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 Copyright © 1998-99 Shiro Wilde |
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Apple started off the new year with a slew of product announcements and good news. At Macworld San Francisco, Steve Jobs launched the new Power Mac G3. Featuring 300-400 MHz copper G3 processors, on-board FireWire, USB, and the new ATI RAGE 128 video chip, these machines are built for speed and expandability. A new translucent blue and white plastic casing, and 3 new matching Apple Studio Displays complete Apple's shift to "no-beige". Mac OS X Server has finally debuted and will ship next month, featuring net-booting, Apache web server, and WebObjects. Apple announced a massive commitment to games, including a major boost for developers: the licensing of OpenGL from SGI for inclusion in future versions of the Mac OS. The new 'Revision C' 1999 iMac has been bumped up to 266 MHz with a 6 GB hard drive, shed infra-red support, and costs $100 less. It's now available in 5 colours (blueberry, tangerine, lime, strawberry, and grape). An advert on Apple's web site, "It was a bug, Dave" stars HAL 9000 and highlights the Mac's Y2K compliance. Final Cut Pro, the digital video editing package acquired from Macromedia last year, has finally been announced and should ship this spring. Mac OS 8.5.1 Update squashes some bugs in Mac OS 8.5 - download it now. |
Macromedia shipped Director 7 and Dreamweaver 2 at the end of last year. Director 7 finally adds vital features users have wanted for years: alpha-channel transparency, full 360-degree sprite rotation, flipping, scaling, anti-aliased vector support, and font embedding. Director 7 now offers 1000 channels, a Library palette, support for QuickTime 3, Flash 3 and Animated GIFs, Lingo syntax colouring and the modern "dot syntax" familiar to users of JavaScript. Internet support has been improved with Shockwave 7 and "Save as Java", with auto-updating plug-ins and smaller file sizes. Dreamweaver 2 offers site management, workgroup management and templates for collaborative authoring, and support for XML. It also features e-commerce integration with several dynamic/database publishing solutions like Cold Fusion, and next month it will have support for WebObjects. A Dreamweaver 2 Trial is available for download. |
Adobe continues to revamp its product line, with a major upgrade to After Effects 4.0. Shipping in February, its redesigned interface closely follows Photoshop and Premiere, with improved cross-application integration. Layers (including text and effects) from Photoshop and Illustrator are completely preserved in After Effects 4. Boosting their professional web software range, last week Adobe acquired GoLive Systems, makers of CyberStudio web authoring software. |
Connectix launched its incredible Virtual Game Station at Macworld - a $49 emulator that allows you to play Sony PlayStation games on Apple Power Mac G3s. About 100 of the 350 games available for the PlayStation will be compatible with CVGS when it ships around February - Connectix maintains a list of compatible games. An official reaction from Sony is still unknown - rumours suggest they may sue Connectix, though considering CVGS will increase Sony's revenues from game sales, this would seem counterproductive. |
Microsoft used Macworld to launch the new Mac-only versions of Internet Explorer 4.5 and Outlook Express 4.5, its free web browser and e-mail client. No new Internet technologies have been added - only usability and interface improvements. IE now offers vastly improved printing with a new Print Preview window, Forms AutoFill for frequently used form-based personal information, and integration with Sherlock. Changes to Outlook Express are minor, but include better import capabilities, and coloured quoted text. |
America Online continues to expand its Internet presence. AOL purchased Netscape for US$4.2 billion in November, acquiring their browser software and Netcenter portal. Netscape will operate mostly unchanged, as a separate division of AOL. Surprisingly, MSIE will remain as default browser for AOL's proprietary services. Also, Sun Microsystems will collaborate with AOL and Netscape to produce e-commerce solutions. In June 98, AOL bought Mirabilis and ICQ, the popular chat/messaging software (with 13 million users), for US$400 million. |
PointCast, one of the leading proponents of "Push Media", exited the Mac market last month. Citing the small number of Mac users of PointCast Network (16,000), they said it could no longer offer them a quality service. This follows the departure of Berkeley Systems' After Dark Online (completely discontinued) and Marimba's Castanet (exited the Mac market) over the past year. Thus the "Push" era, for the Mac at least, has ended. |
The final word is that before Rave Racer and Ridge Racer, there was... Road Racer! Seriously though, this year will see a surge of games for the Mac. Apple has finally put the right tools in place for developers, many of whom are now realising the potential of the Mac market. Gamers have serious hardware options available and with the added bonus of CVGS, we also have PlayStation games running on G3s. Say goodbye to Road Racer! |
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