Apple announced several changes to the iTunes Store today. All four major music labels—Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI, along with thousands of independent labels, now offer their music in iTunes Plus, Apple’s DRM-free format with higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality, which the cmpany claims is virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings.

iTunes customers can also choose to download their favorite songs from what it calls the world’s largest music catalog directly onto their iPhone™ 3G over the 3G network just as they do with Wi-Fi today, for the same price as downloading to their computer.

And beginning in April, based on what the music labels charge Apple, songs on iTunes will be available at one of three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29, with most albums still priced at $9.99.

None of this is earthshattering or unexpected, in fact, these changes have been rumored to be in the works for months. Still, it’s always good to see movement onward and upward.

Apple Inc. said on Tuesday said it was dropping copy protection from songs sold on the Internet and...

This is a live blog of the valedictory keynote Steve Jobs decided not to give — sending Apple (AAPL) senior vice president Phil Schiller to Macworld 2009 in his place.

Schiller’s remarks began shortly after 9 a.m PST (12 noon EST),

Posts are listed in reverse order, with the latest posts on top. All times are a.m. PST.

The headlines: Expectations were low, but even those were largely unmet. There was no Steve Jobs cameo, no Mac mini, no new iMac, no Snow Leopard ship date, no memory upgrades for iPhone or iPod touch, no new iPod shuffle, no revamped Apple TV or Time Capsule. There was a new unibody 17-inch MacBook Pro with an impressive (if non user-removable) battery. There are new price points for iTunes music and 10 million songs are going DRM-free, if you are willing to pay extra for them. And iWork is making collaboration on the Web a little easier, but it’s still in beta and it’s no Microsoft (MSFT) Office — or even Google (GOOG) Apps — killer.

As one wag put it afterward, Tony Bennett got a standing ovation. Apple, not so much.

Below the fold: The live blog.

10:37 And we’re done. Phil Schiller thanks his staff, his family, and invites us to enjoy the show.

10:30 Ending with live music. It’s not going to be Paul McCartney. No, it’s Tony Bennett on a floating stage with a 4-piece band. “The Best is Yet to Come.” He gets a warm applause. “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Standing ovation.

10:24 One last thing. iTunes. 6 billion songs sold. World’s largest media library. More than 10 million songs. Over 75 million accounts with credit cards. iTunes now the No. 1 channel for music in the U.S. So what’s new? Three things. First: Price. Caving in to music publishers, starting in April, three price points $.69, $99, $1.29.

Second: Reviews what iTunes Plus does. Allows DRM-free music. Starting today, offering 8 million songs DRM free. By the end of this quarter, all 10 million songs in iTunes will be DRM free. Big applause. You can go into your library and update all your songs at once. (Doesn’t mention what this would cost you.)

Third: iPhone wi-fi music store. Now you can also download over 3G networks as well. (Scattered applause.) Starts today. “This is really profound,” says Schiller. The audience is silent.

10:21 Schiller back. Up to 7 hours with discrete graphics, up to 8 hours with integrated graphics chip. “Just as thin. Just as light.” Take-back and recycling program.

Price: $2,799 4 GB  memory. 320 GB HD. Superdrive. Ships late January. Shows the TV ad. Battery is featured.

10:10 Finally, a piece of hardware! The 17″ MacBook Pro. Quotes Jobs’ favorite pet journalists — Walt Mossberg, David Pogue — talking about how great the new MacBooks are.

Specs: 0.98 inches thick. 6.6 pounds. 17-inch backlit display. 60% greater color gamut than previous. Glossy finish. Also an anti-glare option for $50 extra. (Applause.) Integrated battery connector. (Does “integrated” mean non removable?) 2.93 GHz. up to 8 GB memory. Both NVIDIA graphics options. 320 GB Hard drive. 256 GB Solid state.

