What went on at Macworld 2009?
6th January 2009
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On 6th January 2009, Macworld 2009 will be the last time that Apple attends the IDG-run event. Plenty of controversy and speculation came about with the announcement that Steve Jobs would be not be the host, instead Phil Schiller will be taking the stage. Rumours of health problems were circulated which was eventually answered by an open letter from Steve Jobs himself the day before the event took place.
Comparing this keynote with all other past keynotes, I’d have to say that this was one ranks as the least satisfying. Has Apple lost their magic touch? I don’t think so. Is it because of Phil? Nope, I don’t think it’s that either.
A new year means plenty of goodies to expect. So it’s unlikely that Apple would release their best products from their Cupertino vault within the first week of January. Instead, Apple decided to talk about their new lifestyle and productivity apps as well as an update to their 17-inch MacBook Pro, which received a minor update when the unibody 15-inch models came out late last year. It appears that this Macworld was used to cap off last years work. Like the 2008 versions which was released in the last quarter of 2007, I was expecting iLife and iWork to be released in the last quarter of 2008. So they’re a few weeks late with that but perhaps that was for the best since the new 2009 versions don’t really offer anything that much more compelling than the ones that came before them.
iLife 09 gets some new features in iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband. iPhoto and iMovie get the spotlight here as Apple continues to further refine these applications and adding more features. iPhoto highlights include the new geotagging feature, face recognition, tagging and upload to Flickr and Facebook. All great features that users will value as soon as they get their hands on it. I know I’ll appreciate the ability to upload straight to Flickr.
iMovie gets back the features it lost from the PowerPC days along with some new enhancements. Audio overlaps, special effects and video stabilisation. iMovie has never looked so good and I for one cannot wait to get my hands on this already excellent video editing package.
The new iWork 09 is probably the weakest out of all of the updates, especially when you consider the price they’re asking for the latest version. Like iLife 09, iWork undergoes some tweaks and refinement but nothing to write home about. I noticed that the apps load a bit quicker and there’s a few more special effects to choose from in Keynote but Pages and Numbers get very few new features and what’s available isn’t all that exciting.
Keynote, which I suspect is the only reason why most people buy iWork gets a cool new feature that ties in with your iPod Touch or iPhone. When connected to the same network over Wi-Fi, you can use your portable device to view your presentation slides and use it as a remote to control your slides. Hold your device upright and you see your current slide with notes. Roate it sideways and you see your current and next slide.
The major new feature that is part of iWork that is quite compelling is the iWork.com beta. As rumoured by some, iWork.com is an online version of one of the iWork apps. You can now upload and share your Keynote presentation over the web. Functionality is quite rich as is the quality of the online application. You have the ability to add comments and notes to the slide deck as well as convert it to PDF, PowerPoint or iWork 08 format. All that is required to gain access to this feature is an Apple account, the same one you use for iTunes or to buy from the Apple Store. Simply click the iWork.com button and a box prompts you to type in the address of the person you wish to send a link to and a message then iWork does the rest for you.
Rumours of the 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro (MBP) came true. So for those of you who have been waiting for this update, get your pre-order in as it ships in 3-4 weeks. The new 17-inch MBP is Apple’s most powerful portable ever released and it follows the same design cues as the unibody 15 and 13-inch models released last year. You can now configure the machine to have up to 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD drive.
The battery is now rated at 8-hours but the catch is that it’s non-removeable. Non-removeable you say? You don’t have to worry if you go by Apple’s word. The new battery technology they’ve included will allow owners to recharge the battery up to 1,000 times with a five year lifetime. A little chip in the battery talks to each of the battery cells and adjusts the current flowing to the battery to optimise life and efficiency. This is certainly new and only available in the 17-inch MacBook Pro as it’s an Apple-developed technology called Adaptive Charging. They also wanted to include a bigger battery to hit their target capacity, so the compromise was to remove the parts that would normally allow for a removeable lid.
Apple say this is a greener method but I can’t see how this is the case because in any way you look at it, people will eventually have to bin the whole laptop as opposed to ordering a new battery. Right now, you can still order a battery for the 17-inch PowerBook of yesteryear, that simply won’t be the case for the new unibody model. Sure, you can recycle the entire laptop when it becomes a dud, but doesn’t that effectively make the product lifespan much shorter? Are the days gone where a Mac changes hands several times on eBay?
One final announcement that Apple made today was that the iTunes Store is going DRM-free for 8 million of its tracks. That means 256kbps AAC tracks for 80% of their music catalogue with the remaining 2 million tracks to be converted by March of this year. There will however be a new pricing structure introduced to tracks with USD 0.69 for older tracks and USD 1.29 for new hits. And on a minor note, iTunes Store now works over 3G as well as WiFi so you can now buy content wherever and whenever you want.
So that’s it for the beginning of what I can only guess will be a whole raft of new products to come out in 2009. Who knows what the next surprise will be. One things for sure, is that Apple won’t be returning to Macworld in 2010 so one wonders what Apple will replace this yearly event with for their New Year product announcements next year.
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