MacWorld San Francisco Highlights
Steve Jobs gave the MacWorld Expo Keynote January 6 in San Francisco.
Some Highlights:

Steve kicked off with some reminiscing and celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Macintosh. A brief history was topped off with the showing of the famous "1984" ad and announcement of the "1984" anniversary poster.

Next Steve gave some updates about OS X (9.3 Million active users and 10,000 native clients) and Final Cut Express which upgrades to version two.

Microsoft was represented at the keynote and previewed the Spring release of Microsoft Office 2004, which features a Notebook view mode for taking notes, Excel page layout view, and Project center (a Macintosh version of MS's popular Project application).

Steve spent a lot of time talking about the G5 and featured the success of Virginia Tech's $5 Million G5 SuperCluster supercomputer, the third fastest supercomputer in the world.

Speaking of G5s, Jobs introduced the G5 XServe and a new XServe RAID, bringing Apple's 1U Form server solution to G5 level.

Then, Steve Jobs moved to iTunes talking about the success of the Music Store and its sales of more than 30 Million songs with a market share of 70% among online music venders. He also talked about Pepsi's upcoming SuperBowl promotion, in which Apple and Pepsi will be giving away 100 Million songs. Check the yellow caps following the SuperBowl -- you could be a winner. One in three caps will bear a code you can use to claim your 99¢ prize.

iLife version '04 was also introduced. Shipping on January 16th, this year old bundle features new versions of iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD, along with a new software product called GarageBand which will allow amateur musicians to mix and save music like a pro. In fact with built in samples and loops, you can create music even if you can't play a note. Pick up a copy for $49 or get the package free with any new Mac.

You can also add more instruments, loops and filters to GarageBand by purchasing the Jam Pack accessory. And if you don't have a MIDI keyboard, Apple is reselling their own solution. Each are $99.

Apple sold over 730,000 iPods over the Holiday Quarter and they wanted to celebrate by an iPod upgrade. Boosting the $299 10-GB iPod to 15 GB and offering a $39 pair of in-ear headphones upgraded the existing line.

And, Steve introduced the brand new iPod Mini. Featuring 4 GB of storage space and at the size of a 1/2"-thick business card, the iPod Mini hopes to capture a chunk of the high-end flash MP3 player market. The price of the colorful (silver, bronze, pink, blue, and green) addition to the iPod family is just $249.

Check out these new developments at www.apple.com