Gets to the battery. Longest lasting battery life ever, but notebook just as thin and just as light. Clips Bob Mansfield. Up to 8 hours. More environmentally friendly. Dan Riccio. Made it bigger. Removable batteries waste a lot of space. By making it nonremovable, able to make it 40% bigger. Mansfield: Custom-designed. Unnamed chief engineer shows a manufacturing movie. Mansfield: adaptive charger. Up to 1000 recharges, more than 3X the old way. Chip within the battery that talks to each of the cells and adjusts accordingly. Claims 3X the lifespan. Mansfield: Greener. Free of “many of the harmful toxins.” Lifespan extended to up to 5 years.

10:03. iWork.com. As predicted, its been updated to be more Web friendly. Allows people to collaborate on documents that are shared on the Internet. But — and here’s a piece of news — it’s still in beta. Demo: Hit a button and it alerts a collaborator — Tia — that a document you want to share that the document is available for viewing on iWork.com. Tia gets e-mail invited to view document. Launches her browser (Mac or PC) and she sees the document. She can read, leave a note or comment, and, if she wants to edit it, she has to download it. (This is less than expected. In Google’s tools, collaborators can actually edit the document online.) Launches today. Eventually Apple will sell it; today it’s free

9:59 Numbers ‘09. Table categories. Categorize by column — by baseball position rather than player name, for example. More functions — more than 250 now — that pastes into your spreadsheet with color-coded variables. New chart types. Trend lines, error bars. (More candy for the biz guys.) Links to Pages so that an update in a spreadsheet gets updated in your word processing document. And, naturally, more “beautiful new templates.” $49 with new Mac, $79 otherwise. $99 family pack. Starts shipping today. You need Leopard to run these, but a box set that includes all three comes for $169.

9:55 Pages ‘09. Full screen view to focus on your writing and get rid of everything else on your desktop. Dynamic outlines. See your document in outline view, reorganize your sections. Mail merge with Numbers. Mathtype and Endnote. 40 new templates. Business cards etc.  Is this what Apple has been doing with its time?

[Will we never get any new hardware?]

9:49 No 2. A new version of iWork. Starts with Keynote. Magic Move, a transition between slides. Object transitions. Text transitions. Bush swings into Obama. (Applause, laughs.) Chart animations. Crane move in a bar graph. Etched metal. Stone texture. Zoom through wood texture pie chart. (Going after the business market, are we?) Themes. (Does anybody actually use these?) Keynote remote to run on your iPhone or iPod touch so you can control your slideshow with your iPhone, flicking between slides with swipe of your finger. Selling on iTunes App Store for $.99.

9:48 iLife 09 ships free with new Macs, upgrade for $79, shipping late January.

9:41 Schiller back on stage. To talk about Garage Band ‘09. Added new feature called “learn to play.” Guitar or keyboards. Instructor up above, guitar in the middle, controls on the bottom. Plays a snippet. 12-bar blues in key of A. Chords A, D and E. Another snippet from keyboard: Hearts and Minds. Free: 9 lessons for guitar, 9 for piano. Also, Artists Lessons. John Fogerty. Colbie Caillat. Patrick Stump. Sting. Sarah McLachlan. Ryan Tedder. Norah Jones. Promises to add more along the way. $4.99 a lesson. Clip: Fogerty. “It was early 1968, the best as I can remember it…” (Audience laughs). Proud Mary, it turns out, was inspired by Beethoven’s Fifth.

9:31 iMovie demo by Randy Ubillos. Inserts video clip with lots of options. Selects some sound from another clip. Drops audio only into other video. (The audience loves this.) Tightens up action and adjusts an edit on the fly. Gets a finished shot of a boy jumping in a lake from two different angles, with clean audio from only one shot. (Applause.)  New project: Safari. Shot from a jeep smoothed out using video stabilization. (Oooh.) Makes a gazelle pop out of the background. Slows a leopard down. Cartoon effects. X-ray effect. Aged film, complete with fake scratches. Adds maps with start and end locations. Get cool animated map with a red line zooming across the globe like the old Warner Bros. cartoons. Themes: five of them. Comic book, Scrap book, Film strip, Photo album and one more. (”Directed by Phil Schiller” gets a laugh.) Finished movie gets a big applause.

