Software Updates Lead Apple’s Macworld Revelations

Who says Apple has to roll out groundbreaking new hardware products to keep life interesting? Though the tweaks to its 17″ MacBook Pro (described in a post above) are noteworthy, upgrades to iLife, iWork and iTunes may end up having more relevance for more Mac users than any hardware introduction could.

Well, at least until we finally get that Mac Tablet, but that’s a story for another day.

Follow after the jump for details on the software upgrades rolled out today.

Apple’s two main productivity suites, iWork and iLife, both received updates for 2009, with iWork’s Keynote presentation software continuing to evolve leaps and bounds ahead of Microsoft’s Powerpoint as a robust and interesting presentation tool.

Magic Move, a new Keynote feature, allows you to apply a simple transition to automatically animate the position, scale, rotation and opacity of any image, graphic or text that is repeated on consecutive slides. New text transitions morph text from one slide to the next. New advanced object transitions animate objects off one slide while simultaneously animating objects onto the next slide with a choice of effects. 3D charts now include cylinder shapes, beveled-edge pie charts, new textures and four new 3D build effects. With these enhancements, Apple continues to distinguish itself as a formidable sylistic competitor to that bigger software company based in Redwood, WA, inviting Keynote users to live in a much more richly textured, 3D world than the primitive, 2D existence Powerpoint people toil under.

Pages, iWork’s word and document processing application now boasts a Full Screen view that lets you focus on your document alone, revealing the menus, format bar and page navigator only when needed. A new Outline mode includes templates to build the framework for your document quickly and allows you to collapse, expand and rearrange elements, even inline graphics, with ease. MathType 6 support lets engineers, mathematicians and students easily add sophisticated equations to their documents and EndNote X2 integration lets users add and edit comprehensive bibliographic references. Pages ’09 also includes 40 new Apple-designed templates, including newsletters, posters, certificates and coordinated stationery.

Apple’s spreadsheet software, Numbers, continues to evolve, with easier function writing, an enhanced function browser which includes built-in help for over 250 functions, and visual placeholders with tool tips that explain each variable in a formula. A new Formula List lets you view all formulas in your entire spreadsheet and jump directly to any formula cell with a single click. Expanded chart options include mixed chart types, two-axis charts, and the ability to apply trend lines and error bars. Numbers charts pasted into Pages or Keynote are linked, and can be updated with a single click. I will look forward to taking Numbers 09 for a test drive, since I’ve long felt the spreadsheet realm was the only one in which Apple’s office-oriented solutions did not clearly outstrip Microsoft’s.

With a nod to the growing popularity of so-called “cloud computing,” Apple also announced today the public beta of iWork.com a new document collaboration service that lets you share iWork ’09 documents online. Using your Apple ID, just click the iWork.com icon in the Keynote, Pages or Numbers toolbar to upload your document and invite others to view it online. Viewers can provide comments and notes, and download a copy of your document in iWork, Microsoft Office or PDF formats. A consolidated online list of all your shared documents indicates when your viewers have posted comments.

iWork ’09 is now available online through the Apple Store, and at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $79 (US). iWork ’09 is available for $49 (US) with the purchase of any Mac through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

“iLife continues to be one of the biggest reasons our customers choose to get a Mac,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in a press release accompanying the Macworld Keynote. “With iLife ’09, we’ve made working with photos, making movies and learning to play music a lot more fun, and iMovie users are especially going to love the advanced but easy-to-use new features.”

Calling the upgrades to iLife apps “major,” Apple introduces facial recognition and location-aware grouping and sorting functionality for your photos in iPhoto, which also lets you easily publish photos to Facebook or Flickr. Photos published to Facebook include assigned names, and name tags added on Facebook sync back to iPhoto. You can also share photos by creating a themed slideshow to play on your Mac, iPhone or iPod®, or create a beautiful travel book, complete with customized maps of your journey.

iMovie gets a new Precision Editing function that lets you click on a magnified filmstrip to view clips up close and fine tune any edit, use sound from one clip with video from another and more. iMovie ’09 analyzes video and reduces camera shake in clips when added to your project. New titles, transitions, cinematic effects, speed changes and animated travel maps add professional polish to your movie.

Garage Band’s new Basic Lessons let you learn the fundamentals of piano or guitar at your own pace with Apple instructors in beautiful HD video synchronized to animated instruments and notation. A potential new money maker for the company, called Artist Lessons, features original artists showing how to play their hit songs with everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Some of the artists whose lessons you can buy separately from a new Lesson Store accessible from within Garage Band include Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and Sting. GarageBand ’09 also includes new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam that lets you play along with a virtual band that you create.

iWeb, Apple’s method for authoring custom websites, and iDVD, for creating DVDs, both get new iWeb Widgets, such as iSight® video and photos, a countdown timer, YouTube video and RSS feeds. New integrated FTP publishing allows you to publish your website to virtually any hosting service and updates to your site can now be automatically added to your Facebook profile.

Pricing for iWeb 09 is $79 (US) through the online Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The iLife Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after January 6, 2009, for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Artist Lessons are available through the GarageBand Lesson Store for $4.99 (US) each. These products are set for availability this month, according to Apple’s press release.