Macworld G4 UPGRADES TAKE YOUR OLD MAC TO 500MHZ JULY 2001 JULY IBOOK TESTED • LCD DISPLAYS • G4 UPGRADE CARDS OS DISPLAYS IBOOK TESTED • LCD • WORD TIPS • PROJECTORS X APPLICATIONS MORE NEWS, MORE REVIEWS White light Apple’s BEST portable yet? New iBook tested OS X software All new applications Flat-panel displays 26 sexy LCD screens tested ALSO INSIDE: Word tips • Flash 5 guide • Improve your info-graphics • Inside Apple’s new shops • Civilization III • FreeHand 10 • Director 8.5 • Projector roundup read me first Simon Jary Wow! Apple’s actually beaten its editor-in-chief own timetable to get Mac OS X pre-installed on all of its new Macs. About time 2.0 t Macworld, we often see amazing technologies even been seen by the secret services of the high-tech demonstrated to us by fire-eyed developers. warring factions of the planet Kabbula. They say “Wow!”; we say “Wow!”; we write Bungie was the worst offender. First there was Oni… A about it; you say “Wow!”. Not long after you’ve “Wow!”. Then there was Halo… “Double Wow!”. Several shown the article to someone else, and they’ve said years after we all first looked forward to pretending to “Wow!”, you start writing in and asking when Wow 1.0 be lithe Japanese urban-shooter girls, Oni finally will be available to buy. Then we realize that what we shipped for the Mac. It’s now at least a couple of years just saw wasn’t anywhere near ready to ship. This is the since we imagined ourselves as body-armoured Halo point at which Wow turns to Oww… space troopers, and still we wait. By the time Halo hits Although, occasionally, Apple shipped products way the streets, Steve Jobs will actually have a halo, and our before they were ready (the, ahem, Newton, for great-great-grandkids will have been conscripted to instance), the company used to pre-announce more fight the imperialistic Kabbulan forces somewhere in stuff than it actually shipped. I remember witnessing the ninth galaxy. Bungie’s share price will explode (like “Apple used to demos for Sherlock, most of Mac OS 8 and tons of an over-charged sonic-flashblaster) as thousands of QuickTime features many years before they became a 23rd-century Earthlings rush to play this now quaintly launch a great part of the on-sale operating system. The funny thing historical game on their Red Alsatian neuro-MacPads. new Mac, only was that, after all those dormant years, these features Pre-announcing products like these games isn’t hadn’t changed a bit. They must have just been lying going to do companies such as Bungie any harm, as to make it look around on floppies and Zip disks gathering dust in long as it also actually invents and ships a few things Apple’s R&D laboratories. that people can buy in the meantime. outdated Maybe an absent-minded Apple boffin – his bottom Pre-announcing operating systems and gleaming immediately still smarting from the Newton fiasco – mislaid these new computers could cripple Apple, and very nearly did disks after they were returned from the demos. during the pre-iMac dark days. by showing off “Geoff, where’s that neat new QuickTime wavy Now, Apple should be applauded for largely sticking something it effect everyone loved at Macworld Boston 1995?” to its Mac OS X timetable – and, in late May, actually “Er… well, I think it’s behind the prototype 15th beating it. According to the deadlines, Mac OS X was to invented that anniversary Mac Portable by the water cooler, Frank.” ship as the default operating system “sometime this morning.” Imagine them having to tell the head of software summer”. This scary proposition has been bettered by development that they’d lost search utility Sherlock. Apple’s far-more sensible announcement (see page 21) “I’ve got nothing to find it with, either, now…” that, immediately, all new Macs will ship with OS 9.1 Steve Jobs realized that pre-announcing meant installed as default and OS X as an option. killing off all the stuff you can actually make and sell. Apple may very well be right that it’s now possible Apple used to launch a great new Mac, only to make it to survive on Mac OS X alone. But it’s equally true that, look outdated immediately by showing off something if you do go for it, you’ll be relying heavily on X’s Classic it invented that morning. Steve’s pre-announcements emulation. And there’s only two things slower than mean you won’t be able to buy the latest Mac for a Classic – E4’s interminable daytime coverage of Big month or two – just time for Apple dealers to flog-off Brother and Mac OS X’s own Finder. the remaining inventory at bargain prices. (In the past, Apple