Apple

We're posting live updates from Macworld 2009 at San Francisco's Moscone Center, where Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller, is delivering the keynote speech.

Phil Schiller takes the stage to deliver the keynote speech at Macworld in San Francisco.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

8:55 a.m. PST: We're live inside the Moscone Center for Macworld 2009, having braved the elbows of the friendly media hordes and the rather aggressive ushers. The room is fairly full, but the line outside this morning seemed a little smaller than usual, unless IDG did a better job of herding the masses in early. The pre-keynote music is skewing more current than usual before a Jobs keynote, with Death Cab for Cutie and the like, which maybe gives us an idea of what Phil Schiller uses to warm up.

9:03 a.m.: We just got the cell phone warning message, which probably gives us a five-minute window or so. They turned up the volume for Coldplay's "Life in Technicolor," and I'm assuming we're getting close.

9:04 a.m.: The lights dim as the song ends, and Apple's Phil Schiller takes the stage to start Macworld 2009. He appears to be rocking an all-denim ensemble. It's a little hard to tell from here. "I'm so personally excited to be the one delivering Macworld 2009 to you. I'd like to thank everybody for showing up," which gets a chuckle.

9:06 a.m.: Phil's first topic is the general state of Apple, talking about some of the new Apple stores that the company has opened overseas, such as Beijing and Sydney. He's gushing about some of the new store designs. "I can't imagine any other company delivering something like that." Every week, 3.4 million customers visit an Apple store around the world. "That's 100 Macworlds each and every week," a clear pointer to Apple's decision to make this its last Macworld.

9:07 a.m.: Phil's going to start with the Mac, and he seems to be hinting that's all we're going to talk about today. Last year was the best year for the Mac in Apple's history, he said, growing faster than the industry based on what Phil calls Apple's best product line ever. Phil has three new things he's going to cover.

9:08 a.m.: The first one? iLife '09.

9:11 a.m.: "There's nothing like it on any computer platform." The first update is iPhoto '09. Phil's talking about the feature added last year that let you sort your digital photos by events, and Apple's adding two features. One is called Faces, a sublink off the library. You can sort photos by person, with something called Face Detection, which gets the first hushed awe from the Macworld crowd. It finds photos with the same person once you've tagged a photo with someone's name.

Faces in iPhoto: Users will be able to sort photos by person with something called Face Detection.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

GPS geotagging in iPhoto

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

9:13 a.m.: "Now, there's no perfect face detection software," Phil notes, but he calls Apple's technology the best thing they found. Another addition to the sorting categories is Places, which will let you organize your photos around various cities. Places uses GPS geotagging to organize your photos, working with various digital cameras and the iPhone to embed geotags into your photo.

9:15 a.m.: The software can ascertain the exact locations within a city, Phil says, using the Eiffel Tower as an example. It also lets you enter locations for old photos taken with cameras with no geotagging support. Google is providing the mapping service for Places, Phil says. It looks very much like the Maps application on the iPhone, with the dropped pins.

9:17 a.m.: iPhoto '09 has a few other new bells and whistles, such as support for Facebook and Flickr. You can upload photos from iPhoto directly to Facebook with a new button, and can also take the photo-labeling conventions in Facebook and download those back to your Mac. Same thing for Flickr, which supports the geotagging software.

iPhoto face recognition syncs with Facebook.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

Schiller demonstrates the face recognition feature.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

9:19 a.m.: Slide shows can receive musical themes in the new version, and those themes can take advantage of the face-recognition software as well. There are all kinds of new wipes for moving between photos in a slide show, with the requisite ooh's and ahh's from the faithful. These slide shows will also apparently work on your iPhone.

9:20 a.m.: The last new feature Phil reveals for iPhoto '09 are travel book themes, which let you print photos and add the geotagging/face recognition support. Phil's moving into demo time.

9:23 a.m.: Phil's sorting through his photos looking for faces to identify. He finds a photo and hits the "name" button to name that person. iPhoto doesn't know this person yet, so it prompts Phil to enter a name. It then goes out and finds all the other photos that have the same face, and asks Phil to confirm that it's the right person. You can do this in batches, as well, asking iPhoto to zoom in on that particular person's face in various photos to easily identify if it's the right person.

