At the annual trade show Macworld Expo, Apple vice-president Phil Schiller took the stage to announce a new 17-inch MacBook Pro, iLife 09 and iWork ’09. Also, Apple said 8 million songs on iTunes will be DRM-free, and iPhone 3G users can access the store.
In its final keynote address at Macworld Expo, Apple gave a glimpse of its plan 2009. Even though vice-president Phil Schiller elicited some applause for announcing DRM-free iTunes and a 17-inch MacBook Pro, the innovative company didn’t turn too many heads with any shocking announcements.
So what did Apple trumpet today?
iLife ’09 trumps its predecessor by adding facial recognition, a feature that lets automatically finds faces and lets you tag them, a la Facebook. It can try to guess which is the same face in other photos, a very cool tool if it works seamlessly. The software package also beefs up iPhoto with a Places function: it uses GPS geotagging to find the latitude and longitude of a certain photo, and then plots them on a Google Map. If your camera doesn’t have a GPS chip, no worries: iPhoto has a database of thousands of locations, all assigned with a specific geotag.
Schiller also demonstrated slideshow themes for iPhoto, showing off how face detection can properly position the photos. In his example, the faces slid in and out of the screen like an iPod commercial.
Apple also announced the new version of iMovie, a video production suite. Schiller lauded iMovie 09’s new features: 2D and 3D maps to show where you’ve traveled, auto stabilization for shaky video, the ability to run audio from one clip over another, effects such as x-ray, cartoon and aged film.
The press release states, “With the revolutionary Precision Editor, you can skim and click on a magnified filmstrip to view clips up close and fine tune any edit, like identifying precisely how much to keep, where to cut, use sound from one clip with video from another and more.”
Music fans might appreciate the updated version of GarageBand. Ideal for newbies is the “learn to play” feature, complete with an instructor, chords and fretboard (for guitar players, for example). Apple even enlisted celebs to help people learn their instruments, from Sting to Fallout Boy. These lessons cost $5 each.
The entire iLife ’09 upgrade costs $79 and the family pack is $99. It will also ship out with new Macs.
Next up Schiller discussed the iWork ’09 package. This office productivity suite lets you create corporate presentations with slideshows or graphics-heavy docs. You can move through images via something called a “swing” transition, and iWork also stars some handsome chat effects.
The new Keynote Remote allows you to control presentations through this nifty app you can download for your iPhone or iTouch. By talking wirelessly to your Mac, the app lets you flip your finger through the presentation on the mobile device, translating that exact movement to the Mac.
Schiller also said iWork.com will be launched as a beta, allowing various users to share files. It sounds like a direct competitor to Google Docs.
Available today, iWork ’09 costs $79 for a single user, $99 for the family pack, and $49 with a new Mac.
And the Mac Box Set — consisting of Leopard, iLife, and iWork — will retail for $169, Schiller announced.
The packed crowd at Macworld breathed a sigh of relief when Schiller announced the launch of a new 17-inch MacBook Pro. Hardware was a long time coming in the keynote.
Want all the sexy specs? Aluminum unibody, matte 1920 x 1200 display, glass trackpad, up to 8GB of RAM, a purported 8-hour battery life, a 320GB hard drive, a 2.66GHz processor and a completely PVC-free body.
Apple makes a big claim in the release: “Measuring just 0.98-inches thin and weighing 6.6 pounds, the 17-inch MacBook Pro is the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch notebook.” Undoubtedly, thin is in.
The new MacBook will start shipping in late January and will set customers back $2,799.
Schiller wanted to keep the applause coming so he rolled on with his iTunes announcement. He said pricing will vary this year, so instead of the buck-a-song deal, now customers can get songs for either $0.69 or $1.29.
But his next phrase won some thunderous cheers: “Starting today, 8 million songs will be DRM free.” The songs on this iTunes Plus tier will allow downloaders to play these tracks on any device, not just an iPod. Two million more songs will be DRM-free by the end of March.
“We are thrilled to be able to offer our iTunes customers DRM-free iTunes Plus songs in high quality audio and our iPhone 3G customers the ability to download music from iTunes anytime, anywhere over their 3G network at the same price as downloading to your computer or via Wi-Fi,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said in a news release. “And in April, based on what the music labels charge Apple, songs on iTunes will be available at one of three price points—69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29—with many more songs priced at 69 cents than $1.29.”
The iTunes Music Store will also be available on 3G networks, allowing iPhone users to get high-quality music easily and also sync their selections back to their computer. According to the press release, “iPhone 3G users can now preview and purchase the entire iTunes Store music catalog on their iPhone 3G over their 3G network, just as they do with Wi-Fi today, for the same price and in the same high quality format.”
Apple didn’t wow anyone with shockers or head-turners, instead freeing up iTunes (finally) and giving MacBook lovers another toy to covet. But there was no iPhone nano or giant iPod touch; Schiller didn’t unveil the rumoured Mac mini today. And Steve Jobs was nowhere to be seen, instead giving the steering wheel to Schiller during the keynote.
Are you impressed or disappointed with Apple’s final keynote at Macworld?