9:28 New version of iMovie. (Strangely muted response to that one.) Reminds us that iMovie was completely revamped last year, drawing complaints about some missing features. What’s in it? New editing feature. New drag and drop feature. Context sensitive menus. Dynamic themes with titles, transitions, effects. Maps showing where you traveled. Video stabilization. (The audience has gone silent.) So he goes to a demo. Invites Randy Ubillos to the stage to do it. Big applause.

9:24 Now he’s doing a demo of places. Adding locations to all his events. Seeing pins of every photo taken during a trip to Paris, up and down the Seine. Column view that lists all the photos of every picture he’s taken in the world. All the U.S. photos. All the Calif. photos. All the Arc de Triumph photos.

9:21 Schiller begins a demo. Recognizing faces, confirming names, zooming in on the faces (applause.) Makes a smart albums of a whole family. That’s faces.

9:19. Books from iPhoto. Travel theme with maps that includes geotagging info and pins on that page to show where photo was taking.You can also print on the sleeve and the hardcover.

9:17 Slideshow things. Assign music to your slideshow, pick themes from Apple’s Muzak library. (My wife will hate this.) Slideshow somehow centers your faces. Demos some wacky transitions. Can save slideshow, complete with bad music and wacky transitions to your iPhone.

9:15 Also added to iPhoto: support for Facebook and Flickr. Tags the faces. Click facebook button and it sends the photo to Facebook with nametags. Your friends can then add the names of the faces you didn’t know and the names get synched to your iPhoto. Flickr sharing works as you would expect. Includes geotagging.

9:11 Another new iPhoto feature: Places. Open and get a map with pins wherever your photos were taken using geotagging (if your camera has it; the iPhone does). Take a photo, geotag with longitude and latitude is added to your photo. Reverse encodes and determines that it’s at, say the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. If you don’t have a geotag camera, you can add the event location to a photo file. iPhoto then assigns a geotag to every photo in that Event. The maps comes from Google Maps. So you can zoom to street level. You can click on the pin and see street map, satellite image.

9:08. New version of iPhoto. Talks about Events, the feature added last year. This year, adding to events: Faces. Really powerful. Wouldn’t it be great to allow you to organize your photos around your people. Corkboard with snaps of your people using face detection. Click on picture, name this person, face detect finds the face. Then the program tracks that person using face recognition to find the same person across multiple photos. You confirm or don’t. Not perfect, but the best technology we’ve found.

9:07 Three new things to tell you about. First: an entire new version of iLife, iLife 09.

9:05 Today I’m going to talk about the Mac. 9.7 million sold last year, grew 2 x faster than rest of industry.

9:05 Stats. 3.4 million people visit Apple stores every week. 100 Macworlds every week.

9:04 Appreciates us showing up. “Incredibly exciting time at Apple.” Photos of stores in Beijing, China; Munich, Germany; Sydney, Australia.

9:03 The lights dim. The music stops. Phil Schiller takes the stage.

9:00 The music swells … nothing.

8:59 Silence your cell phones.

8:56 OK, the room is filling up, although there are still large expanses of open seating.

8:40 The doors are open and the crowd, such as it is, files in. A lot of empty seats. My row is empty.

8:31 The media, however, are out in force, preening and strutting. Or maybe more like sharks who smell blood in the water.

8:24 The ground floor is nearly empty.

8:21 With less than 40 minutes to go to showtime, the entrance to Moscone West is strangely quiet.

7:55   Toni Sacconaghi, the Bernstein Research analyst whom investors love to hate, has issued a long report to clients this morning on the potential of an Apple TV box equipped with Tru2way cable TV, lending partial credence to Macworld Rumor No. 2. (See here.)

