Inside Home Recording.com

Solid Apple updates, but nothing revolutionary

January 6th, 2009 by Derek

Apple announced some new stuff at the Macworld conference today, but nothing earth shattering. I’ve created a topic in the IHR forums if you’d like to discuss them.

For home recordists and podcasters, GarageBand ’09 is interesting, but the new features are mostly for student musicians (basic and artist lessons from musicians such as John Fogerty, with more to come for a fee; as well as additions to Magic GarageBand). The new visual amp stacks, similar to those in Guitar Rig and AmpliTube (most recently reviewed on IHR #31 and #51 respectively), are a nice addition, but it looks like not too much else has changed. The new “Mac Box Set” of Mac OS X 10.5, iWork, and iLife for $170 USD ($220 Cdn) is a great deal, however.

The new, expected 17″ MacBook Pro is nice, with a solid-block aluminum design similar to the last batch of 13″ and 15″ portables announced late last year. FireWire 800 is still there (whew!), as well as three USB 2.0 ports. Notable are the option for a matte-finish (instead of glossy) display, and a non-removable battery (!), which compensates for being sealed in by having hugely long 8-hour running time and a 1000-cycle lifecycle—as much as five times those of conventional batteries.

As someone who’s had to replace the battery on my 2006 black MacBook twice already, that extended lifespan is a very cool idea. Not that I’m in the market for a new laptop, or could afford the $3000 Cdn price tag anyway.

Entry Filed under: Blog