Now don’t take me too seriously here, but sometimes you wonder whether Apple really makes computers anymore. I mean, the biggest news so far this month could be described in two words: iPod nano. That, the iTunes 5 upgrade (and the fixer-upper 5.0.1 release) and a revised .Mac cover most of Apple’s new products. Oh yes, there was a minor Xserve and Xserve RAID update to expand drive capacity, which is hardly worth a second look unless you’re a systems administrator.

Yet for weeks, we’d been reading almost credible sounding stories that a pair of the new dual-core processors from IBM would find their way into a new Power Mac. Now there is one more Tuesday left in this month, and there’s still time, but I’m feeling skeptical. I’d think that if a revised Mac were in the offing, word would have come at the Paris Expo, even if delivery wasn’t expected for a few more weeks. But that’s just me. Or maybe there are just too many unsold units around to risk a model changeover at this point.

This isn’t to say there won’t be one or two more Power Mac G5 updates before the switch to Intel is in full force. Even though sales aren’t lighting any fires these days, faster parts will no doubt become available. Maybe Apple, which prices more aggressively these days, will consider a reasonable price reduction for the Power Mac. Yes, it’s Apple’s highest margin desktop, and you certainly don’t want to see the company lose money, but I expect there’s plenty of room to cut margins and still come out ahead. I’m thinking in terms of a top price of $2,599 and setting the base two processor model at $1,599. Yes, the latter makes an incursion into iMac G5 territory, but content creators who want something affordable yet expandable might lap them up. Remember, the first MacIntels won’t be here until June 2006, probably in sync with an official announcement at the next WWDC, along with the first demonstration of Leopard. But the betting is that the iBook and the PowerBook will be the first to migrate, and the Power Mac won’t join them until the middle or latter part of 2007. Meantime, Apple has to move product.

There was also talk of an extremely minor update to the PowerBook line, which is stuck with a 1.67GHz G4. Some of the speculation had the processor upgraded to a 1.7GHz, hardly worth it. But faster memory was said to deliver a tad more performance. On the other hand, it’s not that the PowerBook is a poor seller, but I feel any update at this point would have to be more significant to make much sense from a marketing point of view. Without speedier parts at hand, maybe a modest price reduction, to the tune of $200 or so, would be ideal to goose sales for the holiday season.

There’s also a story about some modest enhancements to the Mac mini, with a tad faster processor speed, and speedier hard drives. The latter might make sense, but the fact that the line was updated less than two months ago would seem to argue against any real changes at this time. Ditto for the iBook.

But I can see where Apple might consider price cuts on those products too. A $399 Mac mini might be a bit much, but even $449 would deliver a psychological boost, particularly in light of those cheap PC boxes filing the aisles at Wal-Mart and elsewhere. Having an iBook at $899 might also seem a good idea, since PC laptop prices have been dropping gradually over the past year. Such a price change would deliver a psychological boost to Apple. Yes, we can cover all the old arguments about Macs being more affordable because they come with more standard equipment, but in the real world, lots of Windows users don’t see it that way. The sticker price says it all, and the fine print will never be read.

Now maybe suggestions about Apple price cuts would seem a pipedream. But look at the iPod, which is aggressively priced and then some. You don’t have to pay a much of a premium for the Apple brand name, and, no doubt owing to its good fortune at cornering the market on Flash chips, the nano blows away the competition on pricing. All right, there is that $99 Dell DJ Ditty, which matches the $99 iPod shuffle with 512MB memory and trumps it with an LCD display and FM tuner. But does anyone really buy those so-called iPod killers from Dell? Besides, could you even tell them apart from all the other anonymous MP3 players from consumer electronics companies who just don’t get it?

This isn’t to say that the Paris Expo wasn’t worth it. All right, there were no new Macs beneath the covered displays at Apple’s exhibit. But there was Steve Jobs and team holding court before the technology press and garnering plenty of headlines about those greedy music companies, the fact that nobody can rain on the company’s iPod parade and all the rest. So who needed a keynote anyway?

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Last I heard, there were over 1,000 accessories available for the iPod. Many carry the “Made for iPod” label, which means they have been certified by Apple to be compatible, and the manufacturers have to pay a royalty for the privilege. These accessories cover the gamut from simple car adapters, to loudspeakers, FM transmitters, remote controls, FM tuner and recording modules, and lots of decorative stuff. You want a fancy case to keep the plastic and steel smudge free, no problem.

I realize, though, that some of you would like to see some of these features incorporated into the iPod itself. Why not a simple line in feature, for example, so you could make your iPod a recording device without the aid of a third party adapter? There’s been talk about the prospects of adding a satellite radio, or just a simple AM/FM tuner, so you could check out the latest news and talk shows, or a commercial-laden music show if you tire of your own collection. What about the FM transmitter, so you could connect to a home stereo or car radio? Why should you have to attach an extra appendage to gain these capabilities?

Look, for example, at the competition. Take the Creative Zen MicroPhoto which, like Apple’s products, has a color display and the ability to display your photos. It also includes an FM tuner with 32 presets and you can record broadcasts too. Or consider the Zen Vision, which includes not just a voice recorder, but the ability to play movies on a 3.7-inch screen. No squinting allowed

Why doesn’t Apple include these extra features?

The real question is whether you want your iPod to have such features? From the sales figures, the answer is, for the most part, no. It’s fair to say that customers aren’t exactly lining up to buy Creative’s music players, which is why its financial picture doesn’t look all that good. Despite its efforts to compete with Apple with a wider variety of products and more built-in features, the message isn’t getting through. Of course, adding features might be considered the Microsoft way, more and more with every software release, the better to entice you to buy the product.

