Let’s get something straight, first of all. I’m not an avid Mac fan. I don’t even own a Mac. I’m borrowing a Mac Mini, but I am a XP PC fan. Now, I do own an iPhone 3G, 80 gig iPod, 4 gig Nano (wife’s) and an Apple TV. They’re a great brand for media and electronics, but I haven’t had desire to buy a Mac yet.
With that said, I will now talk about Apple’s final Macworld announcements: Not that great. I was disappointing that we didn’t get an iPhone Nano. (At least, not yet.) I’m guessing if one does come out this year, it’ll come out in July, and perhaps a 32 gig iPhone. So, I dropped the ball on that prediction.
iTunes going DRM free: Excellent, but not quite there. They said they won’t have all the tracks DRM free till March, but most are DRM free and upgraded to iTunes plus. Cool, I’m glad the major labels reached an agreement. BUT, I’m very upset that in order to strip my current collection of music of it’s DRM shackles, I’m going to have to shell out an extra .30 cents a song. I do get higher quality music, but Apple SHOULD give an option just to kill the DRM for free. I mean, Wal Mart at least gave credits back to the consumer. If you’d like to “upgrade your library”, it’s on the main page of iTunes, upper right hand side. Click “upgrade my library”, and it’ll price all your music for you. I’m pretty surprised: 117 songs will only cost $26.70. I’m going for it, because I’m absolutely done with DRM. (UPDATE: Don’t try this yet. It didn’t work for me, and I read that it’s not “ready” yet. I hope I don’t get a charge without the songs!)
I’m glad we’re finally getting some variable pricing on music. I like the idea of paying .69 cents a track if the album is older, but the pricing is up to the record labels. I think they’re going to get a rude awakening when people refuse to shell out 1.29 for some songs. At least, I hope people refuse to. That was one of the things I liked about iTunes, 99 cent songs! Oh well, we’ll see how this works out.
iLife: The coolest gimmick Apple has going in the new iLife is the face recognition with iPhoto. It will recognize a friend’s face and will tag them automatically in all future photos. That’s very cool. Now, I wonder how long we’ll have to wait to see this feature used to solve a crime in a television show or movie? Seriously, wait and see.
iWork: Apple trying desperately to appeal to Business customers. I’m not keen on this, but I’m not a business oriented person.
Here’s a great article on why Apple bailed Macworld.
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I agree with you completely. Do you have any idea when iWork.com will be up and running? I heard it will be a competitor with Google Docs. And how about that 8 hour non-replaceable battery in the new MacBook Pro, eh? Meh.