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Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes
Phil Schiller delivered the keynote at MacWorld, the first after the Steve Jobs era of keynotes. Here is Engadget's live blog. The big news, predicted by many rumor sites, was the introduction of the unibody 17" MacBook Pro. As rumored, the battery is not removable, but it's claimed to provide 8 hours of battery life (7 hours with the discrete graphics): "3x the charges and lifespan of the industry standard." $2,799, 2.66 GHz and 4 GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, shipping at the end of January. There is a battery exchange program, and there is an option for a matte display. The other big news is that iTunes is going DRM-free: 8M songs today, all 10+M by the end of March. Song pricing will be flexible, as the studios have been demanding; the lowest song price is $0.69. Apple also introduced the beta of a Google Docs-like service, iWork.com.
What are people going to whine about now?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They are getting rid of the DRM. Only one wish at a time granted, buddy!
Bearded Dragon
3x the charges and lifespan of the industry standard
This is a completely unfalsifiable statement. A Mac user wouldn't be caught dead with this model once the new 17.1" Macbook Pro comes out in six months. No one really knows how long any Apple product "could" last.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
It is extremely important that Slashdot apprise us of every new product coming from Apple Corporation, in near-realtime fashion.
Please slashdot, tell us more about Steve Jobs' health, Apple Corporation mythology, and Mac purchasing opportunities!
THL phish sticks
Still, it's a step in the right direction, and I applaud the people over at Amazon (and everyone else selling music without DRM) for doing it first. Without that step, I'm willing to bet that Apple would have stayed with DRM on their music catalog. It looks like part of Defective By Design's Anti-DRM wishlist came true.
That said, Apple is also now charging if you want to get rid of your DRM (which means upgrading to 256 kbps tracks). From Apple.com:
Yes, just $0.30 per song to get rid of the crap that we forced on you in the first place. Awful.
In other news, I was getting my updates from MacRumorsLive.com, when their feed was cracked by 4Chan. The site crashed half-way through the keynote. Here are some screen caps for anyone interested:
http://www.realfx.com/images/macrumorslive_pwned.jpg
http://www.realfx.com/images/macrumorslive_pwned2.jpg
http://www.realfx.com/images/macrumorslive_pwned3.jpg
One less button.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
You mean, anyone could view the file listing of http://www.macrumorslive.com/admin/, where anyone could open the .passwd file with unencrypted passwords.
32G? Isn't last year's 3G-compatible iPhone good enough?
The CB App. What's your 20?
Every cell-phone from entry-level to smart phone has a removable battery, why is there this trend to prevent that?
My old iPaq didn't, and of course the iPhone doesn't.
I hereby dub it "the iBattery syndrome".
I'm glad my original Macbook Pro didn't have an iBattery, or else it would have been trashed when my battery swelled out of its case.
Yes, but does iTunes run on Linux yet?
*ducking*
My blog
All my music is DRM-free, that's how I was able to get it :D
Well, that's a problem easily solved. Just split the number pad up and place it horizontally above the rest of the keyboard (well, maybe not above everything....you could squeeze it in below the function keys).
I can just hear artifcats in 128 MP3, but not in 192kb MP3.
Couple more weeks with those earbuds and we'll fix that for you.
I said, COUPLE MORE WEEKS ....
Who are you kidding? Macbook users don't sit at a desk. They do all their "work" over the free wi-fi at the coffee shop.