9:25 a.m.: Now it's time for Places. iPhoto has already assigned pins in a map view to the photos that have geotagging support, identifying the places you've taken photos. You can click on one of the pins to see all the photos associated with that location. Phil finds a photo that doesn't have geotagging information on it, and assigns a location. The software then finds all the photos within that event, and assigns the same location to them.

9:27 a.m.: The map view can get pretty detailed, showing all the locations along a river in Paris that various photos were taken. You can also sort your photos by cities, states, and famous locations such as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Geotagging demo

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9:29 a.m.: That's all for the iPhoto '09 demo. There are a few other things, Phil said, but we're not going to cover them all. Now we're moving into iMovie '09.

9:30 a.m.: Apple updated iMovie last year with a new version that was completely different from older versions of iMovie, Phil said. There were a few features missing from the new version that people complained about, and it sounds like Apple has added a lot more stuff. They include a precision editor, a drag-and-drop feature that lets you layer movies, new themes, and animated travel maps. Plus, video stabilization for those of you hopped up on caffeine, such as yours truly.

iMovie drag-and-drop features

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9:31 a.m.: Demo time once again. Apple's actually going to name the engineer, Randy Ubillos, who created the new version of iMovie, which is something they were criticized for not doing when they first unveiled iMovie '08. Randy's going to do the demo.

9:34 a.m.: Randy's walking through the precision editor and drag-and-drop features. You can do things like pull audio from clips you otherwise don't want to use to overlay that audio over other shots. The precision editor lets you see the content before and after the edit in the screen, adjusting a particular edit if you didn't like the way it came off the first time. There's also an audio editor that lets you sync that up with the video.

9:37 a.m.: This is a pretty elaborate shot for a home-movie demonstration, but that's to be expected. Randy moves on to another movie he's making out of clips from a trip to Africa, in order to demonstrate the video stabilization feature. Bumping across the African plains isn't exactly the best way to shoot a video, but Randy shows the before-and-after shots with the video stabilization applied that show a noticeable difference in quality.

Demo of new project library and video stabilization

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

9:39 a.m.: The video effects are next up, and then Randy shows how to add the travel maps into the movie, which I'm calling the Indiana Jones effect. It lets you pull up various map styles that show Randy's travel to Africa, from San Francisco to Botswana, just as the Indiana Jones movies used to show his travels around the world from place to place.

9:41 a.m.: New themes, of course. Randy shows off how to create the themes, and shows off the finished product of his trip to Africa. "You can see how nice and professional those look," which, to be fair, is about what you'd expect from a video professional. Randy moves offstage, and Phil's back.

9:42 a.m.: GarageBand '09 is the third part of the iLife suite that Phil's going to talk about today. He's only going to talk about one feature, which he says will help you learn to play a musical instrument. They gave it the catchy title "Learn to Play."

GarageBand '09: "Learn to play"

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

9:44 a.m.: It brings up a video with a teacher and a guitar's fretboard, which lets you move at your own pace through various lessons. The demo man in the video is going to teach us the 12-bar blues in A. It shows you where to fret the guitar, and gives you the audio feedback so you know whether you hit the right chord yourself. Keyboard is also supported, with a demo of everybody's favorite piano duet, "Heart and Soul."

9:45 a.m.: There are nine basic guitar and piano lessons in GarageBand '09, and it also has "Artist Lessons." John Fogerty will teach us "Proud Mary." Patrick Stump from Fallout Boy, and some guy named Sting are also featured guitar artists. Sarah McLachlan, Ryan Tedder of One Republic, and Norah Jones are the piano artists. More will be added later, Phil says.

Sting in GarageBand

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

9:48 a.m.: There's a built-in store in the software, which lets you download artist lessons for $4.99. The artists will give you a bit of the backstory to the songs as part of the lesson. John Fogerty is talking about the history of "Proud Mary"; the opening sequence, believe it or not, is a rip-off of Beethoven's Fifth. He's talking about the chord choices he made, which is an interesting way to teach people about music theory in a real basic way. It zooms in on his fingering as he moves from chord to chord.

