Apple Notes from CES: iLife Gets Beefed Up, iTunes Sez Buh-Bye To DRM, iPhone Gets To Download Songs Via 3G

Fro those of you who don't follow the goings-on at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (i.e. anyone not watching G4's coverage just to catch the latest on-screen antics of ATTACK OF THE SHOW's Olivia Munn), here are a few important Apple-general (and iPhone-specific) announcements:

iLife got a big overhaul.  Your US$79.00 now gets you iPhone with automatic face recognition/tagging, geographic tagging of photos (especially if your camera or iPhone encodes GPS info), and support for Facebook and Flickr; an iMovie with tighter video/audio cutting, themes and travel maps, and video stabilization; an enhanced GarageBand with "Learn to Play" and separate US$6.00 "Artist Lessons" (learn to play from Sting, Norah Jones, and others), plus some unnamed enhancements to iDVD and iWeb.

iTunes will finally get in line with the rest of the online music biz.  Starting April 1, a three-tier pricing structure will debut (US$0.69, $0.99, and $1.29), as well as higher-resolution files (256kbps), the ability to download songs from the 3G network as well as Wi-Fi, and — best of all — no Digital Rights Management hoo-hah.  None.  Entire catalog, DRM-free.  Did somebody say they wanted a revolution?

[Via Gizmodo]