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At this point, Jobs likes to draw a diagram, which begins with an outer ring; he draws gadgets on that ring. "We are surrounded by camcorders, digital cameras, MP3 players, Palms, cell phones, dvd players," he says. Then he draws a computer in the center of the ring. "Some of these things are plenty useful without a personal computer. But a personal computer definitely enhances their value. And several are completely unusable without a PC--a PC meaning a Mac, in our case."
Now he fixes you with his famous pay-attention-here stare and furrows his Salman Rushdie eyebrows: "We believe the next great era is for the personal computer to be the digital hub of all these devices."
Here's how it works. Take digital cameras, which sold even better than retailers expected in 2001, despite the recession. "The problem is," says Jobs, "the minute you plug them into your computer, you fall off a cliff. It's just a complete mess on the computer. We decided that this was our calling--a place where we can really make a difference."
If the new iMac functions as well as it's supposed to, it will simplify your digital life like no other machine can. You can buy a PC with a flat-panel display and a built-in DVD burner for around $1,800, the same as the equivalent iMac. But it won't work as well. In part, that's because Apple gives away a number of core programs (iTunes, iMovie, iDVD and, starting this week, iPhoto) that allow you to control your creative life. They do what other PC software does. But they do it better.
Apple's secret, which doubtless comes from Jobs' early flirtation with Zen Buddhism, is knowing what to leave out, understanding that in the complex world of computers, less is way more.
For instance, iPhoto, a program for handling those digital pictures, is superior to anything else out there for the amateur. How? When you connect your camera to the iMac, archiving pictures happens automatically--the pictures are uploaded and organized by "roll" and archived together as thumbnail images laid out on one endlessly scrolling digital contact sheet. A slider on the side of the contact sheet lets you instantly enlarge and examine hundreds of pictures at a glance, the better to find the one you're hunting for. This works far better than the PC alternative, which would have you manually labeling each picture you archive ("Joe at the Beach") or accepting a meaningless default name, like A2393745. (Best feature of the new program: point-and-click together a 10-page photo album of your favorite pics, pay $30 and an online publisher will print and mail you your own hardcover book.)
Manipulating video--distilling those 90-min. tapes of mind-numbing music recitals and awards banquets into amusing, fast-moving 3-min. shorts--is almost as simple on the new iMac, which features a fast G4 chip, just like Apple's top-of-the-line machines. When you're done creating your masterpiece (with iMovie), you can copy it onto a DVD (with iDVD, of course). A DVD burner is squeezed into the high-end $1,800 model. While it's hard to come up with a perfect Apple-to-PC comparison, a top-of-the-line Dell Dimension 8200, with a flat-panel monitor and dvd burner (plus a faster Pentium 4 processor and much larger hard drive), costs $2,200 and will occupy much of your desktop and part of the floor.