In what has been a flurry of announcements today from Apple, a few rumoured additions to the Mac family have been added, along with some nice surprises too. Today, touted as the pro consumer update day, saw the introduction of Apple"s first pro photo editing software, aimed towards professional photographers. Included in Aperture is the ability to work directly on RAW images, which will excite photographers who have, until now, been put off from using RAW because of its incompatibility with photo processing programmes.
Apple have also upgraded their "power" family, with the introduction of the Powermac G5 Quad, and Duo. The mid and low end Power Macs have just one dual core processor, but the high end ones have two. According to Apple, the increase in power is worth upgrading, with Final Cut Pro rendering cut by as much as 60%. Also included are DDR2 Ram modules, and PCI Express graphics ports.
The Powerbook range has also been changed, with the introduction of higher resolution displays in the 15" and 17" models. The 12" model remains unchanged, apart from a price drop. New Powerbooks are said to have a 46% brighter screen than previous models. Apart from the screen, the laptops now make use of DDR2 technology, and have an improved battery life of up to 5.5 hours.