MacWorld 2009 Keynote

The MacWorld Expo keynote address is being given by Philip Schiller, Apple senior VP for Marketing. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has given the keynote for the last 10 years, but is recovering from an illness.
Schiller starts by mentioning how 3.4 million people visit Apple stores every week, and compares it to 100 MacWorld Expos every week. This fits with one of Apple’s reasons why they are not going to do any more MacWorld events — the Apple stores make it unnecessary.
He says that he will focus on the Mac in this keynote. There will be three Mac-related announcements. The first is iLife 09.
iPhoto 09 will include organization by faces. Facial recognition technology will allow you to tag your photos according to who is in them. You can also organize by places, using GPS information and a map with pinpoints you can place. Map is from Google Maps and you can zoom in and use satellite views too. You can also specify your own locations for photos without GPS information.
The new iPhoto will also let you upload directly to Flickr and Facebook. Tagging information from these services will sync back to your iPhoto library. The maps can also be used in new iPhoto book themes.
There will also be new slide show functionality in iPhoto 09, with themed slide show layouts. These slide shows use 3D effects and face detection to zoom in on individuals. Slide shows can then be exported to iPod or iPhone.
iMovie 09 will feature a precision editor and advanced drag-and-drop. There will also be advanced themes and animated travel maps. You can apply interesting effects as well, including things like image stabilization, aged film and cartoon effects.
GarageBand 09 will have a whole new “Learn to Play” feature: guitar and piano lessons from instructors and well-known artists like Sting, John Fogerty, Norah Jones and Sarah McLachlan. The lessons will cost $5 a piece. Looks like you will be able to slow down and play along with the other tracks.
iDVD and iWeb will also get updates. iLife 09 will cost $79 with a $99 family pack. It will be released later this month.
iWork is also up for a new version. Keynote will get new transitions and themes. There will also be an iPhone app that lets you control your Keynote presentation from the iPhone. You’ll be able to see the slides on your iPhone, including a preview of the next slide. Swipe to move slides.
Pages will also get an update, with a full screen mode, outline view, new templates, mail merge with a Numbers spreadsheet, and the ability to type math equations. A Numbers update too with table categories, more functions and forumlas features, more charts and templates.
iWork 09 will be $79 or $99 for a family pack. But it will only cost $49 if you buy it with a new Mac. Shipping today. There will also be a box with Mac OS X, iLife and iWork for $169.
Apple is also going into beta on a project called iWork.com. This will be a online sharing space for iWork applications. You can also annotate and edit document online. iWork.com launches today. It will be free during the beta, but eventually a pay service.
Third announcement: A new 17-inch MacBook Pro. It will be the lightest 17-inch laptop. The screen will be 1920×1200. It will be less than 1 inch thin in a uniform body like the 15-inch MacBook Pro. Also: 3 USB ports, Firewire 800, glass track pad, anti-glare screen as an option. The processor is a 2.66GHz dual-core. It can take up to 8GB of memory, and comes with a GeForce 9400m video card. You can also get a 256GB solid state drive as an option. The battery life is 8 hours, with 1,000 charges. $2,799 with 320GB drive, 4GB memory. It will ship later in January.
One more announcement is new pricing and features in iTunes. Songs will be priced at either $0.69, $0.99 or $1.29. Starting today more than 8 million songs will be available in iTunes plus, which is DRM-free. By the end of the quarter, all 10 million songs will be DRM-free in 256 kbps with aac encoding.
You will also be able to purchase music over the 3G network on your iPhone, starting today. The songs will sync back to your computer.