The Perfect Storm Keynote - why next Tuesday's Keynote is the most anticipated ever

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The Perfect Storm Keynote - why next Tuesday's Keynote is the most anticipated ever

Date Created: 06 Jan, 2007, 04:31 AM

In a previous entry, dated December 27, I implored readers not to get their hopes up about an iPhoneiPod being announced at the Macworld Keynote next Tuesday. I offered my reasoning, and even in the face of analysts like Gene Munster saying he's 90% sure it will be announced, I'm preparing myself for its non-appearance.

But in the time since that blog entry, a new meme has appeared. There is now a huge set of expectations being discussed about this 2007 Keynote. I have already blogged about this in my "worst of... best of" Keynote blog entry of January 3.

There I suggested that the 2003 Keynote was the one which I recall with the most fondness, where I really felt all those years wondering about the tech wilderness while Apple was labelled "beleaguered" was worth it, and my patience was being rewarded. The announcement of iLife, Safari, Keynote and two aluminium Powerbooks (17 and 12 inch) was like manna from heaven, with Steve Jobs playing Moses leading we Macofiles to the promised land of computing nirvana.

(Yes, Rob Enderle, Steve Jobs is playing a role, but it's one we impose on him, rather than one Apple created and where Jobs is merely its marionette for our viewing pleasure)

But in the days since these blog entries, something's happened. And it's something which is causing me some consternation.

Bill Gates in a few days will lead off CES in Las Vegas for probably his last time.

There, he will show Microsoft's vision for the future. Now some will get very excited by this, while others will more wisely ask about what's happening now. You see, not just are Gates and Jobs contrasts in presenting styles, their respective companies are contrasts in the timing of their product releases.

Gates pictures himself as a visionary, with the resources to create the future. But it's a very narrow, Microsoft-owned future, and one that is not compatible with the Web 2.0 view of the world - namely, sharing and Open Source within the context of trust. The blogosphere has allowed many whose voices would normally not be heard to reach a wide audience and call Gates' bluff: Microsoft is losing its dominance and influence.

Balmer, as CEO, can throw hundreds of millions of dollars marketing Vista and Office 2007, and while each is a vast improvement on predecessors (kudos to all those who worked on them in difficult circumstances), the enterprise market is likely to take a softly, softly approach to installing them. Go into any bank or other conservative institution and see how many are still using Windows 2000 Professional or NT. If they have Xp installed, my guess is it's fairly recent and they have no plans to install Vista for years.

Jobs is not going there. You can't innovate to conservative organisations who are constantly operating in Risk Management mode. Better to stay with those markets who appreciate the risks Apple takes for itself: new products, new ways of doing familiar tasks elicited through ease of use, creativity and emotional satisfaction. These markets are education, SOHO business, creative arts, and consumers.

But this weekend coming, with Gates at CES and Jobs rehearsing his Tuesday Keynote, I'm detecting so much more of the media and blogosphere looking to Apple for... something special. I'm wondering what it will be like on Tuesday at CES, and if techie journalists will be thin on the ground because they will have headed to Moscone to see what Jobs will deliver.

I'm wondering too if someone will be "inspired" by the deplorable Saddam video to upload images almost live using their 3G cellphone of the Keynote. Or even, ironically, using the built-in iSight on their Macbooks, relaying it to some server.

If I'm right and there is a disproportionate interest in the Apple Keynote (compared with the foot traffic expected at CES), the question begged is why?

Exactly a year ago, with CES and the Keynote a week apart, I implored Apple fans not to panic at the huge coverage CES was getting. In my blog entry of January 6, 2006 entitled "Apple and CES: This is not the time for Mac users to panic, your time in the sun is around the corner", I wrote of the essential difference between what Bill Gates showed at likely his penultimate opening Keynote (complete with the usual technology failures his keynotes incorporate), and what Jobs talks of, thus:

"Hey, don't panic. So much of what happens at CES is hype and vapourware, including that associated with Microsoft. It's not about Apple beating the others at their own game, or gaining market share, both of which I would welcome and smile about.

