10 comments

Variable pricing bad for consumers? What? I think it’s great. Maybe it’s bad if all you buy is mainstream popular stuff but 69 cents for older tracks is awesome and the lack of DRM is certainly something that should have been in place all along. I usually use amazon’s mp3 store but if I can get the same thing for the same price and in AAC from the iTMS I’m going to use iTunes just because it’s easier.

wrk, on January 7th, 2009 at 4:25 am

Having a major show in Jan doesn’t make sense from a retail standpoint. I did not but a new iMac this holiday season because I was waiting for January and I am sure I am not the only one who had pause when they stepped into an Apple store in Nov/Dec. Macworld hurts Apple’s all-important holiday sales.

David, on January 7th, 2009 at 4:55 am

It’s hard to understand how you can acknowledge that Apple’s biggest reason for bowing out of MacWorld is to release products on its own schedule. And then, in the same sentence, insist that they follow *your* schedule. WTF?!

TooBokoo, on January 7th, 2009 at 5:21 am

I’m reminded of the quotation that the world will end not with a bang, but a whimper. I think we had all hoped that Apple would at least use this last Macworld as a thank you to the enthusiast community. That isn’t what I felt happened. In truth, it felt like my favorite relative gave me a limp, half-hearted handshake, and some regifted after shave.

Brendan, on January 7th, 2009 at 5:49 am

For consumers it has nothing to do with variable pricing. It’s all about no more DRM.

As for the Mac Mini? Yes, I’ve been waiting for over a year for it to be updated. But most people I talk to aren’t interested in the Mac Mini. They are interested in the MacBook or MacBook Pro.

For those of who actually write and work with spreadsheets WE ARE really excited about the update to iWork. This is just another step in Numbers becoming more than just a house hold mini-spreadsheet and is something business people, not necessarily finance people, can actually start using for more than very simple spreadsheets. Pages definitely has some things I can take advantage of. I just wish that full screen had it’s own settings for zoom.

iLife? Major updates to iLife for GarageBand (don’t you play guitar or keyboard???), iPhoto (cool!) and iMovie (I still might be using iMovie ‘06 more though. I’m not sure yet.). Too bad they didn’t do something more for iDVD and iWeb, both of which I also use.

I edit and then burn DVDs for my relatives junior high, high school, and now some small college events. Apparently Windows isn’t very good at this so they keep coming to me.

I also maintain websites for seven different groups including the motorcycle group I’m a member of.

It’s like Apple specifically made all of their products with me in mind. They just aren’t keeping up with iDVD to make that better as I still live in more of a DVD world than YouTube.

Apparently I’m Apple’s target audience and not you.

OlsonBW, on January 7th, 2009 at 7:18 am

I can honestly say I was excited by the iPhoto announcements by Phil. Just last week on ski holiday we were discussing the advantages of the iPhone camera using the GPS functionality and “geo-tagging” in general. We tried using the pictures taken with the iPhone in ‘Googlemaps, but that was a no-go. Now with the new iPhoto there is a really great use for geo-tagging your pictures. The “faces” stuff will also be a lot of fun I think and the Facebook + Flickr integration is good.

iMovie updates are very welcome too (cool).

I guess I also fall into Apple’s targeted audience like OlsonBW.

Tom, on January 7th, 2009 at 8:00 am

Let me start by saying if you hadn’t written this article we wouldn’t have missed anything either. I grow weary of articles like this form writers who are acting like spoiled children who didn’t get what they wanted. For some of you nothing Apple does will impress you. Apparently this is what your sense of pride is based on, not being impressed with anything. Let it be known that if someone is hard to impress they aren’t worth impressing.

Why not consider writing for PCs now? You’ll be more of help to Apple that way…

Joseph I'm a Mac, on January 7th, 2009 at 8:54 am

Maybe Steve Jobs didn’t deliver the keynote because there just wasn’t anything big enough announced to warrant the time and effort involved on his part.

Barry Wood, on January 7th, 2009 at 9:29 am

I think Pete gives the exact reason Apple is no longer doing these keynotes– people like Pete expect an iPhone every single january. Their expectations are unrealistic, and when Apple releases several innovative products, they complain about how Apple is wasting their time.

Its really unfortunate that you can’t give the announcements they made the respect they deserve. You say “ho hum” to things for which there are no other products on the market in the same class.

And while the mac mini is a fine product, its not like its the most important product in their line.

It seems that since what you want is a mac mini, then everything else is lame and them not talking about the mini means “nothing significant announced”.

You seem to be lacking some perspective here.

Jay, on January 7th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

This is an Apple blog, and you don’t even spell Macworld correctly. Come on. How much freakin’ research does that take. Is there even such thing as copy editors any longer?

dizzle, on January 11th, 2009 at 12:51 am