OK, the silence is broken. Sorry for the absence from the blog, but things have been a little crazy in the real world. I’ll get to that over the course of the next few days.

Right now, though, I’m at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, and while I haven’t even been able to step foot on the floor yet, Apple has already unleashed a slew of updates and new products:

• Updates across the line for PowerBooks and iBooks. The PowerBooks now top out at 1.5Ghz with a 4xDVD-R drive, and iBooks go to 1.2Ghz starting at just $1,099.
• eMacs have been seriously upgraded to 1.25Ghz, with a superdrive option for only $999.
• Final Cut Pro HD, which is really FCP 4.5. Lots of new features, including much improved workflow with other apps like LiveType, and lots of new support for HD over firewire.
• Updates to LiveType, CinemaTools, etc.
• DVD Studio Pro 3.0 with much improved workflow and integration, and the return of the flowchart view from 1.5.
• Shake 3.5, which is still too expensive for my blood, but I’m not sure I have a use for such a high-end compositing package, yet.
• Motion. New product that looks to compete with AfterEffects. Must look into this one today.
• xSan – xServe RAID on steroids. 64 simultaneous users, each with up to 400Mbps throughput to a common data store, perfect for video postproduction environments.

And that’s just what they announced in the last 24 hours. This is gonna be a fun week.