7:45  Analysis of Jobs’ health letter, which dominated the Techmeme news aggregator Monday (see here), has all but fallen off its front page. Oppenheimer & Co., which had withheld its price estimate three weeks ago, has reinstated the stock — for now. See here.

7:30  The online Apple Store, as it is wont to do in advance of a product announcement — any product announcement — is closed for updating.

Meanwhile, for background reading, check out:

• Top 10 Macworld rumors for 2009
• Hoping for a Steve Jobs surprise
• What’s going on with Steve’s hormones?
• What’s Macworld without its ‘living legend’?
• Behind Steve Jobs’ Macworld exit

[Photo courtesy of setteB.IT.]

      

Who says Apple has to roll out groundbreaking new hardware products to keep life interesting? Though the tweaks to its 17″ MacBook Pro (described in a post above) are noteworthy, upgrades to iLife, iWork and iTunes may end up having more relevance for more Mac users than any hardware introduction could.

Well, at least until we finally get that Mac Tablet, but that’s a story for another day.

Follow after the jump for details on the software upgrades rolled out today.

Apple’s two main productivity suites, iWork and iLife, both received updates for 2009, with iWork’s Keynote presentation software continuing to evolve leaps and bounds ahead of Microsoft’s Powerpoint as a robust and interesting presentation tool.

Magic Move, a new Keynote feature, allows you to apply a simple transition to automatically animate the position, scale, rotation and opacity of any image, graphic or text that is repeated on consecutive slides. New text transitions morph text from one slide to the next. New advanced object transitions animate objects off one slide while simultaneously animating objects onto the next slide with a choice of effects. 3D charts now include cylinder shapes, beveled-edge pie charts, new textures and four new 3D build effects. With these enhancements, Apple continues to distinguish itself as a formidable sylistic competitor to that bigger software company based in Redwood, WA, inviting Keynote users to live in a much more richly textured, 3D world than the primitive, 2D existence Powerpoint people toil under.

Pages, iWork’s word and document processing application now boasts a Full Screen view that lets you focus on your document alone, revealing the menus, format bar and page navigator only when needed. A new Outline mode includes templates to build the framework for your document quickly and allows you to collapse, expand and rearrange elements, even inline graphics, with ease. MathType 6 support lets engineers, mathematicians and students easily add sophisticated equations to their documents and EndNote X2 integration lets users add and edit comprehensive bibliographic references. Pages ’09 also includes 40 new Apple-designed templates, including newsletters, posters, certificates and coordinated stationery.

Apple’s spreadsheet software, Numbers, continues to evolve, with easier function writing, an enhanced function browser which includes built-in help for over 250 functions, and visual placeholders with tool tips that explain each variable in a formula. A new Formula List lets you view all formulas in your entire spreadsheet and jump directly to any formula cell with a single click. Expanded chart options include mixed chart types, two-axis charts, and the ability to apply trend lines and error bars. Numbers charts pasted into Pages or Keynote are linked, and can be updated with a single click. I will look forward to taking Numbers 09 for a test drive, since I’ve long felt the spreadsheet realm was the only one in which Apple’s office-oriented solutions did not clearly outstrip Microsoft’s.

With a nod to the growing popularity of so-called “cloud computing,” Apple also announced today the public beta of iWork.com a new document collaboration service that lets you share iWork ’09 documents online. Using your Apple ID, just click the iWork.com icon in the Keynote, Pages or Numbers toolbar to upload your document and invite others to view it online. Viewers can provide comments and notes, and download a copy of your document in iWork, Microsoft Office or PDF formats. A consolidated online list of all your shared documents indicates when your viewers have posted comments.

iWork ’09 is now available online through the Apple Store, and at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $79 (US). iWork ’09 is available for $49 (US) with the purchase of any Mac through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

“iLife continues to be one of the biggest reasons our customers choose to get a Mac,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in a press release accompanying the Macworld Keynote. “With iLife ’09, we’ve made working with photos, making movies and learning to play music a lot more fun, and iMovie users are especially going to love the advanced but easy-to-use new features.”