GarageBand '09 features

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

9:49 a.m.: That's all we're going to talk about for iLife '09, although there are new features in iDVD and iWeb. The upgrade price is $79, or you can get a family pack for $99. That will ship by the end of this month, and it's free on all new Macs.

9:51 a.m.: iWork '09 is also on tap today. Keynote '09 will come first, with some new tools for creating slide presentations such as the one we're watching. There are some new transitions between slides, and object transitions as well, which let you zoom in on one particular object in a slide filled with various objects.

New Keynote features in iWork

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

9:52 a.m.: Apple also added new text transitions. The example they use? "Bush" swings around and magically turns into "Obama." "Read into that what you will," Phil says, to applause.

9:54 a.m.: You can also move charts around in new ways, such as the "rotate-and-grow," and there are new chart styles as well. It wouldn't be an Apple product without various themes, and they've added a bunch of new ones.

9:55 a.m.: There's also the new "Keynote Remote." As you might have guessed, that's an iPhone or iPod Touch. Apple has created an iPhone application that lets you advance slides by flicking them back or forward in the Cover Flow mode, with a wireless connection to your Mac. That's available for 99 cents in the App Store.

Keynote remote app for iPhone

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

9:58 a.m.: Pages, Apple's word processing software, is also moving into the new year. One new feature is full-screen view, which lets you hide your other applications behind the text so you can focus on your writing. Customers also wanted outlining, Phil says, and the new Pages lets you create documents in outline form, and move back and forth between the finished document and your original outline. MathType and EndNote are supported in the new version, those are applications used by the scientific community. And new templates are also part of Pages '09

Full-screen view in Pages

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

New Pages features

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

10:01 a.m.: Numbers '09 rounds out the new iWork suite. Numbers '08 was a brand-new version 1.0 spreadsheet product, Phil says, and Apple's made some additions based on early feedback. You can sort your spreadsheets by different categories, and there are more powerful formulas added for those of you who need to do advanced budget and finance work. New charts and a new way of linking those charts have also been added.

10:03 a.m.: iWork '09, like iLife, is $79, or $99 for a family pack of five. It's $49 with a new Mac, and it's available today. You need to upgrade to Leopard for the new iLife. Apple is now selling a Mac Box Set with Leopard, iLife '09, and iWork '09 for $169, and that will be available in late January when iLife '09 is ready.

Mac Box Set

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

10:04 a.m.: Apple also has a new Web service called iWork.com, which it is announcing in beta form, perhaps having learned something from the MobileMe disaster. This lets you share iWork documents online between different users, for adding comments or notes to documents across a group. Phil's going to demo this service.

10:07 a.m.: Phil brings up a new Pages document to demonstrate iWork.com. The iWork '09 products have an iWork.com button, which he presses, and it asks him to identify to whom he wants to send the document. He does so, and the document is now available online. The application sends an e-mail to the recipient, which launches a browser and brings up the document in a window. You can read and leave notes, and more than one person can read the document at the same time.

10:08 a.m.: Once the recipient is done viewing and making comments, they can choose to download it if they want to make further edits. That Pages document will open in either Pages or Microsoft Word, Phil says. He moves back to the computer used by the document creator to check out what people have been saying about his document, and views it online in his browser. All modern browsers will work, Phil says.

iWork.com demo

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

10:10 a.m.: This works for the other portions of the iWork suite as well. "This is the beginning of a new service," Phil says. It's a free beta for now but eventually Apple will charge for it. That's launching today.

10:10 a.m.: The third thing, Phil's "one more thing," is a 17-inch MacBook Pro.

Third thing: a 17-inch Macbook Pro

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10:12 a.m.: It uses the unibody construction that Apple unveiled in October for the MacBook line. The MacBook has been the leading notebook sold in the U.S. each of the last few months, Phil says, although it's not clear what data he's using to make that claim. The new MacBook is 6.6 pounds, and very thin for a notebook of its size, he says.

