We admit it-- we were pretty skeptical about the iBook the first few times we played around with it. See, despite its curves and translucency and Bomb Pop/Creamsicle coloring, it was easy to get the impression that all we were holding was a stripped-down PowerBook in iMac clothing. While we were impressed with Apple's continuing ability to crank out consumer designs that just scream "Buy Me," we weren't sure there was anything all that revolutionary going on under the hood. After all, when you read the specs, there's nothing all that great to shout about: 300 MHz G3, 32 MB of RAM, a 3.2 GB hard drive, a 12.1" active-matrix screen, yadda yadda yadda-- a great deal at $1599, but somehow there was some sparkle missing. When we first encountered the iMac, for instance, we could look past the specifications completely because we were witnessing the dawning of a system much greater than the sum of its parts. We just didn't catch quite the same vibe off of the iBook...

...But as usual with Apple, the magic's in the details. The iBook won't be shipping for a couple of months yet, but that hasn't stopped the gnomes in Cupertino from updating the Tech Info Library with a whole slew of documents related to the laptop formerly known as P1-- just search for "iBook" and you'll uncover a virtual treasure trove of nifty facts about the system, including a wealth of details that set the iBook apart from all PowerBooks, past and present. For one thing, Apple's finally made the function keys along the top edge of the keyboard programmable. No longer are they just wasted buttons in search of a use; according to one TIL note, with the iBook, you can assign actual functions to those function keys, making them-- well, functional. F1 could launch Quicken. F5 could open a new word processor document using your company letterhead stationery. And through the magic of AppleScript, F11 could connect you to your ISP, grab your email, launch your web browser and load up your stock portfolio, and start playing a random selection of MP3s as background music so you can groove while you read.

There's plenty of other new stuff to like about the iBook, but the only other one we want to mention right now is the new way that it handles sleep and shutdown. See, one of the rumors we'd heard about the P1 was that it would have an "instant on" feature that would allow the unit to hit the ground running, becoming awake and usable in far less time than it takes a sleeping PowerBook to wake up. Based on our deliciously unscientific tests at the Expo, we don't think the iBook actually wakes from sleep any faster than a PowerBook does (though Apple claims it does), but there's one thing noted in a TIL article that we never noticed when playing around with the machine: you can actually save the state of the iBook's RAM to disk when sleeping or shutting down. What's neat about this is that the iBook can then start up and restore its state from the save file-- putting you right back into the thick of things without having to wait for extensions to load, applications to launch, etc. See? More happy improvements from the sleepless soldiers in Apple's labs. With all these fun new details to explore, we're a lot more confident about the iBook's future as an innovation, rather than just another prettied-up laptop.

We know that some of you don't actually visit every single Mac news site minute by minute to keep tabs on what Apple's up to, so it's possible that, if AtAT is your primary contact point with the Realm of Apple, you're not up on the latest QuickTime buzz. What with all the iBook frenzy last week, we never got a chance to talk about one of the other fairly big Steve announcements: namely, QuickTime TV. Apparently that's the moniker by which Apple's collection of live streaming video content will henceforth be known-- and while it may lack a bit of originality, hey, at least it's descriptive. But the news wasn't that Apple was pushing the name "QuickTime TV"; what got the crowd buzzing were the announcements of what Apple would be broadcasting, and, perhaps much more importantly, how they would be broadcasting it.

First, what they're showing. Longtime AtAT fans are no doubt aware of our annoyance at the continued lack of any substantial streaming entertainment content at Apple's QuickTime page. If you're a news hound, you're all set-- between Bloomberg, BBC World, NPR, and Fox News, you've probably got all the news you can stand. For entertainment junkies like us, though, the pickings were pretty slim: HBO trailers, Fox Sports (for those who actually find that stuff entertaining), and WGBH-- a public television station. Need we comment? But things are looking up; at the keynote address, Steve announced the addition of several new faces to QuickTime TV: VH-1, Rolling Stone, and Disney, to name a few. Now there's some entertainment. And ABC News even got thrown into the bargain, just in case you didn't have quite enough news already.

Okay, so now Apple's got a veritable cornucopia of content: the next question is, how can they deliver that content to your QuickTime Player at high quality, given the sorry state of Internet bandwidth? Face it; there's so much stuff floating around the 'net, traffic congestion is a real problem-- especially if you're trying to stream live video from a server in California to a client in Boston. Fear not: it's Akamai to the rescue! Akamai is a Massachusetts company that appears to have tackled the bandwidth problem by setting up their own "relay stations" all over the world; now that Apple's partnered with them (as you can read in a press release), that video stream from California is actually being rebroadcast by a server physically nearer to the client system. The result? Cleaner, smoother video to be enjoyed by all. Don't you just love it when other people work so hard to improve your leisure experience? It kind of gets us all choked up...

Now that last week's Macworld Expo is only a quickly fading memory, we can look back on it and reflect on the high points-- the stuff that really stuck with us. The only tricky bit is trying to isolate that single product, experience, or entity that constituted the absolute pinnacle of the show. Think it's an obvious choice? Stick around; you may be surprised. Sure, there was the iBook-- it's neat-looking and, judging by the crowd reaction, it's going to sell like crazy. But it wasn't the thing that absolutely knocked our socks off. No, that honor has to go to Bungie Software, those Chicago-based purveyors of insanely great games who are arguably responsible for more lost hours of productivity than all other Mac game makers combined. (We're just making that up, but it sounds good, doesn't it?)

See, Bungie wins by having shown two, count 'em, two incredibly cool works-in-progress at the show. First, there's Oni, the anime-inspired 3D action romp due out later this year. Bungie had a few Macs running a pre-release build of Oni so action-starved showgoers could get a little taste of networked mayhem. We gave it a whirl, and what can we say? We were hooked from the get-go. The lead character, Konoko, is what you'd get if you took Lara Croft, gave her actual human proportions, outfitted her in something a little more suitable for urban carnage, and taught her to fight like Bruce Lee meets Terminator. While we only got to experience networked hand-to-hand slugfests (with no gunplay or exploration of the storyline), what little we were allowed to sample squarely sets Oni in our minds as the coolest action game in the works for any platform.

Or maybe second-coolest. While Oni isn't even done yet, Bungie stunned the keynote crowd by giving a sneak peek at their next game, previously known by its code-name "Blam!" but now known to the world as Halo. The single screenshot at Bungie's site cannot even begin to do this game justice. What we in the keynote audience were privileged to see was a 3D scripted cutscene, all being rendered in real time on a high-end Power Macintosh. Battle-armored cyborgs waving at distant alien creatures to distract them, then turning to run. The aliens giving chase, first on foot, then in a small flying spacecraft. The cyborg fleeing to the outdoors and making his escape in a jeep-like vehicle, its wheels kicking up dust and stones as it peels out. And all of this (and lots more) generated entirely in a true 3D engine the reality of which we've never even imagined. It's like Unreal and Marathon had a baby with a random mutation that gave it six extra "Wow" genes. We are not exaggerating-- the demo was so extraordinarily beautiful it quite literally brought tears to our eyes. If you're a Mac gamer and you still have doubts that it's a great time to be alive, trust us-- it is. But you'd better be saving up for a fast new Mac...