This year, Steve Jobs had some great surprises for us. Who could guess that Apple would launch 12 inch and 17 inch Powerbooks? That's amazing! Apple is definitely the leader of laptop computers for a long time. I wonder if a second processor can easily fit in that new 17" Powerbook ;). As expected, there were no new iMacs and no new PowerMacs but don't be sad, Apple should upgrade both of its desktop lines very soon, let's say in some weeks.

So what about software? I mentioned in my article of January the 3rd that Apple would focus on software for this year and although they launched two amazing hardware products I wasn't so wrong. The biggest part of the keynote was dealing with software.

As predicted, iPhoto 2.0 and iMovie 3.0 were released. They both bring amazing features and integration between them. So does iDVD 3.0 which is one of the releases that hasn't been mentioned by any of my sources.

ThinkSecret had predicted a bundle of iAppz that is finally iLife which includes iTunes 3.0, iPhoto 2.0, iMovie 3.0 and iDVD 3.0. I'm happy that iLife costs only $50. I think it is a really great price when considering the quality of these Applications.

As you noticed on my article of January the 3rd, I hadn't a lot of details on the Final Cut Pro related new release I only knew there would be a new version and... here it is: Final Cut Express! This new version which doesn't include all Pro features but costs only $299 is welcome. I think Apple understood that there was a market between consumers and professionals and I think other releases will come for this market during the year.

iTraks is one of the applications that may be oriented to the same market as Final Cut Express. It seems it's scheduled for NAMM in late January or for later during this year. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new iLife-like bundle for this particular market.

"An Apple branded web browser" is one of the first topics I reported on more than six months ago when I launched this site. Now it's not longer a rumor, It's not iWeb, it's not iBrowse, It's Safari! And I think it's a cool name for a cool browser, isn't it? Internet Explorer has just been ejected from my dock but is still on my hard drive. Safari is already my default browser hopping I will only have to launch IE once every month for some sites that won't work.

Another surprise is "Keynote". This doesn't sound like an iApp, it's simply the first office related application released by Apple (if you don't count iCal as an office app). I wonder if it's not the first application of a future bundle called... iOffice? Many readers wrote me to tell me that my "Apple branded office suite" rumor is becoming reality and that Keynote is the first step to that.

There is something that wasn't announced but is really big news for Mac OS X users and developers. Apple released on its web site X11 for Mac OS X public beta. It allows you to run application that come from the UNIX world and that still use X11 windowing system instead of Apple's Quartz and Aqua. There is already a port of X11 on Mac OS X called XDarwin, but the one Apple gives is much more stable and makes them use Quartz and OpenGL to display graphics, it's really faster this way. I downloaded and tried it with OpenOffice and it just runs fine on it with Aqua-like Windows and overall improved performance.

If you know more than me about iTraks, next Apple office appz or anything that is related with Apple software and Mac OS X, don't forget to mail me here!