Calling the upgrades to iLife apps “major,” Apple introduces facial recognition and location-aware grouping and sorting functionality for your photos in iPhoto, which also lets you easily publish photos to Facebook or Flickr. Photos published to Facebook include assigned names, and name tags added on Facebook sync back to iPhoto. You can also share photos by creating a themed slideshow to play on your Mac, iPhone or iPod®, or create a beautiful travel book, complete with customized maps of your journey.

iMovie gets a new Precision Editing function that lets you click on a magnified filmstrip to view clips up close and fine tune any edit, use sound from one clip with video from another and more. iMovie ’09 analyzes video and reduces camera shake in clips when added to your project. New titles, transitions, cinematic effects, speed changes and animated travel maps add professional polish to your movie.

Garage Band’s new Basic Lessons let you learn the fundamentals of piano or guitar at your own pace with Apple instructors in beautiful HD video synchronized to animated instruments and notation. A potential new money maker for the company, called Artist Lessons, features original artists showing how to play their hit songs with everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Some of the artists whose lessons you can buy separately from a new Lesson Store accessible from within Garage Band include Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and Sting. GarageBand ’09 also includes new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam that lets you play along with a virtual band that you create.

iWeb, Apple’s method for authoring custom websites, and iDVD, for creating DVDs, both get new iWeb Widgets, such as iSight® video and photos, a countdown timer, YouTube video and RSS feeds. New integrated FTP publishing allows you to publish your website to virtually any hosting service and updates to your site can now be automatically added to your Facebook profile.

Pricing for iWeb 09 is $79 (US) through the online Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The iLife Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after January 6, 2009, for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Artist Lessons are available through the GarageBand Lesson Store for $4.99 (US) each. These products are set for availability this month, according to Apple’s press release.

17" MBP!?

Apple announces that iTunes tracks will be cheaper, and available over the iPhone mobile phone network

Phil Schiller introduced a new pricing structure for songs bought from iTunes at this year's keynote address, and also announced that music purchased from iTunes on an iPhone would now be available via the mobile phone data network.

Filed under: Macworld, iTS

Phil Schiller today outlined Apple's new pricing scheme for iTunes music, and announced additional music that will be available DRM-free.

In April, depending on the label, songs will be available at three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. Apple says many more songs will be priced at 69 cents than $1.29, but new releases will likely cost more. Albums will mostly remain at the $9.99 price point.

69 cent songs will have greater restrictions on how they can be used: For each song, users will only be able to download it to one Mac, burn it to one CD, and copy it to one iPod. Turns out this was idle speculation from one of our colleagues, and not part of the changes today. Sorry about that. -- RP

More songs will be also be made available as part of the iTunes Plus program, which features higher-quality, DRM-free music files. Eight million (of 10 million total) songs will be available through iTunes Plus today, and every track will be available DRM-free by the end of March. (Thanks, Chris!)

iPhone users that connect to the Internet via 3G also got good news: They will be able to connect to the iTunes store via both WiFi and 3G starting today. Update: Others with first-generation iPhones here in the Media Center report that the iTunes store appears to work over EDGE, too, but weren't able to test it.

As many expected, Schiller announced new sales figures for the iTunes store, saying Apple has 75 million accounts, and is now the number-one music retailer in the United States.

TUAWiTunes pricing and DRM schemes updated for 2009 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In another first for Capitol Broadcasting, WRAL.com is now accessible through Apple’s iPhone...

After some initial delays, Apple has finally unveiled the unibody 17″ Macbook Pro. The new notebook comes with some major internal changes, such as a non-user replaceable battery.

In keeping with their solid track record, 9to5mac accurately predicted a few changes that the new notebook would see. For one, a non-user replaceable battery has been developed by Apple and integrated into the new Macbook Pro, which will allegedly allow for nearly 8 hours of solid battery life, and allow 1,000 charges making for a nearly 5 year lifespan.

