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It's Done-- And It's FREE (3/22/01)
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You didn't really think Uncle Steve could officially introduce Mac OS X to the press yesterday without giving us drooling, slavering "early adopters" something to smile about, did you? Hopefully you took time out from your "Mac OS X is build 4K78 / Is not / Is so / Is not, and don't make me smack you / Is so, and you and what army?" debate long enough to catch Apple's press release (first pointed out to us by faithful viewer David Nagler) regarding the operating system's coming-out party this Saturday. Concerned that there won't be enough Mac OS X-native applications to keep you busy? Well, get happy: when Saturday rolls around, you'll be able to download a Mighty Triumvirate of Apple apps-- assuming the servers in Cupertino don't catch fire from all the traffic, of course.
Remember when we mentioned that, due to the lack of iTunes and iMovie in Mac OS X's installers, upgrading the AtAT PowerBook to Apple's latest OS would result in a fairly hefty loss of functionality? After all, other than general Internet access, our PowerBook is primarily used for playing music, editing camcorder footage, and playing DVD movies. But after yesterday's news, we can honestly say that two out of three ain't bad; Apple's engineers pulled it off, and in two days, we'll be able to download Mac OS X-ready versions of both iTunes and iMovie 2-- thus giving us something to do in Mac OS X other than play with the Genie Effect and the Dock's magnification for hours on end. Sure, we'll still need to boot back into Mac OS 9 to watch a movie, but heck, what's a little dual-booting between friends?
While we're already stoked that we won't have to wait a couple of weeks before iTuning and iMovieing with a vengeance, we're extra-tingly over our free upgrade. See, we've been using iMovie 1.x, which we snagged way back when Apple briefly made it available as a free download; we've been meaning to shell out the $50 to upgrade to iMovie 2, which has lots of nifty extra features that would suit us just fine-- but now we don't have to. Our $99 operating system purchase just netted us fifty bucks' worth of iMoviey goodness. Score!
But wait, there's more! As an extra-special bonus, Apple is also posting a free "preview version" of AppleWorks 6.1, which will give us a chance to evaluate Apple's productivity suite anew. We here at AtAT generally don't use productivity software, since we're-- you guessed it-- not productive; still, we're looking forward to seeing how AppleWorks performs as an honest-to-goodness Mac OS X application. Yessiree, these are exciting times to be a Mac geek. Pardon us while we do a little dance.
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SceneLink (2940)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/22/01 episode: March 22, 2001: Prepare to download; free Mac OS X-ready versions of iTunes, iMovie 2, and AppleWorks will hit Apple's servers on Saturday. Meanwhile, Uncle Steve lays out the schedule for the completion of Mac OS X's missing features, and somebody forgot to tell Staples not to sell Apple's new operating system until Saturday...
Other scenes from that episode: 2941: And The Rest: Coming Soon (3/22/01) Okay, so we are getting iMovie and iTunes for Mac OS X right at the operating system's launch-- just not in the box. That's fine by us, since downloading is what Tiggers do best. But lest you think that we've gone too googly-eyed over Apple finishing native versions of two of its most important consumer-oriented applications to notice that Mac OS X is still missing a few features, think again; there's still no DVD player, iTunes will let us rip and mix but it won't let us burn, and iDVD for Mac OS X is still nowhere to be seen... 2942: The Joy Of Premature Retail (3/22/01) It's official; the end of the world is at hand, so start preparing for whatever comes next. As of this past Tuesday night, discriminating Mac users agree that the best place to buy Mac software is, of all places, Staples...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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