After the Macworld Keynote

The highlight of an underwhelming MacWorld keynote [video] — after the enhanced iLife, iWork, and an updated 17″ MacBook Pro — was the official death of DRM. Called for by Steve Jobs nearly 2 years ago, the deal that was finally done gives the record labels the variable pricing they’ve been after ($0.69, $0.99, and $1.29, their call).

That and what Erick Schonfeld says is a hidden $1.8 billion music tax on their best customers:

Anyone who wants to upgrade their entire existing iTunes Library to DRM-free versions of the same songs, can conveniently do so with one click. But it is going to cost you 30 cents a track to do so. That’s right, you have to pay again for songs you already bought. Let’s see, 6 billion songs X 30 cents = $1.8 billion in potential upgrade fees. That’s a music tax, plain and simple. No wonder the music companies finally relented.

So how did the show go sans Jobs? Farhad Manjoo says not so good:

Tuesday’s keynote illustrated how difficult it will be for any of those guys to replace Jobs. As [senior vice president of marketing Phil] Schiller spoke, the response was more country club than rock concert; people appreciated some of his announcements, but you got the sense they were clapping to be polite…. Apple without Steve Jobs, it seems, will be just like Microsoft or Oracle, an ordinary tech firm with perfectly adequate products and no sizzle.

Later in the afternoon Kara Swisher trashed the story in Gizmodo by Jesus Diaz last week, and its follow-up, for running with the insinuations of a single source that the reason Jobs would not be taking the stage was his rapidly declining health, “it may be even worse than we imagined.” Jobs put out a letter saying that he was suffering from a hormone imbalance and expected a full recovery within months.

Says Kara:

Here’s the problem with portraying the Macworld withdrawal as so cut and dried: At all corporations I have ever covered, big decisions are nearly always a complex mix of emotion and business and chaos.

To wit: It is well known Apple hates Macworld, and having to introduce a fabulous new product at a weird time too.

My guess–and that is all it is–as to what seems plausible: Apple had no wow products to show. Execs have wanted out for a while. Jobs felt lousy and wanted to try to get better. A confluence of events seems more likely than one big Apple plot. [...]

Jobs seem to have declared yesterday firmly that he still has a life. Now, everyone else should get a life too and move on.