At the same time, do you really want to pay extra money for features you don’t want? Right now, there are three iPod product lines and simple choices to make, such as storage capacity and perhaps color. That’s it! Compare that to Creative catalog, which lists, in addition to the Zen MicroPhoto and Zen Vision, a Zen Micro, Zen Neeon, Zen Sleek, Zen, Zen Touch, Zen Nano Plus and Zen Extra. I challenge you to figure out which model is which from the names alone.

What if Apple did add an FM tuner to an iPod, an FM transmitter, or both? What if you wanted your iPod without those accessories? Should Apple establish a special build-to-order iPod, so you can stuff it with the extras you want? And what are you willing to pay for the privilege? As Steve Jobs said during a press briefing at Apple Expo, “We are very careful about what features we add because we can’t take them away.”

As you no doubt realize, the iPod is not so much a digital music player as an entire experience, which also includes iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. It’s the combination of all these elements working together, whether you use a Mac or Windows, that puts the iPod way ahead of its competition. Creative, you see, is selling hardware, not the software you use to manage your music library or download more songs. For that, it has to depend on Microsoft and its partners, such as Napster or Real. Though some tech pundits criticize Apple’s closed eco-system, it has the benefit of assuring you a reasonably seamless user experience, and that’s something that can’t always be said for the competition.

In addition, when Apple decides to add features to the iPod, it clearly wants to make them “just work.” Can you say that for an FM radio, where reception quality will vary from place to place. If a station is static-ridden, do you blame Apple, being in the wrong location, the station, or all three? Satellite radio? Don’t get me started. Just take, for example, a Delphi MyFi player on your travels and see how often you feel the urge to curse aloud because of the spotty signal quality.

Besides, those portable satellite players generally cost around $300. How much extra would you be willing to pay for an iPod if Apple added such a highly flawed “enhancement”?

This isn’t to say that a future iPod won’t contain terrestrial and satellite radio receivers, voice recording, FM transmitters and all the rest. For now, those extra capabilities are the province of the various companies building iPod accessories. No doubt as technology improves, Apple will cherry pick the features that will just work and add them to future models. But it won’t happen overnight, and I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a video iPod.

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If someone asked you what’s the most popular alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer or Apple’s Safari, no doubt Firefox comes to mind. And, in terms of market share, you’d be absolutely correct. Although its growth may have stalled in recent weeks, Firefox has become a surprising success story. But, as you know, there are other browsers out there, and some have rich feature sets that truly set them apart.

Take Opera, which some regard as the best of all. Unfortunately, since Opera Software is a relatively small company, you needed to pay for a user license; otherwise, you’d have to settle for a small ad banner. I’ve little doubt that one factor has hurt its growth in the market, which is why it’s now free. No ad banners, with one proviso: If you want “Premium Support,” it’s $29. I can live with that.

Along with its new “feel free” promotion comes Opera 8.5, now available for the Mac, Windows and various flavors of Unix. Compared to previous versions of Opera 8, the new release, aside from dumping ad banners, is a minor update, although the overall performance level seems a tad better. That is after a somewhat slow initial launch, which adds several seconds to the appearance of your selected home page.

Once it gets going, however, page rendering is impressively swift. For the most part, it’s impressively accurate too, although I found a few quirks along the way. Examples are scattered, but worth mentioning. The introductory text in our Java-based chat room for The Tech Night Owl LIVE doesn’t display properly. The folks at Macs Only tell us that “Opera still does not render bold text in the Geneva font that we use…” Fortunately there’s a “Report a site problem” feature in the Help that will help you alert Opera’s programmers about issues of this sort.

Is it the fastest browser on the planet, as some suggest? I’m not about to go that far, since it would take lots of careful testing to determine the reality of the claim. Let me just say that you won’t disappointed, and if you’re real curious, you might want to check out an independent test linked at the Opera site for some fascinating results. No, it’s not faster in every respect, and not all the tested versions are current, but if should give you a fair indication of what to expect from Opera in the real world. However, the best reason to give Opera a try is its impressive feature set, some of which first appeared in this application, such as tabbed browsing.

I’m particularly impressed by the little touches that make the Web surfing experience even more impressive. Consider Opera’s bookmark handling. When you add a new bookmark, it pops right into the list, in alphabetical order. That may seem a minor enhancement, but if your bookmark menu is as large as mine, you’ll appreciate all the help you can get.

If you’re not satisfied with the appearance of the program, you can drag and drop buttons and search fields, add and remove toolbars, and install custom skins. You may want to pay a little more attention to this feature, since the look and feel isn’t quite as Mac like as it might be, particularly the preference panel, which is, unfortunately, something you can’t change.

Among my favorites is the “Fast Forward” feature that predicts the “most likely” next page during your browsing session. You can also use the “Sessions” feature to recreate your layout of open pages to access at a later time, even when you first launch the program. If you’re daily Web routine involves opening lots of pages, and positioning windows just so, you’ll appreciate the ability to restore that layout without wasting your valuable time.

There’s also a decent RSS/Atom news reader, and email and chat clients. They aren’t necessarily best in class, but have enough features to warrant a little experimentation in case you want to see if you can do everything in a single application.

It would take several pages to list all that Opera is capable of. Surprisingly, the download size of the Mac version is just 5.4MB. Compare that to the last released version of another browser, Netscape, which is more than three times as large.

So is Opera your cup of tea? Well, since it’s free, it doesn’t hurt to give it a try. For now, I’ve made it my default browser, just to see if I can do everything without having to return to Firefox or Safari.

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