Ever since Margaret got her iBook, we’ve been following Apple product announcements. And today being Steve Job’s keynote address, we were anticipating what he would have to announce today. And boy did he announce quite a bit today.

Every year the Mac rumor websites try to leak what Job’s will announce during his keynote address at MacWorld. And every year they aren’t even close, except for this year. Makes you wonder where the leak at Apple is, if you ask me.

So, what did Jobs announce today?

• iPod Shuffle: Basically, a cheap flash based IPod (meaning you can run with it). They cut the cost by cutting out the display. Basically means you can’t pick specific songs to listen to, but rather just shuffle through the music you have loaded on it. Since I have an IPod, I’m not really that interested in it. Plus I’m enough of a control freak that I want to have more control of my music player.
• iWork ‘05: Basically a Microsoft Office competitor. Hopefully Apple used their design team to make the UI easier to use rather than just a direct copy of Microsoft’s UI (not to name names StarOffice/OpenOffice).
• iLife ‘05: The old version of iLife comes with all new Mac’s. That’s how we got it. We really don’t use any of those applications on a regular basis, but I would like to use iDvd and iMovie to do some stuff. But I don’t think I’m going to shell out the $80 Apple wants for the upgrade. For some reason it always feels to be that iLife should be a free upgrade to existing customers, or at least upgrade pricing. But Jobs doesn’t seem to agree with me.
• Mac mini: This is just totally sweet. A $500 Mac with no monitor/keyboard/mouse, just a CPU. It is 6×6x2 and virtually silent. Doesn’t take up much desk space. And the price point is great for people who are looking to replace the old PC they have been using for web surfing and are interested in trying a Mac. I want one! (but I’m holding out for a iBook. Sigh…)

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