Apple’s Press Release: Apple® today unveiled the new 17-inch MacBook® Pro featuring a durable and beautiful precision aluminum unibody enclosure, and a revolutionary new built-in battery that delivers up to eight hours of use and up to 1,000 recharges for more than three times the lifespan of conventional notebook batteries. The new 17-inch MacBook Pro has a high resolution LED-backlit display and the same large glass Multi-Touch™ trackpad introduced with the new MacBook family in October. In addition, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro includes state of the art NVIDIA graphics and the latest generation Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processors. As part of the industry’s greenest notebook family, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro is made of highly recyclable materials, meets stringent energy efficiency standards and is made without many of the harmful toxins found in other computers.

“We’ve developed new battery technology that is better for the user and better for the environment,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s advanced chemistry and innovative technology deliver up to eight hours of use on a full charge cycle and up to 1,000 recharges.”

Apple uses advanced chemistry, intelligent monitoring of the system and battery, and Adaptive Charging technology to create a revolutionary new notebook battery that delivers up to eight hours of wireless productivity on a single charge and up to 1,000 recharges without adding thickness, weight or cost to the MacBook Pro’s incredible design.* The longer battery lifespan equals fewer depleted batteries and less waste, which is better for the environment.

Apple has also introduced a $50 non-glare option for potential 17″ Macbook Pro owners. Those that may have been turned off by the highly reflective, glossy screen, will now have an option to reduce the reflectiveness. The only difference is the black bezel around the display which has to be removed when opting for the non-glossy option, thus resulting in a more Macbook-Air-ish aesthetic around the display.

Specs are as follows:
• 17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200, glossy display;
• 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;
• 1066 MHz front-side bus;
• 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM;
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
• NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video memory;
• 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
• built-in AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• three USB 2.0 ports;
• one FireWire® 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
• ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
• one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
• glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
• built-in, 95WHr lithium polymer battery; and
• 85 Watt MagSafe® Power Adapter.

“Build-to-order options for the 17-inch MacBook Pro include a 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8GB 1066 MHz DDR 3 memory, 320GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive, anti-glare display for $50 (US), Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.”

The new 17″ Macbook Pro will be shipping at the end of January and be available at the Online Apple Store.

Apple has today announced some new changes that will hit the iTunes store, including, DRM-free music, 3G access, and all songs to soon be available at three price points.

Beginning today, all four major music labels—Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI, along with thousands of independent labels, are now offering their music in iTunes Plus, Apple’s DRM-free format with higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. iTunes customers can also choose to download their favorite songs from the world’s largest music catalog directly onto their iPhone™ 3G over their 3G network just as they do with Wi-Fi today, for the same price as downloading to their computer. And beginning in April, based on what the music labels charge Apple, songs on iTunes will be available at one of three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29, with most albums still priced at $9.99.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer our iTunes customers DRM-free iTunes Plus songs in high quality audio and our iPhone 3G customers the ability to download music from iTunes anytime, anywhere over their 3G network at the same price as downloading to your computer or via Wi-Fi,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And in April, based on what the music labels charge Apple, songs on iTunes will be available at one of three price points—69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29—with many more songs priced at 69 cents than $1.29.”

See Apple Press Release

Apple today announced several changes to the iTunes Store. Beginning today, all four major music labels...

Apple gets all four major labels into its DRM-free iTunes Plus Music Store and promises the end of DRM by April

Apple has announced that the iTunes Store will be entirely DRM-free by April.

Apple has released a new version of its work suit, iWork ‘09. As well as major features being added, a big cloud computing push is being made by Apple to bring collaboration and working online to the forefront.

Following up Seth Weintraub’s reports, our sources had explained that Apple was going to be making a big cloud computing push with iWork ‘09. They were very accurate with Apple’s intentions and also with how Apple would present the new services, which are being offered free, in beta.

