Apple Staff Member, this feature is on all the new Macs although I didn't get a chance to go back and look because I had to rush off to catch my train home. Earlier I had noted on the new Power Mac G4 MP that the power button (it may not be a button since I didn't touch it) is blue in color rather than ice that glows green as with the original Power Mac G4s and Blue & White Power Mac G3s. I don't recall a button on the new snow-colored iMac DV SE but there may have been one.

New Apple Hardware--Hands-On Report: The first place I went when the floor opened at 10am was Apple's area. The new iMac DV SE looks fabulous in snow, a translucent white. I have one in graphite which looks very impressive but I think the snow color is even more impressive. The snow-colored iMac was running the latest beta of Mac OS X and AppleWorks 6. The Apple staff person talked me through its paces and I was impressed. Mac OS X is getting very Mac OS-like and there are still many months to the final version (I'm cynically guessing next June). The new iMac DV SE has a 500 MHz G3 and ran Mac OS X very well, quickly and crisply. The new indigo and ruby colors are a bit rich for me but I am sure they will appeal to some, actually I hope they will appeal to a lot. Gone are tangerine and grape or some equivalent but I like the new sage color almost as much as graphite and much, much better than the older lime.

As I already mentioned the main exterior cue to the new Power Mac G4 MP is the blue power button. Otherwise it is pretty much the same, no bulging sides as had been rumored, and with the same somewhat chintzy door and tray for the DVD drive that originated on the B&W G3's 18 months ago. Inside, the most apparent change is the roughly 50 per cent larger heat sink covering the dual G4 CPU's.

The G4 Cube is a dream machine. It will definitely be THE computer for the executive suite of many (most?) companies and for those who want its compelling design and power more than PCI card expandability. Yours truly is unabashedly enamored with the G4 Cube's visual design and its incredible engineering. Aside from the cool touch sensitive sleep spot, the only other thing worth adding to Wednesday's report is that it has two video ports, one for the new Apple Display Connector and one for a regular VGA monitor connector. However, in my opinion one of the new Apple displays is a must to retain the elegance of the G4 Cube's design.

The delivery end of the new 17" CRT display is as flat as an LCD. In fact, from the front it looks just like the new 15" LCD and 22" Cinema displays. It's deeper than an iMac, so one can see why there's no 17" iMac yet, and clear graphite like the iMac DV SE. For $499, this is a terrific monitor. My favorite is the new 15" LCD that looks, except for the size, exactly like the Cinema display. All right, I do like the 22" Cinema display best but its $4000 price tag keeps reality from giving way. The 22" must be super for developers but is a bit large for the executive desk as is the 17" CRT. The 15" LCD is perfect since it fits with the G4 Cube's design theme of minimizing a computer's obtrusiveness and cable clutter while lookin' good! Finally, I'll add that Apple's new Display Connector and single video/USB/power is ingenious. The connector's cable attachment pivots 90 degrees or more and snaps on with two side buttons to press for removal--no more stupid screws to deal with. I sure hope this becomes the industry standard display connector.

3dfx, Inc.--Voodoo5: I visited 3dfx's booth next as I wanted to make sure that I got one of their new Voodoo5 graphics accelerator cards designed ground-up for the Mac if they had any for sale. No luck. I was told that they were still 2-4 weeks away from delivery. They had dual 22" Cinema displays (I saw so many Cinema displays at MWE that the price has just got to come down) comparing the Voodoo5 card with ATI's Rage 128 Pro using the Star Wars 3D Pod Racer game. The ATI wasn't bad but the Voodoo5 was clearly superior. The 3dfx booth had virtually every popular game on display using the new card. I watched and played "Deus Ex", Aspyr Media's new first person shooter and was hooked. I immediately went across the aisle to Aspyr's booth and bought Deus Ex for the show special price of $40. I wanted to look at ATI's Radeon 256 and nVidia's 3D graphics offerings but neither of their booth's were listed in the program and I didn't come across them in my wanderings, my only disappointments at this year's MWE.

PowerLogix--BlueChip G3 for PowerBook G3s: This is a brand new CPU upgrade for early models in the PowerBook G3 Series (not Kanga, the original G3) from the 233 MHz model through the 300 MHz model (i.e. Wall Street and Main Street). The BlueChip G3 CPU runs at 500 MHz with 1 MB of backside cache running at 250 MHz and it transforms the older models in the PowerBook G3 Series into a screamer equivalent to today's fastest PowerBook (Firewire) 2000. MacBench 5.0 processor scores are in the 1500's. Installation is simple as the old CPU just pops out and the BlueChip snaps into its place. If you invest in a PC card Firewire port, the 500 MHz BlueChip is a very cost effect way of updating your PowerBook to the near equivalent of today's PowerBook (Firewire), there's no built in AirPort, of course, and the older models are heavier. The 500 MHz model costs $699 and will be available at the end of July according to PowerLogix's Robin Sharp. There is also a 466 MHz model of BlueChip for $599. PowerLogix staff showed me how easy it is to open the PowerBook G3's case and to install the BlueChip. I played with the demo for a while and it seemed every bit as fast or faster than my new 400 MHz Pismo. PowerLogix is still working on making the BlueChip G3 upgrade compatible with the PowerBook G3 1999 (Lombard) and PowerBook (Firewire) 2000 (Pismo). Look for a Macs Only! Hands-On Review in the near future.

Keyspan--Firewire Cards and Other Things Mac: I had an interesting conversation with Mike Ridenhour, President of Keyspan. As many of you may know, Keyspan was the first company to bring PCI serial ports to the Mac and the first with USB ports for legacy PCI Power Macs with licensed Apple drivers. Keyspan makes great Mac stuff and we have reviewed a number of their products. A PCI 3+ port Firewire card ($89) and a Firewire port PC CardBus PowerBook card ($139) are the latest offerings. The unique aspect of Keyspan's PCI Firewire card is that it has 4 ports, one internal and three external, while only three can be used at a time. The top external Firewire port trades off with the internal port a neat engineering idea that always makes at least three ports available. Both Firewire cards ship with QuickTime Pro so all of QuickTime's video editing features are available right out of the box. We recently reviewed Keyspan's terrific Digital Media Remote. Keyspan is reengineering the receiver and is planning a significant price cut for the DMR this fall. In terms of the future, Keyspan is looking into Bluetooth, the wireless appliance technology that is getting big in cell phones and will soon spread to other appliances.

Look for another installment of our Macworld Expo Show Floor Report later today.