Gadgetopia

The MacWorld Expo is going on this week, and Steve Jobs gave the big keynote address this morning. Highlights of what he had to say are…

• The first Intel-powered Macs will be the iMacs. They’ll sport a either a 1.83GHz or 2GHz dual-core Intel chip, with an integrated 17 or 20 inch LCD display. “Two to three times faster” than the iMac G5, according to Steve.
• 2006 will see the entire line of computers convert to Intel processors.
• The PowerBook moniker will be no more; the high-end laptops will now be known as the MacBook Pro (my guess is that the iBook will probably end up being called the MacBook).
• The MBPro will sport a dual-core Intel chip, which will supposedly make it the fastest Apple portable to date.
• FrontRow will be bundled with the MacBooks now, which is a departure from its initial release where it was only supported to run on the iMacs (of course, there’s lots of info elsewhere on how to hack it to get it to run on other hardware.) The MacBooks will also come with a handy little remote control and built-in iSight camera, just like the iMacs.
• iWeb, a webpage building app, will be bundled with the iWork package.
• The iPod Radio Remote, which is a combination remote control gadget and FM receiver for the iPod, is the only new piece of hardware announced.

There’s more — mainly software updates — but not terribly newsworthy. Sorry if I don’t sound very excited about all this; I guess I was expecting… something more. I didn’t listen to the keynote and haven’t read much of anything about it (work interferes with life.) But the thing that strikes me about what I have read is that there were no real surprises. Everybody knew Intel was coming. The addition of the iSight and the remote to the MacBook was no surprise. iWeb was telegraphed way ahead of time. About the only thing I can’t say I saw coming was switch to the MacBook naming scheme.

Am I the only one yawning? Did I miss something?