Macworld Expo – Keynote Notes from Nemo

“I fought the law and the law won!” is the song being played, meaning “don’t mess with me if you know what’s good for you, Buster.”

The auditorium (we’re seeing it on huge screens) is full and the lights dim and all the VIPs are in the front row. They know what’s going to happen. The time is 9:09, and the excitement is building. “There’s Bill and Hillary,” jokes Weeks, “and Colin Powell, just back from Asia.” Sorry, David, the MacFolks are much more interesting.

Music is blaring, “Let’s get it started in here,” from the huge speakers either side of where Steve is about to appear.

“Thank you very much. It’s great to be here. A lot of firsts, too. Let me start off with a few updates. Apple retail. We now have 101 Apple retail stores, hosting over a million visitors a week. That’s twenty Macworld a week, worldwide. Our largest store is in London. Here are a few pictures. We got the prime position, it’s spectacular, in a building owned by the Crown. It’s on Regent Streen, next to Oxford Circus.

“Update on the new iMac. It’s the world’s most beautiful desktop computer. The engineering is magnificent. Comes in two sizes, as I hope you know. It’s gotten great reviews. My favorite is from PC Magazine, with 5 out of 5.

–by the way, Steve looks healthy and fit, better than the somewhat pudgy guy from last year—

“This new iMac is our most popular, best selling Mac we make.

“Mac OS X Panther is the most successful OS release in our company ‘s history, with over 12,000 applications, and Panther now has over 14 million users.

“We are on schedule to ship Tiger, an amazing release, with over 200 new features, during the first half of this year. It has great technologies, and “dot Mac synching,” RSS features right in Safari. Here are a handful of features I’d like to show you.

“Spotlight is our search technology built right into the core of Tiger. You can find anything, almost instantly, using a little search field right on your desktop. It’s incredible. You can find stuff on your system you didn’t even know it was there!

“Because the OS has Spotlight built in, changes happen instantly. We can put Spotlight technology right into our applications, and we have over 100 developers building it in, including Microsoft.

==Steve is using a 20” Cinema Display, and he praises its capability to see every pixel in all its glory===

===Steve then does a live demo of Spotlight, using the term “soccer” for searching===The video feed we’re getting is in fact much better than watching him in person, which is another reason that this special media room is beneficial. Wow. The HD video cameras zooming into Steve provide the brightest, clearest pictures and sound ever.

“Hey, we’ve got a little bug here. That’s why we have backup systems here. (gentle applause).”

==some muttering about Bill Gates’ problems at CES from the media wise guys===

“We’ve added Spotlight into the Finder and to the System Preferences, and even to the Screen Saver so your album art can become your screen saver. Spotlight is changing the way we use our computers, to be able to find something instantly.

“Another app is Mail, with a major upgrade in Tiger. You can now search across all your mailboxes instantly, because of the integration of Spotlight technology. We have a new slide show button.

===he then searches through 100,000 mailboxes searching for “soccer” again, then saves the search into a smart mailbox.

“Now we have this button called Slide Show, with on screen controls for customized viewing and saving.”

“Next up is QuickTime 7, the most major upgrade to QuickTime in a decade.

===Steve then runs through some great new features, especially a new compression technology for video

“The best video technology in the world, it’s called H.264, with unbelievable quality and onscreen controls. It’s scalable from cell phones all the way up to HD.

===he then plays a QT movie, scaling on the fly, demoing the onscreen controls, drinks from his water bottle===

“Dashboard is another really great feature in Tiger. A place for widgets to live, so you can get in, get your stuff, and get out: Calculator, Address Book, Calendar, Stickies, World Clock, iTunes controller, converter from anything to anything, Dictionary/Thesaurus, stock tracker, translator, yellow pages, and weather! This is going to be a really big hit in Tiger.

===then another demo for Dashboard. Owen is going to go nuts, because he’s a widgeteer of the first order. Crowd is really digging all this, and our media crowd is paying attention. The widgets are very clever, functional, and visually groovy===

“Oh! Our stock is down a little bit today. Well, there’s still a little way to go in this Keynote.”

