OMEN
01-06-2009, 11:27 PM
Also drops DRM from iTunes, adds online collaboration to iWork at 'subdued' Macworld
Minus CEO Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. opened the Macworld Conference & Expo today with a presentation one analyst called "mature and incremental" and another termed "subdued."
Philip Schiller, Apple's top marketing executive, took the stage today in San Francisco to introduce software upgrades, a revamped top-end MacBook Pro and several important changes to the iTunes music store.
"Low-key and subdued," said Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "But I think there's some good stuff here."
"There were no big announcements," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research Inc. "People that expected the usual breakthrough products definitely had to feel that this was flat. But there were a lot of incremental refinements, and a lot more attention to doing more of what people want to do with their personal computers."
Overall, said Gottheil, Apple's announcements were "mature and incremental, and unsurprising. Or surprising only in how much they were unsurprising."
The only new hardware Schiller touted was a revised 17-in. MacBook Pro that, like the smaller MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks unveiled in October, is constructed using an all-aluminum "unibody" case.
Calling it the "world's thinnest 17-in. notebook" at one point -- reminiscent of last year's Macworld keynote, when Jobs used some of the same words to describe the just-announced MacBook Air -- Schiller also trumpeted the laptop's battery, which unlike other laptops' power supplies, cannot be removed by the user.
The lithium-polymer battery will power the MacBook Pro up to eight hours on a single charge, said Schiller -- seven hours if a more power-hungry graphics mode is selected -- and will take up to 1,000 recharges before it needs to be replaced. He said Apple estimates the battery will last five years under normal use.
"For some users, absolutely this will be a problem," predicted Gottheil, referring to users who strayed away from outlets for long stretches, and wanted to be able to swap out a spare battery while on the road. "I don't think this is a terribly large number [of people]," he added. "For most, it will just be a cost-benefit problem."
Apple encountered some resistance in 2007 after it introduced the iPhone, which also sported a non-removable battery, in part because of the $79 fee the company charged customers to replace a worn-out battery. Within a month of the original iPhone's debut, New York state asked Apple to change the design to let consumers replace their own batteries.
The new laptop, set to ship at the end of this month, will list for the same $2,799 the current model costs, but will be configured with a 2.66GHz processor, 4GB of memory, a 320GB hard drive and the same dual graphics capabilities of the smaller 15-in. MacBook Pro.
Near the end his 90 minutes on stage, Schiller talked up iTunes, Apple's online music store, and announced several changes, some of which have been instituted today, but also one that won't make an appearance for several months.
Starting today, approximately 8 million tracks on iTunes are available in versions not locked by DRM (digital rights management) copy protection technologies, but once downloaded, can be copied freely to any media at any time. Also beginning today, users of Apple's iPhone 3G can download tracks directly to their phone via their mobile carrier's data network.
Prices for DRM-free tracks -- which are available from all four major recording labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI -- remain at 99 cents.
Speaking of prices, Schiller also announced a future change in iTunes' once-flat-fee pricing structure. Beginning in April, iTunes will use a three-tier system of 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Each track will be priced, said Jobs in an accompanying statement this morning, "based on what the music labels charge Apple."
"Again, this is only incremental," said Gottheil. "But Apple's removing two of the long-term problems with iTunes, the copy protection and the single price. I am pleasantly surprised, though, that you can upgrade your music collection to DRM-free," he added. "Now I can finally acquire the rights to my music, and not pay for it over and over."
iTunes customers can upgrade already-purchased tracks to versions free of copy protection for 30 cents each, Apple said today.
Schiller also spent considerable time touting new versions of Apple's iLife, the consumer suite that comes with all new Macs, and iWork, its more business-oriented bundle.
iLife '09 features a revamped iPhoto that can organize photographs by faces and places. The former uses facial recognition technology to locate other images of a portrait a user is categorizing, while the latter relies on GPS location data added to the photo by some cameras and cell phones. Apple's own iPhone 3G, for instance, geo-tags images using GPS.
iMovie has been updated too, Schiller said, with features he promised would "blow away" consumers, including context-sensitive menus during drag-and-drop editing and video stabilization. Other applications in the iLife suite, including GarageBand, have also been refreshed. Schiller demonstrated a new GarageBand feature that lets users download piano and guitar lessons taught by musicians such as Norah Jones and Sting, for $4.99 each.
iLife '09, which will be available later this month, will list for $79 as an upgrade, $99 for a family pack that comes with a five-Mac license. The new suite will be bundled with all new Macs starting at the same time, Schiller said.
