This year's keynote in New York was nothing short of spectacular. New products, hilarious speed comparisons, great new software, and some nice reassurances, Once again, Steve jobs delivered a stellar performance.

First, he showed us too new products that should have been out a year ago. The Apple Pro mouse and keyboard really wowed the crowd. The pill shaped optical mouse's entire top acts as the button, giving it great performance and ergonomics. The keyboard is a full sized Apple extended keyboard, with extra keys for volume control and disk ejection. These input devices will come with every new Mac, and are available for separate purchase from the Apple Store for $59 each.

Next, Steve Jobs brought out Apple's Vice President of Marketing, Phil Schiller, for some of the funniest speed comparisons I have ever seen. First, they pitted a 500 MHz G4 against a 1000 MHz Pentium III in a multi-tool Photoshop script. The Pentium lagged behind from the start, and finished the script in 124 seconds. The G4 completed the same actions in 100 seconds! Then Steve Jobs unveiled the new dual processor G4 500 MHz. This monster completed the Photoshop tasks in a blazing 61 seconds! Now we really have something in our arsenal to battle the MHz wars.

After this excellent showing, Steve announced the new line up of G4's. The 400 MHz model will have one chip, the 450 MHz model will now have two chips, and the 500 MHz model will also have two chips. Plus, each model will get a hefty increase in hard drive space. But here's the kicker, all of the new machines will cost exactly the same as their older counterparts! Bravo Apple.

Then came the iMacs. After going through the previous revisions (it will be the iMac's second birthday soon), Steve Jobs unveiled the best iMacs yet. First, in Indigo, a new low end iMac was announced for only only $799. Then in Indigo and Ruby, the iMac DV for $999 was shown. Next the iMac DV plus in Indigo, Ruby, and Sage retailing at $1299. Finally, the iMac DV Special Edition was displayed. This model now comes in a more refined graphite, and an all new Snow color. Priced at $1499, this is the most beautiful iMac of them all.

Now the the hardware was shown, it was on to the software. Adobe came out an reiterated their support for Mac OS X. Microsoft gave a peak at Office 2001. Steve Jobs gave demos of Mac OS X and iMovie 2.0. All these were well and good, but one announcement stood apart from the rest.

Microsoft's vice president of gaming came onto the stage to a surprisingly nice applause. He talked a little about Microsoft's strategy for Mac gaming. But then the bomb hit. Who's behind door number one? It's Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian. He talked about the X-Box for about a second, then let the cat out of the bag. Halo IS coming to the Mac! The audience went crazy as he played a new trailer that ended with "HALO. Coming to a Macintosh near you." Not only is Halo coming to the Mac, but so is every future Microsoft game. This, in my humble opinion, was the most important and exciting announcement of the keynote.

Steve Jobs then came back with another hardware announcement. Apple has come out with three new monitors, one CRT and two LCDs. The 17" CRT has a totally flat screen, and a translucent case. The 17" and 21" LCD monitors looked about the same as the old models. but, each of these displays has something totally new. Apple combined the power cord, video cord, and USB cord all into one. Now these great looking monitors make much less of a mess on your desk.

After this, Steve went on about all the new stuff announced, but there was just one more thing. At that time, Steve expanded the four product matrix into six by adding a box between the desktop models, and a box between the portable models. By combining the compactness of the iMac, and the power of the G4, Apple came up with the G4 cube.

This 8 inch by 8 inch by 8 inch cube houses everything. A __ GB hard drive, 64 MB RAM, a 450 MHz G4, ethernet, USB firewire, 56k modem, DVD drive, and no fan. By using convectional airflow, Apple was able to produce another noiseless machine. But, as Steve jobs was showing this thing off, the question came up as to where the CDs go.So Steve Jobs took a CD, positioned it vertically, and dropped it in a slot like bread going into a toaster. Someone backstage then ejected the CD, and it popped right up, "Toast is done."

But how do you get all of this stuff in a small cube, yet make it easy to upgrade? Simple, just flip the Cube over, press a button to make a handle pop out, and pull. Once out, you can replace any component, upgrade the RAM, or just admire the engineering. This sure is a feat to behold.

Just as the keynote was about to wrap up, Steve Jobs lead everyone to a special ticket on the bottom of their seats. This ticket was good for one free Apple Pro mouse, being handed out at the door. A great show and a free mouse, wow, what an event.

This had to be one of the most exciting keynotes ever. With all the new hardware and software, Apple fans will have many fun new toys, and PC fans will once again be jealous.

Suggested links
• Pro Mouse
• Pro Keyboard
• New iMacs
• New G4s
• G4 Cube
• Quicktime broadcast of the Keynote