Apparently my expectations weren’t low enough, and Apple’s final Macworld keynote featured very little in the way of compelling new tech. Which pretty much emphasizes why Apple doesn’t need to headline, if conversation remains product-focused. And pre-announcing products is bad for business – tech should be delivered when ready. Not on arbitrary show dates. So we’ll just have to wait for that iPhone Nano or terabyte Mac Mini server. When events like CES began their runs, the industry was much different – most notably the speed (or lack thereof) of information dissemination. But… yada, yada, yada. On to the tech you really came here for.
For me, as both an industry observer and as a geeky consumer, the most notable announcement is Apple (and the studios) making their entire music library DRM-free. Additionally, variable track pricing will be coming later this spring: $.69, $.99, and $1.29
Other than that, Apple extends their new Macbook manufacturing process to a 17″ MacBook Pro refresh. The updated laptop, with non-removeable 8 hour battery, will be available later this month starting at $2800. ’09 editions of iLife ($79) and iWork ($99) are available now. iPhoto’s new facial recognition technology, used for sorting/organization, looks particularly interesting… though, it’s yet to be seen how well it’ll perform. Also interesting is Apple’s continued dabbling ‘in the cloud’ with an iWork.com beta for online document collaboration.
As for me, I’m still waiting for the iPhone HD with higher resolution camera… suitable for both stills and video. I’ll also take some true turn-by-turn navigation software on the iPhone. Pretty please.
Kudos to Greg for keeping me looped in with Macworld keynote news via Twitter while I was airborne.
i think the ilife updates are cool and all but it didn’t justify 75% of the keynote… especially since everything they added to iphoto already existed in plugins (more or less)