Keynote Address: Steve Jobs, CEO Apple

By: Mike Kimball - Revised: 2006-06-20 devin

Introduction

Steve Jobs Keynote
"We're Listening"


Before the Keynote Address

Sunrise in San Francisco
Moscone North at sunrise
[Picure taken at Moscone North, 6:45am, before the Keynote.]

Moscone South auditoriumSeating
As you can see by the pic to the right, I was not all that close to the stage. Even though I got there early (6:45am), and waited in line for over two hours like a good Mac geek, I was robbed of a good seat because of a big SNAFU with the queueing (they thought people would follow a serpentine line form without actual queue ropes, yeah right - as soon as the doors opened, everyone rushed them). So, I was watching most of the Keynote on the screen hanging from the ceiling.

[Picture taken from auditorium, Moscone South.]

Mac OS X

-Architecture: Darwin + Graphics + Frameworks + Aqua
Darwin
Protected Memory, Memory Management, Symmetric Multi-Processing, Preemptive Multi-Tasking, BSD UNIX, fully Open Source linux-like community.

Graphics
2D (Quartz), uses PDF rendering on the fly, composite transparency. 3D (OpenGL), optimized for the G4. 4D (QuickTime), built-in to the OS.

Frameworks
Classic, runs existing OS 9 apps. Carbon, carbonized apps run on OS 9 as well as X. Cocoa, object-oriented API, whose apps run only in OS X. Full Java 2 as well.

Aqua
New UI (user interface), more about this later...

Beta Release of OS X
Big success, sales were 10x the expectations. User feedback: over 75,000 submissions, "some of them quite long" [chuckles from audience]. Led to a much better OS.
-Positive feedback: "Far more stable," "Aqua is incredible," "Easy to install," "Classic really works," "Mac + UNIX = nirvana."

-Missing features: Airport, printing, location manager... just missing from beta, will be in final release.

-Key concerns: Apple Menu, Clock in Menu Bar, Disks & Trash on Desktop, Control Strip, Finder Toolbar.

"We're listening"
Demonstration (Aqua)
-Iconizer screen saver, picture fade/dissolve transition screen saver ("one thing nobody asked for but we did anyway").
Known features: Real-time moving window, resize window, sheets replace dialogs (attached to windows semantically). "More powerful, yet easier to use." Save dialog advanced features are collapsible. "Complexity & Simplicity." Dock: serves similar purpose as Apple Menu used to. Dock is resizeable, magnification on/off, auto hide-show on/off, movies play even when minimized in dock.

New features: Dock 'contextual menu' pop-up hierarchical menu for folders in dock (similar to Apple Menu), works with entire Hard Disk too. Apple Menu has been moved back to left, but now includes stuff from Finder & Special Menu (includes Sleep, Restart, Shut Down, Recent Items, Location Manager, Dock Preferences, System Preferences, and Force Quit). Font panel is resizeable, changes to drop menus, manages groups of fonts. Finder windows toolbar is customizable, also allows window spawning when toolbar is hidden.
Mac OS X on sale March 24, $129. (www.apple.com/macosx)

Applications

400 developers committed, this is 1200 brand-name apps. 350 have been announced to date, most will come out in summer (MacWorld July), bell curve chart of releases...

Maya demo: Richard Kerris, alias WaveFront

3D animation used in many recent films (such as Star Wars Episode I). "Maya is for 3D what Photoshop is for 2D. It is the best tool for film, video, games, and visual web market. G4 + OS X + Maya is awesome." Beta in four weeks. Dynamics engine - dynamic simulation, interactive performance, back & forward controls, zoom in & around. Better work flow area - built-in presets, paint effects, add fully-rendered items (plants, clouds, etc) to scenes, complete with shadows, random variations...

PowerMac G4: New Generation, "Power to Burn"

Coasting at 500MHz for 18 months...WAY too long... Intro the 733MHz G4. 5.5 gigaflops sustained. CD-RW standard in all four models. 133MHz memory & system bus. 1GB/s internal bandwidth. AGP4X graphics cards - nVidia GeForce2 MX in top three models. 10w digital amp audio. 5 PCI slots (includes video). Better PCI performance. OS X ready.
Four Models
466MHz 533MHz 667MHz 733MHz
single BTO dual single single
128MB 128MB 256MB 256MB
30GB 40GB 60GB
Rage128 GeForce2 MX
CD-RW SuperDrive
$1699 $2199 $2799 $3499
Today February

What is the SuperDrive?
An industry first. SuperDrive = CD/DVD-RW. Apple partnered with Pioneer, now gives you this $5000 value bundled in with the 733MHz PowerMac G4 (for $3499). The Power to Burn: CD's, DVD's, and Pentiums ;)

Showdown: w/ Phil Schiller, VP Product Marketing
G4 733MHz vs. Pentium 4 1.5GHz. Both executing a Photoshop 6 script with 140 artist actions on the Disney movie poster for "Emperor's New Groove". Results: G4 - 24 seconds, Pentium 4 - 36 seconds.

"Megahertz myth"
Megahertz speed alone isn't everything - G4 733MHz = Pentium 4 2GHz

CD-RW Demo
"Up to now we had all these weird toast things..."
Mac OS X's CD burning function built-in to System. Treats blank CD's as any other ejectable media - drag and drop items into the window or on the mounted disk, and it simply copies them there. On eject, dialog will ask "do you want to burn the disk?" [copious applause] "Thanks for the applause, but you shouldn't be clapping because this is how it ought to work!"