Apple's iWork application bundle also got a refresh as Schiller walked Macworld attendees through a demo that highlighted a full-screen view in Pages, the suite's word processor; a new mail-merge function and 40 new templates in Numbers, the spreadsheet application; and Keynote Remote, a 99-cent iPhone and iPod Touch application that lets users display a Keynote presentation on the device and control a Mac running a slide show from the device.
Unlike iLife, iWork '09 goes on sale today, said Schiller, at prices of $79 for a one-license copy and $99 for a five-license family pack. Customers who order it along with a new Mac, however, pay $49.
"The most interesting part of all this, though, is iWork.com," said Gottheil, referring to the online component that Apple will release at an undetermined future date. "Right now, it looks like a reasonable commenting-style way of collaborating. It's no breakthrough, but if they continue to develop this, it will potentially be a lever to move into the collaboration market."
iWork.com, which is available now free of charge as a beta, allows users of iWork '09 to upload, then share, documents with others, as well as add comments to shared documents.
Apple has not set a timeline for iWork.com's release, or said what it will charge for the final version.
Missing from Apple's keynote -- other than its CEO, who yesterday revealed that he is undergoing treatment for what he called a "hormone imbalance" -- was any word about a slew of rumors that had raced through the Apple community for the last several weeks. No-shows included anticipated refreshes of the iMac and Mac mini desktop machines, a smaller or cheaper version of the iPhone and a netbook-style notebook.
"I expected to see a netbook," said Gottheil, who had speculated last month that Apple would announce a pair of smaller, lighter laptops to counter the growth of the cheapest PC notebooks.
Compworld
Minus CEO Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. opened the Macworld Conference & Expo today with a presentation one analyst called "mature and incremental" and another termed "subdued."
Philip Schiller, Apple's top marketing executive, took the stage today in San Francisco to introduce software upgrades, a revamped top-end MacBook Pro and several important changes to the iTunes music store.
"Low-key and subdued," said Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "But I think there's some good stuff here."
"There were no big announcements," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research Inc. "People that expected the usual breakthrough products definitely had to feel that this was flat. But there were a lot of incremental refinements, and a lot more attention to doing more of what people want to do with their personal computers."
Overall, said Gottheil, Apple's announcements were "mature and incremental, and unsurprising. Or surprising only in how much they were unsurprising."
The only new hardware Schiller touted was a revised 17-in. MacBook Pro that, like the smaller MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks unveiled in October, is constructed using an all-aluminum "unibody" case.
Calling it the "world's thinnest 17-in. notebook" at one point -- reminiscent of last year's Macworld keynote, when Jobs used some of the same words to describe the just-announced MacBook Air -- Schiller also trumpeted the laptop's battery, which unlike other laptops' power supplies, cannot be removed by the user.
The lithium-polymer battery will power the MacBook Pro up to eight hours on a single charge, said Schiller -- seven hours if a more power-hungry graphics mode is selected -- and will take up to 1,000 recharges before it needs to be replaced. He said Apple estimates the battery will last five years under normal use.
"For some users, absolutely this will be a problem," predicted Gottheil, referring to users who strayed away from outlets for long stretches, and wanted to be able to swap out a spare battery while on the road. "I don't think this is a terribly large number [of people]," he added. "For most, it will just be a cost-benefit problem."
Apple encountered some resistance in 2007 after it introduced the iPhone, which also sported a non-removable battery, in part because of the $79 fee the company charged customers to replace a worn-out battery. Within a month of the original iPhone's debut, New York state asked Apple to change the design to let consumers replace their own batteries.