Apple’s Press Release: Apple® today introduced iWork® ’09, the latest version of Apple’s popular office productivity suite, which adds powerful new features without sacrificing Apple’s legendary ease of use. Keynote® ’09 introduces advanced object transitions, which automatically animate objects with a choice of effects and Magic Move, an innovative way to create sophisticated animations just by applying a simple transition. Pages® ’09 features a new Full Screen view that helps you focus on your writing and an outline mode to organize your thoughts. Numbers® ’09 introduces a quick way to group and summarize data and a dramatically simplified way to create complex formulas. Apple also announced iWork.com public beta, a new service Apple is developing to share iWork ’09 documents online.

iWork.com public beta, a new service Apple is developing to share iWork ’09 documents online. Using your Apple ID, just click the iWork.com icon in the Keynote, Pages or Numbers toolbar to upload your document and invite others to view it online. Viewers can provide comments and notes, and download a copy of your document in iWork, Microsoft Office or PDF formats. A consolidated online list of all your shared documents indicates when your viewers have posted comments.

The new suite of applications and online services are being made available today, and can be found at the Apple Store online.

Apple has today released an updated version of their iLife suite of applications now titled iLife ‘09 that feature updates to iPhoto, iMovie, GrageBand and now include iDVD, and updated version of iWeb.

iPhoto ‘09
iPhoto ’09 makes it even easier to browse and search photos, not only by when they were shot (Events), but by who appears in them (Faces) and where they were taken (Places). iPhoto automatically scans photos to detect people’s faces and when you assign a name to any face iPhoto will automatically find more pictures of that person. The library can be searched by name or browsed using the new Faces View. Places automatically imports photo location data from a GPS-enabled camera or any iPhone™ or you can manually assign a location to any photo, group of photos or event. Once iPhoto knows where photos were taken, you can easily explore them with a simple search or an interactive map. iPhoto ’09 lets you easily publish photos to Facebook or Flickr. Photos published to Facebook include assigned names, and name tags added on Facebook sync back to iPhoto. You can also share photos by creating a themed slideshow to play on your Mac, iPhone or iPod®, or create a beautiful travel book, complete with customized maps of your journey.

iMovie ‘09
iMovie ’09 adds powerful, yet easy-to-use new features to let you create a movie quickly, or add refinements and special effects to your project if you have more time. Drag and drop one clip on top of another to reveal new advanced editing options, including replace, insert, audio only, and even picture-in-picture or green screen. With the revolutionary Precision Editor, you can skim and click on a magnified filmstrip to view clips up close and fine tune any edit, like identifying precisely how much to keep, where to cut, use sound from one clip with video from another and more. iMovie ’09 analyzes video and reduces camera shake in clips when added to your project. New titles, transitions, cinematic effects, speed changes and animated travel maps add professional polish to your movie.

GarageBand ‘09
GarageBand ’09, the updated version of Apple’s popular software used by millions to play and record music, now gives budding musicians a fun new way to learn to play piano and guitar. Basic Lessons let you learn the fundamentals at your own pace with Apple instructors in beautiful HD video synchronized to animated instruments and notation. Artist Lessons feature original artists showing how to play their hit songs with everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Choose from lessons by popular artists including: Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and Sting. Artist Lessons are sold separately at the new GarageBand Lesson Store, available inside the GarageBand ’09 application. GarageBand ’09 also includes exciting new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam that lets you play along with a virtual band that you create.

iDVD ‘09
iLife ’09 includes iWeb ’09 for authoring custom websites and iDVD ’09 for creating DVDs. iWeb ’09 adds new iWeb Widgets, such as iSight® video and photos, a countdown timer, YouTube video and RSS feeds. New integrated FTP publishing allows you to publish your website to virtually any hosting service and updates to your site can now be automatically added to your Facebook profile.

Pricing and Availability
iLife ’09 will be available this month for a suggested retail price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store®, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The iLife Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after January 6, 2009 for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Artist Lessons are available through the GarageBand Lesson Store for $4.99 (US) each.

