2009 brought Apple's last appearance at Macworld, somewhere they've exhibited for the last 24 years and traditionally announced their Q1 updates of consumer products. Who can forget 2008, the iPhone 3G was perhaps the Apple's worst kept secret.
This year was a little different though, with Steve Jobs - Apple CEO - citing personal and health reasons for not performing the traditional 2nd day keynote that draws a queues from 6PM the preceding day. VP, Phil Schiller, took centre stage and delivered what can only be described as a timid opening to Apple's 2009 roster. iLife and iWork saw updates, with an announcement of iWork.com - competition of Google Docs and Microsoft Office Live, and the dismantling of DRM'd music on the iTunes Music Store. We were hoping for hardware refreshes galore, with strong rumours suggesting nVidia chipsets being introduced to the Mac Mini and iMac families in line with the recent notebook updates in October. This wasn't forthcoming however we did see the introduction of the unibody 17" Macbook Pro along with Apple admitting that perhaps they were wrong about "gloss only" strategy.
Steve Jobs in 2008 categorically stated that all future Macbooks would be glass paneled and glossy screened. The pro industry threatened to turn their back on Apple notebooks and Apple listened, for a £35 ($50) upgrade you can get your 17" Macbook Pro with the anti-glare option which removes the glass screen and glossy finish. It remains to be seen whether a 15" option will be forthcoming once they get a feel for popularity of the 17" option.
Apple took design and manufacturing to new levels with the 17" model, which now features a battery that can last up to 8 hours. The key was removing the accessibility of the battery, saving enough space to allow for a lithium-polymer battery which lasts over twice as long as it's 15" sibling.
SSD options are now up to 256GB, twice the maximum offered for the Macbook Air - although with prices dropping fast you may want to manually install a 512GB OCZ when they hit the shelves late-Q1.
Continuing with Macbook Pro news, the Modbook Pro was unveiled by the Apple co-Founder affectionately known as the Woz. In a shaky address at the Axiotron booth, we were shown what can only be described as an engineering masterpiece. A competely new body installed around the guts of the new Macbook Pro 15". Featuring Wacom tablet technology, they have actually managed to make the unit thinner than the Macbook Pro itself! Using the top of the range Macbook Pro, it takes on a Core 2 Duo 2.93GHz processor, 4GB RAM and up to 500GB SATA or 256GB SSD. However at £3999, the price exceeds purchasing the top of the range Macbook Pro plus a 21" external Wacom with display; which would give you the benefit of both Apple's Multitouch Technology and Wacom's Multilayered Touch Technology. Warranty is of course null and void with the Modbook, although Axiotron are working hard at expanding their own worldwide support network. Leadtime's are running at 6-8 weeks and discounts available this week only by quoting Macworld.
Whilst the US now have a 2-tiered pricing structure for iTunes Music purchases, at $0.69 (with DRM) or $1.29 (without DRM); the UK now has a flat rate £0.79 for all single downloads and is DRM free. You can upgrade your existing library to "iTunes Plus" for 20% of the current cost of re-downloading. This is especially useful if you have lost anything from your iTunes library through one of the well documented "disappearing acts" that iTunes and the iPhone randomly perform. Upgrading your library will download everything that you've ever purchased from iTunes, and now what is just in your existing library. Unfortunately it is an all or nothing system to take advantage of the 20% offer; which may mean you end up paying more for music you may wish you'd never have bought in the first place!
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