Apple’s keynote, presented by Phil Schiller has just ended with a presentation by 15 Grammy Award winning artist, Tony Bennet. This will be Apple’s last appearance at the acclaimed tradeshow.
iLife
Meanwhile, iWork
Cloud computing took another step forward with the announcement of Apple’s iWork.com initiative. The site allows users to easily upload, share and edit documents online. iWork.com is scheduled to go life today and will be in Beta testing phase for some time. Apple said that the service will later be offered thru a premium.
On the hardware side of things; we finally see an updated unibody MacBook Pro. Apple claims that the new 17-inch beauty is the world’s thinnest and longest lasting laptop. The device measures only 0.98 inches thick and has battery life of up to 8-hours, thanks to a new battery manufacturing process.
Of more interesting in today’s announcement is iTunes. It took them approximately six years and six-billion songs sold to proof to the world that an online music store is viable despite the high levels of music piracy, but today’s announcement of DRM-free iTunes downloads is more than welcomed. Finally, there’s no need to burn those iTunes-purchased songs onto a CD and then re-rip them with the purpose of stripping the DRM so that they can be played on devices other than the iPod. Apple expects is library of 10 million songs to be completely DRM-free by end of March 2009. Also announced is a new variable pricing of tracks at $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29 each, this shall take place starting April 2009. One more thing: you can now make song purchases from both the iTunes Store on your computer, or via your iPhone/iPod touch over Wi-Fi and the 3G network.
Sources
Mac Rumors – MacRumorsLive’s coverage got hacked half-way thru the keynote
CrunchGear – Live: Phil Schiller’s MacWorld 2009 Keynote
Engadget – Live from the Macworld 2009 Keynote
gdgt live – Live MacWorld 2009 Keynote Coverage
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