MacWorld Conference and Expo is going strong this week in San Francisco. The keynote was given by Apple Vice President Phil Schiller yesterday. There were some interesting announcements! An update to the 17 inch MacBook Pro featured a non removable battery that was eco friendly. Interesting concept. iWork was also updated, and a new feature in beta called iWork.com was unveiled. It's like Google Docs, but specifically for Pages, Keynote, and Numbers files. It is free while in beta, but they do plan to charge for a subscription. Why not included that in the cost of a MobileMe account?
Also on the software side, an update to iLife, version '09, was unveiled. iPhoto featured geo-tagging support and face recognition. You can easily search your photo's for pictures of particular people's face! iMovie saw some improvements, with the re-introduction of some features lost in the migration from iMovie '06 to iMovie '08. GarageBand also had some new shine. It offers to teach you to play instruments. The instructors are what's really interesting. How would you like to learn from Sting, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy, Norah Jones, Colbie Calliat, Sara Bareilles, John Fogerty, One Republic, or Ben Folds? You can. It's an additional cost, but it will certainly sell some Macs!
iTunes also saw some changes. It won't be long before the whole iTunes store is DRM (digital rights management) free! This is a very welcome change! There is also some new pricing. You'll soon see older music for $.69! New music may be as much as $1.29.
I can hardly wait to play with iLife '09 and use iWork.com to collaborate with my colleagues!
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