Macworld Keynote

A few thoughts, based on watching the keynote via QuickTime:

  • Phil Schiller was great. He seemed to be a little nervous in his delivery, but he was interesting in a casual, friendly way. If he has a chance to do some of Apple’s special events in the future, he’ll be a little less awkward.

  • From any other company, this would have been a slam dunk, and people who are unhappy are clearly expecting too much.

  • The iLife 09 upgrades make it a must-have purchase for me. I’m looking forward to working through the Garage Band tutorials, and iPhoto face and location metadata is an omission I’ve been struggling to find workarounds to. And as an owner of a Flip Ultra, I’m really looking forward to having image stabilization.

  • The 17” MacBook built-in battery seems like a great trade-off to me. I don’t have two batteries anymore, I just replace the one I have when it won’t hold enough charge anymore. It sounds like that will still be possible.

  • I’m really happy to see DRM-free music on the iTunes Store. I’m less impressed with the all-or-nothing upgrade, but will probably upgrade sooner or later.