It's about Apple steering a steady course aimed at making its vision a reality. You just know that Steve won't start by painting a future filled with Apple products and the Apple way, set to descend upon us in three or four years.

He will, if past keynotes are anything to go by, review Apple's most recent achievements in the past year, the success of the iPod, the iTMS internationally, and he'll briefly mention Apple's hardware with a view to the very near future when their internals will be Intel-powered.

And then he'll talk about the current activities of Apple, and then talk about what Apple is introducing TODAY. Not later this year, not in four years, but today. He'll tell us when it's shipping, when you can order it, or when it's in the stores. He'll invite you to participate in the Apple vision today."

I think you'll agree my offerings in that blog entry proved true, with the Intel transition occurring more smoothly and rapidly than most expected.

So why all the hype and hope, with articles about the Keynote reaching mainstream media, and not just their technology sections?

It's a perfect media storm.

It's the coalescing of various contemporary issues, some of which are Apple-centric, and others which affect us all both immediately and distally.

The first of course is interest in the Apple share options fandango, which has transcended the business and technology sections of mainstream media website and print editions. Jobs and Apple are news, and alleged corporate scalleywagging newsworthy in this age of holding those responsible for unethical corporate behaviour to account. Not that I'm saying he did or didn't - it's outside my expertise.

The other elements include the iPod halo and iPhone bliss effect I have blogged before. Apple has once more entered the mindset of the under-25 age group through the iPod. This is the MSNMessenger generation, who use IM more than email to communicate with their friends, due to the desktop share accorded Windows, and the bundled MSNMessenger software. But the iPod/iTunes combo has had its impact.

From there, it's a small leap of faith for young people to contemplate getting their own Mac laptop, and once there, convincing their parents to dump Windows with all its malware/spyware tribulations as the family's main living room computer for all to share. What Apple's iTV box will do in the living room environment will be one of the interesting questions likely answered next Tuesday.

The iPod showed to millions of non-Apple users (with respect to the PC market) that Apple, in controlling the whole widget - iPod and iTunes - delivers a satisfying consumer experience, offering choice (iPod Shuffle throught to 80GB iPod 5.5G), variety (how many millions of sound and video files for purchase on iTunes), and ease of use.

Now transfer that training to the most ubiquitous essential technology of the day - the cellphone. The suckiest of all devices which crosses boundaries of gender, socio-economic status, political allegiance, and technological know-how. How many people adore their phone compared to the number with a deep emotional connection to their iPod? Zippo.

Let's face it - we put up with our cellphones, we endure them, just like so many people adopt the same strategy with respect to Windows. Why stick with these less-than-satisfying experiences? Because users think no alternative has emerged, or they've been obscured via FUD, or they've been prevented from breaking out of the contraints their IT friends or support staff have built.

Now you put an iPod/iTunes experience in their hands, pair it with an Apple Macbook and OS X (and a continually delayed Vista and compromised Xp security update "service") and then have mainstream media acknowledge the hype around an iPhone from Apple, and the perfect storm scenario is set to launch on Tuesday.

We'll get a clue about the iPhone early in the Keynote by the way Jobs handles the nonsense over iTunes music downloads tanking. Will he gave those naysayers a serve, or ignore them, preferring to let the actual and verifiable sales numbers do his talking and rebutting.

The clue is the iTunes store meltdown over Christmas, where even Apple was likely surprised at the surge, probably through huge sales of iPod Shuffles and iTunes Store cards sold in stores, or gifted online.

I'm still not convinced we'll see an iPhone device next Tuesday despite pro-Apple analysts predicting it so. But it's clear the public is ready for such a device, and is prepared to pay for it.

I am.

I will NEVER go on contract with a telco ever again. I haven't been on contract for years now, and the thought that my service fees are helping to subsidise others' two-year purchase arrangement of $800 phones appalls me, but that's how the telcos want to work it.

