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SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple Computer has answered some of its biggest critics, as Chief Executive Steve Jobs opened the annual Macworld Expo this week by unveiling innovative systems and software intended to get the computer maker out of its recent slump.

Addressing a crowd of about 5000 Mac enthusiasts at the event's opening, Jobs took the wraps off faster Power Mac G4s; a thin, lightweight, Titanium PowerBook G4; and iTunes and iDVD media software. He also announced new features and a ship date for the Mac OS X. It will go on sale for $129 on March 24.

A Slow Speedup for G4

Like other PC makers, Apple has suffered from slowing late-year sales. Due to slower-than-expected sales in October and November, Apple in December warned of first-quarter 2001 earnings and revenue (for the period ending December 30) to be well below its previous expectations. The company expects to miss revenue targets for the first time in three years and has issued a number of rebates on its G4 Cubes.

"The last several months of 2000 were particularly challenging for Apple and the industry," Jobs said.

Jobs admitted Apple has fallen behind in the gigahertz-plus race that has generated great attention for Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

"We've been coasting at 500 MHz for 18 months, which is far too long," Jobs said. "Today, we're taking it up to 733 MHz."

Apple hopes the faster speeds of the G4s will boost sales and attract corporate customers along with its multimedia mainstays. Apple officials say lower-than-expected sales of its PowerMac G4 Cubes account for over $90 million in missed revenue for the quarter.

New: Built-in CD-RW

The four new PowerMac G4 models--running at 466 MHz, 533 MHz, 667 MHz, and 733 MHz--all include built-in CD-RW drives, something Apple has not previously offered and something for which it has been criticized.

"We're late to the [CD-RW drive] party, but we're here," Jobs said.

Beyond CD capacity, Mac's top-end, 733-MHz system, offers what Apple calls a SuperDrive: a combination, CD-RW/DVD-R drive developed by Pioneer.

Apple has replaced the ATI Rage 128 graphics in its top three models, going instead with NVidia's GeForce2 MX. All new models offer a 133-MHz system bus and five slots: four PCI slots plus and AGP slot.

Pricing starts at $1399 for the 466-MHz system and runs to $3499 for the 733-MHz system. The bottom two models are available immediately. and the 667-MHz and 733-MHz models are due in volume in February.

Claiming Speed With Single CPU

One surprise: The new models are all single-processor, going against Apple's efforts to make OS X and Mac applications support dual-processor G4 systems.

"We wanted to get them to you as fast as we could," Jobs explained. "To make enough chips for dual-processor systems, you'd have had to wait until April."

Although 733 MHz is an improvement, many analysts say Macs need to hit the gigahertz mark in order to compete. But, according to Jobs, "Comparing megahertz across processor families is like comparing apples to oranges."

In a test, Apple raced a PowerMac G4 733-MHz system and a 1.5-GHz Pentium 4 running a series of commands in Adobe Photoshop 6. The G4 finished in 24 seconds, while the Pentium took 36.

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