10:13 a.m.: Phil says it has the best display they've ever shipped on a MacBook Pro. It's available in both glossy and matte finish, which will satisfy some of those who hated the glossy-only options for the new MacBook displays. It has the new MiniDisplay port.

The display on the new 17-inch MacBook Pro will be available in glossy or matte finish.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

10:15 a.m.: It also has the new glass trackpad used on the new MacBooks, with all the same gestures. New Intel processors, option for up to 8GBs of memory, and both the integrated Nvidia graphics and the discrete 9500GT graphics. Also, 320GB of hard drive as standard, and an SSD option. It also works with the new Cinema Display.

10:16 a.m.: This system also has a new battery. Phil says they wanted to make the longest-lasting battery life they've ever accomplished within the weight and size restrictions they set for the device. They're showing a video with hardware chief Bob Mansfield, who walks us through the new battery. It will last 8 hours and last for 1,000 charges, Mansfield says.

10:17 a.m.: Dan Riccio, from product design, explains how the battery was designed into the system. removable batteries waste space, he says, revealing that Apple is using a non-user-replaceable battery on this system.

10:18 a.m.: Apple's chief engineer for battery systems is showing on the screen, but they don't identify him by name, which is odd. Apple created custom battery cell shapes which it claims increase capacity. They are using lithium polymer technology, says the unnamed engineer.

10:19 a.m.: Mansfield's back, talking about adaptive charging, which he says reduces wear and tear. A thousand recharges is about three times the number of the rest of the industry. Riccio says there is a chip within the battery that identifies individual cells and can adjust the current flow as needed.

10:21 a.m.: Mansfield says the MacBook Pro is environmentally friendly. It uses less power and is made from aluminum and glass. Riccio says the battery should last for five years, which means people won't be throwing out batteries. The video ends, the lights come up, and Phil's back.

More battery life

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

10:22 a.m.: They are quoting 7 hours of battery life using the discrete graphics, and 8 using the integrated graphics. This will cost $2,799, the same price as the old 17-inch model. That's with 4GBs of memory. It will start shipping by the end of January.

10:23 a.m.: Phil's running down a checklist of the environmentally friendly features, with all the chemicals that were left out and smaller packaging materials. And, of course, there is a new ad.

New MacBook Pro ad

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10:24 a.m.: There is "one last thing..." and it's iTunes.

10:25 a.m.: It's been six years since Apple started the iTunes Music Store, and it has sold 6 billion songs. 10 million songs are currently available, and there are over 75 million accounts. iTunes became the No. 1 channel for music in the U.S. over that time.

10:26 a.m.: Read my colleague Greg Sandoval's story from last night for a preview of what you're about to hear. The first new thing in the new iTunes is price. There are three price levels: 69 cents, the traditional 99 cents, and $1.29. That will arrive in April.

10:27 a.m.: The second thing is iTunes Plus. This is Apple's DRM-free tracks, which also have a higher bit rate, Phil says. "Starting today, we're going to offer 8 million of the songs DRM-free."

10:28 a.m.: By the end of this quarter, Phil says all 10 million songs on the iTunes store will be DRM-free. You can upgrade your existing music to be DRM-free.

iTunes Plus: DRM free tracks

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

10:30 a.m.: The third new thing involves the iPhone. Apple has the Wi-Fi iTunes Store currently on the iPhone, and now you'll be able to do that over the 3G cellular networks for the same prices as in the regular iTunes store, with the same selection. You can preview and purchase music from the iTunes store, and of course, you can sync it to your computer. "This is a really big step for wireless music on cell phones," Phil says, and that starts today.

10:31 a.m.: Since we're ending on music, I have a feeling we're about to hear the featured artist of Macworld 2009. This year, Tony Bennett is leaving his heart in San Francisco for the last Macworld.

10:32 a.m.: Bennett is singing "The Best Is Yet to Come," backed by a four-piece jazz combo. That guy still sounds amazing.

10:33 a.m.: I should note, of course, that this isn't necessarily the last Macworld, just the last with Apple's participation. But somehow, I have a feeling Tony Bennett won't be appearing at next year's show.

