Oh ye of little faith!

I have a number of things to say about this keynote:

- iLife: The best gets better, and Apple treats its customers right, again. Rather than charging for the upgrades of previously free apps like news sites were reporting, they continue to be available for download, with only the already non-free iDVD having a modest fee.

- Keynote: At first I thought, holy RDF Batman! This guy is spending way too much time doing a meta-presentation.... boring! But then I realized what he was doing. He was teasing all the other CEOs out there that want to be like him. (It's so obvious they do)

'Hey old boys, you can be like Mike. Buy one of these gorgeous new 17" laptops, throw Keynote on it, and get to work.' And it's a brilliant strategy... now they want the executive market. They can afford those expensive laptops and Cinema displays. Why not throw in a half-hour Keynote training video hosted by SJ himself?

But... I didn't hear about iLife integration with Keynote, apart from export to QuickTime. But it seems obvious to me that you'd want to export from Keynote into iDVD or Final Cut Pro/Express or iMovie with Chapter marks included from your top level headings in the slide navigator. Maybe it's already there, but I doubt it. That's what 2.0 is for. :)

- Safari: KHTML? WTF? Why not Mozilla? Sorry, but I didn't see any tabs on that browser. And where's the integration? Isn't it obvious that you'd want to be able to sync your bookmarks (since they're making such a big deal out of bookmarks with Safari) with your other computers using iSync? Well it's obvious to me, anyway. Maybe it's already there, but hey, it's just a beta! Okay, credit where its due: the Address Bookmarks idea is very very smart. Thank you!

Whither IE/Mac?

- New PowerBooks: the rumour sites just took another kick to the balls. Amazing work. Japan is going to love the new mini-PowerBook. They put Yao Ming in that commercial for more reasons than his height, my friends. (yes I know he's Chinese, be creative here okay?) And just when Sony starts catching up to the PowerBook they run away with the gold again. Also, they were smart to use a writer to highlight the benefits of backlit keys and such a wide display. This baby will be bad for marital relations... redefining the term lap dance. Plop that thing on your lap under the covers and get a good workout! ;-)

But bundling QuickBooks 5, which is getting such horrible reviews? Oooh I hope that political favour doesn't bite them in the ass.

- Hitting on all cylinders, delivering all the I/O goodness. Bluetooth, 802.11g, and Firewire 800. All on the same day. The keynote was so packed that he didn't even mention the new AirPort in his summary, nevermind the shortness of the presentation on iPhoto 2. Take the new (and cheap!) AirPort Extreme Base Station, plug a printer into it, and Rendezvous it to anything. Schools are going to love that.

Maybe I missed it, but he didn't mention X11 for Mac OS X Public Beta. hehe

Just when it was becoming fashionable to get out of love with Apple, they give people reasons to care again.