“We have hundreds of developers working on these widgets, including eBay. Boom! Pretty dog gone cool and I think you’re really gonna like Dashboard. Boom. Boom!”

“Last thing I’m going to show you today is iChat. We’ve made it even better for Tiger, with up to ten simultaneous audio conferences and four videoconferences, all using H.264.

===Another demo of iChat video conferencing, this time with Danika Cleary in Paris==

“I’m going to invite Phil Schiller to join us.

“Hey, Steve, has the Keynote started.”

Then Scott Forstall joins in.

===Then the four of them schmooze and play around.

“Long before Longhorn is when Tiger is released.”

“Next topic: HD, high definition video. 2005 is going to be the year of high definition video. The most popular HD editing product gets joined by FINAL CUT EXPESS HD.”

===Then Steve explains the features in FCExHD, prices at $299, available in February, with a $99 upgrade price for existing purchasers. No reaction from media reps.

“We are leading the digital media revolution with iLife, a huge hit, bringing all these applications together. iLive ‘05 with almost every app having a MAJOR upgrade.

==then he explains the improved iPhoto, including a demo of project folders and image searching, support for MPEG 4 movies and RAW image file. Editing is easier and more versatile and powerful, not far from how Adobe Photoshop Elements handles most image editing. Also a whole new way to make custom photo books. Hey. That’s Al Gore chewing gum and grinning in the audience shot after Steve straightens a horizon. Also nice new demo transitions between photos of smiling, happy people. Cutting price of individual prints in half to 19 cents. Expanded the range of iPhoto books with more covers and sizes, priced from $30 down to $4 from largest hardcover to smallest softcover, “available throughout the world, from Day One.”

==next comes iMovie, also with many new features and technologies. Biggest feature is ability to edit high-def video. He then shows a demo of the app and a completed movie project, after another swig from the water bottle. Polite applause. Steve is a video nut, more than the typical Macworld attendee. Sony’s new $3500 camcorder gets a big plug, and “you’ve just gotta get one of these things,” says Steve.

===The president of Sony appears, Kunitake Ando, who is “excited to see the real Steve Jobs making a presentation,” while Steve films the prez on the jumbo camcorder. “Great quality software is the glue that holds together all our hardware technology, such as Apple’s great software — just do that!” he advises Steve, to chuckles. “We’ll continue to develop great products, for less price, that is what you want, right!”

===next comes iDVD, with a demo of the new built-in themes, that can be customized and enhanced in real time, all with “your movies and your photos and your music”

==Garage Band gets a demo of the upgrade. The features are very impressive and powerful. Then John Mayer appears AGAIN to hug Steve and play some chops. John plays some chords on a digital electrical piano, and instantaneous !!! music notation appears. This will be GIGANTIC for Nemo and other music teachers, composers. “We can really screw up music this way,” says Steve.

==Then four Garage Band tracks are recorded live with John Mayer singing and playing acoustic guitar and another unnamed musician playing lead guitar and singing in harmony. Steve as recording engineer, plays back and isolates the individual tracks (John Mayer is a bit too much of a mumbler) and the two musician leave to large applause.

Latest iTunes make up iLife ‘05, with the other four apps

L05 is $79, available later in January.

THIS IS BIG: new product, iWork, to replace AppleWorks, and Steve says “we’ve created it from the ground up.”

Two new apps, first being as Keynote 2, which is being used by Steve today, with nifty new themes and technologies. The jaded media members are finally beginning to wake up and pay attention. Adios, PowerPoint, they’re thinking. New Flash, PDF, and QuickTime output.

PAGES is the brand-new application, “word processing with an incredible sense of style. Supports all the things you’ll expect in a really good word processor, including 40 new Apple-designed templates, each of which comes with pages you can build off of. Drop your own photos and text it — they’re awesome starting points. From simple letters to real estate layouts to family newsletter — look at this! — here’s a menu, and here’s a brochure for a surf school.”

Phil Schiller then give the Pages demo. “All yours, Phil.” Is all the template and integration featuritis, dumbing down, or power stuff? Time will tell. PAGES is really versatile, and there will be a learning curve for people who want to master it and simplicity for those who don’t. Phil creates beautiful documents in a few minutes using his own text and Apple’s custom templates.
“Same team designed Pages that designed Keynote.”

