In lieu of Steve Jobs who is recovering from a hormone imbalance, Phil Schiller took to the stage in what was the last Macworld keynote. Here is a summary:
- Recap: Almost 10 million Macs sold last year
- iLife 09: A number of improvements and new features
- iPhoto 09: Addition of new events such as “Faces” which uses face detection software to identify people in pictures to auto-group them. Another new event is “Places” which geotags photos. Other new features includes integration with Facebook and Flickr, new slideshows, and the ability to print photo books.
- iMovie 09: Improved UI and new features like a new precision editor, new effects, image stabilization and more
- GarageBand 09: New “Learn to Play” feature to teach you to play guitar or a piano. 9 lessons included are included. Some lessons are from people like John Fogerty, Sting and Norah Jones. Additional lessons will be available for USD$4.99 as well.
- iLife 09: Available in late January and will ship on all new Macs. Single upgrades are also available for USD$79 and family packs for USD$99.
- iWork: KeyNote has received new new transitions, chart animations, themes and a new companion application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Pages, Numbers, MathType and EndNote have all been updated as well.
- iWork: Now available for USD$79 for a single user license, USD$99 for the family pack, and USD$49 with a new Mac.
- Mac Box Set: As the name implies, this is a box set that combines iLife 09 and iWork 09 together for USD$169.
- iWork.com: Apple launching this shared document service as a beta for now to get user feedback. It will allow for online collaboration. It is integrated with iWork but supports both Macs and PCs as well as a number of document formats (eg, Microsoft Office). The beta will be free but expect to pay for the service when it gets its official launch.
- 17-inch MacBook Pro: Aluminium unibody construction with glass trackpad, 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo processor options with NVIDIA graphics (NVIDIA 9400M and 9600M GT), up to 8GB RAM, 17-inch matte display offering resolution of 1920 by 1200 with 700:1 contrast ratio, 320GB HDD or 128GB or 256GB SSD options, Mini DisplayPort, USB, and FireWire 800. The battery is a custom design and not removable. Featuring some innovative technology, it will last 8 hours on a single charge (7 hours with the 9600M video card running) and will be chargeable 1000 times.
- 17-inch MacBook Pro: New model starts to ship at the end of the month with pricing starting at USD$2799.
- iTunes: 6 billion songs now sold, 75 million accounts with credit cards
- iTunes: New pricing scheme announced with three tiers (USD$0.69, USD$0.99, USD$1.29) and iTunes Plus being expanded to cover entire store by end of the quarter. Songs will come encoded in 256kbps AAC format.
- iTunes: Purchasing songs from the iTunes store will now be possible via 3G
All in all, it won’t go down as the most exciting Macworld keynote but there was still some good stuff there.
So long, Macworld!