Apple attacks Windows 7 in 3 new ads

Today was the official launch of Windows 7, Microsoft’s long awaited “Vista fix up OS.” While I’m still waiting to get a student discount on the super expensive operating system, Apple has come out with 3 new ads that attack Windows 7.

Apple unveils new iMac, MacBook, Mac Mini, and Magic Mouse

Today Apple announced refreshed iMacs, MacBooks, and Mac Minis. The new iMac offers a gigantic 27″ 16:9 HD LED display, but it also comes in a 21.5″ model. The processor comes standard with a speedy 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Standard memory is a whopping 4 GB, with a 500 GB hard disk. The 21.5″ iMac starts at $1200. That’s aggressive pricing, considering what you get.

The new iMac has a brilliant LED widescreen display.

Next up, the MacBook. Like its MacBook Pro counterpart, the new MacBook features a precision unibody polycarbonate enclosure, as well as a 7 hour battery life and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics. It also has a multitouch glass trackpad. The price is the same at $999 for a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 250 GB hard disk, and 2 GB of RAM.

The MacBook now looks almost like a MacBook Pro.

The Mac Mini was also refreshed. It now boasts more memory (up to 4 GB) and a faster processor (up to 2.66 GHz), and it also has an option for Snow Leopard Server preloaded, making it a viable, affordable option for a home server. The Mac Mini starts at $600.

The Mac Mini is just a little faster.

And finally, the very most awesomest thing of all…the wireless Magic Mouse. It’s Apple’s replacement to the Mighty Mouse, and it features multitouch gestures. Click, swipe, pan, zoom. It’s all there. It’s now shipping with every new Mac, and you can buy it for $70. At the moment, however, there is no Windows support.

The new Magic Mouse supports multitouch gestures.

See? Microsoft can make good ads!

So, I installed the Zune 4.0 software, and what do I see? An ad. But unlike the other “I’m a PC” ads I’ve seen, this one was actually quite cool. It proves that Microsoft can make good advertisements.

The music in the ad is Trash by The Whip, in case you were wondering.

Tweetie 2: Is it worth it?

Tweetie 2 was approved by Apple and got into the App Store yesterday. Now, many people are complaining about the super affordable $3 price tag. C’mon people. This developer, Loren Brichter, spent months working on this app. Software takes time and money to develop. So stop complaining. It’s only $3. I usually don’t pay for apps–I’ve only bought three apps since I got my iPod touch–but Tweetie 2 is such a well-designed app that it deserved my $3.

So what’s new? According to Loren Brichter, Tweetie 2 is a brand new app, based on a brand new, super efficient and speedy core called “Bigbird.” What’s that for the user? It puts Tweetie 2 ahead of all other Twitter cleints for the iPhone. Here’s just some things that it can do:

• An awesome UI. Super smooth scrolling; swipe over a tweet to reveal options, refresh your feed with a gesture…
• Full offline browsing. Yep. Tweetie 2 lets you compose tweets, read tweets, everything–all offline. Everything is seamlessly cached, even avatars.
• Persistence. If you quit the app, it opens instantly back to where you were the next time you open it.
• Post photos and videos with any service you want: TwitPic, yFrog, TweetPhoto, Mobypicture, Twitgoo, Posterous, img.ly, TwitVid…
• Shorten URLs with any service you want: j.mp, bit.ly, TinyURL, is.gd, l.pr, u.nu, Linkyy…
• Geotag your tweets.
• Draft tweets so that you can send them later.
• Threaded Direct Messages that make it look like a conversation.
• View nearby tweets and see what’s around you.
• Live filter your stream. Using the iPhone 3.0 SDK’s live search technology, you can instantly search for anything in your stream.
• Landscape support everywhere: composing tweets, reading tweets, etc.
• and much more…

A gallery of what Tweetie 2 can do is after the break.

Pixelmator for Mac

It’s been a while since I last blogged. Like many other students who have recently returned to school, I’ve been caught up in a bunch of work. Anyway, today I bring you the ultimate Photoshop replacement: Pixelmator. What makes Pixelmator so special?

Pixelmator version 1.5 "Spider"

Well, first of all Pixelmator’s only $60. That’s compared to Photoshop CS4, which is a whopping $700. Greedy pigs, Adobe is, right? Pixelmator is OS X only, letting it take full advantage of all the native Core Image APIs in Leopard and Snow Leopard. Pixelmator has almost all the functionality of Photoshop, including full read and write of PSD files. A free trial is available, so go check it out!