The Macworld 2009 keynote has come and gone, and just like that I’m sitting here pondering ‘what just happened!?’ To say I’m disappointed would be close to the mark, yet… there were a lot of great things that came out of the keynote. One has to admit with the absence of Steve Jobs, and the lack of any iPhone ‘Nano’ announcement, it would be hard to walk away flabber-gasted from the keynote… Unless there was something absolutely revolutionary unveiled during the keynote. And that didn’t happen!

iLife ‘09

The iLife suite has been updated, and features new versions of iPhoto, iMovie, Garage Band and iWeb. Of the four, iPhoto seems to have made the most strides, and features some really great new aspects for us to play around with.

Perhaps the coolest feature built-in to the new iPhoto is the ability for the software to recognize faces. Tag new photos with names, and the application will actually ‘recognize’ the face, and tag new photos with the person’s name when you import new images! iPhoto ‘09 is also fully integrated with Facebook and Flickr, so sharing photos has never been easier. Another cool feature of iPhoto ‘09 is the ‘places’ feature. It will add a ‘pin’ to a google map for you, noting the time and exact location an image was snapped. You can then organize photos by place, or even print out a photo ‘travel map’ with images and maps. Very cool.

iMovie ‘09 has a bunch of new features packed-in, but for my money, the best new addition is video-stabilization. Have a movie or clip that is simply too bumpy or blurry due to too much motion from the camera? iMovie will take the clip and via the use of a simple slider, you can adjust how much stabilization to apply.

Garage Band ‘09 has a few new cool bits that musically-inclined folks will enjoy. There are now actual music lessons built-in to the application. Learn how to play guitar, piano and more. Plus, there are lesson videos in HD from actual artists, including Sting, Ben Folds and many more.

Lastly for the iLife ‘09 suite is iWeb ‘09. I’m going to reserve comment on this one, as I have to admit I’ve never actually used it. Many new features have been added, which will surely make it easier than ever to create great looking and functioning websites.

From Apple, here’s an overview of what’s new in the iLife ‘09 suite:

• What’s new in iPhoto ‘09
• What’s new in iMovie ‘09
• What’s new in Garage Band ‘09
• What’s new in iWeb ‘09

iWork ‘09

Apple unveiled the newly updated iWork ‘09 suite as well during the keynote. The suite of course contains Pages, Numbers and Keynote… The Apple equivilant to Word, Excel and Powerpoint. I’ve been an iWork user for some time now, and absolutely love all of the apps. They’re solid, and I don’t miss Microsoft Office one little bit. In addition to the updated suite, Apple has launched iWork.com. It’s basically another way to share, save and work with your documents, spreadsheets and presentations from anywhere in the world, on any computer. I like the idea, but will really have to give it a shot before I pass judgement. For more info check out iWork.com.

So what’s new in ? Use these quick links for a brief look from Apple:

• What’s New in Pages ‘09
  
• What’s New in Numbers ‘09
  
• What’s New in Keynote ‘09
  

The New 17″ MacBook Pro

Of all the items announced at the Keynote, the new 17″ MacBook Pro probably has me jazzed the most. A 9 out of 10 on the jazz-o-meter in fact. The new 17″ beauty will go up to 8 hrs on a single charge… and can be recharged up to 1000 times. Apple boasts that the battery life is typically 3 times longer than most other notebook batteries out there today… which makes them the ‘greenest’ notebooks available on the market. Longer battery life, fewer batteries in landfills. Makes sense. Besides that, the setup just looks absolutely stunning. The slim design with LED backlit display produces vivid and sharp colors.

iTunes Goes DRM-Free

Apple announced iTunes Plus, which will let you choose from the millions of songs available from all of the big four major music labels…all songs are of a higher-quality, plus they’re free of burn limits and digital rights management (DRM). While all songs are not DRM-Free at the moment, Apple is working towards getting the whole iTunes music library to DRM-Free status.

Overall this is a pretty cool development… But if you want to upgrade any existing tracks in your library, be prepared to shell out 30 cents per track. There are also new lower prices available in iTunes (for music), but there are also higher prices as well. Over time we’ll have to see what happens with song pricing. Overall it might be a shift to the more expensive side of things.

My Conclusion

Overall… Although the new software and products look fantastic, I have to admit I’m a bit underwhelmed. I suppose that has to do with the fact that I was eagerly awaiting a new iPhone device to hit the iPhone lineup. A tad disappointed with the lack of news here, I’ll just have to go on without, for now. Fiddling around with iLife ‘09 and iWork ‘09 will have to do… and I’ll have to think about picking up a new MacBook Pro while I’m at it… Ooooh, wouldn’t that be nice!

P.S. Oh, and of course, the Apple Store has opened its online doors yet again to accept all of your post-keynote purchases. Happy Shopping!