Apple may be pulling out of Macworld Expo, but we’ve found ourselves with a surfeit of coverage of the show, so much so that this issue restricts itself to our coverage of the keynote announcements and other standard features. A special issue, later this week, will contain our post-Macworld wrap-up content. So read on for what we know of the iLife ’09 and iWork ’09 updates, what we thought of Phil Schiller’s keynote, an overview of the upcoming 17-inch MacBook Pro, and details about the changes to the iTunes Store that make all songs DRM-free (but with variable pricing). In followup news from a previous article, Glenn Fleishman notes a resolution to a recent Quicken problem with online banking. In the TidBITS Watchlist, we glance at the releases of WireTap Studio 1.0.7, Things 1.0, PDF Shrink 4.5, CheckUp 2.0, and FileMaker Pro 10.0.
We woke up early, stood in line, and all we got were sore feet. Apple's last Macworld Conference and Expo keynote by Phil Schiller lived up only to the deflated expectations Apple set.
iPhoto '09 now offers face detection and geotagging capabilities, along with integration with Facebook and Flickr, and new slideshow themes that can sync to an iPhone or iPod touch.
iMovie '09 looks to be the video editor we expected last year, adding and improving on features that were present in earlier versions.
Interested in learning how to play your favorite songs on guitar or piano? Let the stars teach you how. GarageBand '09 has added Learn to Play music lessons to its bag of tricks.
iWork '09 brings welcome improvements to the productivity suite, but they're mostly limited to eye candy for Keynote and things that bring Pages and Numbers closer to parity with Microsoft Word and Excel.
Apple completes the transition to the new laptop unibody design with the new 17-inch MacBook Pro, but takes a risky move by switching to a non-removable battery.
Despite a Macworld Expo keynote focusing on Mac news, Apple also announced the removal of DRM from songs in the iTunes Store, tiered pricing, and downloads over 3G as well as Wi-Fi.
Members of the BECU credit union can once again download transactions with Quicken 2007 for Mac and earlier.
Notable software releases this week include WireTap Studio 1.0.7, Things 1.0, PDF Shrink 4.5, CheckUp 2.0, and FileMaker Pro 10.0.
Read on for a collection of links to the most interesting articles and resources that the TidBITS staff discovered on the Web this week.
This week's discussions focus on Macworld Expo, namely what the future holds and how Apple is counting the exposure the event generates. Also talked about are problems viewing PDF files in Safari, removable volumes not appearing in the Finder, and whether the iWork.com service should be rolled into MobileMe instead of being a standalone paid product.