"It was the worst of Keynotes, it was the best of Keynotes": from the underwhelming 2002 to the best ever 2003 Keynote. Will the 2007 Keynote top them all?

Home > Of things Mac > "It was the worst of Keynotes, it was the best of Keynotes": from the underwhelming 2002 to the best ever 2003 Keynote. Will the 2007 Keynote top them all?

"It was the worst of Keynotes, it was the best of Keynotes": from the underwhelming 2002 to the best ever 2003 Keynote. Will the 2007 Keynote top them all?

Date Created: 03 Jan, 2007, 01:27 PM

With a week to go until this year's Macworld Keynote, the hype and rumour machines will move into overdrive.

In years past, Apple has gone from ignoring rumour sites to embracing them, as it did with the poorly-received 2002 Keynote where the lampshade iMac G4 was released. That Keynote was certainly anti-climactic.

But the next year, with hopes chastened, Apple reversed its Keynote fortunes and Steve Jobs delivered what for me is the most memorable Keynote ever - live. This was the Keynote where Jobs told the audience to "buckle up" in readiness for the product releases he was about to announce.

I recall waiting up until 4am local Melbourne time to take the Quicktime live feed from my Powerbook (a TiBook) and through the S-adaptor and audio output, feed it to my
now-disused VHS recorder. It's a pity I gave away that videotape.

If you head to YouTube and use the keywords , you'll find a three part movie series which shows some of the highlights. Or just control-click on this link here to open YouTube in another browser tab.

Unfortunately, part one of the video series begins at the end of what for me was one of the most significant new product releases of the last five years: Keynote 1.0

You'll hear the crowd whooping it up because they've just been told by Steve that each attendee at the Keynote will receive a free copy on the way out - just as they did a few months later when attending WWDC 2003 and they received the new (but now deleted) iSight camera.

I recall at the end of the 2003 Keynote feeling a real swell of pride being a Mac owner as Steve summed up what he had delivered in the 2003 Keynote. In summing up, he acknowledged the rumour sites' low expectations: "They said it was going to be the most boring Macworld (Keynote) in history".

I was ecstatic after years of being labelled beleaguered and below the radar, that Apple had truly bounced back. Keynote 1.0 was a poke in the eye to Powerpoint, which dominated the presentation domain - and, lamentably, still does, despite the rise of numerous voices saying the Emporer has no clothes, or, in my case, Powerpoint is not an evidence-based means to convey information to adults. Quite the contrary.

So what actually happened at Macworld 2003? Remember, it came a year after the underwhelming 2002 Keynote.

It started slow, with the announcement of Final Cut Express. A little ho-hum. Then Steve announced iLife for the first time, with new versions of iPhoto, iMovie and now iDVD, together with the already well advanced (version 3), iTunes. Jobs compared iLife's integration with what Microsoft had done for productivity with Office. The meme of integration remains, taken up by third party developers, and no doubt to receive a further boost next week with iLife and iWork, 07.

Well, going back to the theme of a poke in the eye with Keynote 1.0, a further poke came with the release of Safari 1.0. Jobs showed load times against other popular browsers of the day (remember, this is only four years ago) such as Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Chimera.

It was Apple's sojourn into Open Source (if we momentarily overlook OS X itself), and a distinct cocking a snook at Microsoft, with whom a deal had been made in 1997 to bundle Internet Explorer as the Mac's default browser.

Hardware-wise, Apple released the Airport Extreme, its first 802.11g product (the Graphite Airport was released in 1999). It introduced wireless bridging and USB printing and at $199 was well received by the now excited audience.

Half way through, Jobs spoke about the Titanium Powerbook and the iBook and how other laptop makers were still playing catchup, and predicting the replacement of desktops with more laptops.

When you watch the YouTube video, you will see Jobs at his presentation best, working the audience into a frenzy. Watch as he really draws out and misdirects at his best before making the segue between the TiBook and the big annoucement of the keynote: the new 17" Powerbook, now encased in Alumunium.

Then he blows the audience away by announcing it is thinner than the TiBook, and then produces two coups de grace: first, the ambient lit keyboard is announced - an Industry first says the graphic (right) and the audience "gets it" immediately. All Steve says is: "Let me show you what happens when the lights go down..."

There follows twenty seconds of non-stop whooping and clapping. I don't know that the audience were necessarily saying, "Yeah, we really needed that", much less than "trust Apple to do something so innovative and user-centric".

The whooping increase when Jobs showed the ports on the side of the Powerbook, announcing Apple's introduction of Firewire 800.

Now you need to keep in mind that the 17" Powerbook announcement was very much kept under wraps - only one rumour site hinted at it, and that was just a day before. The host of Your Mac Life, Shawn King, had famously announced: "Read my lips. There will be no new Powerbooks at next week's Macworld".

As if to rub salt into Shawn's narcissistic injury, Jobs then introduced the 12" Powerbook, Apple's smallest Powerbook ever. The audience didn't get it. There was a moment of silence compared to the rapturous reception given the 17" Powerbook. As we know now, for many people outside the Apple community, the 12" Powerbook became the laptop of choice for running various flavours of Linux, and was eventually a hit with the consumer. While the 17" Powerbook had a huge "Gee whiz" factor to it at the Keynote, it was the 12" Powrbook that eventually proved to be especially popular and loved, given it was "the most affordable Powerbook ever".

With these two Powerbooks, the 15" TiBook, and the 12" and 14" iBooks, Apple laid down the gauntlet to other makers in seeing the future as being laptop-based.

And then to finish the Keynote on a high note, Steve showed two new advertisements for the laptops, showing Apple has not lost its edginess in poking fun at itself, and having fun with its customers. Do you remember the ad, below?

Can there be any question that in 2007, Apple will not release another laptop? Not just a revised MacBook (pro), but I'm guessing a superthin, ultra-portable, that will push the barriers of laptop design and performance.

Watch how often Steve uses the word, "Stunning" and this will be truth in advertising.

(Coda: The other big announcement I'm waiting for which I'm sure will happen: Keynote 4. I'll blog about my hopes and expectations of it shortly. Many thanks to iggypopped for uploading the YouTube videos.)