10:34 a.m.: And, of course, Bennett has to sing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

Tony Bennett leaves his heart in San Francisco.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

10:39 a.m.: Bennett wraps up and receives a standing ovation from the crowd. Phil thanks everybody for coming, and he also thanks his colleagues for helping to put together the show.

That's it, with no apparent Steve Jobs appearance, although I'll check up front to see if he's in the front row. In any event, that's the Macworld 2009 keynote, which was, as predicted, a little underwhelming compared to past events. We'll have lots more coverage over the rest of the day, with updated photo galleries, video of the event, and the first impressions of the 17-inch MacBook Pro from our CNET Reviews staff.

Thanks everybody for reading this blog, and thanks as always to the crew on Second Street.

Click here for more Macworld Expo coverage from CNET News.

(Credit: Topherchris.com)

Some nasty pranksters, likely associated with Web forum 4Chan, have hacked into Apple gossip mainstay MacRumors' live-blog coverage of Tuesday's Macworld keynote. Hosted on a separate domain, MacRumorsLive.com, the site was plagued by offensive messages about Apple CEO Steve Jobs' health and general inanity (i.e. "SEX ME") before finally succumbing to "technical difficulties."

It remains uncertain whether the pranksters actually brought down the site, or whether MacRumors voluntarily took it down to keep things under control.

It's pretty clear, however, that this was the work of 4Chan, which has gained both respect and notoriety (depending on who you ask) over the past year for its persistent protests against the controversial Scientology sect in the form of an offshoot group called "Anonymous."

Over on 4Chan's labyrinthine forums, a couple of threads (warning: contains explicit language) hint at members' collusion to take down MacRumors Live, and the hacked live blog was peppered with declarations of "4CHAN FTW" (that's "for the win," for those who stepped in late).

This year's Macworld Expo has gained particular attention because Apple has announced that it's the last in which it will have a presence. Additionally, iconic CEO Steve Jobs bowed out of the keynote presentation. Marketing executive Phil Schiller took his place.

The 4Chan skulduggery appears to have first been noticed by Twitter users and independent blogs like Topherchris.com, which took the screenshot above.

One Twitter user pointed to rumors on social-news site Digg that 4Chan members had been circulating MacRumors passwords on Monday night.

It's a silly prank, yes. But it could have a big impact on MacRumors: this is likely the site's biggest day of the year, and the event could have an impact on both ad revenues and server costs.

This post was updated at 10:39 a.m. PT.

Add electronics retailer Best Buy to the list of places you can get a used iPhone cheap.

Best Buy is now selling refurbished Apple iPhone 3G models at a $50 discount to brand-new, unused models, according to the Reuters news agency. The lower prices of $149 for the 8GB iPhone (normally $199) and $249 for the 16GB iPhone (normally $299)--with a two-year service contract with AT&T contract--apply to devices that were returned to the store within 30 days of their initial purchase.

The move comes a little more than a week after megaretailer Wal-Mart Stores began selling iPhones at $197 for the 8GB model and $297 for the 16GB model.

Refurbished iPhones are also available from AT&T, the sole wireless carrier for the devices. Apple itself has also sold refurbished iPhones in the past, but a check of its Web site shows no such offers at the moment.

Best Buy representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Update 11:05 a.m. PT: Best Buy put out its press release a little later in the morning. In addition to the pricing stated above, the company said that current iPhone users can upgrade to a "refreshed" iPhone 3G. It also said the refurbished devices are available now at 350 Best Buy stores and by the end of January will be available at all U.S. Best Buy stores that offer AT&T.

Apple has cut deals that will finally enable iTunes to offer songs free of copy protection software from the three largest music labels, according to two sources close to the negotiations. In exchange, Apple has agreed to become more flexible on pricing, the sources said.

Under the terms of the deal, song prices will be broken down into three categories--older songs from the catalog, midline songs (newer songs that aren't big hits), and current hits--said one of the sources. Apple has offered songs free of digital rights management protections from EMI for more than a year. But EMI accounts for less than 10 percent of music sold in the U.S.; these new deals will expand iTunes' DRM-free library to include songs from the other three major labels (Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Music).

