ErixClix

After watching the Keynote Address given by Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing, Philip Schiller, I realized they still have the ability to innovate and put powerful, practical features into the hands of even a casual  user, making computing not only productive but fun…even after it seems like everything cool has been invented already.  Somehow, I seem to be the only one impressed by some of these great new tools and toys or maybe it was just the absence of Steve Jobs unveiling these tech treats, but the keynote crowd seemed less than thrilled.  Let me know what you think…


Apple’s Last Stand at MacWorld

Phil presented some great new stuff, including:  iWork ’09 (Apple’s productivity suite), iLife ’09 (Apple’s media suite, included free with any new Mac) and a new 17″ MacBook Pro. And that they will be selling songs in iTunes DRM-free. Without protection. So now you can really ‘own’ the songs you purchase. Using them on other devices, not just your iPod or iPhone. This is long awaited, big news for iTunes fans.

Apple also announced they will not be attending MacWorld anymore.  Initially believed to be connected to the health of their CEO, it has long been known Apple and IDG (MacWorld Expo owner) have long been at odds.  Further, the marketing power of their over 200 retail locations has been likened to the effectiveness of 100 MacWorld Expos with over 3 million visitors.  Sounds logical.  Now on to the fun stuff…(well, I started with iWork ’09 which is a productivity suite, the truly fun stuff is below in the iLife ’09 section, but I have to be thorough!)


iWork ’09

iWork ’09 new features include a “full-screen view” to Pages (the suite’s document creation and word processing app) so you can work without distractions such as chat windows or emails popping up.  It also aids in getting a more accurate preview of the appearance of your documents. Pages now allows you to create dynamic outlines.  Also, the suite allows for mail merging with lists created in Numbers (the suite’s spreadsheet app), new templates, and for engineering professionals, MathType as well as complex EndNotes.

Keynote, iWork ’09′s presentation tool, adds new themes, new animation tools and, very professional transitions and chart animations.  The coolest new feature is the “Keynote Remote” allowing presenters to use their iPhone or iPod Touch as a remote for controlling their presentation.  With a $.99 download, you can really impress your clients.  Just remember, if you’re using your iPhone to present, you may want to turn off your ringer!

iLife ’09

This is where Apple really shines this year.  Adding new capabilities to an already powerful suite of media applications.  And the best thing, it’s free when you buy any Mac!

iPhoto

Besides new photo book and slideshow themes, the new iPhoto adds some extremely powerful capabilities.  Dubbed “Faces” Apple has added a cutting edge feature that allows yet another way to organize your photos.  Have you ever been browsing through your photo library and wished you could just look at the images with a specific friend or loved one in them?  Faces now adds face recognition to your photo albums.  Tell iPhoto what someone looks like and from now on it will tag that person automatically in all the images it recognizes them in.  This is incredibly practical and is an Apple ‘signature’ feature again putting what normally is cutting edge technology (in this case law enforcement, casinos use similar technology for identifying unwelcome guests in their gambling halls) into the hands of you and I, further enhancing our lifestyles.

Also, in iPhoto, as if Faces wasn’t cool enough, we can now attach “Places” to any photo that is geotagged. Geotagging attaches location information to photographs.  Many digital cameras today are including built-in GPS capabilities (or offer add-on devices) so that lattitude and longitude information may be attached to the photos you take.  The iPhone 3G already has this built-in.  iPhoto will automatically take the lattitude and longitude information attached to a photo and tag it in iPhoto with more usable information, such as city, state, the name of a park, etc.  Now you can organize and browse your photos by location.  This location information also comes in handy when making movies and slideshows with iLife ’09 as animated travel maps can be created automatically from this data.

iPhoto also adds support for interacting with Facebook and Flickr.  With Facebook, for example, iPhoto will also import and export your photos with the “Faces” information.  If the Facebook photo is imported and already has friends tagged in it, iPhoto will recognize that person in the rest of your photos in your iPhoto albums.  This is incredibly powerful and practical integration, and again, signature Apple.

iMovie

Apple’s movie creation and editing too’ “for the rest of us” just got even more powerful.  Too numerous to mention the details of all of them, they include:  Easy to use precision editing, advanced intelligent drag and drop, new themes and new effects, transitions etc.  And again, if you import photos that have “Places” information attached, iMovie has beautiful themed ‘travel maps’ that are created and animated automatically, connecting the places you visited, just like in the Indiana Jones movies!

My favorite additon to iMovie is the Video Stabilization.  This has to be seen to be believed.  Much of our ‘home movie’ footage can be incredibly shaky and hard to watch, making a lot of it unusable when editing something nice together.  However, drag a shaky piece of footage into your editing timeline and video stabilization makes it all but go away, adding a professional look to your movies as if your camera were floating on air.  A dramatic demonstration of this is in the Keynote video (link above).

GarageBand

And last, but certainly not least, Garage Band.  Garage Band adds a great new capability: Lessons.  There are Basic Lessons, that are included with Garage Band, and Artist Lessons purchasable from the GarageBand Store for $4.99.  From Fallout Boy to Sting to John Fogerty.  The actual artists themselves teach you how to play their songs.  Some with keyboard some with guitar and all in high definition. Another incredibly powerful, practical offering with the sole purpose of enhancing your lifestyle.

Take Stock

Apple continues to innovate and set itself apart from any other technology organization.  As a company, their fundamentals are solid and strong.  Their customer base, proven to be the most loyal in the industry.  Marketshare, continuing to grow, and unlike Microsoft with over 80% marketshare and shrinking (measurably), Apple’s over 10% marketshare only has one direction to go.

Yet, like clockwork, almost immediately after a successful Keynote Address, the stock drops (AAPL), on an otherwise “up” day on Wall Street.  Even after Steve Jobs himself makes an announcement regarding the rumors of illness. Analysts have always been wrong about Apple.  I’m betting they still don’t get it.

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