Phil Schiller did a fine job with the final Apple Macworld keynote. Even though he had little to work with, in terms of announcements. The major news was iLife 09 enhancements, particularly iMovie, a unibody 17 inch Macbook Pro, and Tony Bennett. Oh, I have an editorial note, I can’t believe Apple, or more specifically that Steve Jobs, capitulated to the music industry and is going with variable pricing in iTunes. In my view, it’s a sign of weakness. Investors weren’t impressed, as Apple stock took it on the chin, falling nearly 5% during the keynote. I’m writing this just after the keynote ended, so it remains to be seen if it recovers.

Following are some of the highlights as I reported them to my subscribers in near real-time. Click here to view the archive of today’s market updates, which includes my Macworld coverage. It’s an excellent example of the type of updates you could be receiving for free in your email, just sign-up for the Email Alert Service in the gray box below.

Will there be One More Thing?
iLife 09 is first on the agenda. This makes sense since iLife 08 really began in 07, so it’s due. There’s sophisticated face detection technology built into iPhoto, GPS tagging, and Facebook, Google Maps, and Flickr integration.

iMovie 09 Gets Back Control Lost in 08
iMovie 09 features video stabilization, real-time drag and drop video effects, and dynamic themes. iMovie themeing is just like an iPhoto book. It applies title page, transitions, credit slides. Wow! The big news is that the editing features in iMovie 09 are vastly improved, in terms of the amount of control you have, and the ease with which you apply edits. That’s big news, because iMovie 08 was such a disappointment for so many people.

Garage Band Now Has an App Store!
Garage Band has added a new revenue model for artists. It appears that you can purchase lessons and other media through Garage band. What was being demoed were guitar and piano lessons for $4.99. The picture here shows Sting providing the lesson.

17″ Macbook Pro!
The new Macbook will have a unibody aluminum enclosure, 6.6 lbs, and a backlit 1920×1200 LED screen. And thankfully there will be an option for an anti-glare screen, but it will cost $50. It will have the new glass trackpad and an integrated battery display on the side of the case. RAM capacity has been bumped so that up to 8 GB can be installed.The processor and drive options will be the same as the 15 inch model. Same pricing as the current 17 inch base model, or $2799 for the 2.66 Ghz/4GB RAM. Available late January.

The New 17 inch Battery
Apple is touting the new battery as the biggest advance in this Macbook, it employs a Lithium Polymer technology. The new battery will have up to 8 hours of work-time, and should maintain that performance over 1000 duty cycles, or recharges. Essentially that equates to about 2 1/2 years. The longer work time is accomplished by making the battery bigger. But that comes at the cost of making it non-removable! Yikes! That’s gonna irk a lot of people!

Tony Bennett sings, The Best is Yet to Come!
That’s the end of the keynote. Some might have thought that Tony’s song was a lead in to one more thing, but apparently not. For those that were watching the rumor mill, the only thing that came through was the enclose Macbook battery. There’s no iPhone Nano, no new iMac or Mac Mini. The best is yet to come must be referring to Apple future events, perhaps later this quarter.

On the stock market front, AAPL is taking it on the chin! Since 1 p.m., things have fallen apart, as you can see from the included chart. It’s definitely an Apple phenomenon as the markets have slid some but are holding. AAPL continues to drop. I guess investors weren’t happy with the Schill-effect! That’s too bad, because I think he did a great job, he’s just not Steve Jobs.