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It just was not the same to see a Macworld Keynote without Steve Jobs, but I thought that Phil Schiller did an admirable job of showing off the latest from Apple.
The top four innovations from my point of view were:
1) iPhoto – the changes to iPhoto are simply astounding. It is the most advanced photo management system for consumers ever conceived. It will make your photo library more accessible, more manageable and more useful than ever before. iPhoto is reason enough all by itself to buy a Mac!
2) iMovie – the new features in iMovie have me thinking about taking a video camera with my on my upcoming safari to Tanzania. The ability to manipulate your videos and the new tools introduced make video editing even within my capabilities.
3) The Mac Box Set – The new package @ $169 of iWork, iLife and Leopard is a great way to get folks stuck back with Tiger finally into the modern age!
4) DRM-free iTunes – YES, this will make managing your music library as easy as managing your photo library. It is a credit to Apple that the record labels have finally seen the light and dropped the requirement for DRM on music. Apple has demonstrated that they have the market for music no one else can touch.
Plus, I like a lot of the features in the new MacBook Pro 17-inch, especially the new battery. While I know some will complain about the non-removable battery, I am sure that it can be replaced by Apple Service Providers and with a 1000-cycle life and up to 8-hours on a charge, you do not have to carry a spare battery just to get through the day!
I was surprised to see Tony Bennett as the musical star at the end of the keynote but Artie was enraptured and applauded wildly.
iPhoto has gotten many updates in the iLife ’09 edition. iPhoto is arguably the most-used application in the iLife suite, behind iTunes.
For starters, there are now three ways to sort your photos:
* Events
* Faces
* Places
Events was a new way to view and sort photos with the last iLife release, but both Faces and Places are new.
Faces relies on face recognition, and assists in tagging photos. Amazingly, it will find a face and ask in other photos if it is the same person… I guess we’ll see! There’s also integration with Facebook and Flickr.
Places works with Google Maps to zoom in on a location. It uses latitude and longitude, and will automatically add a location to your photos. This is great because you’ll be able to ‘geotag’ your entire set of photos. Phil uses the example of “Yosemite” in that if you have just taken a vacation there, it will geotag all of your photos from the trip!
I’m really excited to check iPhoto ’09 out, especially the tagging and face recognition features. As Don mused, “will it be able to recognize dog’s faces, too?” Unfortunately, apparently not, but we’ll be reporting more on iPhoto’s features in future issues of Kibbles & Bytes!
“Learn more and pre-order iLife ’09 here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72885
Some big changes were announced to the iWork suite of productivity applications at Macworld on Tuesday. Like iWork ’08, iWork ’09 includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Integration and sharing have been vastly improved across the suite, and it still offers excellent Microsoft Office compatibility.
The addition of iWork.com is huge. Much like Google Docs, you will be able to collaborate on projects by accessing your files online. Apple has not launched this yet in its full form, but it is available as a public beta once you have purchased iWork ’09.
In the following articles, you’ll find an overview of the highlighted new features. The Single User edition is available for $79.99 and Family Pack is available for $99.99. *Note that iWork ’09 includes all three applications which are not available for purchase separately.*
iWork ’09 will ship in the next week or so; reserve your copy below:
Single User Edition:
http://www.smalldog.com/product/72887
Family Pack:
http://www.smalldog.com/product/72888
“Read our full coverage of Macworld 2009 on our blog.”:http://blog.smalldog.com
At Macworld, Phil Schiller introduced a new version of GarageBand. The biggest new feature is called “Learn to Play.” It is designed to teach people to play instruments such as guitar and keyboards. You see the a representation of the instrument on the screen with a video of the instructor facing you.
Celebrity instructors include Sting, Sarah McLachlan, John Fogerty, and more. Apple says “learn to play a hit song from the artist who made it famous,” which I think sounds pretty cool. Additional video lessons can be purchased from the new GarageBand store for $4.99.
Noted features:
* Easily create formulas, using *visual placeholders with plain language text.*
* Perform calculations using *over 250 functions.*
* Organize your data instantly using *Table Categories.*
* Check your calculations at a glance with *Formula List view.*
* Create two-axis charts and combine line, column, and area series in a single mixed chart.
* Choose from *twelve new Apple-designed templates* (30 total).
* *Open, save, and email Microsoft Excel files* from within Numbers.
Millions of cheers were heard ’round the world when Phil Schiller announced some of the changes coming to the iTunes Store. The main one: all DRM-free music, meaning that songs can be played and burned without restriction. The four major record companies (Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI) are all now on board with the change, which was crucial to feature songs without the “DRM”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management encoding.
Beginning today, over 8 million songs in the iTunes Store feature:
* No DRM restrictions
* Higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually unchanged from the original
* Same price for song downloads onto iPhone 3G over their 3G network
The remaining 2 million songs in the 10 million+ iTunes library will be available without the DRM restrictions by the end of March. According to Apple, they will offer a “simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their entire library of previously purchased songs to the higher quality DRM-free iTunes Plus format” for 30 cents per song or 30 percent of the album price. Sounds intriguing, but it could get expensive… I say choose your favorites wisely!
In April, songs will be available at three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. This will be dictated by what the music labels charge Apple for the above licensing.
“Read Apple’s entire press release here.”:http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/06itunes.html