Hands-On Report 2--Apple Expo 2007 Paris

Apple means Business (w/Photos)

Note: The following report with photos is the final in a series of two reports (Report 1 is here) provided exclusively to Macs Only! by Thierry Lorthioir of Sparemac. Thierry is attending Apple Expo 2007 in Paris, one of our most favorite cities.

Apple Expo Paris 2007--Show Floor Part 2

Epson introduced a new printer, the D120 (above), targeted for business with claimed speeds of 37ppm for B&W and 20ppm for color.

Also new are the MultiFunction Dx7450 and Dx8450 (above). The 8650 features a 2.5 LCD and prints at 32ppm or a letter size full-bleed photo in 26 sec.

The V500 (above) is Epson's latest consumer scanner with a basic 6400DPI resolution and USB2.

Also new in the business printer line is the Aculaser CX21NF, a heavy duty network printer with details yet to be released.

Hewlett-Packard launched nine new cameras with prices from 79 to 299 Euros--HP Photosmart E337, E427, M447 qui M547, M637, HP Photosmart M737, HP Photosmart Mz67, HP Photosmart R742, HP Photosmart R847 and HP Photosmart R937.

The least expensive has 5 megapixels at about $100 while the top of the line R937 (pictured above) features a large touch screen reminiscent of the iPod touch and a Fuji 3X zoom in an ultra flat footprint. All HP Cameras come with 90 days of phone support.

Also of note are new compact photo printers at very competitive prices starting at $120 like the HP Photosmart A526 (above).

The HP Photosmart A626 (above left) and A826 (above right) come with a touchscreen and a stylus allowing customization of photos on the fly. You can write directly on your photos before printing them. HP claims 200 modes of customization. For the A826, HP Claims "Lab Quality" and a drawer that can accept 100 pages of photo paper. HP emphasize the portability of these printers and offers custom carrying bags.

HP also introduced letter size office photo printers with HP Photosmart D7260 and HP Photosmart D7460 (above). The latter includes both WI-FI and Bluetooth and allows printing from a cell phone.

At the Apple Business Innovation Pavilion a number of new solutions were introduced including 4D v11 SQL featuring over 100 new enhancements and the versatile 8 Sens, a POS application available in French and Spanish but easily adapted to English via a text module.

Aquafadas, known for its iDive digital Media Management software, introduced three new products: the VideoPier, BannerZest and PulpMotion PRO. Watch MacsOnly! for details coming soon.

Atempo, a leading data protection and archiving software company demonstrated the latest version of Time Navigator for Mac OS X.

Balao and Agena offers aquatic photography and outdoor/indoor panoramic photography for creative publishing /advertising all edited on the Mac.

The Swiss company Ewo.SA showed their latest iPod remote solution (above).

eXcinder creates cocoa base multimedia software for pros and consumers in the fields of morphing, special effects and 3D. They demonstrated Morph Age (an application for morphing/warping images and movies on Mac OS X, such as faces, and save the result to a Quick Time movie) and the impressive Magnet to customize your digital movies with a wide variety of effects.

Mark/Space, Inc. showed a demo of their new MissingSync for Symbian and introduced their new MissingSync for iPhone.

Resources SI provides a very popular booking software used widely in Museums, Parks, theater etc. It's currently available in French so we can't wait for an English version.

SmartCom showcased its new mobility and wireless connection solution WellPhone Mac. For all people, like this reporter, who often use their phone as a broadband modem on a roaming network while traveling in a car or a train, keeping up with the different scripts for each phone and network is real difficult, an understatement. For them, Wellphone identifies the phone and its network from the computer via Bluetooth and with Bonjour zero configuration. Wellphone definitely deserves an award for Best of Show.
This gem stores all phone profiles as well as over 200 network configurations. The developer claims worldwide use with a US release coming in early 2008. [Thierry Lorthioir]