Apple announced significant upgrades to several of their products, notably the iLife suite of media software, the more office-oriented iWork, and their high-end 17-inch MacBook Pro.

For DJs and producers, the highlights are GarageBand ‘09 and the new MacBook Pro.

When Apple revved the MacBooks and MacBook Pro last fall, the top-of-the-line 17-inch MacBook Pro was conspicuously overlooked, leading many industry insiders – Beatportal included – to presume that Apple had a major upgrade planned for this month’s Macworld.


The newest addition to the MacBook Pro series now featured the same design cues as its smaller siblings, including Apple’s new love-it-or-hate-it monolithic trackpad.

That’s all well and good, but the big news is its battery, which is both a massive improvement and a classically fascist step backward.

First, the good news – the new 17-inch MacBook Pro can operate for up to eight hours on a single charge.

That’s more than double what the previous model delivered.

Equally remarkable is the battery’s projected lifespan: Up to 1000 recharge cycles.

Most laptop batteries start to give out after 300 charge cycles, so this is an equally significant improvement.

And then the bad news…

Like the iPod, iPhone, and MacBook Air, the battery is non-removable – so when it finally does require replacement, our friends at Apple have their faithful users by the short-n-curlies.

You can read the full story, in all its Apple-flavored glory, here.
GarageBand ‘09

Apple’s revisions to their entry-level DAW, GarageBand, are a mixed bag as well.

The ‘09 upgrade consists primarily of four new features.

Basic Lessons. For novice musicians, GarageBand now includes interactive, step-by-step lessons for both piano and guitar – complete with fingering for keyboard and fretboard, as well as notation.

Artist Lessons. Sold separately at five bucks a pop, GarageBand users can now learn the specifics of their favorite tracks from the artists themselves. Wanna learn ‘Roxanne’ by The Police? Sting will personally walk you through it.

3D Guitar Rigs. GarageBand now includes thirty new amp & stompbox setups that cover specific flavors like Brit Pop, Honky Tonk, Lowdown Blues, Seattle Sound, Stadium Solo, and Woodstock Fuzz. Frankly, we look forward to hearing these presets applied to instruments other than guitar, since this is EDM after all.

Magic GarageBand Jam. This is a cheesy, almost throwaway feature that allows you to “jam out” with a virtual band in a variety of styles. Think rock-band-meets-karaoke, but bland and unrecognizable.

GarageBand has always been a favorite of ours, because it’s free with every Mac and is shockingly powerful as it’s based on Apple’s ubiquitous Logic Pro software.

So, other than the goofy GarageBand Jam feature, there’s definitely some interesting stuff in this update.

More info can be found here.