Apple and the music labels have also apparently come to terms on over-the-air downloads, according to a source. That would allow iPhone owners to download songs to their mobile devices via cell networks and without the aid of Wi-Fi. Apple, which closed the deals last week, could announce the agreements as early as Tuesday at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

DRM-free songs are something that many iTunes users have requested for some time. However, the celebration over their appearance at the country's largest music retailer may be overshadowed by increased prices on some hit songs, which might be seen by some as an Apple surrender on pricing. Apple fans have long applauded the company for holding the line on pricing despite loud complaints from the major music labels.

The good news is that the price of catalog music is falling to 79 cents per song. The labels will get an opportunity to price some hit songs for more than 99 cents but eventually those songs will drop to 79 cents, according to one source.

Before iTunes users get too worked up, they should remember that song prices at iTunes haven't increased in five years. According to the Consumer Price Index, a 99-cent song in 2002 would be worth $1.17 today.

Not only will new music downloads be free of copy-protection software, but Apple and the labels will begin removing DRM from music already available in the iTunes Store, the source said. However, it's unclear what will happen to songs that have already been purchased.

Click here for more Macworld Expo coverage from CNET News.

Now that Apple has acknowledged Steve Jobs' health issues, it may have to do so repeatedly in the future.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

By finally deciding to talk about Steve Jobs' health, Apple may have opened a Pandora's Box.

After insisting for months that Jobs' health was a private matter, Apple changed its tack in the face of widespread speculation regarding its CEO's weight loss. On Monday, the company issued a statement that Jobs was suffering from a hormone imbalance that was "robbing" proteins from his body. That news cheered Apple investors, who dreaded far worse news regarding Jobs' health after a report last week that his health was "declining rapidly."

The disclosure was clearly painful for Jobs, who wrote in an open letter, "So now I've said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this." That might not be so simple.

Now that it has cleared the air and addressed the state of Jobs' health, Apple may be forced to give regular updates, according to corporate governance experts. And, they add, the company will need to be very careful, as it was on Monday, about how it words those statements.

We've written this many times as we've covered the issues surrounding Jobs' health and Apple's handling of the situation, but it bears repeating: there are no legal guidelines for companies to follow in making decisions about how and what to disclose involving the health matters of their executives.

Amid all the speculation involving Jobs' health this year, Apple may have decided that enough was enough following reports predicting its CEO's imminent demise, according to Patrick McGurn, special counsel at RiskMetrics Group's ISS Governance Services.

"It's sort of unhealthy for the company to go through these repeated news cycles," McGurn said, believing that Apple likely should have said something earlier in the year when concerns over Jobs' health first surfaced.

The intense interest in anything related to Apple in the tech industry makes it ripe for disinformation, which seems to have cropped up time and time again with the rumors that Jobs was dying. The most likely sources of that kind of information are hedge funds or speculators looking to make a quick buck by short-selling Apple's stock, or finding ways to drive the stock down as to profit from its fall.

Rumors involving Jobs' health are an easy weapon for those types of speculators, given his importance to Apple and clear evidence of weight loss this year. Apple has chosen different strategies over the course of the past six months in handling those rumors.

The company first told The Wall Street Journal in June on the day of Jobs' appearance at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference that he was suffering from a "common bug," but after the speculation increased Apple modified its stance to declare that Jobs' health "is a private matter."

Jobs himself then reached out to The New York Times' Joe Nocera to confirm (off-the-record) a story written by Nocera's colleague John Markoff that Jobs had undergone a surgical procedure to treat an unspecified issue that was causing weight loss. That prompted some heated discussion of whether a surgical procedure really counts as a common bug, but the speculation largely died down as Jobs made public appearances later in the year in which he didn't appear any worse off, if not better.

That is, until Apple announced in mid-December that Jobs would not be giving the Macworld keynote. Apple refused to answer any questions about Jobs' health at that time, pointing instead to Apple's decision to end its association with Macworld as the reason for Jobs' absence.

We now know, through Monday's announcement, that Jobs decided "a few weeks ago" that determining why he was continuing to lose weight was his highest priority. Apple has not said that particular decision was linked to the decision to have Phil Schiller deliver the keynote, but it's not hard to imagine the two decisions were at least somewhat related.