I am hoping that when Apple gets into the marketplace, it disrupts the current telco domination of consumers, much like YouTube and others have begun to disrupt both commercial and pay-TV by putting the consumer in the centre of their own video experience.

Perhaps this what is behind the huge expectations being set on Jobs. The "think different" company that championed those who didn't side with the mainstream, who used the likes of Rosa Parks in its advertisements, will deliver some kind of salvation to the masses.

We Mac users who've been around through the beleaguered years, wandering through the desert while Jobs played Moses leading us to a promised land of satisfying useable technology, know not to get our hopes up too much.

This Keynote next Tuesday has all the potential to disappoint given the huge hype so far achieved. The writing is on the wall given the huge disappointment reported by so many following WWDC 2006, by those who didn't understand it was a developer's conference, not Macworld. These same writers will lead the chorus of disapproval and disappointment next Tuesday.

Ignore them.

Watch the delayed broadcast, then watch it again and try to see the nuances. Listen to Jobs' language. Every word and picture employed has a purpose. Nothing is chanced upon. If there seems to be a disconnect, as occured in a recent Keynote, it's likely to be because Jobs pulled a segment on short notice because the product wasn't yet of Apple-perfect quality. Jobs doesn't talk vapourware. Either the thing's ready today, or it will be on a specified date not too far away. Think Leopard in March or April for instance.

For myself, I have my preferences and my fanstasies.

The want is a mightily updated iWork, and iWeb/dotmac experience. I think I'll get them and they will make an immediate impact on my day to day workflow. I want iWeb to give me a blogging experience that matches mainstream blogging software, so I can do away with the "hinky" blog software I'm currently using which has well and truly passed its use-by date. I want blogging software that lets me better monetise my writing by engaging more in those new ecommerce facilities denied me in iWeb. (Is that too much to ask for?)

iWeb 1.0 hasn't delivered anything other than a very consumer social media experience, and it's time to "step it up a notch" in iWeb 2.0.

What would bring a huge smile to my face, that reinforces yet again my emotional connection to Apple? I blogged about my hope last year.

That's the Beatles iPod.

I'm hoping we hear of a special iPod with all the Beatles' tunes in addition to some hidden away in the surviving Beatles' collections. While I don't expect Sir Paul McCartney to stride the stage at Moscone, a live iChat cross would send the roof off.

As I wrote in my blog about the Beatles' iPod, Jobs and McCartney have much in common. With the red iPods having a proportion of their sales going to fundraising for AIDS awareness, could not the Beatles iPod do the same for cancer awareness?

To me, that would make a far more emotionally satisfying "One more thing" than an iPhone, which I believe deserves its own special event. Who could then be disappointed the iPhone didn't make its appearance because it was demanded by the tech media who then expressed disappointment and anger?

Above all, enjoy the Keynote for what it is. An opportunity for Steve Jobs to share his vision, show his consummate presentation skills while displaying Keynote 4 in action, and putting the smack on those who see technology as just silicon and nuts and bolts rather than an extension of the human experience.

I think it will be inspirational and make Mac loyalists proud of their preferred technology platform and further cleave new Mac users to the Apple way of seeing the world.

For myself, no more writing about the process of the Keynote, but more about some of the items of content, specifically my main Apple passion, Keynote within iWork 07. That said, over the weekend and Monday, do expect to see rumour-engaging pictures of the set up at Moscone posted to the web, as Apple begins to paint San Francisco in Apple hues and posters. Macworld Expo paparazzi will try to get a sneakpeak of goodies entering the convention centre, and banners being hoisted within the Moscone atria.

Me, I will not be staying up late to read the bloggers' websites to get a blow-by-blow description. Like last year, I'll avoid all the websites discussing the Keynote until Wednesday afternoon Melbourne time when hopefully Apple will begin the delayed streaming and I can watch it without being tipped off ahead of time. That's how to experience the Keynote the first time, before going back for a more detailed analysis.