The last Macworld Expo I attended was in 2004. It was my first in San Francisco, as New York had previously been my beat. But even on the other side of the continent, it still felt familiar to me. It still felt like a Macworld Expo. The iPod was still fairly new, there was no iPhone, and people were there to hear about the Macintosh. Macworld Conference and Expo is now a different beast, and by beast, I mean that little duck from Wonder Pets with the annoying voice.

For those of you who haven’t been living under a rock this past week, you’re aware of Apple’s new and improved iPhoto application that will come out with iLife ’09 later this month. This update, which requires Leopard 10.5.6 or higher, brings a couple of exciting features such as Places and Faces (which are a nice addition to Events from the last version). These updates, as well as some other ones, will bring a lot more functionality to iPhoto, and I am really looking forward to this software. What exactly should you expect to see with this new software? Other than some improved editing features, there are some other major updates.

We were standing in line in the Macworld Media Room, waiting for our (free) lunch. “Four kinds of sandwiches?” said the man next to me. “Well, at least that’ll give us something interesting to talk about after this morning’s keynote.”

Ouch. And yet, he had a point.

One of the most interesting things about being media at Macworld Expo is that people always want to know what you think. Or, more accurately, they ask what you think so they then have reason to tell you what they think. I’ve been to five Macworld Expos now in both New York (ah, those were the days) and San Francisco, and almost every meting I have with exhibitors on Tuesday starts with, “So what did you think of the keynote?” I answer, but I’m always more interested in what publishers and developers have to say. This year, by and large, it’s not looking too good.

So it’s no secret that Phil Schiller was going to be under the magnifying glass during this, Apple’s last Keynote for Macworld. Everyone was watching, and for the most part, he did a great “job.” Of course, Phil is not Steve Jobs, so there wasn’t that pesky reality distortion field, and there was quite a more »

Having spent a few minutes with iPhoto ’09 (instructed by an Apple employee who hadn’t spent much more time with it himself) here are a few answers about it

Apple spent quite a bit of time today on the new iMovie ’09, and justifiably so. I didn’t like iMovie HD at all, mainly because it was a brand new program with a brand new way of using it, forcing users to relearn the system while not really offering anything new to justify the learning curve. With iMovie ’09, the justification has arrived.

Confirming rumors from earlier this week, Apple announced today that more songs would be available at the iTunes Store free of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, and that songs would be sold at different prices.

Apple has signed deals with Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Music (in addition to EMI, which started offering DRM-free music last year) to sell music without the Fairplay software which limits how many computers—and more importantly, which digital music players—songs purchased through iTunes may be used. Users will now be free to copy their music how they please, and play it on any device which supports the AAC format. Apple has faced repeated criticism (and lawsuits) about the tight relationship between the iPod and iTunes.

Geotagging became an official part of iPhoto ’09 as Apple announced its new “Places” feature. Users will either be able to tag the location of the photo manually, or, if using a camera that has GPS capabilities (like, say, an iPhone), the data will be added automatically. From there, iPhoto will create a map with pushpins indicating where pictures were taken. Users can mouse over them to get a thumbnail version of the photo, similar to the Flickr geotagging feature.

While Phil Schiller was rockin’ the mic and waxing rhapsodic about the wonders of iLife ’09, there was a bit of drama on the Mac web: the live coverage of the Keynote being provided by MacRumors was hacked by people claiming to be from 4chan imageboard. The person or group began posting their own irreverent version of what was happening on stage—how everyone else missed the orgy, I’m not sure—as well as making repeated announcements of Steve Jobs’ demise, the laxness of Mac security, and so on.