So the Mac World Expo is over with now, and if you haven’t heard yet there are a lot of people that were rather disapointed by the event. Why? Two main reasons, first there were a lot of rumors floating around as to what would be announced. People expected these rumors to be true, and when they weren’t, people felt let down. The other reason, is the event was pretty boring.
If you hadn’t heard, this is the last year that Apple is attending the Mac World Expo. In addition to that, there was also no Steve Jobs to present the keynote, instead it was handled by Senior V.P. Phil Schiller. I don’t know if it was just Phil, or if it was the products he was announcing today but the event was boring. He spent half an hour along talking about iPhoto 09. iPhoto might be nice, and there may be a lot of new things in it, but half an hour? Really?
So what was covered during the keynote? If you fell asleep, or just missed it, here is a recap:
iLife ’09 – A new year, a new version of iLife. This includes an updated version of iPhoto which looks like it contains a lot of the features from Google’s Picasa. Perhaps this is the reason Phil spent so much time going over the software, considering Google announced yesterday the availability of Picasa (beta) for Mac. I’ll give iPhoto 09 a try, but it’ll be hard to pull me away from Picasa.
Also included in the new iLife is a completely rewritten version of iMovie. Phil said the only thing that is the same in iMovie 09 is the name. It looked cool and added several new features. Again, nothing that was really worth spending a lot of time on.
Garageband, another application in the iLife suite was also updated. This update interested me the most out of everything from iLife. The new version has lessons, that can help teach you how to play the guitar or keyboard. It includes six (I think it was) basic lessons for each, and additional lessons can be purchased. Additionally, you can purchase “Artist Lessons” where you can learn from famous artists like Sting, Sarah McLachlan, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, and others.
While I don’t remember them being mentioned, iDVD and iWeb have also been updated with iLife.
iWork – It’s a new year and iLife was updated so you’d probably expect iWork to be updated as well. To no surprise, it was. As part of the office productivity suite, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers were all updated. The only thing I really heard mention for the apps themselves were new animations, themes, and standard updates. Again, it was pretty boring.
iWork Keynote Remote – Similar to the iTunes Remote (which I love) there is now an iWork Keynote Remote available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. For $0.99 you get a app that allows you to control your Keynote presentations. While it’s cool, I personally think the remote should be included free with iWork 09.
iWork.com (beta) – This is basically nothing more than Apple’s version of Google Docs. Using iWork you can publish a document to the web for others to review using an interface that looks identical to the desktop app. While the service allows others to comment on a document, it doesn’t appears as though users can actually edit a document on iWork.com. I’m not sure if the service will cost extra, be included with MobileMe, or be available free to anyone who purchases iWork.
Mac Box Set – The new versions of iWork and iLife of course cost to upgrade and require OS X 10.5 Leopard. Don’t have Leopard? You might be interested in the Mac Box Set which includes iWork, iLife, and OS X 10.5. All for a killer price of $169. That’s less than you would pay for the operating system from a certain other company. 
17-inch MacBook Pro – This one seriously had me asking “WTF Apple”. The new MacBook Pro is identical in many ways to the recently revised MacBooks. However, it includes a non-removable battery. The battery lasts 8 hours on a charge, and can be recharged 1000 times. Really now? I’d much rather have a removable battery that didn’t last 8 hours. The MBP starts out at $2,799.00 and if you max it out (8G memory, 256G SSD hard disk, 2.93GHz processor) it’ll cost you well over $5,000. Seriously Apple, you should be “thinking different” and finding ways to lower the price for your devices… lower the price and more will come.
The anti-Apple crowd will have a field day with this one, and rightfully so. Oh, did I mention it cost an extra $50 to get the matte display? Yeah, that use to be free.
iPhone 3G & iTunes – Those that own an iPhone 3G can now download music over the 3G network. Previously you had to be connected to a WiFi network. I rarely download music on my iPhone, usually I wait until I’m sitting at my Mac.
iTunes Plus – The last thing involved some changes to iTunes. Basically there will be three pricing tiers for music (single songs) now: $0.69, $0.99, $1.29. Additionally, most albums will continue to be $9.99. The iTunes Plus stuff will continue to be iTunes Plus stuff… high quality, DRM free. Simple enough.
So, what was missing from the keynote? Technically nothing as there was nothing promised in the first place. Though an appearance from Steve Jobs would have certainly brought the crowd to life. I kept hoping that Phile would say “one more thing…” and Steve would pop out with some really cool news. Yeah, that didn’t happen.
What would I have liked to see?
Price cuts, price cuts, price cuts – It’s simple really, Apple hardware is expensive. If you want to attract more people, give them some cheaper options. A $5,000+ notebook isn’t going to do it, no matter how sexy it looks, or how green it is.
iPhone Updates – It’s available on the iPod Touch, so I’d like to see it make it’s way to the iPhone. Music, movies, games, and all of that take up quite a bit of space. Availability in some other colors wouldn’t be a bad touch. I’m sure the wife would like her iPhone (which I’ve been promising for a while now) in blue or pink. Heck, I wouldn’t mind a silver or grey.
Mac Mini – Just about everyone agrees that the Mac Mini is long overdue for an upgrade. If they could include some better graphics power in this bad boy, it’d be a decent entry level gaming Mac. Yes, you can play games on a Mac. The ability for more memory would of course be nice as well.
That’s it… that’s everything I would have liked to see. Granted, other people wanted to see an iPhone Nano, iMac updates, and a slew of other new things. But those really are suited for a special Apple event later down the road. I just hope that event comes sooner.
Thanks to all the sites that live blogged today’s keynote, regardless of how bad it sucked. I stuck with several of you through the entire, painful event.