could have kept wowing us with Aqua demos Apple used to have to gather all its unsold stock and while waiting to release a faster, more compatible bulldoze it into desert landfills – I kid you not.) update later this year. But that policy would inevitably Pre-announcing then became the preserve of the have affected its Mac-hardware sales, as people waited browser warriors. Every few days, Netscape or for X-loaded systems rather than later having to pay Microsoft would release a new beta of its Web browser. out the extra £99. And software developers have been By the time, say, Netscape 2.5 was officially released, clamouring for Apple to jump-start OS X’s proliferation. everybody was downloading the beta for version 3.0. This early, more flexible move should help everyone. Now, the worst offenders for pre-announcement This isn’t unqualified praise for Apple’s OS X efforts, time-lags are games designers. Following his own however. While we no longer have to wait for X on our show-it-when-it-ships policy, Steve livened up his newly acquired Macs, customers new and old won’t be keynotes by inviting young whippersnappers on stage too happy to be kept waiting and waiting and waiting to blow-up bug-eyed monsters and race alien buggies for perkier X performance. Once that’s achieved, maybe in unbelievable 3D action – extraterrestrial visions of even the still-vociferous anti-X brigade will go “Wow!” in-flight space-blasting so incredible that they hadn’t as well. MW 4 Macworld JUNE 2001 Read more Macworld opinions online (www.macworld.co.uk), and join in the debate. JULY 2001 Contents COVER STORIES 76 All white now Apple’s new iBook is a dream – both in terms of looks and performance. 95 Inside the OS X extras? Get the scoop on five useful applications that come with Apple’s new operating system. 69 83 G4 upgrade cards LCD monitors The latest upgrades Flat panels tested for old Macs compared. and rated. page 6 Macworld JULY 2001 5 CONTACT Editor-in-Chief Simon Jary [email protected] Deputy Editor David Fanning Macworld www.macworld.co.uk JULY 2001 Contents [email protected] News Editor Jonathan Evans [email protected] News Reporter Dominique Fidéle [email protected] NEWS CREATE REVIEWS Managing Editor Sean Ashcroft [email protected] Chief Sub-Editor Woody Phillips Apple says ‘Shop Different’ [email protected] 18 Apple’s friendly retail X free Art Editor James Walker [email protected] on all new Macs Apple is design king Art Director Mandie Johnson X-appeal reels in apps Apple seals [email protected] Demon deal OS X Server goes Aqua Managing Editor/Online Gillian Thompson 52 [email protected] Douglas Adams remembered CD Editor Vic Lennard MHz: myth or reality Card makers’ US Editor Andrew Gore power play iMac memory deal Civ III 50-51 Macromedia FreeHand 10 Contributing editors David Pogue, Deke McClelland, for Mac confirmed Slump dampens 53-55 Macromedia Director 8.5 Franklin Tessler, Bruce Fraser, stores launch Viao SuperDrive Shockwave Studio Christopher Breen, How to: Web How to: graphics Matthew Bath, Peter Cohen, 131 137 57 Matrox RTMac; Adam C Engst, Jim Heid. Use Flash 5 to add A little imagination can PRODUCT NEWS oomph to Web sites. bring dull data to life. Acard Ahard PCI Raid Ultra ATA66 Group Advertising Manager Mustafa Mustafa [email protected] 58-59 Projector round-up: Deputy Advertising Manager Dean Payn 3D authoring ready for OS X Ask C60; [email protected] COMPETITION Display Sales Executive James Poulson 39 JVC’s mini DVP cam Lexmark inkjet Epson EMP-50; [email protected] roll-out NEC projector LCD price war hots Epson EMP-703; Classified Sales Executive Alex Cheesman up Video captured in [email protected] Infocus LP130 Classified Sales Executive Clive Page QuickTime [email protected] Epson Production Manager Sharon Bird printers [email protected] Deputy Production Manager Richard Bailey large it up [email protected] Scanners aid Production Assistant (Ads) Nikki Basten Expression [email protected] Missing manual: Office Q&A Marketing Manager Jo Brown 141 145 [email protected] Get to grips with Word in the Handy Mac tips and readers’ 58 Circulation Manager Jim Birch first part of this Office series. questions answered. 59 Macworld Music Handbook [email protected] Marketing Co-ordinator Kelly Crowley 61 Stomp Click’N Burn; [email protected] NewTek LightWave 6.5 Marketing Assistant Sam French [email protected] 62 Electric Image Amorphium Pro 1.1; Win a trip to New York! EVERY MONTH Publisher Guy Eaton Eovia Amapi 3D 6.0 [email protected] 139 Macworld is offering a three- night break in the Big Apple.