So, now what? Investors seemed satisfied on Monday, sending the company's shares up more than 4 percent on a day in which the broader market was down. But how long will that keep them satisfied?

"I think this is a situation where this issue is so public now, there's going to be a regular need to provide disclosures and updates to the public," McGurn said. "Fair or not, fairness doesn't come into play in this instance, it's what the market demands."

Apple will no longer be able to say that it has decided Jobs' health is a private matter by choosing to comment on it in such a fashion Monday. "Having said it once, they've created a situation where if they don't say it again, people are going to think the worst," said Jay Lorsch, a professor of human relations at Harvard Business School.

Jobs said he expected to regain much of the weight he lost by late spring: will Apple have to issue an update to that effect to quell speculation that he's suffering from something worse? Will they have to make another update late in 2009 after predictable rumors grow that Jobs is once again losing weight?

One way Apple could avoid having to go down that road is by making its succession plan clearer, Lorsch said. Apple hasn't shared any details, but has hinted that it has a plan in place to deal with Jobs' eventual decision to leave the company.

Now may be the time to make that plan known, Lorsch said. This is a tricky decision, because announcing such a plan has the potential to create internal competition for the role or tension among those who were not chosen. Still, if anything happens to Jobs and Apple seems seems ill-prepared, questions will be raised regarding whether the board is doing its job.

Dealing with the issues surrounding Jobs' health during the last six months has presented quite a minefield for Apple. It has had to walk a fine line between the privacy concerns of its indomitable founder and the damage caused by those trafficking in The Steve Jobs Deathwatch.

But in twice declining to directly address concerns over Jobs' health--first in June, and then in December--and then going public in such a fashion Monday, Apple has set itself up for ongoing discussions regarding Jobs' health. In the future, it will be hard pressed to claim Jobs' right to privacy when new questions arise.

And clearly, this famously reticent company must now tread carefully. Jobs had more than a "common bug" plaguing him in 2008, and while Apple deftly avoided linking his absence from Macworld with his hormone imbalance in Monday's open letter, it seems hard to believe his health played no role in that decision.

Click here for more Macworld Expo coverage from CNET News.

I'm a somewhat dissatisfied owner of a new MacBook. One of the things I was looking forward to with the computer was the vaunted easy photo management I kept hearing about. But I found the Mac's free photo management app, iPhoto, frustrating to use, compared to the product I had become accustomed to on Windows: Google's Picasa. I didn't like the fact that I had to manually import photos into the product--even photos already on my Mac--and that the import process made duplicates of my photos when I did so. I much prefer Picasa, which simply scans your computer's directories and shows you the photos it finds on your disks.

Monday, Google is releasing Picasa 3 for Mac OS X (download). I got an early look at the new product, still marked "beta," and found it a faithful port of the PC version (Picasa is also available for Linux), minus a few features like the timeline view and geotagging (the former is probably gone for good; the latter is coming in a subsequent build). Picasa lacks some of the fun features in iPhoto, too: It doesn't take full advantage of the multi-touch trackpad features in the new MacBooks, like zoom and rotate. It does, though, read ratings and tags from iPhoto libraries, so it would be easy to use Picasa alongside an iPhoto library. But as it doesn't export back to iPhoto; it's a one-way trip for the metadata.

Picasa organizes the photos on your hard disk. It also manages importing from your cameras and memory cards.

The two programs are much the same in features, although some of the differences may matter greatly to certain users. iPhoto, for example, has a slick way to batch-edit photos, including the capability to update dates and times embedded in photos and to apply the same custom image corrections to several shots at once. Picasa also has batch-editing features, but it doesn't give you as much control. In single images, though, Picasa lets you insert text directly into photos, and offers a few handy enhancement tools missing in iPhoto, like graduated tints (useful for improving landscape shots). But overall, both products offer flexible image correction and enhancement, including variable rotation for out-of-kilter images, red-eye correction, and white-balance correction.

iPhoto currently offers much better support for printing books, calendars, and cards through Apple. Picasa should get the capability to print similar services later. iPhoto's on-screen slideshows are also better; it lets you use the "Ken Burns effect" to make watching stills more compelling.

