New PowerMacs, PowerBooks, Pro Photo Software

Cult of Mac (9:15 am PDT, Oct 19 2005)

Quad G5

Apple’s at it again. New pro lineup:

Power Mac: Dual-core PowerPC chips across line. Two models: Dual and Quad, which features two dual-core processors, up to 2.5GHz per core. Four PCI Express slots, and “wicked-fast workstation graphics” that can power up to eight Cinema Displasy! Eight! Starts at $2,000; top-of-the-line starts at $3,200.

PowerBooks: Higher res displays (1440-by-960 on the 15’), longer battery life and SuperDrives as standard. $1,400-$2,500.

Aperture: Pro touch-up and archive photo tool. Supports RAW. $500. Not really a Photoshop killer; more like iPhoto on steroids. Get this — it requires Dual 2GHz G5 or faster, 2GB of RAM, 5GB of HD space for ap and tutorials (not counting giant RAW files), and ATI Radeon X800 XT card or better! No worries about it getting pirated: who has the hardware to run such a beast?

I actually don’t like product announcements like this. It makes my 18-month-old PowerBook and G5 look feeble and decrepit. Damn Apple!