I make it over to Moscone Center Wednesday afternoon. A bad cold has kept me away till now. It was tough to be practical, believe me. But here I am in the bright lights, sounds and excitement of the exhibit floor. The mood is good but not as Mac Faithful-jubilent as I've seen in prior years. It is watered down a bit by iPod fans and potential switchers. That's good in the long run, of course.
I got in free. I was invited to get a free pass from someone from FileMaker and had responded that I would like one but that's the last I had heard of it. Just in case the pass was there, I went to the exhibitors area and asked them to check for my name. They asked which exhibitor and I said FileMaker. They can't find my name but proceed to make out a badge for me: Janet Tokerud, FileMaker Inc.. I hope I don't get in trouble with FileMaker later, but it's great to get in free.
OK. Let's hustle over to look at the MacBook Pro. I am standing behind someone asking questions of an Apple staff person. He's doing his best to answer. I can't help but chime in with occasional answers too. I know I shouldn't do that, but I'm a customer too, right? It is a toss up whether the staff guy knows more than I do about the MacBook Pro, but he's good looking, intelligent and cheerful about my interruptions, so I'm not complaining.
Finally, I get a chance to play with the MacBook Pro myself. Smooth as silk is how the apps feel. Especially the native apps and the FInder. Word and Photoshop running under Rosetta seem normal to me but I only use those apps occasionally. A pro used to running Photoshop with big files on a G5 dual might notice a performance hit, I don't.
Hot machine. I love the AL books, so sticking with the same design works for me. It's thinner than my 15“ AL book and a little wider. The speakers on the side look a little like the 17” size but are probably somewhere in between the 15 and 17. We got to play with Photobooth and iChat. They work very well. I like that little built-in camera. I experience a strong pull towards my wallet about then, but manage to resist. Overall, I am very impressed. This is 100% the Tiger experience I know and love, but even better and more effortless due to the snappy performance.
Next I sit through the presentation of iMac, MacBook Pro and iLife '06 at the Apple booth and it looks good. Compared to previous years, the presentation seems more salesy and geared to newbies. Quick overviews showing how easy everything is in iLife, for instance without showing any complexity at all just to make sure no one is intimidated. The problem for me is that I'm used to learning at these presentations and am not learning much more than what I already know from the keynote. I do see a lot more of the podcasting and iMovie soundtrack editing capabilities of GarageBand and they look really helpful and convenient.
Next stop, the FileMaker booth. That's my main application, so I need to know how it runs on the Intel Macs. I carefully tuck my badge into my vest to avoid revealing FileMaker Inc.. I ask a marketing guy whether FileMaker runs on the Intel Macs and he says he doesn't think so. I'm incredulous in all this fervor for the the new machines.
I check with a FileMaker engineer. He says no. No version of FileMaker will run on the Intel Macs - not yet - but they will. FileMaker is an Apple subsidiary. There is no published schedule for when it will run. FileMaker doesn't run under Rosetta either. (By the way, neither do Apple's own Pro apps which I don't remember Steve pointing out in his keynote.)
My worst fears prove true. I figured that because FileMaker is a large and complex non-Cocoa app that it wouldn't be Universal yet. But I did think it would run under Rosetta - I just was concerned about performance under Rosetta. The engineer says, FileMaker found out about the release of the Intel Macs Tuesday just like everybody else.
Warning, if you've got some favorite complex non-Cocoa applications, you might want to make sure they will run before buying a new Intel Mac.
Now, one more thing. I'm home and I just got done installing iLife '06 purchased at the San Francisco Apple Store. And I am playing with iPhoto 6. I fire it up and turn on full screen editing. I've wished for this. I want full screen all the time. It's great. It makes my photos look better. Why wouldn't I want to do that? Even though Steve said they improved iLife performance, I was wary. But no. It's speedy on my Powerbook. Way to go, Apple.
So, I'm thinking even though there will be lots of people who will need to wait for particular apps to go Universal, a lot of other people are going to buy these fast new Intel Macs. I don't really see any sales slump on this transition.
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