Compatible with AppleWorks, Word, and more.

iWork costs $79, avail Jan 22

Steve then hints at stripped down Mac, we’re introducing the MAC MINI.

Now media people applaud and audience gets excited. “Very very tiny. Combo optical drive. Loads of ports.” He holds one up to big applause. The Mac Mini is BYO DKM. We supply the computer, you supply the rest, including almost any industry standard display, keyboard, and mouse. Comes with Mac OS X Panther and the brand new iLife ‘05. We want to price this Mac so the people who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses. There are two models, the first for $499 with 40 GB and 1.25GHz G4 and the second with 80 GB and 1.42 GHz processor $599. Available a week from this Friday on January 22.” Steve holds up the small white box and audience is happy. “What’s next?”

==Next comes iTunes store update, selling at nearly rate of half a billion songs per year and 70 percent market share. iTunes Essentials have been retooled at the online store.===

“And now, I’d like to move on to iPod, the world’s best digital music player. We sold over 4,500,000 iPods during the holiday quarter, a 500 percent growth. We have crossed ten million iPods, 8 million in calendar year 2004, and iPod is leading the charge. We made our 10 millionth iPod. Thank you! Three of Amazon’s top five consumer electronics products were from Apple. There are now over 400 accessory products you can get for your iPod.

“A few new things to announce for your iPod. Working with BMW on next generation iPod adapters, plus Mercedes, Nissan, Volvo, and Scion. We are really excited about this. Rolling out their adapters in 2005. Alfa Romeo and Ferrari in Europe too.

“One other really exciting thing is happening. Working with Motorola to put an iTunes client on their cell phones. Going to start rolling out this spring.

“We’ve just begun this era of digital music. But there is … one more thing.”

“Let’s look at iPod market share, to after the high end of the flash market. I’m pleased to report that the iPod’s market share has doubled to 65 percent. The iPod Mini worked? What’s next. We want to go after the remaining flash player market. It’s a zoo! There are a zillion little flash players. The products are all pretty much the same. The result is a real tortured user interface. It’s a lost cause. We don’t want make another one of these. We want to make something that’s even EASIER to use than the existing iPod.

“We noodled on this for a while. Realized we need to come up with a new, original idea. Then we saw it. Clear as a bell.

The most popular way to use iPod music is Shuffle. We decided to base a flash based player around Shuffle. The iPod Shuffle is really tiny, smaller than most packs of gum, weighs under one ounce. How do you use it? So simple! Play and Pause button. Volume up and down button. Previous and next song. Great feedback from LEDs as you use the controls. You can either use shuffle or playback mode. USB-2 connector for fast transfers and 12-hour rechargeable battery. Plug into either PC or Mac. You can wear it with the supplied lanyard and cap. Very simple, really fun, really tiny.

“But that’s not the whole story. Because where we’ve really brought great value to the digital music business is with the jukebox. We invented something new, called Auto fill, to push a button and import and build a playlist that’s the precise size of your iPod Shuffle. You can use it as a USB thumb drive too. (applause) So iPod Shuffle plus the new version of iTunes that comes with it is a killer.

“How do we compare with the existing prices and capacities? First model 512 MB holds 120 songs for $99, and the second model 1 GB for 240 songs for $149. We are shipping them out of the factory starting today. Now, what do you do after you get an iPod Shuffle. You’ll be able within 30 days to find 100 accessories for it. Armband, great for running, a dock for the desk, a sports case for rugged environments, and a battery to add 20 hours of battery life, all $29 each, rolling out in the next four weeks.

“iPod Shuffle joins the other members of our iPod family, iPod Photo, iPod U2, iPod Mini — there’s a lot of choice with iPods. New TV ad is running in a week or so. We are so excited, going to bring tons more people in. There might be some over at the Apple Store, a few blocks away.

“I’d like to thank all the people at Apple ….”

==and with that we leave the media cellar and dash into the pressroom to file our Keynote comments. Additional thoughts to follow.===

John Nemo, David Weeks, David Casseres @ Macworld Expo 2005