Apple's Last Macworld: No 'Whoa!'

With Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs sitting out this year's Macworld event, speculation turned to what Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing , might announce during Apple's keynote address. Would Apple unveil something huge, like an "iPhone nano"? Or would Apple slide out of Macworld with a whimper?

That question can be put to rest: Schiller's keynote couldn't be characterized as a bang, but it wasn't exactly a whimper either. Here are the company's key announcements: an upgraded unibody 17-inch MacBook Pro, a totally DRM-free iTunes with iPhone 3G over-the-air song downloads; and new versions of iLife and iWork.

Following Jobs' Act

So what about Schiller -- was his keynote delivery as good as Apple's iconic Jobs?

"Phil has presented many times before, and he was confident and clear, but he didn't have any sort of Earth-shattering products to announce," Current Analysis Research Director Avi Greengart, who attended the event, told MacNewsWorld.

"Everything he announced was an upgrade to an existing product, so he couldn't ramp up the drama without the risk of it backfiring," Greengart explained. "There's nothing wrong with Apple's announcements, but it is harder to say that Phil didn't live up to Steve Jobs. ... I don't know that Steve would have done anything different with this class of product announcements today."

The New MacBook Pro

When Apple redesigned its MacBook and 15-inch MacBook Pro with its innovative unibody aluminum design and LED-backlit displays, Apple's monster 17-inch MacBook Pro was conspicuously absent. While not a huge seller for Apple, the big notebook is a favorite among professional users who need a big screen.

The new upgraded version matches the design of its two siblings, but it has a new built-in battery that delivers up to eight hours of use and 1,000 recharges -- which is about three times the lifespan of conventional notebook batteries, Schiller noted.

"Apple went to great lengths to explain why it doesn't have a removable battery," Greengart said.

The new battery technology uses advanced chemistry, intelligent monitoring of the system and battery, and Adaptive Charging technology to give it the longer lifespan, which in turn leads to fewer depleted batteries, making it easier on the environment.

So, is the lack of a removable battery a major hurdle?

"I don't think it's a deal killer," Greengart said, noting that Apple's extended battery life is pretty good.

"With the MacBook Air, though, it's a bigger deal, particularly since the battery is smaller," he added.

The US$2,799 17-incher boasts a widescreen 1920 x 1200 glossy display, which can be upgraded for $50 to a matte screen. It features a 2.66 GHz Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Core 2 Duo processor with 6 MB shared L2 cache and a 1066 MHz front-side bus (it can be upgraded to a 2.93 GHz processor). It ships with 4 GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgradable to 8 GB).

The dual graphics processor is the same as the one found in the 15-inch MacBook Pro: Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics plus Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512 MB GDDR3 video memory.

The standard 320 GB Serial ATA hard drive runs at 5400 rpm, with Apple's Sudden Motion Sensor, but it can be upgraded to 7200 rpm or to a 128 GB or 256 GB solid state drive.

The notebook includes basic existing Apple MacBook features: a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support, a Mini DisplayPort for video output, built-in 802.11n wireless networking, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a Gigabit Ethernet port, built-in iSight video camera, three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, which is also FireWire 400 compatible, an ExpressCard/34 expansion slot, and the glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro is now available for online ordering, but it won't ship until the end of January.

iTunes Is Freed

With the help of the big four major music labels -- Universal Music Group, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI -- as well as thousands of independent labels, Apple is now offering songs in iTunes Plus, its DRM-free format with higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding.

"It is really nice that the entire iTunes library is going DRM-free -- that's big news," Greengart noted.

This new DRM-free world of songs, however, may also come at a higher cost: Beginning in April, Apple will offer variable pricing based on what the music labels charge Apple, resulting in price points of $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29.

iTunes offers customers a simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their entire library of previously purchased songs to the higher quality DRM-free iTunes Plus format for just 30 cents per song or 30 percent of the album price.

iPhone 3G owners also picked up some welcome news: They can now buy and download songs over a 3G network phone connection -- just like they can already do via a WiFi connection.

iLife '09

Apple's iLife '09, which includes iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iDVD, and iWeb, sports a variety of new enhancements.

Most notably, iPhoto '09 now lets users organize photos by Faces and Places. The Faces feature uses facial recognition to identify and recognize faces. If users assign a name to a face, iPhoto can then search its library of photos and return results that show the person's face.

Places automatically imports photo location data from a GPS-enabled camera or iPhone, in addition to letting users manually assign a location to any photo, group of photos, or event. Once iPhoto knows where photos were taken, users can explore them with a simple search or an interactive map.

On the social networking front, iPhoto '09 lets users publish photos to Facebook or Flickr.

iMovie '09 boasts a wide range of usability and editing enhancements, but the coolest by far is its ability to analyze video and reduce camera shake in clips.

GarageBand '09 now offers integrated lessons for learning to play piano and guitar. For an added price, Apple is also offering Artist Lessons: They feature original artists showing how to play their hit songs, including everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Some of the artists are Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder, and Sting.

iLife '09 will be available later this month for $79.

iWork '09

iWork '09, which includes Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, has a variety of new updates. Pages '09 features a new full screen view that helps users focus on writing, along with an outline mode. Numbers '09 makes formula writing much easier and offers expanded chart options. Numbers charts that users paste into Pages or Keynote documents can now be linked and updated to reflect the latest data.

Keynote '09 introduces Magic Move, a new features that lets users 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. Apple also added text and object transitions for action between slides.

Apple has turned an iPod touch or iPhone into a Keynote remote -- the Keynote Remote application, sold separately for $0.99 in the App Store, lets users use the device to view slides and presenter notes, as well as control presentations.

iWork '09 is available now for $79.

What's Missing?

"At every Macworld, there are rumors of some sort of amazing new product -- a flying car perhaps, some product with tremendous design that solves world hunger while letting you wear an Apple logo on your back," noted Greengart.

"There were rumors of a larger iPod touch, for example, that certainly didn't come to fruition," he said.

Also near the top of the rumor list were a small "iPhone nano" and, more reasonably, new LED-backlit iMacs and an updated Mac mini. None of those have come to fruition either -- at least, not yet.