The new laptop, set to ship at the end of this month, will list for the same $2,799 the current model costs, but will be configured with a 2.66GHz processor, 4GB of memory, a 320GB hard drive and the same dual graphics capabilities of the smaller 15-in. MacBook Pro.
Near the end his 90 minutes on stage, Schiller talked up iTunes, Apple's online music store, and announced several changes, some of which have been instituted today, but also one that won't make an appearance for several months.
Starting today, approximately 8 million tracks on iTunes are available in versions not locked by DRM (digital rights management) copy protection technologies, but once downloaded, can be copied freely to any media at any time. Also beginning today, users of Apple's iPhone 3G can download tracks directly to their phone via their mobile carrier's data network.
Prices for DRM-free tracks -- which are available from all four major recording labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI -- remain at 99 cents.
Speaking of prices, Schiller also announced a future change in iTunes' once-flat-fee pricing structure. Beginning in April, iTunes will use a three-tier system of 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Each track will be priced, said Jobs in an accompanying statement this morning, "based on what the music labels charge Apple."
"Again, this is only incremental," said Gottheil. "But Apple's removing two of the long-term problems with iTunes, the copy protection and the single price. I am pleasantly surprised, though, that you can upgrade your music collection to DRM-free," he added. "Now I can finally acquire the rights to my music, and not pay for it over and over."
iTunes customers can upgrade already-purchased tracks to versions free of copy protection for 30 cents each, Apple said today.
Schiller also spent considerable time touting new versions of Apple's iLife, the consumer suite that comes with all new Macs, and iWork, its more business-oriented bundle.
iLife '09 features a revamped iPhoto that can organize photographs by faces and places. The former uses facial recognition technology to locate other images of a portrait a user is categorizing, while the latter relies on GPS location data added to the photo by some cameras and cell phones. Apple's own iPhone 3G, for instance, geo-tags images using GPS.
iMovie has been updated too, Schiller said, with features he promised would "blow away" consumers, including context-sensitive menus during drag-and-drop editing and video stabilization. Other applications in the iLife suite, including GarageBand, have also been refreshed. Schiller demonstrated a new GarageBand feature that lets users download piano and guitar lessons taught by musicians such as Norah Jones and Sting, for $4.99 each.
iLife '09, which will be available later this month, will list for $79 as an upgrade, $99 for a family pack that comes with a five-Mac license. The new suite will be bundled with all new Macs starting at the same time, Schiller said.
Apple's iWork application bundle also got a refresh as Schiller walked Macworld attendees through a demo that highlighted a full-screen view in Pages, the suite's word processor; a new mail-merge function and 40 new templates in Numbers, the spreadsheet application; and Keynote Remote, a 99-cent iPhone and iPod Touch application that lets users display a Keynote presentation on the device and control a Mac running a slide show from the device.
Unlike iLife, iWork '09 goes on sale today, said Schiller, at prices of $79 for a one-license copy and $99 for a five-license family pack. Customers who order it along with a new Mac, however, pay $49.
"The most interesting part of all this, though, is iWork.com," said Gottheil, referring to the online component that Apple will release at an undetermined future date. "Right now, it looks like a reasonable commenting-style way of collaborating. It's no breakthrough, but if they continue to develop this, it will potentially be a lever to move into the collaboration market."
iWork.com, which is available now free of charge as a beta, allows users of iWork '09 to upload, then share, documents with others, as well as add comments to shared documents.
Apple has not set a timeline for iWork.com's release, or said what it will charge for the final version.
Missing from Apple's keynote -- other than its CEO, who yesterday revealed that he is undergoing treatment for what he called a "hormone imbalance" -- was any word about a slew of rumors that had raced through the Apple community for the last several weeks. No-shows included anticipated refreshes of the iMac and Mac mini desktop machines, a smaller or cheaper version of the iPhone and a netbook-style notebook.
"I expected to see a netbook," said Gottheil, who had speculated last month that Apple would announce a pair of smaller, lighter laptops to counter the growth of the cheapest PC notebooks.
Compworld