On the other hand, Picasa lets you pin photos to the "photo tray" for batch operations like e-mailing, uploading, or making items into a collage. You can multi-select images in iPhoto to do the same thing, but the intermediate tray concept in Picasa is much easier to use--one stray mouse click won't undo your selection.

As Stephen Shankland reports, Picasa also integrates with the online Picasa Web Albums photo-sharing site, just as the Windows version does. Changes made on the sharing site (captions or name tagging) don't migrate back into your computer's library, though. iPhoto, of course, connects to Apple's Mobile Me service for online, shared galleries. Picasa Web Albums is free, though. Mobile Me costs $99 a year.

Other features coming over to Picasa Mac in the future include Webcam capture, screensaver control, and the photo preview feature from Windows (which I believe is superfluous in OS X, given its strong Preview app).

Even though this early build of Picasa is missing some features, I'm going to use it and not iPhoto. It has a cleaner and less intrusive organizational system, stronger photo-editing features, it's fast to use, and setting up online albums is free. When I want to print calendars and books I'll drop back to iPhoto, but Picasa's feature set makes it a better day-to-day product.

The editor in Picasa lets you add text and graduated filters to images.

If you're interested in live updates from tomorrow's Macworld keynote, we've got you covered.

We'll report live from San Francisco's Moscone Center as Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller gives the show's keynote address. That should kick off at 9 a.m. PST. You can get to the live blog here (link will be live as soon as the blog is live). Bowing to popular demand, we'll post those in order as they come in, rather than the reverse chronological order we've used on past live blogs.

Tuesday's Macworld should still be an interesting event even without CEO Steve Jobs making his usual address to the Macworld crowd. A new MacBook Pro, new Mac Minis, and a thorough discussion of the upcoming release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard are expected.

Later in the day we'll have tons of photos, lots of video, and the initial reactions of CNET Reviews staff--before they jet off to the desert for CES--to whatever new products Apple has on tap. So stick around all day; it's not like anybody's getting much work done the first week back from the holiday break anyway, right?

Picasa for the Mac includes the ability to make collages and other core features.

(Credit: Google)

Google plans to release on Monday a beta version of Picasa for Mac OS X, helping Apple fans catch up to Windows and Linux users already employing the free tool for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos.

The Mac version largely matches the features in Picasa 3 for Windows, said Jason Cook, Picasa's marketing manager. Though the company has been scrambling to include some secondary features such as geotagging and the ability to get photos printed, the core abilities of Picasa are present, he said.

Picasa lets people edit and print photos, create collages and movies, and add labels, star ratings, and tags. More significantly, given Google's cloud-computing focus, it also lets people upload their images to the company's online Picasa Web Albums site where images can be shared. Google acquired Picasa in 2004.

"We have many Mac users," Cook said, though declining to offer any estimates, "and we think they'll be excited about this. It makes the Picasa Web Albums experience better."

With Apple's last Macworld keynote speech just hours away, Microsoft is again talking up the idea of an "Apple tax" that people pay when they opt for a Mac over a Windows PC.

It's a concept that Microsoft started touting in the fall. While the words may be fairly new, the melody sounds familiar. Saying that customers pay an added cost when using a rival is a well-worn page from the Microsoft playbook. One need only look back to the anti-Linux "Get the Facts" campaign for another example.

In any case, it is a notion that is likely to stay around, says Windows marketing VP Brad Brooks. In addition to talking up the idea with reporters, Brooks said it may show up in online marketing and potentially even in Microsoft advertisements.

Microsoft did come up with some new charts trying to put hard numbers on the "Apple tax." On the desktop side, Microsoft argues you can save $100, or 16 percent, by going for a Dell Studio Hybrid or HP Pavilion Slimline over a low-end Mac Mini. Microsoft argues that at the mid-range, a buyer can save 25 percent by going for a Dell XPS One instead of a low-end iMac and that the Mac Pro is more than double the cost of a high-end HP desktop.