Of Macbooks, iTunes and batteries

Well, another Macworld keynote come and gone. This year, it was Phil Schiller who took the stage in what was Apple's swan song for the iconic Mac tradeshow.

Enough has been said on Schiller, Jobs and the future of Apple, so let's get to the meat of the matter and take a look at a couple of the bigger announcements.

iTunes: The service will go completely DRM-free by the time baseball season kicks off this year. It's been a long time coming, but this has to be great news for anti-DRM activists, or even just the average user who was sick of all the locks companies put on music files that the user paid for.

There was also the announcement that the iTunes music store would now be working on a 3G connection. A small thing really, but something that iPhone owners will really appreciate. Accessing the store from anywhere will be the sort of thing people will take for granted a few years from now, and the idea that the iPhone could only download music from a wifi hot spot will be laughable.

New MacBook Pro: Big new screen and a beefier battery. Like the other MBP models, it has the spiffy aluminum case that is supposedly the sort of thing recycling plants drool over, which makes it a super-green product, apparently.

It was also the most controversial computer release from Apple since the MacBook Air debuted at last year's MacWorld expo. Like the air, the new model sports a built-in battery. Apple claims that this allows the company to make a super-duper long-life battery that last years longer than removable models.

I'm a bit torn on this one. I only own one battery for my MacBook Pro, so for me it may as well be built in. I know that others who work in situations where power isn't always handy carry around a spare, so this could be a deal-breaker for many. On the other hand, if the new notebooks get the sort of life Apple is claiming, the need for a second battery may go away for a lot of people.