Keynote wrap-up

Another Macworld keynote come and gone. The 2004 keynote was all in all pretty good. Good energy, good message, and good product announcements.

I’m glad to see the updates to the iLife suite, especially iPhoto–if there was ever an app that could bog down a machine, iPhoto was it. The new stuff in iDVD and iMovie looks tasty, too, but the current versions really do about all I need, so that’s gravy. Kudos to Apple for breaking out of the tired “i” mold with GarageBand–a huge thank you for not naming it iMusic or iStudio or something silly like that.

Of course not being a musician at all, GarageBand will sit quietly on its CD when I get the iLife 04 suite, so that’s a bit of pearls for swine for me. But good on those of you out there who want to get your rock on. Create some cool tunage and stick it to the RIAA by releasing it under your own licenses.

Xserve G5s look mighty tasty, but it’ll probably be a good while before I need to get rack mounts. Still, good job. Those things should scream.

So now my iPod is an oversized dinosaur. Sigh. I can’t believe Steve didn’t get the memo I sent him about not innovating anymore until I was in the market for a new iPod. Must be his spam filters.

Now it’s just for the wait until the iLife suite shows up. Forty-nine dollars for the whole shebang sounds like a pretty good deal, but as I really only want iPhoto, it would be good to know if it will be available for download, or if you have to buy the suite. Maybe John Mayer made me deaf, but I didn’t hear anything about availability of iLife ‘04. I’m sure details are forthcoming, though.

UPDATE: iLife ‘04 will be available for purchase January 16. Looks like no downloads.