Continue reading a full play-by-play transcript of the keynote address from the 2009 Macworld Conference and Expo, presented by Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing for Apple, Inc. Note that events are presented in reverse chronological order. Most of the announcements found in this transcript are explained in further detail in separate news articles; photos from the event can be found here.
10:33 AM: This most likely signals the end of the presentation. Sorry, iPod + iPhone fans – we were hoping for more today, too. But there has been a little good news, especially for iPhone users. Lots of applause for Bennett. He’s doing another song. Left my Heart in San Francisco. A melancholy way to close this all out. The 3G iTunes music downloading is working _RIGHT NOW_, Jesse Hollington confirms. Standing O for Tony Bennett. We’ll be updating iLounge with all the news from the show, stay tuned, guys! Thanks for tuning in.
10:29 AM: iTunes. iPhone 3G downloading of music starts today. Since they’re ending on music, they have a musical performer… Grammy winner… 15 Grammies, 2 Emmys, Tony Bennett. Song that is “very appropriate to this last Macworld,” Schiller says. Bennett slides out on a platform with a band. The Best is Yet to Come is the song.
10:27 AM: iTunes. DRM-free, 256k encoding in AAC, one-click upgrades from iTunes. All the majors, starting today, 8 million songs are DRM-free. By the end of this quarter, 2 million more – all 10m songs will be DRM-free. In AAC format. It’s easy to upgrade library to DRM free for a fee. Third new thing: iPhone/iTunes. Wi-Fi Music Store. You’ll be able to buy music over 3G network. So it’s no longer Wi-Fi Music Store. Same price. Same selection. Same quality. Anytime, anywhere, you can get music on your iPhone.
10:24 AM: iTunes. iTunes Music Store started 6 years ago. What’s happened: 6 billion songs. 10,000,000 songs available. 75,000,000 accounts with credit cards. iTunes #1 channel for music in USA. What’s new? Three things. Price. One pricing model for all songs in the past. The music companies will have more flexibility – three pricing tiers. $0.99, $0.69, and $1.29. Based on how the companies offer music, that’ll be the pricing. More music will be sold at 69 than 1.29. iTunes Plus is DRM-free music.
10:23 AM: MBP 17”. Completes lineup of the MacBook family. One last thing… iTunes.
10:20 AM: MBP 17”. So the bottom of the MBP 17” is just a plain sheet of aluminum, no latches, no segments. 7 hours of life on the 9600GT or 8 hours on the 9400M. It can be BTO – same price of $2799 to start, 2.66GHz, 4GB memory, 320GB drive + SuperDrive. Ships at end of January. 34% smaller packaging, too, they note. Showing TV ad.
10:15 AM: MBP 17”. Video of engineers talking about the battery tech. Bob Mansfield talking about how they give you 8 hours on single charge, 1,000 recharges. Dan Riccio, VP of Product Design. Removable battery is gone. They are justifying on video the non-removable battery. They say that by making specially shaped batteries they can fill the space better. Ugh.
Lithium Polymer battery video. Adaptive charging lets the batteries get charged intelligently by talking to the individual cells inside the battery. It will have 3X the number of recharges and lifespan of “industry standard,” Riccio says on video. Environmentally friendly… a lot less batteries will wind up in landfills.
10:10 AM: 17” MBP is the third thing today. Unibody enclosure… all of Apple’s buddies praising it, being shown on screen. Doesn’t this ever get old? MacBook #1 on best-seller lists. The 17” version looks like the others. 0.98” inches thin, world’s thinnest 17”, 6.6 pounds is lightest. LED backlit display, 1920×1200. Wide viewing angle, 700:1 contrast ratio and 60% greater color gamut. Best display they’ve done, he says. Some high-end customers don’t want clossy. $50 Anti-Glare option. Loses the black glass and goes with silver metal instead. Superdrive and lock on right. Standard IO on the other side like 15” – 3 USB ports, FW800. No FW400. Up to 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo, 8GB memory 1GHz DDR3, GeForce 9400M + 9600MGT built in. Standard 320GB, 256GB SSD offered. All the same stuff as in other MacBooks. Greatest feature, he says, is the battery.
10:09 AM: iWork ‘09. This is a lot easier than trying to send stuff through e-mail… and lets you get access to documents anywhere. Launches today. You can get to it via the new iWork ‘09.
10:04 AM: iWork ‘09: iWork.com demo.
Lets you just select any iWork document and share it over the site, with invites to people who want to see it. (Just go right ahead and share your business documents over the web. …) You get an e-mail invite to view the document on Mac or PC under any popular browser. Being shown in an educational context where it makes more sense. For now it’s free, eventually it’ll be paid.
10:01 AM: iWork ‘09. That’s it for iWork ‘09. $79 or $99 for Family Pack. If you purchase it with a new Mac, you can get it for $49. Ships today. Leopard is required for new iLife; if you want to buy all three – Mac Box Set of all three at $169, Leopard, iLife + iWork. Ships late January. So looks like no Snow Leopard in there, until later. iWork.com is a new service, going into Beta. A new service that will let you share iWork documents with other people. View documents online. Add comments and notes, which you can see. You can also download a copy from iWork.com rather than using e-mails – even for large files.
