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Apple's Last Appearance At Macworld Expo

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 January 2009, 14:15 CST

Another year, another keynote at the Macworld Expo, except this year was the last and there was no Steve Jobs to bring the new products and announcements from Apple Inc.

Instead, Phil Schiller, senior vice-president of Apple, delivered the keynote address on Tuesday at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, and although there was no rumored iPhone Nano, he did deliver some anticipated announcements.

Schiller began the session by letting everyone know he has three things to share about new Mac developments.  First off was an announcement about the upgraded "iLife" software Apple developed. 

Apple's iLife consist of five separate softwares focused on user friendly ways to organize photos with iPhoto, create movies with iMovie, record music with GarageBand, design webpages with iWeb and create homemade DVDs with iDVD. 

These improvements include: iPhoto '09 being able recognize faces and sort photos based on who is in them, GarageBand '09 now has videotaped, interactive music lessons given by popular musicians such as Sting, and iMovie '09 now has the ability to stabilize video footage taking by wobbly hands.

Another one of the three announcements Schiller had in store, is that iTunes is now going to offer DRM-free music for 8 million of its 10 million songs, with the other 2 million becoming available in the next month.  DRM is a short for digital rights management, which is software that keeps music from being shared by consumers without purchasing the songs, but also limits the ability to use the music in other popular MP3 players and devices that play digital music.

The DRM-free move by Apple was an expected one from people such as Mark Mulligan, a director with market analysts Jupiter Research, who said the end of DRM was inevitable.

"Don't be surprised if Apple doesn't announce the end of DRM today. These rumors were going strong just before Christmas, so we've been here before," Mulligan said before the keynote. 

"That said, this is going to happen, whether it's today or in a couple of months. The only reason it hasn't happened yet is that the record industry has been trying to level the playing field, by giving away DRM free to everyone else, but even that hasn't dented Apple's share," said Mr Mulligan.

"Ultimately, what we're going to end up with is a new form of DRM. The more you pay, the less DRM you get bolted onto your music. Premium music will be DRM free, the cheaper it gets, the more shackles are attached," he added.

Apple's last announcement brought forth by Schiller was a new 17" MacBook Pro.  The laptop now has the Apple coined "unibody" build, along with a new battery that is expected to provide 7 to 8 hours of battery life, the longest battery life of any 17" notebook computer on the market.

Apple is also announced that iPhone 3G users will be able to purchase music through the 3G network, as opposed to being restricted to only buying music when connected to a WiFi network.

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On the Net:

• Macworld Conference and Expo
• Apple
• iLife
• iTunes
• MacBook Pro

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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