Impressions of SF Macworld Keynote Announcements - iLife and iWork '09, iTunes, and etc.

So I woke up here in the land of the rising sun on Wednesday.  With the time difference, the Macworld Keynote was already over.  So, excited, I opened TUAW's liveblog, and skimmed quickly through the announcements.  To sum up the major announcements:

1. iLife '09
   
2. iWork '09
   
3. a 17 inch MacBook Pro
   
4. multi-tier pricing and DRM-free songs on iTunes
   
5. purchase songs on iTunes via iPhone through 3G network
   

I wasn't impressed or excited too much initially.  And since the video  is available (which you can download here on iTunes), I took a look.  The video definitely generates more excitement as it contains some stuff where the coolness can't really be captured by words.  It's not a mind-blowing keynote, but overall, I thought it was nice, and there are some exciting features.  So here's my quick review of the keynote.

iLife '09

• Faces and places features of iPhoto looks cool.  The only geo-tagging camera I have would be my iPhone, but I'm still interested to try it out.  
  
  The feature that you can buy lessons via Garageband was a cool feature too.  And the ability to buy lessons from professional artists to teach you how to play their music is clever.  It's just a great way to get people involved and start learning music.  
  
  Like many, I'm not a big fan of the revamped iMovie.  The new changes are welcomed, but I still prefer the simplicity of the old iMovie.  It was just more intuitive.
  
  
• The bad:  Why isn't it shipping today?
  

iWork '09

I already downloaded the trial version and testing it out.  Here are some impressions:

Pages:  

• The outline feature is nice, but compared to other outline software, it doesn't seem as powerful.  You can't collapse and expand.  
• The full screen mode is cool.  Let's you focus on writing.  And I don't know why really, but I find the concept very cool.  The simplicity, something Apple-esque about it.

Numbers

• Haven't given it a shot yet.  I do some basic stuff in Numbers, but most of the time I resort to Excel since it's much easier to do for formula, complex tables.  And it's easier to share.  We'll have to see.  
  

Keynote

• I'm a heavy Keynote user,  the new transitions and animations are awesome.  
  
  They also released a Keynote Remote for the iPhone and iPod touch.  It allows you to control your Keynote slide presentations by swiping with your iPhone or iPod touch.  You also get to see the slides as well as notes on your iPhone.  Very very neat!  But it would be nice if we can use the remote with a Bluetooth connection in addition to Wi-Fi.
  
  I also tried out iWork.com.  And this is a great feature for me.  Sending big presentation files to share was troublesome.  Add to the fact, that sometimes I have to convert them to PPT format.  Other users can view and add comments via their browser.  Very nice!  If they charge this feature in the future, I hope they bundle it with MobileMe.  I sure don't want to pay for another online service.

17 inch MacBook Pro

To be blunt, I don't think I can afford or justify a purchase for a 17 inch MacBook Pro, but I sure would like to have one.  

The good:  Option for anti-glare screens.  Because I just can't work with glossy screens.  I hope they make this available for all models of MacBooks.  The new batteries seem good.

The bad:  Batteries are integrated and cannot be swapped out...

iTunes

• songs are going to become DRM free - definitely good.  But it seems like to convert all old songs I bought, I have to pay a conversion free.  Bummer.  Then again, since I play everything on my iPods and iTunes, there really isn't a need for me to convert my old songs.
  
• different pricing ($1.29, $0.99, $0.69) possible for songs on iTunes - I'm not too fond of this one.  I think the fact that $0.99 for all songs is user-friendly.  Users don't have to think about how much to pay for a price because it was always $0.99 or free.  Not users have to check out and make sure how much each song is.  In my opinion, a very un-Apple-like move.  But it's probably the music labels...
  
• ability to buy songs on 3G network with iPhone - This is great, and this would work so great with Shazam  app on iPhone.  When you hear a song on radio, you can identify it with Shazam, and then buy it instantly via iTunes all on the iPhone.  That is neat!

Those are my impressions.  Too bad there won't be any more of these keynotes... What did you think of the Keynote?