Bluetooth Adapter [US$49] – The most exciting announcement of the lot, Apple has finally embraced Bluetooth, a cool Personal Area Network (PAN) technology that will allow you to sync your Palm to your Mac and use your mobile phone as a modem for your PowerBook – without wires. Requires the Apple Bluetooth Technology Preview 1 software from Apple (available early April 2002).
The D-Link DWB-120M USB Bluetooth Adapter enables short-range wireless voice and data connectivity between computers and Bluetooth enabled digital devices. Personal digital assistants, cellular phones, and other devices can connect wirelessly with your Mac. In a nutshell, Bluetooth unplugs your digital peripherals and makes cable clutter a thing of the past.
iPod Software Updater 1.1 – Apple has added the ability to add contacts to your iPod courtesy of the vCard format. The Read Me file for the update describes installing contacts on the iPod as an awkward process: mount your iPod on the desktop, export vCards for the contacts you want to sync from Entourage or Outlook and drag the resulting vCards to the contacts folder on the mounted iPod. The easier way to get your contacts on the iPod is via the tiny Entourage to iPod [60kb] or Address Book to iPod [74k] AppleScripts that are available from Apple’s iPod AppleScript site. I think that I’ll stick with the QueueSync Palm conduit for Entourage for now. As far as engraving on the rear, US$50 sounds a little expensive to me.
The new iPod has a Contacts feature that lets you view names and addresses downloaded from applications like Microsoft Entourage, Palm Desktop and Mac OS X Address Book* for easy access to your personal information, wherever you happen to be. The update also adds more than 20 Equalizer presets. A higher capacity 10 GB model is now available for US$499 and Apple is offering laser engraving of a special message when you order from the online store. Add up to two lines (27 characters) of laser engraved text to the back of the iPod.
Apple Cinema 23 Display – All I can say is yum. The new Cinema 23 is an excellent upgrade to the 22-inch model that features 1920*1200 resolution. Too bad we can’t connect the digital monitor with the analog VGA connection that lives on the PowerBook G4 without a US$400 adapter. Can you say “major missed opportunity?” Hopefully the new revision of PowerBooks will include an ADC connector – or at least an adapter in the box. Could this be the same LCD as the one in the new 24.1 LCD from Sun Microsystems>
This 23-inch (viewable) thin film transistor (TFT) active-matrix liquid crystal display supports an astonishing 1920-by-1200-pixel resolution. The word “huge” doesn’t begin to cover it. Attach the new Apple Cinema HD Display to your Power Mac G4, and you’re looking at over 2.3 million digital pixels – more than enough to display high-definition (HD) content in its native format, with acres of screen real estate to spare (and yet it takes up very little space on your desk, thanks to its small footprint).
So, what do you think about Apple’s new iron?