9:58 AM: iWork ‘09, Numbers ‘09. This year it has added features requested by customers. Table categories. It can now do auto-grouping of information in a table based on similar words. Easy formula writing has been added; 250 functions now that are easy to find and understand. Dennis is falling asleep. New chart options, inclduing mixed chart types, multi-axis, trend lines, and error bars. Linked charts between Pages and Numbers, and new templates.
9:55 AM: iWork ‘09, Pages. Full-screen view. Lets you see multiple pages on screen at once rather than cluttering with toolbars. Dynamic outlines so that you can create an outline and then build pages off of the outline, allowing for reorganization of the outline dynamically. Mail merge with Numbers, now added. MathType and EndNote support. Complicated bibliographies etc. supported. Plus 40 new templates for documents.
9:49 AM: Item number 2 today: iWork ‘09. Keynote, Pages, Numbers all updated. Keynote gets new animation tools for better presentations.
Magic Move is a new feature that does transition between slides. If slide one is a collection of cards and 2 is only one card, it auto-transitions between them – you just choose how you want the start and end slides to look and it does the rest. Powerful transition effects that look really nice. Text transitions have also been added, including “swing” where the text swings from one word to another. Shimmer effect has sparkles. Anagram is a reorg of letters. Great new metallic chart look and animations, also stone textures, wood, etc, all animated. New themes. Very simple. Keynote Remote feature – an iPhone app to let you control keynote. Works on iPod touch or iPhone. Talk wirelessly using wi-fi to yor Mac, giving you slides and speaker notes you’ve added. Flick to advance slides. Lots of applause on this. $0.99 application from Apple. First time Apple is charging for an iPhone app other than a game.
9:48 AM: Other updates to iWeb and iDVD. Free with all new Macs. Upgrade is $79. $99 Family Pack for 5 machines. Will ship late January.
9:45 AM: Colbie Callat, Patrick Stump/Fall Out Boy, Sting, and more. Sarah McLachlan, Ryan Tedder/OneRepublic, Norah Jones. Every one presented in video form so you can learn how to play their songs. There’s a lesson store and a new section of Garageband for iPhone Ringtones, too. The artists help you learn the stories behind songs, view lyrics and notation, practice with tracks, create your own mix, slow down any part. John Fogerty talking about the making of his song – very self-deprecating humor and amusing anecdotes on Proud Mary. This is awesome.
9:40 AM: The last of the apps he’s highlighting is Garageband ‘09. New guitar effects, etc. Only one feature he’ll talk about: create software that can help someone learn to play a musical instrument. It’s called Learn to Play. New UI that teaches guitar or keyboard, with an HD video instructor who helps you learn. “Tim,” a recorded Applesque guy, shows you how to use the piano or guitar on screen, plus notation. 9 basic guitar lessons and 9 basic piano for free, you can download what you want. Artist Lessons help you learn to play songs with artists! John Fogerty.
9:37 AM: iMovie ‘09: pro-quality animated maps showing in either 2-D or 3-D where you’ve traveled from and to. New transitions, titles, and themes added. The five themes bring in some nice effects—very professional-quality effects for consumers, easy to create.
9:34 AM: iMovie ‘09: Audio tracks can be edited separately so that two videos spliced together don’t overlay audio on top of each other. Very streamlined, visual process for editing videos. Video stabilization – iMovie analyzes every frame to figure out motions. Bouncing Jeep video he’s showing makes the video look totally stable – shot from a moving car, yet the video looks completely professional in stability. You also have the ability to transform videos into slow-mo mode very easily. Aged film and cartoon and X-ray effects can be added to videos in realtime.
9:30 AM: iMovie ‘09 Demo. Randy Ubillos, who came up with the new app last year, is up for the video demo. Chief Architect of Video Applications for Apple. You can add picture-in-picture to your videos, cutaways to shots, everything else real easily. You can also place the audio only from a video clip into the background of an existing video sequence, with just drag + drop. Precision editor gives you a large view of both clips you are trying to combine to figure out where you want to splice, and what can go into the final edit.
9:28 AM: iMovie ‘09. Last year they wiped out the old version, getting rid of some old features. This year, they’ve brought back the depth and power. Precision editor. You can edit audio and video up close now. Advanced drag and drop feature that lets you choose how to deal with clips added to the timeline. New themes, with titles, transitions and effects created for you. Animated travel maps in 2-D or 3-D show where you traveled during your video. There is now also AUTOMATIC VIDEO STABILIZATION. Videos you couldn’t use before are auto-fixed.
9:26 AM: One cool feature: it sorts all of the photos taken in different locations, so if you want to find everything taken in one spot, you just click on the location’s name and it locates everything for you.
9:24 AM: Demo continues to move through Faces, Places… Notably, Phil Schiller’s delivery during the speech thus far has been pretty strong. While he doesn’t have the air of danger that surrounds Steve Jobs during a keynote – Phil comes across as a friendly guy – he’s doing a good job. Showing how when you move through a collection of photos taken along a street, how the pins placed automatically on a Places map let you see where photos were taken, highlighting the current location with a pin on the map.