Other related items
Pro speakers - $59. 15" flat panel display, now only $799.

(www.apple.com/powermac)

Vision

"R.I.P. Beloved PC, 1976-2000"
"The PC, which has carried the digital revolution for 24 years, has matured into something boring." -Walt Mossberg, Wall St. Journal

"That hurt," said Steve Jobs... "Walt is a smart guy and we listen to him very carefully..."

CEO's of both Gateway and Compaq think PC is losing place as centerpiece.

Apple doesn't agree with this at all - they merely think the PC is evolving...

History of PC
1980 - age of productivity (spreadsheets & word processing, + desktop publishing with Apple). 1995 - age of internet. 2001 - age of "digital lifestyle".
  • Cell-phones, CD portables, MPEG portables, digital cameras, camcorders, organizers...
  • Mac can become "digital hub" for all these devices because:
  1. Can run complex apps
  2. Large screen - good UI
  3. Can burn disks
  4. Large, inexpensive storage
  5. On internet at any speed
  • "iMovie makes camcorder worth ten times as much" - camcorder + firewire + Mac + iMovie + internet .... huge communication power.
What Next?

Audio
CD writing. Music Revolution. Ripping audio CD's, MP3, listening to playlists on your computer. Make your own CD's.
320 million blank CD's sold in U.S. in 2000, they are down to 25 cents a piece, people are buying them in hundred-packs! [Like making your own cassettes but cheaper, faster, better quality, and better media.]

Playlist software is too complicated, too restricted. "No MP3 encoding, or limited encoding quality. Throttled encoding speed (i.e. deliberately slow), throttled CD burning speed (2x)." Basically a big scheme to get your money for a pro version. "Well, today we're going to change all that."
iTunes
Much cleaner interface. Numerous (nameable) playlists, rips CD's, burns CD's, listens to internet radio, all in one app. Sorting, customizable menu fields. Rips at 8x play speed [I've seen 13x on my MP G4/450]. Easy navigation through albums, browser very Mac-like, has a search engine. Very good UI. "Burn" button is prominent. Interfaces with portable devices (e.g. MP3 player) as disks right in app. Miniaturize button makes app into tiny panel for player in background. Includes built-in visual presentation (representation) of music - takes frequencies and turns them into moving color patterns (very trippy). Unrestricted, integrated, runs on Mac OS 9, and it's FREE! Available today. 3rd party CD burner plug-ins available in 60-90 days. [More info on iTunes from our iTunes Overview or at www.apple.com/itunes.]

DVD
10 million DVD players in U.S., expected to grow from 10% of houses to 40% in two years.
We want - shoot movies, digitize and edit on Mac, make DVD. Burn DVD, using MPEG 2, play on consumer DVD players.

Current solutions - hardware, costs $1000-5000; software, too slow (1/25x to burn).

Apple's scientists have now created software that has DVD burning down to 1/2x.
iDVD
[Desk moves out onto stage, motorized, crowd giggles] "Mobile computing." Open window for new DVD, drag and drop movies, pictures, slides for slideshows. You can change labels, captions, thumbnails (has slider to pick frame from movie or slide sequence). Theme presets, automatic navigation arrows for folders (submenus), folders also have thumbnail sliders. Slide shows. Themes are customizable, buttons, text, fonts, colors, backgrounds, all can be configured separately (including from one submenu to the next).
Demo - [Computer desk leaves stage, DVD desk enters, crowd giggles] iDVD makes DVD's that play in consumer DVD players. Uses video from any source, iMovie, Final Cut, Premiere, QuickTime, Avid...

Software is bundled with the SuperDrive. DVD-R media, Apple certified, available at $10 each (5 for $49.95).

New pro tool - DVD Studio Pro, a complete DVD authoring tool, "perfect compliment to Final Cut Pro," available end of January, $995.
iMovie + iTunes + iDVD = Vision

(www.apple.com/idvd)

One More Thing...

Clue:
22
Ti
47.68
PowerBook
We have the power. But ... they have the sex (i.e. Sony Vaio). We want both! So.....

PowerBook G4 Titanium
Yes, it's a G4, at last. 15.2" mega-wide screen. DVD slot-loading from front, not side. 5-hour battery. Airport ready (dual antennae built-in). Firewire ports, VGA ports, S-Video, etc... Yes, we have the power.
What about the sex?
Well, how about: "One inch thick, 5.3 lbs, made out of Titanium". Titanium is stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum. PowerBook G4 is made from industrial grade titanium, not just some powder thrown in the plastic. Two models:
PowerBook G4 Titanium
400MHz 500MHz
128MB 256MB
10GB 20GB
DVD-ROM slot-load
15.2" screen
OS X ready
$2599 $3499

Available: end of January
Final Cut Pro runs 60% faster on PB G4 than on predecessor.

Comparison to Sony Vaio - (we can toast sub-notebooks too ;)
Power & Sex Showdown
Sony Vaio PowerBook
$2549 $2599
$50 buys what?
12.1" screen 15.2" screen
1.15" thick 1.00" thick
magnesium titanium
Pent III 650 G4 400
no CD/DVD DVD-ROM
2 hr batt. 5 hr batt.
no wireless wireless
(www.apple.com/powerbook)