This brings prices on apps like Transmit from $30 to $15 and Coda down from $100 to $50. Again, this is a fairly big deal. What’s also cool is that by participating in the sale, you also knock down the prices for future major (paid) upgrades to these apps, which is something we haven’t really seen before with these promos. Panic notes that “too busy building new things for later this year to notice how crazy this is.” I think we’re all pretty thankful for that in more ways than one. You can get in on the action by visiting https://www.panic.com/sale/.

Now I’m sure Apple has its reasons for the move. The public’s expectations for Macworld keynotes have always been unreasonable (to the detriment of Apple’s stock price). Apple wants greater control over its press cycle. Plus, with Adobe and others also pulling out of Macworld as well, it is easy to see how the cost of maintaining a presence at Macworld would be financially prohibitive in these tough times. Apple feels it can have a more direct connection with its base through its website.

Well, I have some news for you Apple: the people attending Macworld were your base. For decades they were your biggest fans. They were the ones ready to write and sell applications, and make a living off of your platform. They were the ones willing, if not eager, to report on your every product and detail. Those of us who couldn’t visit the show lived through their video and writing during that one week of every year. By leaving Macworld, you, Apple, are pulling the rug out from under the community that has supported you and loved you from the start. Without you at the show, Macworld Expo will collapse. It will be slow and painful to watch, but barring a miracle from Paul Kent and his expo team, the show will die without its core.

Adding insult to injury, Steve Jobs won’t even be delivering the final keynote address come Tuesday, January 6th. Instead, Phil Schiller, Apple’s VP of worldwide product marketing, will do the honors. While some feel that Jobs’ substitution is due to health reasons, Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling (via Time) explains that “Phil is giving the keynote because this is Apple’s last year in the show, and it doesn’t make sense for us to make a major investment in a trade show we will no longer be attending.”

Now I happen to like Phil Schiller. He’s a good guy and more than capable of putting on a show. But I would like to make a proposal: if you plan on attending Macworld 2009, do not attend the keynote address. That’s right, boycott the keynote. Mr. Jobs, by sending a subordinate in your place to deliver the last keynote at this event (an event that has played a major role in your company’s success), you are essentially telling us that you don’t care about your base. As a community, we are apparently too small and insignificant for you to grace us with your presence. We are an after-thought, and in this entire matter, there is nothing more tragic or insulting.

Jamie Diamond is a senior editor and the director of development for MacApper.

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Future episodes should appear soon, so please let us know how you liked our first effort. We also hope you will join us this Saturday night at 9:00 PM EDT on Talkshoe for another roundtable analyzing everything from the keynote announcements. Stay tuned for more info and enjoy episode 1 of The MacApper Podcast after the jump.

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For Yahoo Widgets 4, the team has made extensive optimizations under the hood to decrease RAM usage and increase overall speed, a welcome feature of any application update. The app includes a new major feature, the widget dock. Much like the tray and sidebar in Dashboard and Vista, this easily hideable dock sits to the side of your screen and offers instant access to your widgets. In addition, Yahoo has made it even easier to find new widgets and update existing ones with one click widget browsing and automatic widget updating. And of course, the best feature of Yahoo Widgets still holds true in the new revision: it’s 100% free. Even after it’s acquisition by Yahoo, Konfabulator is still a solid Mac app. The design is sleek and stunning, as one expects from any native OS X app.

The new platform integrates well into the operating system, and yet sadly, the once simple Konfabulator widget interface has become increasingly complex with numerous buttons of the same size and shape aligning many widgets, and some may find the uncluttered widget layout of Dashboard is still preferable. Whatever your opinion, for the price, Yahoo Widgets 4 is still a best-of-breed app that deserves a fair look from any Mac user.