See Apple Press Release

Well, there we have it: Phil Schiller’s delivered Apple’s final Macworld keynote while Jobs recuperates, and since Apple didn’t present a new iMac for $5, an iPhone the size of a window (and another the size of an SD card) and world peace, we can be sure its stock price will plummet accordingly.

If you took the sensible approach and didn’t have crazy expectations, this wasn’t a bad keynote, although it’s hardly going to go down as a particularly memorable one, which is a shame since it’s Apple’s last. Some of the new features in iLife ‘09 (facial recognition in iPhoto, improved interface components in iMovie) and iWork ‘09 look pretty good (although the full-screen view on Pages won’t wrench me away from WriteRoom any time soon), the online iWork demo seemed decent enough, and the 17″ MacBook Pro even throws pros a bone by offering a matte option. (Note, though, how the 24″ display you can hook it up to is glossy-only! Clearly, someone at Apple has a warped sense of humour, and I’ll bet it’s Mr. Jobs.)

There was one somewhat worrying aspect to the keynote, however, and that’s the way in which Apple was playing catch-up in the key area of music. Incredibly, the iTunes portion of the keynote was saved for Apple’s usual showstopping ‘last thing’. What we got: Apple canning its pricing structure to offer tiered pricing (boo!), but providing DRM-free tracks (hurrah!). In other words, it’s now the labels that have Apple by the short and curlies, finally forcing the Cupertino giant’s hand.

Being able to buy via cellular networks via iPhone is a nice touch, though, and could become a key differentiator in the long run, although that tiny slice of Apple won’t be enough to tempt me back from Amazon and Play.com just yet.

Minus a million points, though, for not getting Tony Bennett to sing out the keynote with: We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when, but I’m sure we’ll meet again some sunny day!

(Oh, and it’s now business as usual if you’re in the UK: with Sterling getting a kicking, Apple’s now seriously hedging its bets. The $169 Mac Box Set translates to a whopping £149 in the UK—I was hoping for £135, but then I’ve decided to be an optimistic sort this year.)

Built-in battery delivers 8 hours of use & 1,000 Recharges claim Apple

Apple has unveiled a new 17-inch MacBook Pro featuring a precision aluminium unibody enclosure, and a revolutionary new built-in battery that promises up to eight hours of use and up to 1,000 recharges for more than three times the lifespan of conventional notebook batteries claim Apple.

Apple today unveiled the new 17-inch MacBook Pro featuring a durable precision aluminum unibody enclosure...

Filed under: Macworld, Hardware, Portables, Macbook Pro

In Phil Schiller's keynote speech this morning, Apple announced a new version of the 17-inch MacBook Pro that features a long-life, non-removable battery, thinner profile, and an optional anti-glare screen.

The laptop is less than an inch thick, and weighs 6.6 pounds. It features a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo process, 6 MB of L2 cache, GeForce 9600M GT video card, and supports up to 8GB of memory. The default configuration with 4GB of memory and a 320GB hard disk ships for the same price as before: $2,799.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro now features a non-removable battery with an estimated eight-hour life. The battery will also last for 1,000 cycles, according to the presentation. The battery is 40 percent larger than its predecessor, which allows for a greater charge and better life. The trade off, of course, is the fact that it's not user-replaceable.

Apple is touting the new MacBook Pro as among its greenest line of laptops ever. The new battery for this model has three times the life of older MacBooks, lasting up to five years, which for many may be the life of the computer. It also earns an EPEAT Gold rating, and it contains no arsenic, BFR, mercury, and less PVC.

Continue reading New 17-inch MacBook Pro unveiled with integrated battery

TUAWNew 17-inch MacBook Pro unveiled with integrated battery originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple today introduced iWork ’09, the latest version of Apple’s popular office productivity suite...

While Phil hasn't mentioned it in the keynote just yet, it looks like iTunes might be getting a big catalog overhaul, with most major labels finally offering up DRM free tunes. Previously purchased songs are now upgradable for the same old price of $0.30 a song.