IMO, the most glaring omission to iPhoto (apple really deserves a slap in the face for this one).

I know I'm not the only one to notice this (a close friend of mine did as well). But it appears as though every photo in iPhoto 08 must be part of an event. What about those photos you catch just for the sake of catching a photo. Let's say I take my photo out and take a pic of my dog doing a trick. That's definitely not an event.

I now have iPhoto 08 with hundreds of events when I should only have 20-30 at most. There's no way to remove the photos that should be part of an Event (atleast that I could find, maybe someone can chime in) from the Events view.

Sure, you can hide the photos, but they're now hidden globally in iPhoto.

Another example, I like to import screenshots or Wallpapers into iPhoto, these are now part of events automatically. Sure, I can hide them, but what if I have an album called "Wallpapers", let's say I have all my wallpaper pictures in this album. If I've hidden them in the Events view, and let's say I go see which wallpapers I have in the "Wallpaper album", there'll be nothing there unless I enable "view hidden photos"

I really can't believe apple did this (or I'm retardedly studid and managed to miss something myself). I know I'm not the only one who thinks all photos aren't necessarily part of an event. Many people do "one shot" pics. This is why I had keywords in iPhoto '06 (or albums).

It's really bugging me

Firstly: NUMBERS!

Numbers is exactly what the iWork suite has been missing. The lack of a spreadsheet app is exactly the reason why I was still using NeoOffice and I imagine that the inclusion of such an app will bring iWork and macs in general much closer to, at the very least, the small business market.

On the Mac MIni:

I personally don't think that Apple is going the right direction in regards to their rather general disregard of the Mac Mini line. That far low-end market holds a lot of potential for Apple, and I think that neglecting it is bad marketing. I understand all of the rage over the all-in-one iMac, but the iMac isn't appealing to the extreme low-end (As an example, my parents were looking into new computers and ended up buying a mac mini because it's perfect for what they are doing - checking email and sports scores online). The recent upgrades to the line are a wonderful thing, if you ask me, because it shows Apple hasn't totally forgotten about that one niche of the market.

On iLife:

This is such a broad topic, and I do not use half of the iLife apps. I do, however, use iPhoto and GarageBand. The new organization in iPhoto is great, if you ask me, but the "retro-fitting" can be tedious. I had 5000+ photos before upgrading to iLife '08, and the upgrade threw them into events in a sort of insane order. Once you get all of those small kinks sorted out though, the app works smooth and strong in keeping everything organized - which is a godsend for a digital-picture-pack-rat like myself. As for GarageBand... the new additions are nice, but not nearly as glaring as the new additions to iPhoto, as a matter of fact, I haven't used the program nearly enough over the last few days to get a good enough grasp on them.

One more thing:

The new keyboards are wonderful, their design is much better then the old ones. I, personally, own a wireless/bluetooth model and love it. For one thing, the clearly defined function keys are a nice edition, the keyboard also lies lower on the table/desk and works better if you're using it from your lap, relieving a large amount of strain on your wrists.

My one wish is that the bluetooth model including a pointing device, similar to the laptop nipple's of old. This would make it much better suited to being used at a distance to control your mac (for example in a living room, with a mac that is connected to a television; or allowing you to kick back at your desk and type and control your mac from your lap, without having to hunch over a desktop keyboard and mouse).

I'll start with the Mac's first.

On the Mac Mini front, at least they updated it, even though it was a minor step, I look forwards to MacWorld 2008 when they should be announcing a redo for it, (and the iMac as well,) hopefully! They need to ditch the tiny laptop drives and get with the program and use full 3 " drives in it. (I'd personally love to have one with a full terrabyte in it!) A single 120-160 cm fan in it should keep it cool enough without sacraficing the quiet factor, or adding much more space to it. It definately needs a better graphics option as well. (I'd be willing to pay $1K for one if it had these minor upgrades to it and come in Sour Apple!)


The iMac and Mini both were afterthoughts for this event and it shows. Apple seemed to have just slapped something together for them so as to have a platform to showcase it's newest software on. With the steep hardware requirements for it, they surely couldn't use my 1.25 GHz powerbook for it... Where is the Candy Apple Red and Sour Apple colored iMacs?!? That iPod looks fine for the iPod and iPhone, but not on the desktop, and they even made it harder for techs to work on them as well as went backwards on the technology front with them. There's no reason they couldn't have added a proprietary HDD bay system where one could add more drives to it, nor is there no reason they couldn't have added access to the rear compartment to replace other various components such as processors. BTW, why are they still using outdated processors and slower FSB's?!? It's high time they made some major improvements to the iMac as well!

It's beyond time they come out with a Mac "Power" and put it in a case similar to the Pro but smaller and with a single processor aimed at the "Power Users". With a dual 5 " bay and room for at least 4-5 HDD's and a media card reader option for it. eSATA would be a nice addition for it as well as a true 5.1 audio card and video card, (SLI would be an excellent choice for the graphics but can live without it on the Mac.) They can even keep the unique Apple Pro styling for it. It would be nice for once to be able to afford a system where one can upgrade the components of their system and at least add more hard drives without having to add a separate external piece of hardware to do it. (I for one would love to be able to use the built in RAID 5 capabilities of OS X to build my own array with internal hardware. (True All-In-One design!) Sure there will be some that will never want to pop the sides off the case, but there are many who would like to be able to clean their cases once and a while and not have to pay someone whom may not do it but, charge for it anyways!

You know, for a "hardware company" as Steve put's it, they were so enthusiastic over their software that they really didn't do anything to improve upon the lower end Macs this time. Speaking of which, the iLife suite seemed to be a good deal, that is until you read the fine print and find it's best features require an upgrade to the late model G5's at least, (none of which did they make a Powerbook out of, (gripe, gripe!)). Though I've not had a chance to use the suite(s) yet, from what I've read about them, it seems like they removed some of the better features of the '06 versions while adding some of the killer features that Steve talked about in his presentation. Maybe when they come out the with the '09 version it will have those features restored to it. And what about BluRay capability in it? Where's the update to DVD player so one can even play HD content?!? I know it's not part of iLife but it should have been! Why was the "HD" portion of iMovie left out?!? I noticed the very next day, they made an update for iMovie 6, (which also sucks that they only put it out for those who've spent the $80+ for the newest suite,) what's so special about it?!?

I liked the Numbers addition to iWork, and this suite seems to be the best update of them all, all the way around. Although I have no use for it personally. From what I've seen of it though, it may just be the only newest software from Apple i'm considering buying at this time...