macworld 2009 keynote round up…
Chiyin says...
on Jan 6th, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
The event finished a couple hours ago and here are some of the new things we’ll be seeing in our neighborhood Apple Store…
iLife ‘09
The new version of the iLife suite comes with new features for iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband. Some of the features are actually very nifty… Here is what’s new
iPhoto – I haven’t use iPhoto that much but with these new additions I think I’ll start…
- Face recognition. Now you can take pictures and have iPhoto organize them by looking at the faces
- Geotagging. With more and more GPS enabled cameras geotagging is becoming a norm. Now you can take pictures and have iPhoto organize the images by location. Or if your camera doesn’t have GPS tagging you can input the location and it will work pretty much the same
- Online sharing. Now you can upload pictures to Flickr and Facebook directly from iPhoto. You can even tag people in the pictures before uploading
- Slideshows. Now you can show off your photos on the go, just make slideshows and sync them to your iPhone or iPod Touch. That’s a nice feature
- I think there was something else, but don’t remember now
iMovie – To be honest I don’t do much with videos so I didn’t pay much attention to this part, here is what I remember
- Drag and Drop. You can now drag and drop video clips to create your movies. You can also select the audio track only and manipulate it
- Precision Editor. Which is a more advance feature that lets you edit your clips in more details
- Video Stabilization. This I think it’s a very nice feature, a lot of home made videos are so shaky that no one can sit down and watch the whole thing, now you can’t use that excuse when the movie is too boring…
- I’m sure there were some other features, but like I said, I didn’t pay much attention
Garageband - The most intersting new feature added are music lessons and not just some basic lessons on how to play an instrument, but artists teaching you. Yep, now you can have Sting teach how to play guitar or Norah Jones giving you instruction on the piano. What else can you ask for? Actually I’m wondering why Sting is teaching guitar, shouldn’t it be bass?
- Basic lessons. Included with Garageband are basic instructional videos on how to play an instruments
- Artists lessons. If you don’t want some random dude teaching you a song, you can purchase the Artists lessons and have them teaching you their songs
- New guitar features
iWork ‘09
Just like the iLife suite this productivity package has added some very nice improvements. Also, and probably more exciting is the introduction of iWork.com, an online service that will let you share and collaborate with others…
Pages -
- Full-Screen View. Now you can see the entire document in full screen covering all the clutter around your desktop. This is a very nice feature because when you can see the browser in the background you’ll just end up playing the flash game du jour
- Dynamic Outlines. Very nice for organizing your thoughts
Numbers -
- Easy Formulas. With the help of this feature now you can easily create formulas
- Linked Charts. Paste charts into Pages and Keynote
Keynote -
- Magic Move. This will allow you to create animations with a single click. And there are also more transition to choose from now
- Keynote Remote. Perhaps the more fun addition to the suite, now you can use your iPhone or iPod Touch to control a Keynote presentation
iWork.com – The service is in beta right now
MacBook Pro 17″
Last year it was all about the MacBook Air. This year it’s the 17″ MacBook Pro’s turn. The new laptop sports a similar unibody enclosure as the new MacBook, it’s very thin for it’s size and it comes with all the expected hardware upgrades that are typical of a refresh. The most interesting thing about the new 17″ MacBook Pro is the non-replaceable battery, Apple opted to go this route to optimize the use of space inside the laptop.
iTunes Store
The last thing announced at this year’s keynote was changes to the iTunes Store
- New pricing are coming later this year with tracks ranging from $0.69 – $1.29 set by the labels
- iTunes Plus will now offer DRM free songs that are also encoded in a much higher bit rate. Also, you can upgrade you current library with a single click. The cost of the upgrade is $0.30 per song or 30% of the current album price
- Finally, you can now download songs from the iTunes Store on the iPhone over the 3G network. I tried it inmediately after the announcement and I have to say that this is probably the most exciting announcement this keynote. The download was fast and being able to preview songs anywhere it’s a very cool feature
So that’s the year’s round up… I’m not really sure how to feel about the event, this being Phil Schiller’s first keynote it went pretty well, but as the last one Apple will be giving at Macworld it lacked some excitement… What are your thoughts?
View 4 Comments
Apples & Oranges
I know how I feel about the event:
BORING!
Seriously Apple… way to close the last year at macworld.
@daN
it was kinda boring… and they didn’t mention anything about snow leopard… no wonder why steve didn’t want to do it… hahahah
I think this really explains the reason for pulling out of Macworld. Apple has grown big enough now outside of the “Mac World” that they can throw their own events that they have complete control over and on their schedule. So I’m sure now all future gatherings won’t be as boring since they will have something to say when they throw their own event.
It could have been good. perhaps show some of the hot stuff fro Snow Leopard, but not even that.